Rent a party

Of late, the chorus of voices demanding ‘dialogue’ has grown to a virtual crescendo. This is understandable at one level given the serious political, economic and social crises Pakistan is confronted with. However, what is adding to the already existing massive confusion is the disparate and often contradictory meanings such voices attach to the demand for a dialogue. Take, for example, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), whose cult hero Imran Khan languishes in jail.

Different leaders and spokesmen of the party have taken to issuing statements morning, noon and night on ‘dialogue’, but in such contradictory fashion as to leave not just the general public, but arguably even their own ranks reeling in confusion. One position of PTI leaders/spokespeople is that the party is not willing to talk to its rival political parties in power, only to the establishment, i.e. the military and Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Another leaves open the possibility of talking to the political parties in power, but only after Imran Khan is released and the PTI’s stolen mandate in the February 8, 2024 elections is restored to it.

Contradictory as the PTI voices are (and I have refrained from boring readers with all the nuances expressed), the authors of these weighty statements seem to have forgotten the old adage: it takes two hands to clap. The establishment has retained a pregnant silence on the issue, interpreted by and large as a message that it is not interested in engaging with the PTI or Imran Khan. The government from time to time, in order not to appear obdurate in its triumph with the help of the establishment, pays lip service to dialogue as the necessary foundation for steering the country out of the woods, but given its perch on top of the power pyramid, and the attitude of the establishment described above, not to mention the PTI and Imran Khan’s inability to resist the mantra of ‘no talks with thieves and robbers’, leaves it at that.

There is no doubt that the country’s troubles, particularly the economy, desperately need some modicum of civilised debate to present to the world at large as well as the IMF and other international financial institutions crucial to our habitual temporary bailout the picture not of a polarised, divided country steeped in uncertainty, but a functioning system (whether democratic or not) with which business can be conducted. The present scenario is the precise opposite of this critical requirement.

The game in motion is not new. Since the very dawn of Pakistan, political manipulation by vested interests, powerful state institutions (particularly the military and bureaucracy) and their satraps has defined the country’s political trajectory. Unwilling to accede to the Bengali majority in a united Pakistan, the military landed itself and us in a quagmire, ending in the loss of half the country with a majority of the population. Not content with that trauma, the military-bureaucratic oligarchy bequeathed to us by British colonialism continued merrily to manoeuvre the polity in favour of its hold on power, whether direct or indirect. The latter by now has been honed to a fine craft, defined by a political culture of collaboration by the political class with the establishment. This ‘rent a party’ paradigm works in circular fashion, with today’s favourite party tomorrow’s pariah and vice versa.

Currently, this description can be applied unhesitatingly and without bias to the existing mainstream political class, without exception. The flavour of the month may be the apex of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government that came to power in 2022 by unseating Imran Khan through a no-confidence motion, but it too has been on the receiving end of the establishment’s will and preferences. Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat-e-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) has been ‘dumped’. Incensed by this treatment of the former head of the PDM, the Maulana at first flirted with the opposition headed by the PTI, but soon got miffed at the treatment the latter offered him publicly. Today, he is breathing fire to topple a government from which he has been excluded through the manipulation of the elections.

The Maulana is in good company. Balochistan’s two main nationalist parties, Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) and the National Party (NP) have been marginalised even in their traditional strongholds just like the Maulana. It should not then have come as a surprise if the leaders of these two parties, Akhtar Mengal and Dr Abdul Malik, railed against the treatment meted out to them by the real powers that be at the Asma Jahangir Conference in Lahore the other day.

The PTI’s strategy post-May 9, 2023 has been marked by even more confusion than usual. Some sceptics rely on this to assert that the party is unlikely to be let off the hook. However, in politics, nothing can be ruled out. First and foremost, the PTI may be hoping that with a change in command of the military (still two years away), their fortunes may turn. But not if the practice of extensions is trotted out again, which would mean the change in command would not arrive for five years at least, coinciding, as it happens, with the end of this government’s tenure. That much seems pretty obvious, but if the country’s crises, particularly the economy, do not recover from the slough of despond in which they are thrashing about, the establishment itself may feel compelled to address the conflicted political paralysis in favour of a compromise solution that burnishes the image of the country and opens the gate to recovery.

Given all these and countless other possibilities that this space does not allow to explicate, the only sane advice is, do not endanger yourself by holding your breath.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024