Time for drastic action?

None of the prime ministers have been able to remove that feeling of uncertainty, of temporariness and insecurity.

The impression that one gets these days is that things couldn’t possibly have been worse and that the country has hit rock bottom — financially as well as institutionally. The cynics say we continue to live in the twilight zone and it is highly unlikely that we will ever be able to wriggle out of the quagmire in which we find ourselves … unless we adopt some of the measures the Indians did in the early days after Partition in their drive towards achieving autarchy; and unless we elect a leader who says enough is enough and decides to take the militants head on … instead of wanting to negotiate with them. This, of course, is not likely to ever happen in a country like ours where ostentation and living beyond our means is a way of life and every effort is made to perpetuate the status quo. So, if as the Chinese mandarins used to say, rape is inevitable, sit back and enjoy it.



The flavour of the month has not really changed all that much since the PPP freeloaders were replaced by hangers-on from the Muslim League-Nawaz. Another person might have got to live in the house on the hill where they chomp Cuban cigars and serve seven course meals. But the dollar is still 106 rupees and there are no visible signs that it will weaken. Different prime ministers and heads of state have different ways of pulling the strings that make the marionettes dance. But none of them has been able to remove that feeling of uncertainty, of temporariness and insecurity, which is still there. To make things worse, there is this relentless drip of depression which has pervaded and continues to pervade almost every walk of life. Not to mention the alarming increase in the crime rate during the last 10 years and the helplessness of the police to stop men and women from getting mugged.

People appear to have lost whatever sense of decency they once had. Sure, Pakistan is a failed state. There can be no doubt about that. But it wasn’t always like this. In the Golden Age, the 1950s, when a dollar cost four rupees and a pound fetched six, people from Mirpur operated the looms and spindles of Yorkshire and Lancashire and jute and cotton exports kept the wheels of commerce turning in Karachi and Dacca. Girls used to cycle to school and Government College Lahore was the centre of the universe. We still had the railways and the other administrative gift that the British left behind called The Rule of Law. Things were very different in the 1970s, when the two nation theory was unceremoniously given the last rites without much compunction in the western wing.

But we didn’t have the internal menace of the militants, the suicide bombers who believe they’ll go to heaven if they send you to hell; and the deliberate targeting of ethnic and religious minorities. That came much later. We had a charismatic leader who rode to victory on the crest of a hugely popular wave and succeeded in destroying the economic and industrial base established by Pakistan’s first military dictator. He was succeeded by the country’s most retrogressive head of state who unleashed such a torrent of religious edicts that the nation has never really recovered from the fallout and in a sense, helped to usher in the Dark Ages. The militants, in a rather convoluted sense, are part of his legacy — a bequest we could cheerfully do without but which appears to be part of our heritage. Perhaps, they’ll soon have their TV channel.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2013.

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