Khan Sahib 2

Goodness. A number of affluent middle class, conscientious, educated, merit-loving, professionally sound, mannered and refined, friends of mine have become very unhappy after reading my piece on Khan Sahib last week. Although, in my view, I remained objective in tracing the evolution of Khan Sahib and just posed a few questions towards the end. I did not even mention the case filed against the MQM and its follow-up. But Khan Sahib’s fan club resorted to the same idiom in condemning me which their hero was averse to.
I agree that the people of Pakistan want change, economic prosperity and justice. For that, Khan Sahib has an agenda. Two things closest to his heart these days are eliminating corruption and stopping drone attacks in the tribal agencies. I restrict myself today to Khan Sahib’s view of how Pakistan’s internal system works and its proposed solution. He says he will get rid of the patwari culture responsible for brooding corruption. What is a patwari? He is the land registrar. The person responsible for surveying land and apportioning it. He virtually runs the land revenue system in our agrarian economy and abets the oppressive structure. The close collaborator in making this Moghul-British colonial system survive is the thanedar. Who is a thanedar? The local police chief who institutionally subjugates the poor, the landless and the marginalised.
Who gives the legal and structural support to what the patwari and the thanedar do? The mukhtiarkar, one who collects revenue and settles disputes ab initio. This person is overseen by a magistrate and/or a district administrator.
These people are the backbone of Pakistan’s civilian bureaucracy. The top bureaucracy, the commissioners, the deputy, joint and full secretaries, or even secretary generals, cannot function without this machinery. Therefore, whatever Pakistan has suffered from within is due to the corrupt practices and wrongdoings of the patwari, thanedar and mukhtiarkar. True? But who do these characters report to and who do they support? The senior bureaucrats and the rich and powerful in their areas. Similar is the case in commercial and industrial zones of metropolitan Pakistan. It is the collusion of the bureaucracy and the big business that keeps the masses out of political power and economic prosperity.
We are not speaking of the military today because Khan Sahib has no views on that lately. For good reasons I suppose. So my question stays. How will Khan Sahib bring about a structural change in Pakistan’s economy when an abstract idea of corruption remains a bigger issue to him than the increasing inequality among people rooted in grossly uneven distribution of resources?
Besides, when his greatest supporters are people like Roedad Khan, for instance, who was the interior secretary when the worst state-led violence was unleashed on political workers, journalists and writers under Gen Zia. What did good people like him, the retired bureaucrats flocking Khan Sahib, do to the people of Pakistan when they served in high places? Moreover, do all those who join Khan Sahib get absolved of what they did earlier, like the old PML politicians who benefited from the status quo? Also, is it okay to contemplate alliances with religio-political parties that provide legitimacy to terrorist acts?
Lastly, I urge all my affluent friends who wrote to me in support of Khan Sahib to make a pledge. They will not understate the price when buying or selling any property and pay full fee to the public exchequer from now on. Also, when their children turn 18, they will ask them to queue up for getting their driving licences made.
The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and author. Email: harris. khalique@gmail.com