Junior Sharif, like a born royal, rises to defend father’s actions

He extends his right arm for handshaking in a manner that clearly defines his personal territory and authority.

One can certainly learn some basics and various nuances of power management by watching Hamza Shahbaz, heir apparent of the Sharif dynasty, whenever he decides to attend a national assembly sitting. Since elected to this house in May last year, he has not been a regular to its proceedings. Of late, however, he has begun behaving differently.

With a gym-toned gait, he often walks into the house and discreetly takes a seat on ruling party backbenches. A crowd of the PML-N legislators starts swelling around him, the moment he settles down in his seat.

He appears behaving like a born royal, extending his right arm for handshaking in a manner that clearly defines his personal territory and authority. Sitting next to him, the visitors keep whispering to him with bowed heads. With his thumb tucked under his chin, the junior Sharif listens to them attentively and often takes notes to establish that he does intend to follow up issues supplicants have brought to his notice. After attending to 10-plus persons on average, he quietly slips out. But he finally felt the need to stand up and defend his father like a devoted son on Friday.

Lahore High Court has announced the death sentence to a resident of Lahore, Sawan, for committing blasphemy. Around a year ago, he was rumored to have committed the crime. Instead of catching and handing him over to the police, a crowd of enraged youth from a downtown locality of Lahore started to burn and loot the slum-like houses of the colony Sawan had been living in, within minutes of spreading the blasphemy rumor. Police took considerable time to reach the spot and rescue the luckless residents of the Joseph Colony.

Although representing two different parties, Ms Shazia Marri of the PPP and Dr Shirin Mazari of the PTI, wanted to bring up the Sawan case at the outset of the Friday sitting. Murtaza Abbassi, the deputy speaker, preferred sticking to the rules and dispensing the government-provided business. Probably the enforced delay agitated Shazia Marri. And she tried to take out some of her accumulated bitterness by throwing sharp words and taunts at Shahid Khaqan Abbassi.

She was justified in doing so any way. After all, the minister of petroleum did not sound very convincing while trying to assure the house that Pakistan was still committed to get oil from Iran thanks to appropriate execution of a deal that Asif Ali Zardari had signed with that country during the last days of his tenure as the President of Pakistan.

Even after termination of the question hour, the deputy speaker went on giving floor to members raising trivial matters. Too close to Friday prayers, Abbassi was finally willing to give mike to Ms Marri. For obvious reasons, she could not dare defending Sawan and intelligently focused on an important question related to his case: Sawan has been sentenced. Fine. But what about those found guilty of inciting violence and arson?

The government has no satisfactory answer to this question and ministers, present on the front benches, preferred to keep quiet, including Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Realizing that Ms Marri’s speech and the spirited support of Dr Mazari was seriously denting the image of the Punjab government headed by his Jalib-reciting father Hamza took the floor. The silence on ruling benches was so profound that you could almost touch it while he spoke.

Instead of furnishing replies to concrete questions triggered since the sentencing of Sawan, Hamza went on to recall as to how quick his father had been in reaching out to the wretched residents of the Joseph Colony. “In record time, their houses were rebuilt and appropriate compensation was delivered to the aggrieved families,” he recalled for earning a loud desk thumping from ruling party benches. After the incident, he went on, some known activists of the PML-N were also arrested for inciting arson, but Shahbaz Sharif firmly refused to get them out of the judicial lock-ups. Only the courts were to release them later on bails.

After not telling the whole truth and failing to answer most relevant and pertinent questions, Hamza Shahbaz left the house like a conqueror. Not a person was interested to listen to the frustrated pleas of both Ms Marri and Dr Mazari after Hamza Sharif had left the house. Blasphemy is a ‘sensitive’ subject in our society, anyway, and no politician wants to end up like Salman Taseer.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2014.