Domestic politics

Random thoughts

Political activities are at a peak these days. First of all the MQM; Altaf’s thoughtless, self-centred rhetoric has become the last nail in the MQM’s coffin. We are grateful to the judiciary for putting a ban on his lengthy, often stupid and/or nasty, outbursts with which the general public had become fed up. Now Farooq Sattar has taken his place and he seems no more than an Altaf man.        

It is difficult to gauge the harm done to the Mohajir community by Altaf and his cronies in Karachi. The situation had become so bad that the late Iqbal Haider (PPP former minister and himself a refugee) once told me that the MQM needed to be wiped out completely if there was to be peace in Karachi.  

The MQM has turned us into a nation of extortionists, target killers, land grabbers, etc. They have destroyed two generations, turning them into illiterate or semi-literate law-breakers. While they themselves became billionaires, the poor Mohajirs of Karachi became beggars, searching for crumbs from bins on the road.

We all noted how the money-laundering case against Altaf in the UK has been closed. Had it been someone else, they would have been in jail for at least seven years. Some time ago, a very senior Sindh politician (a former minister) told the following story.

While he was a minister, he took some strong actions against the high-handedness of the MQM.       Within a few days, a Western diplomat came to see him and requested him not to take any such action. He was barely over that shock, when a few days later, another diplomat from another Western country came to see him with the same request. He had been surprised that no Indian diplomat had come to him for the same purpose. He was shocked to note how someone who    openly instigated violence and was involved in murder, extortion, etc could still be the blue-eyed boy of the West.

The former nazim and Altaf’s adopted son, Mustafa Kamal, has come up with a new party – the Pak Sarzameen Party. A few MQM leaders have joined him. He is bashing Altaf and Farooq Sattar left, right and centre. Many leaders are still too afraid of Altaf to join Mustafa Kamal. They know that he is highly vindictive – we have seen the fate of Dr Imran Farooq. Some of these leaders have themselves been involved in Altaf’s dirty work;          maybe even murders, who knows.

The Almighty has cursed this country. We hardly got rid of Altaf when there is another figure to take his place in the shouting game, abusive language, dharnas and making the common man’s life miserable – Imran Khan. Shops are closed, children can’t go to school, purchases can’t be made, etc. Since it is a serious matter of inconvenience to the public and economic loss to business, the Islamabad High Court should ban this kind of activity for all parties.        

A request to our Pemra chief, Absar Alam:  please ban the direct relay of speeches made by politicians. Clips of their speeches in hourly news broadcasts would be more than sufficient. The airtime thus gained could be used for constructive programmes. Imran Khan and his colleagues seem to be hoping for martial law. They should remember that when a dictator takes over, he always favours his own cronies and is extremely difficult to get rid of again. Politicians end up with the crumbs, having little influence over political matters and the country is often left in a worse position than it was before.  

A dictator’s cronies are usually more loyal than the king and corruption and nepotism is the order of the day. We have seen all this during the periods of Gen Zia and Gen Musharraf. Imran Khan’s policies have one at a total loss. Rather than concentrating on preparing for the 2018 elections, he is wasting all his energies on making demands that will never be met.

The situation in Balochistan has improved considerably, while a lot of work still remains to be done. The young generation needs to be absorbed into the army and at Gwadar. Until the young generation is helped with jobs, they will continue to create trouble and there will always be people to exploit them.

It is rather unfortunate that both the Sharif brothers lack judgement in the ability of their workers. For them, loyalty is the main requirement. I have a bitter experience with some of their closest colleagues.     

We, a group of philanthropists, want to build a 300-bed welfare hospital in Lahore for which the land was granted to us by the PPP government, but this grant was rescinded by the federal government after Nawaz Sharif came to power.         It has now been more than a year that     the handing over of the land has been withheld.       We have the money to build; the drawings are ready and an OPD is already fully functional, treating 700 to 800 patients a day, free of cost.  

In January I was given a definite promise for handing over on     February 11. It is now October and instead of the promised hand-over, we are now being asked to hand over Rs40 million. A letter to the PM remains unacknowledged and unanswered.  

Apart from this, a detailed proposal for a world-class university was also sent by us about four months ago. Not even a line of acknowledgement was received. It seems we will have to take our ignorance into 2025. This country, with a population of about 200 million, does not have a single university listed in the 500 best universities of the world.     

Our rulers have become very good at boasting about miracles. If you consider borrowing billions of dollars a miracle, then yes, we excel. How we are going to pay it all back is the million dollar question. By further          lowering interest rates, perhaps? Those who have done the borrowing now will no longer be there to carry the responsibility by the time payback is due – easy come, easy go!

Email: dr.a.quadeer.khan@gmail.com