Double Shah

Finally the long serving chief minister of Sindh, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, has been shown the door. The long suffering people of Sindh have breathed a sigh of relief. Some have taken to writing odes about Qaim Ali Shah, claiming he was a simple man, with no attitude or ego, who remained loyal to the party and performed with honesty and dedication.

While I have not had the pleasure to meet Syed sahib, as someone who lives in Sindh one can only say that these qualities did not matter in the long term. I base my judgment on performance alone.

Give me an ego-mad and disloyal CM who does not perform with honesty and has questionable personal principles. But as long as this person – man or woman – Syed or otherwise – delivers even a fraction of what Shahbaz Sharif has delivered in Punjab or Pervaiz Khattak is trying to do in K-P, I will be satisfied.

As Pakistanis, we are prone to eulogise and glorify the past and criticise the present. Let the record state that the rule of Qaim Ali Shah was a black time for the province.  This was the most corrupt, inefficient and self-serving administration that the province has seen for several decades. Had Qaim Ali Shah been as helpless as he claimed, the honorable thing would have been to step down.

Instead, he continued to cling on to power and compromised on almost all the things he once stood for. In this deal, it was the people of Sindh who suffered, not him and certainly not his family. Family members continue to hold government jobs, given at the expense of merit. In these years, Sindh has become the most backward province in the country, with the most dismal human development indicators., barring Balochistan.

One can argue that development of urban areas in Sindh was purposely neglected because this was not the voter base of the PPP. But if we go to those areas where the PPP has been ruling for decades, we see things were even worse. Roads have disappeared. Hospitals, schools and other departments have been rendered non-functional. Supplies are non-existent and government contracts are given on greasing several palms. It is a shameful situation.

Leave everything aside and make a visit to the CM’s home constituency. It is a shambles. The myth that landlords do not want their peasants to study and empower themselves is there for all to see in Khairpur. People are treated as serfs. Largesse is doled out at tax payer expense.

And when we come to the situation in Karachi and other cities of the province, one could only wonder whether there was any government in place. After the MQM-led local government was disbanded, the city was left at the mercy of corrupt ministers who stole through unprincipled bureaucrats. Karachi today resembles a disaster zone. Broken roads, overflowing sewerage lines, lack of street lights or proper power and water supply in most areas despite being the most taxed city in the country.

Many cities in Sindh, primarily Karachi, are run by mafias. This is the legacy of Qaim Ali Shah. The police, attacked and victimised, is now happy to earn money through all means possible. They have left policing to others. Areas have been taken over by various groups who have encroached land and sold on to others.

While the CM was known to announce impromptu public holidays, there was little else he did. He did not make an effort to condole with the victims of various crimes that the province witnessed in his tenure. Crime continued to be at an all-time high all through Qaim’s period. It was only after the Rangers started their operation, after much resistance from the elected representatives, that residents of Karachi breathed a sigh of relief with a decline in crime.

Of course there will be no accountability. No one will be held to account for this dark period. People have already started to claim that the new CM will change things for the better. Despite the dismal performance of one, we expect the other to rise to expectations. Already, his official protocol tells us that some things will never change. The poor choice of the cabinet is another. There will be a lot of talk and nothing else. This is the legacy of Sindh.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2016.

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