Not to have seen it coming was lack of political acumen of the highest order. By the time Nawaz Sharif woke up from his latest hibernation to the reality of the situation, eight people lay dead on the streets of the Hazara region and, perhaps, 80 to 90 were wounded and hospitalised.
Noisy celebrations by ANP followers and an unnecessarily harsh imposition of Section 144 by the NWFP police led to the tragedy and gave an impetus to the birth and strengthening of the demand for a new province - Hazara. To be fair, as is pointed out by defenders of Nawaz, he did suggest that the thorny and controversial issues of renaming the NWFP province and the matter of selection of higher judiciary be handled separately from the 18th Amendment.
However, this was too little and too late. The Nawaz League people in the Parliamentary Committee had been deliberating over these issues for over a year now and had ample time to try to steer the committee towards the position taken so late in the day by their leader. The sudden attempt by Nawaz to precipitate matters in a different direction (which failed any way), in fact, led to people suspecting loudly that he was acting on prompts from some powerful quarter/s.
ANP beginning to show its true colours: Senior citizens as well as students of political history were quick to recall the tension which prevailed in the NWFP region during the months leading to the formation of Pakistan in the late 1940s between the Quaid-e-Azam's Muslim League and the red capped followers of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (father of Khan Abdul Wali Khan and grandfather of Isfandyar Wali) also known as Sarhadi Gandhi due to his close association with and admiration for Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the mentor of Indian National Congress.
He was thus aligned with the Congress and opposed to the Quaid-e-Azam and the concept of Pakistan itself. So much so, that a referendum had to be conducted in NWFP to determine whether the province would join Pakistan or opt for the Hindu-dominated rest of India. Fortunately, the referendum ended in favour of Pakistan, but not before giving anxious days and nights to would be Pakistanis. All this was recalled with the celebrations over "Pakhtunkhwa" filling the air and caused much heart burning among the Hazara people who had traditionally been pro-Pakistan as opposed to the Red-Shirts (another name for Ghaffar Khan's followers) who now wear the mantle of the ANP, though much may have changed since.
More disturbingly, the demand by the ANP, though rather muted for now, to scrap the Objectives Resolution from the Constitution and to declare Pakistan a secular state have brought to the fore the apparent agenda of ANP to harm the basic concept of Pakistan and its Islamic character. This, in turn, has brought back memories of the old anti-Pakistan attitude of the ANP's predecessors. All this granted, the failure of the Nawaz League not to have taken cognisance of the sentiments of the people of Hazara people - traditionally Muslim League supporters - is regrettable.
Problems with Nawaz Sharif: The wisdom and political acumen of a prime minister, commanding two-third plurality in the parliament yet losing power in a bloodless coup, exposes serious shortcomings in his leadership. Few politicians get a second opportunity in their life time to occupy favourable centre stage. Nawaz is one of the lucky ones. But by his repeated acts of omission and commission, he loses no time in wasting away his advantage. This is most unfortunate because the miserable failure of the PPP government to achieve good governance is bringing close the day when an alternative would be desperately needed.
Once Nawaz was back from wilderness in 2007, there was no excuse for the inordinate delay in building up the party structure as a priority - grassroots level up - through party elections at all levels and more important in strengthening its ideological moorings in the process. This was not done, nor was there any definitive word about it in the air or at party moots. Much later, some six months ago, there was talk of reorganising the party as well as of elections within the party, but typically the matter was left for the party chief to proceed with as and when he chose.
Then silence for a couple of months and again more talk of party organisation and again silence! Predictably there is again some noise in the air - a sporadic feature of party talk - about the "hot" topic, but there is not much hope of its becoming a reality. Instead the party appears to be reverting to the feudal and hereditary structure typical of most of our political parties. Shahbaz Sharif, the brother is the second-in-command and nephew and son-in-law are waiting to find high niches in the party.
It is a pity because unlike most power brokers in the country, Nawaz is not a feudal by descent. He is the scion of a hard working industrial family, which built up a steel processing industry through sheer hard work under Sharif, the father and branched out also into other areas like sugar (bad word!), textiles and so on. Nawaz's semi-rehabilitation in the country's politics in 2007 after nearly 8 years of exile (either perforce or under an overseen agreement, is a debatable point) gave him yet another opportunity to break fresh ground and to break free from the past. He appears to have not learnt much from experience. During his exile, many of his party had joined the Musharraf bandwagon while the faithful waited in political wilderness for his return from his own wilderness abroad and the party remained dormant.
