Dear saviours!

A secular, democratic republic. A nation of resilience and a secret of the divine. An Islamic welfare state and chandelier of the Muslim Ummah. The only Muslim nuclear country in the world. An Asian Tiger under construction. The country is undergoing a critical stage. These have been the clichés and epithets that the country's history reads and resonates with. However, two things that characterised each of the ruling dispensations — be it selectively elected or electively selected — have been that the country is going through a critical juncture and that, should each dispensation clinch power yet again, they would change the country's fate.

However, the country has been made anything, but what was professed and promised. And no promise of postponed prosperity could change the fate of the people, except the enrichment of architects of power and the self-styled messiahs and saviours of the public. The dynastic despots, the capitalists, the crafty clergy, the rightists, the patriots, the leftists, the centrists, the socialists, the Marxists, the feminists, the jurists, the feudal and tribal chieftains, the media persons and the philanthropists have washed their hands in the turbulent Ganges of the country.

This paradox, where the ones championing others' rights ultimately get their coffers filled with fortunes, is rarely without a design. A systematic design that aims at carpeting their real selves under the rug — the rug of cultivated popular ignorance, or the messianic masks or the captivating pledges. For decades, the design has wonderfully worked and added to the ruling elite's conviction that their fortune is eternal. And so are the public's innocence and predicaments. The old playbook with alluring narratives and heroic costumes is therefore in play today. For a reason, for them.

For the people are naïve, cognitively living in antiquity. For time, much like woes, could not dare change people's thoughts and mood here. For they still revere and hold utmost devotion to their masters. For the people, their plight is divine destiny, and we are lords for them and understandably outwit people so much that the public still receives everything peddled through traditional journalists, anchors and clerics — almost unquestioningly. This public trust is a manifestation of the country being on the track to prosperity.

Prosperity? Yes, the people have the right to hold hope, be informed of an economy on track and know that stability is on the way. But ask not of who, whose or for whom. Just look at the stock market setting new heights or the accelerating brain gains in the airports. A democracy, a nation of resilience, a divine secret. The only Muslim nuclear country in the world. And an existential default that has yet again narrowly escaped us — the dear saviours.

The ground realities are the sceptics' portrayals and hence the enemies of the state. So are the Constitution and honesty. Stability for the people. Vote. Social media. Thinking and questioning are treason and heresy. For they have put our "prosperity" at a critical juncture. For they dare to judge us by our actions, not words, vows, allegiance, faith, sentiments or ethnicities. For they call for people's rights. Prosperity. The people who have long assented to the right to have no right. And to judge us by our words, and words alone.

Therefore, our statesmanship demands reforming ground realities by amending the Constitution and law; stifling debate that talks sense, reason and questions; and muting dissent that tends to securitise our proven infallibility, the playbook, legitimacy and history. And the country's critical juncture that powers the prosperity of us — the saviours of the country.

The critics' contentions of the nation being plundered by our redeemers barely merit censure. In fact, this way, they saved the country. They have sustainably rescued people from potential prosperity and peace, true democracy, honesty, integrity and truth, or a decent living for most of the masses.

Their prestige as "saviours" of the country, therefore, is rarely without a kernel of truth.