Head hung in shame: political baggage

Head of this nation hung in shame with anger when some miscreants of a Pakistani political party allegedly hackled and hounded the members of the entourage of the Pakistan’s visiting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the most revered place (Masjid-i-Nabvi), Madina, Saudi Arabia. The act of the hooligans was indeed both condemnable and contemptible by any stretch of imagination.

The Chairman of PTI instead of out rightly condemning the incident and the alleged perpetrators, he distanced himself from the incident implying it was a “spontaneous reaction of some misguided elements” while at the same time highlighted his contributions for the cause of Islam at the world forums in the face of malicious campaign against our religion under the guise of Islamophobia.

The Saudi authorities reportedly have made some arrests of the criminals who not only disrespected the royal guests by their ignominious act of acute impropriety but also bitterly hurt the sentiments of the Muslims all over the world who could not imagine in their wildest imagination that any Muslim could stoop so low as to behave like a goon at the place held in the highest esteem by the Muslims of the world.

The shameful act undoubtedly drew strong criticism of the Ulema of all shades including the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII). The CII urged that the political parties should “promote culture of tolerance and politeness”. The people in this country have urged that the gangsters should be given an exemplary punishment serving as absolute deterrence to avert the reoccurrence of such sacrilege of the holy places. The Saudi authorities may consider of putting the criminals on trial under the Saudi law because the heinous crime had been committed by gangsters within the territorial jurisdiction of the Saudi Kingdom.

The PTI leadership may immediately consider condemning the incident expressing its leadership’s abhorrence over it in absolute terms, representing the intensity of the pain the Muslims of the world have been feeling since the occurrence of the incident.

The party may do so forthwith if it had not already done so. The party may also consider taking stern disciplinary action against the miscreants, if they were the members of the party, leading to their expulsion while at the same time disowning with disgust of what they had done at the premises of the holy place. People have not yet seen the measureable reaction of the PTI leadership although party senior leader Fawad Chaudhry’s assertion that the despicable act of the gangsters had “put the party on the back foot”.

It may be deemed by many others as vastly disproportionate to the magnitude to the evil act of the criminals. The party top leadership may come hard against the gangsters unequivocally and eloquently to assuage the sentiments of the people as silence even by default may be deemed as consonance entailing consequences that the leadership cannot afford to even imagine. The leaders of the party are devout Muslims and their condemnation of the gruesome incident is the dire need that could not be reemphasized more because the perception hanging in the air was that the culprits belonged to the PTI. This must be rectified as it had been flying thick and fast. The video on social media also castes shadows as if it was pre-planned. Per-planning of the incident could not be imagined but the deck must be cleared to put the record straight.

The PTI has heavy political baggage and may not afford more of it at a time when it has been struggling to survive as the formidable political force to be reckoned with. The recent incumbency factor and the prevailing neutrality environment reinforcing level-playing field have made operational space difficult for the PTI leadership with the taking out of the wind from its sails by the quarters when being confronted with headwind.

The party may have to pay the prohibitive political price as the rampant political baggage may continue to haunt its struggle for revival: “By all accounts his (Imran Khan) victory was far from fair.

Human rights groups, academics, western diplomats, and political analysts have said that Pakistan Security Establishment systematically targeted Khan’s political rivals in the months before the elections (2018) helping him to win” stated the New York Times in its edition of July 31, 2018.

I.A. Redman, a veteran journalist and the Chairman of the Human Right Commission of Pakistan in his article published in the English daily on July 19, 2018 unequivocally commented that ‘the July 2018 elections have already been manipulated’. Fafeen and PILDAT in their monitoring reports on elections left no doubt that the elections were largely rigged while criticising the role of the state institutions that favoured PTI to bring the party to power. Undoubtedly, the elections of 2018 were devoid of the reflection of the choice of the people but of the institution instead. For this reason, the legitimacy issue continued to haunt the PTI government like the Banquo’s ghost haunted Macbeth because of his guilt encompassing in him reckless pursuit for power and prominence to the utter disregard of the rules of succession and eminence signifying ends must justify means.

No wonder, the PTI government failed to come up to the aspirations of the people because it had the back-breaking political baggage emanating from the rigged elections resultantly impacting its ability to deliver good governance to the people who were also vociferously casting aspersions on the democratic credentials of the PTI government. The bad performance of the government in terms of providing relief to the masses provided the Opposition parties (PDM) the much sought after opportunity to take on the government with vengeance. The PTI government regretfully heavily relied on the politics of victimisation of the political opponents instead of consuming its energies to provide good governance to the people who were at the receiving end of the pitfalls of unseemly governance of the previous government.

The sky rocketing inflation was making the lives of the all and sundry miserable in all forms and manifestations, unemployment was all time high and the vicious circle of poverty was taking heavy tolls on the live of the poor and the middle class segments of the society. Food inflation threatened even very subsistence level of the middle class not to speak of the poorest of the poor who found it extremely difficult to meet the both ends. The much cause of worry for them was the failure of the government to control the spiraling inflation as the prices of the items of common man basket continued to surge dashing their hopes for better days during the foreseeable future. The rate of inflation remained double digit and the perpetual devaluation of the rupee against dollar was worrisome due to the predictable consequences in the form of inflation and the multiplication of the miseries of the people who were totally frustrated and were indeed cursing those foisted the PTI government upon them.

The incompetent and inexperienced PTI government took heavy toll on the people to the utter frustration of its “backers” known unknown also. The former prime minister was on record as having confessed that he could not understand the complexities of the functioning of the government during the first year of its rule. It means PTI government lost time to the extent of one year because they were devoid of the knowledge of governance and the requisite wherewithal to tackle the governance issues those had complicated over the years demanding the expertise of higher degree to deliver in the highly competitive world of today.

The loss of one whole year for acquiring the experience was a luxury that this country’s economy could not afford for the reason of catching up. It was indeed a very a high price for the nation and the people who were made to bear the predicaments as their miseries multiplied with sense of anguish and loss. In fact, the people felt betrayed by the PTI government that promised to provide jobs and decent housing facilities to the homeless and shirtless. The well-entrenched perception was that the PTI regime faltered in all accounts with big margin. The people’s anger and anguish against the PTI government was not without basis as they were crying out to get rid of this government that had given them nothing but miseries of untold proportion. The grim obtaining economic and political situation reinforced the perception that the worst was yet to come if the govt was not shown the exit door because the indicators of the economy gave no reason to the people to have optimistic worldview of the government as trade deficit was burgeoning and foreign exchange reserves were fast depleting putting rupee under immense pressure with spiraling inflation as collateral.

Tail piece: Madam Marriyum Aurungzeb and Sardar Shezan Bugti deserve the highest appreciations of all who prayed to Allah at Masjid-i-Nabvi for those who misbehaved with them at the holy place.

muhammadshaheedi@yahoo.com