speech (on the occasion of BB's second death anniversary) and by blithely allowing his perpetually-switched-on megaphone in Lahore, Governor Salmaan Taseer (another product of circumstances, if ever there was one), to blast the PML-N leadership all the time.
If this be not part of the death wish we seem to be suffering from, what else is it? Is the president trying to be president or is he taking Samson as his model who when he went took the whole temple of doom with him? At whose behest is Salmaan carrying out his sustained attempts at demolition?
The president already has problems, and serious ones at that, on the judicial front. We may see some action regarding Swiss corruption and money-laundering cases in which his name is involved or we may not. But this is a potential time-bomb, a perennial spectre at the president's table, which if nothing else would dictate a measure of circumspection on the part of his team.
What do we get instead? A virtuoso performance by Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira who virtually baits My Lord the Chief Justice by saying that he should take suo moto notice of the reports -- since vehemently denied -- that the CJ and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had met in the dark of the night. It would take a man out of his mind to go on about anything like this but, to all appearances, we have such a worthy in the shape of the honourable Mr Kaira.
Knowing his flexibility I am sure he will put a spin on what he has said and put the responsibility for his almost incendiary remarks on other shoulders. Is My Lord the CJ likely to be amused?
And then what to make of events in Karachi? For the first time in the PPP's history the party had an absolute majority in the Sindh assembly after the last elections. This had not happened with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, nor with Benazir Bhutto. The PPP was in a position to form a government on its own. Wiser heads had counselled the president not to feed milk to snakes but he went ahead and is now having to live with the consequences.
Thanks to these policies the Lyari township of Karachi, for over forty years an invincible stronghold of the PPP, has witnessed an unprecedented outpouring of anger against the PPP and the president personally. Why? Because PPP workers were mercilessly targeted in a supposed law-and-order operation carried out in Lyari. Only a genius could have fomented such unrest in such a locality. But we have seen this miracle come to pass, thanks to some of the president's closest advisers.
On the question of Lyari, it is pertinent to ask who got Rehman Dakait (dacoit), Lyari's Robin Hood, killed? He was caught in Balochistan but killed in a staged police encounter near Malir. Rehman enjoyed the protection of powerful godfathers (discretion forbids me to take their names). But when the chips were down for him, it was his godfathers who let him go. Cruel as the ways of politics may be, it is still pertinent to ask at whose behest, or to please whom, did the godfathers so behave?
The crocodiles of Manghopir (just outside Karachi) can be satisfied. Feed them enough and they will bask in the sun. The snakes of Karachi are insatiable.
But since it is the entirety of the political spectrum which is, or should be, under the microscope, what to make of the democracy certificate conferred on army chief General Ashfaq Kayani by Mian Shahbaz Sharif? Talking to Hamid Mir in his 'Capital Talk' TV programme, the Punjab chief minister said that of all the army chiefs he had known -- and he recounted their names -- he had found Gen Kayani to be the most pro-democracy.
Can we please put a moratorium on such certificates? Bhutto elevated Gen Zia above six other generals to make him army chief. Zia's gratitude took the form of seeing Bhutto swing from the gallows not long thereafter. Benazir Bhutto conferred a democracy medal on Gen Aslam Beg during her first premiership and could only rub her hands in bewilderment when, with Ghulam Ishaq Khan's help, he ousted her a year-and-a-half later.
Shahbaz Sharif was one of the persons instrumental -- I will not name the others -- in getting Pervez Musharraf picked up from Mangla where he was corps commander and made army chief in 1998 after Gen Jahangir Karamat had stepped down. Musharraf must have seemed very pro-democracy then but we know where it all ended.
Musharraf should be tried under Article 6 of the Constitution which prescribes the punishment for high treason. But before that, it would perhaps not be out of order if those who detected a democrat in him in 1998 should proffer a public apologia.
Which is not to say that Kayani has it in him to be like any of the others. He could well be the exception who proves the rule about our army supremos. All the same, he still has some way to go. There will be time enough for medals later. CM Sharif should concentrate on his bailiwick, Punjab, where he has his job cut out for him. (To give him his due, he is one of our better administrators.) But his military diplomacy, judging by his past record in this field, deserves to be taken with a fistful of salt.
As if to prove that we are all in the same bathhouse (the Urdu word hamaam has a sharper resonance to it) there is the spectacle of My Lord the CJ proposing Justice Ramday -- who after a distinguished career as a senior judge has just retired -- as an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court. Why can't we let our stars have some mercy on us?
My Lord Ramday has played his innings and a good innings at that. If all the world's a stage -- although, it has to be said, it's getting a bit crowded -- more important than one's entry is the timing and manner of one's exit. We are given to prolonging, often painfully, our departures, simply not knowing how to bow and take our leave. Justice Ramday should be allowed to leave with dignity and grace, concentrating on his memoirs and his garden. It will be the proper example to set. Ad hoc Judge Ramday just doesn't sound right.
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