Significance of cabinet meeting in Karachi lost on Khursheed Shah

Wanton discussion on complicated issues induced yawns and I hold Khurshid Shah exclusively responsible for this.

With thousand apologies allow me to report that most of “our representatives” always sound pathetic when trying to think big and act like statesmen of global reach.

On a point of order, Syed Khurshid Shah, the opposition leader, suddenly stood in the house to begin complaining with a hurt heart that no minister cared to brief the house as to what had been discussed with the Afghan President during his recent visit to Pakistan. Tensions on the Line of Control seem turning intense and frightening as well, but the government has yet not informed the national assembly about how it planned to handle this issue.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi endorsed his agitation with full force and in the process recalled that the US had expressed a clear intent to bomb some targets in Syria in the next few hours. He wanted the government to state its position on this matter as well. After the PTI leader, our very own ‘Kissinger,’ Sheikh Rashid Ahmad of Lal Haveli, took the floor to moan over the perennial absence of Sartaj Aziz, the prime minister’s adviser on national security and foreign affairs, from the house proceedings.

Sheikh Sahib behaves like an expert on India while talking to our 24/7 channels. He begged the government to fathom that “the bubble of India Shinning is burst.” The value of Indian rupee is diminishing fast and hundreds of big business houses in that country have declared bankruptcy. “To divert its peoples’ attention from the fast-sinking economy, India is itching to enforce a war on Pakistan. In this situation, we need to find out whether our government has done any contingency planning. If a group of Mujahideen staged some big event within India in the next few days, what could be its repercussions?”

The wanton discussion on complicated strategic issues induced yawns, both within the house and the press gallery and I hold Syed Khurshid Shah exclusively responsible for making things dull and boring. Who else but he should clearly know the limits of this self-presumed “sovereign house?” Throughout its five years, the previous national assembly kept passing “unanimous resolutions” demanding the cessation of drone attacks on Pakistan and these attacks continue even now.

Pakistan had closed its routes to Afghanistan for supplies to NATO forces fighting the so-called war on terror in that country for seven months in 2011-12. Under the ‘revolutionary leadership’ of Senator Raza Rabbani a parliamentary committee was established to provide ‘guidelines’ to the state of Pakistan for re-setting its relations with Washington. The committee came out with a lengthy report. In the end, what happened, though? The then Finance Minister, Dr Hafiz Sheikh, single-handedly negotiated a deal with Americans to restore their supplies to Afghanistan and doing so, he never cared to keep the parliament-furnished guidelines in mind.

Being a canny operator of power politics, Khurshid Shah, had rather helped us to decode some messages that the federal cabinet transmitted Wednesday through its meeting. The possibility to manage Dr Afia Siddiqui’s release by signing some international treaties might not have alarmed his mind. Yet, he could not afford acting indifferent to the decision of holding a special session of the federal cabinet in Karachi, sometime next week. The Governor and the Chief Ministers will be invited there on special invitation and so would be Dr Farooq Sattar of the MQM. Heads of various intelligence and security agencies are asked to attend this meeting as well. Obviously, how to restore law and order in Karachi is the question to be discussed threadbare in that meeting and Shah Sahib does not need reminding that these days the PPP rules Sindh.

If politically alive, the PPP activists should have realized that only after appropriate homework and backdoor contacts, their erstwhile friends and allies had forcefully pushed the demand of handing over Karachi to the Army during the national assembly sitting of Tuesday. That certainly helped Nawaz Sharif to pledge an active interest in the law and order scene of Karachi. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Federal Government has made up its mind to take control of law and order in Karachi. The PPP jiyalas are wrong in presuming that after adding the18th amendment to the constitution, they furnished a perfect defence for the autonomy of a provincial government. The constitution, as we have it today, still has a plethora of articles and clauses that enable the federal government to take full control of the political scene in any province and even any of its specific city or town. A group of seasoned bureaucrats from the DMG lot is discreetly working to draw the ‘execution plan’ in this context. Time is yet not ripe to name the names involved in this game. For the moment, though, I fail to understand as to why a deadly digger of the ‘inside news’, Syed Khurshid Shah, remains ignorant about what’s being cooked.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2013.