Khair Bux Marri — the answer to Balochistan riddle?

For a change our National Assembly remained focused on its main function on Friday: legislation. To the press gallery, though, the smooth deliverance appeared doubly dreary, especially a day after the unprecedented bedlam that Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had provoked.

Many reporters continued to probe their sources in the PML-N to find out whether the unusual conduct of the opposition leader was ‘designed’ by their party. No one seemed to have a clear answer. Although a few were cunningly pointing out the reality that a street smart hawk of the PML-N, Khawaja Saad Rafique, had visibly slipped out of the house, when his comrades needed to show their fighting muscles in parliament. “He (Saad) might have overshadowed Abid Sher Ali, if Nawaz had seriously asked to push the MQM into a tight corner by bullying shouts,” they would add to suggest a brewing division within the PML-N.

While being clueless regarding the real or imagined differences between Saad and Nisar, this hack can report without any fear of contradiction that the majority of the PML-N legislators are universally annoyed with printing of a picture splashed on front pages of various newspapers, exactly on Oct 12. On this date, the loyalists of Nawaz pretend mourning over the toppling of their government by General Musharraf. Yet the very morning they were preparing for it, there came a picture that showed their leader sitting next to Ms Sumera Malik at a royally placed sofa.

The gleeful grin on Nawaz Sharif’s face conveyed that he had forgiven and forgotten the elitist lady from Khushab, who remained a diehard loyalist of Musharraf. Her loyalty ensured her return in 2008 and after reaching Islamabad, she worked overtime to cultivate some sort of a working relation between Musharraf and the PPP. Like the rest of her ilk, she failed and Asif Ali Zardari replaced her in the end. Wagging tongues have also been blaming her for voting in favour of Zardari in the presidential elections against the PML-Q nominee, Mushahid Hussein. She also attended a thank-you sort of dinner that Zardari hosted at the presidency after getting elected. Almost each PML-N MNA is now dying to find out about how she ended up meeting Nawaz Sharif. While the probe is still on, a few vocal ones, sitting on PML-N benches reserved for women, were already reported to have approached Begum Kulsoom Nawaz to convey their grievance. Nawaz Sharif should rather be ready to suffer a potential ‘Zulfikar Mirza’ from among his loyalists, if he accepts her in the party and eventually allots her the ticket to contest for a National Assembly seat from Khushab.

One should stop here; for, some anchorpersons had received many unpleasant phone calls for discussing her meeting with Nawaz Sharif in an unforgiving manner. A working journalist’s priority should remain the protection of his or her job. Without a platform, even stunningly brilliant thoughts get lost in wilderness.

Far more important remains the fact, anyway, that the Prime Minister was reported busy in serious brainstorming with some of his trusted aides and ministers for long hours Friday. He now seems determined to move on Balochistan and claims to have extracted the required clearance from you know who as well. The mass scale alienation of the mass of people in our resource-rich but sparsely populated province is frightening for sure. It cannot be addressed until people like Akhtar Mengal were allowed to operate in a secure space. But Mengal, who remains willing to work within the political structures provided by the constitution of Pakistan, can only dare to return from self-imposed exile, if separatist militants were somewhat appeased. How to approach boys who had gone to mountains to wage separatist battles with the state of Pakistan remains the question? Everyone has been telling Gilani Friday that an ageing veteran of the Baloch struggle, Khair Bux Marri, is the one and only that can help building of workable bridges with ferociously alienated youth of Balochistan. How to approach him for engaging in a serious dialogue? Prime Minister was still looking for a doable answer to this crucial question.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2011.