Of super-spreaders and purposeless politics

Covid is back with a vengeance. Hardy, mutated and sly it has this time round learnt the ways through defences hardened with Senna leaves and doses of extra Vitamins. While the world learned about ‘viral load’ and ‘period of exposure’ Covid kept knocking at the reinforced defence of anti-bodies weakening them to a point of submitting before it in this round. Something came our way as help — God’s grace — the first time but in this turn the virus is deadlier and too close for comfort as it fells many in our surroundings. The air is thick with cold and the viral droplets hang longer increasing the chances of exposure of the unsuspecting.

In the first round humans learnt to deal with Covid and live with it. From a complete closure humans re-found life through three essential aspects: wearing masks, keeping six feet away from each other, and washing or sanitising hands frequently, along with other common-sense actions ensuring safe hygiene. Life and Covid thus have coexisted. Where observance fails, Covid wins and people die. The current phase is trickier. Odds are heavily tilted towards the virus and against mankind. This has placed societies and leaders to test. Poorer the discipline, the worse societies suffer. Misplaced benevolence of the first round and unable to adjust to scientific rationale to do better now means the masks are off and social distancing is only a rhetoric rendering a far greater and a far faster spread of the disease overwhelming meager health infrastructure. This is when super-spreader events don’t help.

The government has been as much at fault. Failing to live by example they have been callous merely pointing to the opposition only for their indifference to a common man’s life and health. Mere sermonising doesn’t help, and what is good for the goose is good for the gander. So the two sides, the government and the opposition, have been holding massive political events in parallel putting all those invited/brought/shepherded or enticed at the greatest risk. There is no way Covid Mark-II will not multiply at exponential rates even if our first-round experience was different. Hope I am wrong but science tells differently. Politics however, as is resigned to, will not relent for it pursues the lust of power blind to all else. The government must be different for the sake of responsibility it bears and hold human life at premium.

The opposition however is on another planet. What it pursues is lost to others. Power possibly, but the way to it doesn’t come in climbing over dead bodies of the innocent. To wish PTI and Imran Khan out of power and replaced by one of theirs they must hold fresh elections. The route to fresh elections is in resigning en masse from the National Assembly and in dismissing the Assembly in Sindh. A bit of jiggery-pokery can turn Punjab over to the opposition which it can choose to dismiss a la Sindh and force an early election. The opposition wouldn’t do any of this. The PPP is loathe to giving up on Sindh and most opposition MNAs will not just give away their hard earned seats in the NA — it is an expensive undertaking to get into the NA. That leaves disjointed aims which cannot be supported by fractious strategies.

The real underlying strategy of the opposition to change the current ruling regime is fear. The fear of disruption, of instability, of ensuing anarchy, bloodshed if possible, of somehow sucking the army into it all turning it into an kinetic belligerent of the political landscape — the anti-thesis of what they believe the army wants. Hence, the fear. The opposition hopes the army might succumb to such pressure and force a change at which threat Imran Khan will pack his bags and order dissolution. Any change will work for the opposition. By scaring both into submission they inalienably push the army and Imran Khan ever closer into each other’s embrace. The opposition think-tank neglects this fact at its peril. IK is unlikely to buckle and the most army will do is exercise judicious management of the crisis if it ensues to that level of concern — factor in the desperation that PML-N leadership exhibits in exhorting the people of Punjab to rise against the current order. The army will engage preemptively to avoid germination of chaos. Not in the way that the opposition hopes but in its own ways, intercepting malice. No, this is not the Gujranwala moment. Assuming so will be fallacious; as will be to underestimate state’s ability to impose order.

There is great sense in what the PPP thinks should be the way forward in reconciling the political fracas. It does not propose to include the army and the judiciary in an exclusive political dialogue declaring them pillars of state unrelated to the political mandate. It thinks a political stand-off should be resolved between political players only and at the level of Parliament. The judiciary is unlikely to ever step beyond its domain and the military will be best advised to keep out of the fray at the formal level. The talk of a ‘National Dialogue’ or a ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ recourse is patently opportunistic and aims at securing absolution of all those convicted, indicted, charged and under investigation for misappropriation and other financial irregularities in a wider amnesty. That at least is the larger intent of this entire PDM construct — apex leaders of both parties are under trial and investigation for major financial crimes. If indeed it gets to that point of discussion and debate which is perhaps the penultimate political plank of opposition it shall call for a more wholesome engagement across the entire spectrum of how politics has evolved and engaged through the decades.

The ‘social contract’ is already well documented as the constitution and so is the role of all institutions of the state and the government. Ideally if applied with full honesty and transparency and without circumventing one or the other clause and article for tribal, familial or parochial benefit it is a self-sufficient document to run both the state and the society and to keep governments in line. But there have been major deviations and critical institutions meant to exercise check on the executive have been badly compromised by incessant tweaking the rules of their function. As such politics and governments have garnered a field day for themselves in how they conduct their business leading to widespread allegations of corruption and misconduct in office. This will need to change. Those who are guilty will need to be brought before law even if new cases are not made against other offenders as a consequence of such parleys. What a pity. We will be giving criminals a reprieve.

Fawad Chaudhry says it best: Politics needs a reset and not only NAB and election reform but the eighteenth amendment and the NFC award all need to come under discussion for a wholesome redefinition. If all sides stick to the rules army would be off its mind interfering where it has absolutely no role. Let Pakistan be run per the law. Army will have nothing to do with the elections or the politics of elections.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 6^th, 2020.

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