Nawaz's frequent hibernations Nawaz's regular disappearances for long periods from the political scene of the country over the last two years, has led to a perception that he is still under some obligation to those (Saudi potentates among maybe others), who sponsored and oversaw his alleged deal with Musharraf, which made possible his release from imprisonment and deportation to Saudi Arabia. I quote from a published report at the time: "On 8 September 2007, Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz and Lebanese politician Saad Hariri arrived separately in Islamabad, the former with a message from Saudi King Abdullah and the latter after a meeting with Nawaz Sharif in London.
Prince Muqrin and Hariri addressed an unprecedented joint press conference at Army House, telling journalists that Nawaz was bound under the agreement not to return to Pakistan before ten years in exile. Asked about the details of the agreement, Prince Muqrin waved a copy of the agreement to the media and said: "It is here and signed."
Thus the question of credibility persists. No one believes them when Nawaz or his party faithful deny that there was a deal under he and his family were allowed to leave Pakistan with a commitment to return only after a period of several (ten?) years. When he allegedly reneged on the commitment and managed to land at the Islamabad airport on that fateful date in September 2007, he was unceremoniously sent back to Saudi Arabia. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, there was no massive overwhelming show of strength on the streets of Islamabad around the airport, to prevent this happening, as some had hoped. Not surprising because of the absence of a credible party structure at the grassroots level. It is felt that he is still under some obligation to remain in the background, at least for some more time.
Another theory put forward about the relatively non-participative approach of the party chief in the country's politics is his preoccupation with his own business empire, which he is rumoured to have now been headquartered in England. This, according to rumours in the air, keeps him preoccupied most of the time allowing him only occasional opportunity to make forays into the country's politics.
Whether this is the real reason behind his half-hearted involvement in Pakistan's national affairs or his secret commitments are behind it, the net result is that his position in the country's politics and that of the Nawaz League has taken a plunge which could take a lot of effort to rebuild.
Other blows the party has suffered during the year include a "secret" midnight meeting of Shahbaz with the Army Chief and the regrettable statement about the Taliban made by the former. A number of Nawaz League MNAs and MPAs were found involved in crimes like theft, impersonation, undue interference in official working for personal gain, molesting women, hit and run episodes, illegal building constructions and use of fake academic degrees.
This raised questions about the kind of people, who are awarded tickets by the Nawaz League. Mercifully many of these criminals were forced by the party to relinquish their seats through resignation, unlike we may say the PPP, which has awarded its ticket for a by election to one (Jamshed Dasti), who had very recently been forced to resign due to using deceit to obtain eligibility for the previous election.
Hazara opens Pandora's box: There was already some talk in the air by Muhammad Ali Durrani of PML-Q (whose reputation was in shreds due to his misstatements in defence of Musharraf, his erstwhile chief) about a new province covering the former Bahawalpur state, but it was largely ignored. Thanks to the Hazara episode, a host of leaders are now in the field pumping for this or that new province.
Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan expressed the view that creation of new provinces in the country would further strengthen the federation and proposed to the government to constitute a commission which should tour the country and look into the matter of creation of new provinces. He was of the view that with more and more development, people tended to demand the facilities at their doorstep and that meeting this need would benefit the people as well as the federation and the country.
Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, senior advisor to the Punjab Chief Minister, said the PML-N would support the creation of new provinces if that is what the people want, but it will not support new units that are proposed on linguistic grounds. He said Seraiki was the language spoken by people who lived in parts of south Punjab, Sindh and NWFP, and was not the sole language of southern Punjab.
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, President of PML-Q, formally announced support for the demand for new provinces, expressing the view that "imbalance in Punjab is causing a strain to the federation." The PML-Q expressed support for the Hazara province. PML-N senior leader Javed Hashmi declared: 'New provinces have now become the need of the hour,' and expressed support for new provinces in Hazara and in southern Punjab. MQM supermo Altaf Hussain has said making new provinces should be made easier.
We thus appear to be entering choppy waters with eyes open, since creation of new provinces will mean some provinces will end up losing part of their clout and resources. Deciding the exact boundaries of new provinces (in Sindh for example) will, therefore, be a very divisive step which could cause deep fissures between different sections of society in the country in its present state of turmoil and lack of political maturity. Be warned!
(owajid@yahoo.com)