Land of myths and make-believe

If there is any silver lining in all that's wrong with Pakistan, it is fact that peoples’ patience is wearing thin.

Even by the unenviable record of weird developments that occur not infrequently in this tormented land, the past week has been one that bears little resemblance to earlier charades.

Call it a drama or a farce, there is little to distinguish between them when enacted in what we so proudly call an Islamic Republic. In fact, there is little that is Islamic in our behaviour and even less of a republic in our polity.

Imagine the strange week that we have just been through. At home, the nation has graduated from bomb blasts and suicide attacks to brutal killing of those whose only sin is to belong to the minority communities, which makes it abundantly clear that the state has abandoned even the pretense of honouring its foremost responsibility, namely ensuring the safety and security of the citizens. Even the gruesome killings in Quetta that led to family and friends staging an unprecedented sit-in and refusing to complete the last rites of those martyred, were treated as a routine affair. Such is the degree to which we have become inured to these events that there was virtually no response from the government, till similar protests began to mushroom all over the country.

But it was also the week when the Line of Control in Kashmir, which many had come to believe had been made irreversibly stable, saw cross-border firing that resulted in deaths on both sides. More worryingly, it led to surprisingly strident statements not only by Indian military chiefs, but by political leaders as well, including the normally unflappable Manmohan Singh and the low-key Sonia Gandhi. World capitals went into overdrive to prevent escalation of hostilities, while many Pakistanis began worrying whether the claim of the peace process, having made important gains, was merely a reflection of the bonhomie generated by Aman ki Asha.

It was, however, the farce enacted in the capital that reminded us that while the tsunami had been only a popularity-pulling slogan — and an inappropriate one at that— another deliverer had emerged from across the ocean to become the proverbial shepherd to lead the flock to the shores of safety. Little did they know that they were in for a huge disappointment, notwithstanding his invocations to the Almighty.

Admittedly, many did get carried away but less because of the gentleman’s credentials and more as the result of years of pain and deprivation they have had to endure, making them easy prey to pain-free remedies. And yet, no one could have anticipated the denouement. After enthralling followers with the promise of heaven and warning opponents of peoples’ wrath, he had no hesitation in entering into an understanding that gave him nothing more than a dubious role in future political deliberation, but without any legal basis or constitutional sanctity. This damp squib, christened the Islamabad Long March Declaration, was finalised with the very people whose honesty and integrity had been trashed and even their legitimacy questioned. In the process, the people were not amused. No less farcical was the behaviour of senior government functionaries, who after having criticised the preacher and engaged in cheap antics to ridicule him, embraced him with an enthusiasm and humility that clearly smacked of duplicity.

If there is any silver lining in all this, it is the undeniable fact that the peoples’ patience is wearing thin. Thanks to the vibrant media — both print and electronic — the people are far better clued than in the past. The mere promise of representative government will not suffice, unless accompanied by clean, responsive and efficient governance. Recent events should be seen as a warning to all, but primarily to the politicians. Unless, they are willing to engage in genuine reforms and purge their ranks of the ‘corrupt’, they could find themselves out in the wilderness, once again.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2013.