Not much in the way of good news

ARTICLE: There is not much in the way of good news about Pakistan these days. However, there is plenty of bad news for the taking. First and foremost comes the news of another clash with terrorists in North Waziristan on July 12, 2020 in which four terrorists and four soldiers were killed. This latest incident proves that informed observers' warnings after the military operations in erstwhile FATA had ceased that talk of having broken the back of the terrorists should not lull us into complacency since the bulk of the terrorists who had Pakistan in their grip for years managed to escape to Afghanistan, from where they were expected to launch terrorist actions inside Pakistan. This is the sorry endgame of our jihadi and Taliban adventures in Afghanistan stretching back over almost 50 years.

Meanwhile the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government continues to flounder. After the sugar, wheat, petrol, PIA fiascos, the low cost housing scheme launched by the government promises to be another debacle. While the 'honest and clean' PTI government unabashedly invites investors to whiten their black money by pouring it into the construction and real estate sector, the financial structure of the low cost housing scheme may prove a damp squib. The subsidy offered to potential low cost housing customers is peanuts and, going by the track record of the banks in funding housing loans, there is unlikely to be much in the way of an emerging mortgage sector. Meanwhile, like all else, the Karachi Electric (KE) load shedding too has become a political 'football' between the federal and Sindh governments on the one hand, and the former and KE on the other. KE's perpetual carping about insufficient electricity supply from the national grid, shortage of fuel oil, gas, LNG and what have you has become tiresome by repetition over the years. KE has invested precious little since it took over the power system of the country's industrial and commercial hub in its creaking and leaky distribution network. Such are the wages of turning over such a critical power supply system to a private company trying always to maximise its profit, over and above its responsibility as a critical utility company. This speaks volumes to the much touted privatisation of state owned enterprises solution to Pakistan's economic problems.

As though the tiresome daily fisticuffs between the federal and Sindh governments were not already enough, the Uzair Baloch JIT report/s have become the latest stick to beat each other with. This confrontationist style (initiated by the Centre and by now responded to in like fashion by the Sindh government) promises to drag the country down into the gutter (if it has not already).

Uncomfortably for the 'squeaky clean' PTI government, a number of its ministers are now on the National Accountability Bureau's (NAB's) radar for corruption and like misdeameanours. They include (and this may not be a comprehensive list) Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar (also credited with knocking PIA out of the skies), Religious Affairs Minister Noorul Haq Qadri, ex-Health Minister Aamir Mahmood Kayani and Health Special Assistant Dr Zafar Mirza. The fissures opening up of late in the PTI's ranks now have another addition: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi is accused by a Multan PTI MNA of 'encouraging' corruption. And let us not forget the architect and main financier of PTI's (assisted) rise to power, Jehangir Tareen, currently cooling his heels in London after fleeing the possible adverse fallout of the sugar scandal. So much for the PTI's favourite 'corruption' mantra.

Even a generous offer by the PTI government to build a Hindu temple in Islamabad (none exists in the federal capital) has run afoul of the cast of usual suspects: maulvis and sundry other intolerant right wing types. The issue resonates in the context of Hagya Sophia in Istanbul being turned into a mosque from a museum and worst of all, the tearing down of Babri Masjid in India. If religion is to be a divider of peoples, this only serves to reinforce secularism, which relegates religion out of the state's purview and into the private sphere, as the best way forward for humanity to avoid hate-filled, violent religious strife. Strife of another kind festers in Balochistan. The 'disease' of enforced disappearances has spread throughout the country by now, albeit Balochistan remains its epicentre. The spread of the affliction is now bringing Sindhi nationalist groups too to the armed struggle. Is this a wise course, given how the Baloch nationalist insurgency has refused to die down since Pakistan's independence because of heavy-handed repression of what are political grievances? The effect of such a recurring Baloch insurgency may not have had the same effect as a nationalist insurgency in Sindh, which is second only to Punjab in population and strategic and economic importance.

This brief and wholly inadequate survey points to a few lessons to be derived from the manipulated rise to power of the PTI. The Subcontinent's history is rich in betrayal and collaboration by opportunists with the reigning power. That 'tradition' is alive and kicking even today. Most of the commentariat and people at large are bogged down in the binary PTI versus the opposition. This hardly offers any solution to the country's crippling problems since the former has failed and the latter (in particular the PML-N and the PPP), despite the flawed witch hunt against their leaders by NAB, stood exposed as the practitioners of political office for private gain long before the PTI was plumped for by the establishment. This implies there is actually a vacuum of political leadership in the country at present. No 'minus one' or any other similar formula can resolve this impasse and extricate us from the cul de sac the country has been pushed into. Thinking observers are deeply concerned about the implications of such a vacuum of political leadership for the future of the country.

[email protected]

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020