Diving into the past

One of Wassan's strong points to be admired is that “he is ‘tough’ when bureaucrats refuse to obey his orders.

That the party of the people is bereft when it comes to progressive ideas has just doubly been proven by its latest move in Sindh. Much has been written about this dive into the past (including on these pages). The commissioner system is an anathema to the MQM, which depends upon the cities of Sindh and the system created for the party. Its lifeline for its well-being both here and in London has been cut. What will it do? For sure, it cannot afford to take it all sitting still.

The MQM, imbued as it is with certain tendencies, cannot also afford to be out of power, but now the problem is how can it return in view of the way things have panned out? Any hopes of peace for Karachi remain elusive as has been the case for the past two-and-a-half decades thanks to its creation by the army and its rise within the province (it can have no entry elsewhere).

Then we have the provincial police. The transformation of the police system of all of Pakistan’s cities, with emphasis on Karachi, to render it free from the clutches of our corrupt and inept ruling cliques was first mooted in 1962 by Alvin Robert Cornelius of the distinguished Indian Civil Service who retired as chief justice of Pakistan. He did not lay a newly shaped egg — he logically recommended that large cities be policed as are other such cities of the democratic world. That it is vitally important that Karachi have an independent police force has never been denied and over a score of reports have been written and ignored.

Not only is the PPP bereft when it comes to governance of the country for the people — it is fine and dandy when it has to come up with something that fits in with its own two-track agenda, completing its term and preserving presidential immunity — but it can apparently come up with no new blood, no fresh and clean manpower. Time after time it resurrects the discredited or useless from amongst its ranks, as it has just done in the case of the home minister for its home province of Sindh.

Zulfiqar Mirza was unsuitable — so unsuitable that he even earned presidential displeasure and that in his case is quite something. Volatility and aggression was combined with incompetence as the internal situation of Sindh and its capital under his watch sunk to new levels. And who does the party drag back from a dismal past as his replacement — the man, Manzoor Hussain Wassan, made in the mould of Mirza and Agha Siraj Durrani, which says much for him.

Elected firstly in 1988, he was appointed by Benazir Bhutto as her minister of transport and youth affairs of the ancient province of Sindh. In a highly eulogistic article in the local press on July 11, one of his strong points to be admired is that “he is ‘tough’ when bureaucrats refuse to obey his orders... Wassan had once slapped a serving provincial secretary who later became chief secretary of Sindh.”

The story of his encounter as minister with his department’s secretary and the managing director of the Karachi Transport Corporation did the rounds in our press in July 1990.

He summoned the two gentlemen (neither a snivelling servant) to his conference room to abuse them for not carrying out certain orders, which they deemed illegal — chances are they were right. They were subjected to treatment by Wassan’s two gunmen — held down in their chairs with guns to their backs when they suggested that in view of the futility of the encounter they depart. They said that the minister told them “that he knew how to take work from officers like us and he would ensure by his own methods that we carry out his orders blindly”.

Where does he go from there?

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2011.