Change can wait

There is something uncannily familiar about ‘tabdeeli’ – its quick fall back to the old ways of a millenary culture. The new government is spending a great deal of its time and energies to blame previous governments for the mess the country is in. The war of words includes promises of the severest punishments to former rulers, even though their cases are sub judice.

Things took a turn for the worse when a federal minister declared war on the Islamabad IG, with the prime minister ordering the officer’s transfer and the Supreme Court suspending the transfer order, and so on. The news media also reported that the Pakpattan DPO, removed for showing disobedience towards political bosses, is without a job ever since. Clearly, the leadership is more anxious about proving who is in charge rather than showing respect for rule of law. Tabdeeli can wait.

On the foreign affairs front, our Muslim brothers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE as well as our iron brothers in China are discovering that Naya Pakistan, like ‘Old Pakistan’, also relishes bailout packages. Having bad dreams of a loan default and reaching out to dependable friends for loans and deposits is nothing new for Islamabad. Blaming your predecessors for indebting the country beyond redemption sounds familiar as well. Imran, having sworn not to go to the IMF, is now hoping that the package will be small enough so as to not make onerous demands on reforms. This sounds reasonable, but will be put to test when he enters the boardroom filled with the IMF’s grey-suits.

Not that many are surprised at Imran Khan’s latest U-turns. His line of play since the last election in 2013 gradually revealed that he had become a politician – like others – for whom gaining power became the primary goal. It can be in the name of insaf or tabdeeli, but the game plan was geared to win maximum number of seats in the general election. He undoubtedly realises that once in power, a politician must do what it takes to stay in power. Promises made before the elections would be fulfilled if feasible and tossed into the bin if necessary. Call it the normalisation of a great champion of change.

But here lies the handicap. In order to win parliamentary seats, the Kaptaan had to accept elements from the old guard, many among those having been sidelined by their erstwhile chiefs. The result is that the new government looks like the B-team of the old order. That has led to a great deal of frustration among the old Insafians. After a little over 75 days of tabdeeli, PM Khan is seen as a conventional politician. There are differences though. He is not comfortable with those having baggage of wrongdoings. Nor does he believe in swimming and sinking together. Heads may roll, if need be.

It is on the economic front that the PTI team faces the most urgent challenge: avoiding a default on Pakistan’s foreign debt repayments. Here again, the situation has come to normal insofar as the Kaptaan’s tall promises of no recourse to the IMF and abandoning the begging bowl have come to naught. He has gone about seeking bailouts with gusto while retaining the IMF option. This massive borrowing will only lead to greater indebtedness, which would require further loans to pay off debts. The finance minister’s promise of the new bailout eliminating future bailouts sounds idyllic. Rather than declaring victory on generating bailout packages, the government must beg with caution and borrow with trepidation.

The PTI’s emphasis on punishing the corrupt and borrowing dollars from abroad leaves the impression that some other dire challenges aren’t receiving sufficient attention. It is the chief justice who is drawing attention to the problem of population growth. Earlier, he launched a crusade to raise awareness about water scarcity and the need to build large dams. It is the chief justice who regularly visits public hospitals to send the fear of God into the callous hearts that run the country’s health sector.

Maybe, the chief justice, who is approaching retirement, need not open so many fronts, and maybe his orders to check the abuse of power against rule of law is a great contribution on its own. The bottom line is that the systems are so rotten that the chief justice is doing all of us a favour by pointing out whatever is most rotten.

Whenever the new team has time to spare, it should have a look at the factors for the state’s inability to provide family planning facilities that have been successfully carried out by other countries in the region. The galloping population increase has choked public infrastructure, especially the road system that, in turn, is responsible for high pollution levels in big cities.

When will the government’s ace spokesperson throw some light on how tabdeeli is going to cope with these pressing issues? Or maybe, sending the opposition to jails, proving who is in-charge here, and borrowing massively more or less covers tabdeeli’s agenda. The people had, and still have, hopes from PM Khan to pull the country out of its miserable ranking on the Human Development Index. But for this, the focus will have to be recalibrated and energies have to be devoted to sectors that are directly linked to the wellbeing of 210 million Pakistanis.

In the absence of an immediate refocus of direction and action, the government’s promises of building five million homes and creating 10 million jobs may amount to mere political fiction.

Email: saeed.saeedk@gmail.com