The ruling family?

The Sharif family has been robust in defence, saying that official cars were not used to drop her at the JIT

Pakistan divested itself of the last trappings of royal rule with the declaration of independence and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. Pakistan Day is celebrated on 23^rd March every year in remembrance of this event. Recent events suggest that there are aspirations within the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that hark back to a time when royalty, even if tangentially and from a distance, ruled. The appearance of the daughter of the prime minister at the hearings of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) that is looking into the Panama Papers affair is very much a case in point.

The arrival of the lady in question with her accompanying entourage certainly had a whiff of the regal about it. Was ‘protocol’ being observed for a person that holds no public or elected office, and is the action of an SSP that saluted as the person in question merely a courtesy or an acknowledgement of something of more substance? The SSP has now found herself, almost certainly unwittingly, on the wrong end of a legal notice that demands an apology in the next fifteen days. A prominently featured photograph of another police person picking up a pen dropped by the PM’s daughter looks not unlike a curtsey was being offered, much as might be offered to visiting royalty.

The Sharif family has been robust in defence of their scion, saying that official cars were not used to drop her at the JIT, and that the vehicles used were all private and carried other family members and supporters. There was also condemnation of other political leaders for failing to show appropriate respect for the daughter of a family. However, perceptions were left somewhat skewed by reference to herself as ‘a member of the ruling family’ rather than party, leaving constitutional democracy trailing somewhere behind. As a person widely touted as a possible successor to the prime minister politically might we respectfully suggest that a little more care and circumspection be deployed in respect of public utterances? Modern politics are all about the optics — or phonics as in this case, and the royal ‘we’ needs to go to the back of the cupboard.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2017.

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