Something’s gotta give

A small group of alienated members of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have come together on a bipartisan platform to address what ails the country. Amongst these luminaries, on the one hand we have former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and former finance minister Miftah Ismail from the PML-N side, on the other former senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar who recently parted ways with the PPP.

In their latest outing into the public sphere, a seminar titled ‘Reimagining Pakistan’ at Habib University, Karachi, on March 12, 2023, these three worthies repeated what they have been saying for some time, while adding more thoughts to the understanding of Pakistan’s multi-dimensional crisis and, in their view, the way out. Amid the fears of a default, political instability (and a seemingly insurmountable impasse), and a deepening crisis of governance, the speakers above (and others) ‘agreed’ that it was high time and the responsibility of the major political parties, both those in power and those in opposition, to chart the path to delivering Pakistan from the mess it is mired in. Failure to do so, the warning went, would mean an irreparable loss the like of which one couldn’t imagine.

The speakers had little of comfort to offer anyone. They dubbed the current political leadership (across the divide) ‘incapable’, the parliamentary system ‘ineffective’ and the economy ‘on the verge of collapse’. They also appealed to the Chief of Army Staff and the Chief Justice of Pakistan to keep their institutions within the defined boundaries of the Constitution. The speakers were at pains to point out that theirs was an ‘apolitical’ platform dedicated to bringing about political awakening among the parties so that they could focus on their real agenda of reforms, stability, and consensus on key national issues.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi emphasised that the crisis being faced by Pakistan is a test for everyone, whether Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Maulana Fazlur Rehman or Asif Ali Zardari. The crisis cannot be solved by any party alone, so the country’s leadership needs to think beyond partisan agendas, sit together and find a way out.

Abbasi characterised the manner in which the federal cabinet, parliament and the governing system were operating as the indifference of the ruling elite to the (increasing) misery of the poor. Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar lamented that after more than 75 years and losing half the country, we have learnt nothing, which had rendered him pessimistic, disappointed and without hope. Miftah Ismail informed the audience of the difficulties placed in their path by the Sindh government to find a venue for the seminar, adding this indicated that many people were unhappy with their move to raise a voice of dissent.

Any critical point of view that departs from the present futile and unproductive exchange of invective between the two sides of the political divide can only be welcomed. This dissident platform has been holding such seminars all over the country. Has their desire for a ‘grand national dialogue’ borne fruit? Is it likely to? Unfortunately, given the ground realities, this still appears a forlorn hope.

The state of political polarisation, in which one side (the government), which has reluctantly made noises from time to time for negotiations across the divide, is stumped by the intransigent refusal of the other side (Imran Khan) to hold any talks with the government, whose leadership he never fails to castigate as allegedly ‘corrupt’ (and worse). The basis for, and chances of such a dialogue therefore resemble nothing better than hoping against hope and whistling in the wind. This hoped for ‘grand dialogue’ can be considered in the same category as the oft touted (of late) ‘Charter of the Economy’, whose unstated premise appears to be the understanding that the ‘economy’ stands somehow above politics and society, and therefore can lend itself to a bipartisan consensus.

While one appreciates the sentiments of those who advocate a coming together to resolve the very serious crises Pakistan is facing, one cannot ignore the yawning gaps and wishful thinking at the heart of such ‘reimagining’.

The last has acquired the status of a buzzword of late. This writer’s quibble rotates around the thought that to ‘reimagine’ anything requires ‘imagination’. Can we honestly, with hand on heart and in all sincerity, not see the dearth (or death) of imagination, the collapse of the intelligentsia, and the continuing atmosphere of restricting (if not forbidding) free thinking and expression in our society? This combination (not necessarily in the order mentioned above; if anything in reverse) has reduced our thinking to platitudes, ‘permitted’ ideas and a deadening conformity that signals an inability as a society to soar boldly above the mundane and seek new horizons for a troubled state and society.

One other refrain that is dinned in our ears every day is the argument that elections are the only solution to (all?) our problems. Permit one to say that even elections cannot replace the minimum necessary consensus on the rules of the parliamentary democratic game, i.e. keeping the door to dialogue open even while in disagreement with political rivals. After all, the basic criteria for holding elections regularly (and freely, neither of which we have been privileged with as a matter of course) is the appeal to the electorate to decide which set of policies of which party appeals to them more. But politics in Pakistan, thanks to the establishment’s unremitting shenanigans in our history and the elite capture of a hollow democratic system based on vested interest, patronage and advancing the interests of the rich and powerful against the poor and marginalised, has been rendered moribund and stuck in a cul de sac.

Without wanting to sound like a Cassandra, one cannot help arriving at the conclusion that given the pressures mounting in the economic, political, security and social fields, Pakistan faces a perfect storm in which, sooner or later, something’s gotta give.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023