The ones who do not believe in parochialism, ethnicity and linguistic based ' hate-mongering' politics, must have been deeply distressed with the divisive and parochial utterances of the Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, who while addressing a retaliatory public meeting against the PML-N's holding of a series of anti-PPP government rallies, held at a rural town, Kammo Shaheed on May 12, close to the border with Punjab, warned of a "march on Lahore by millions of Sindhis".
While the chief minister was delivering his rhetorical speech as the champion of the cause of the poor Sindhis, the electronic media was awash with the harrowing video evidence and stories of rampant and organised cheating in school and college examinations, from one end of the province to the other, without exception. Instead of making rabid parochial statements, it would have been in order for the chief minister to address the issue of cheating in the examination, across his PPP-ruled province, where education is at its lowest worst and that is why a graduate, someone holding a master's or engineering degree from any of interior Sindh's educational institution, applying for a job in a decent private organisation, is not even invited for a preliminary interview.
A Rawalpindi-based student, Ali Moeen Nawazish, is a world record holder for having passed the 'A' Level examination, with 22 straight "As". A talented girl, Arfa Karim from Faisalabad, when alive, was the youngest Microsoft certified specialist globally. Musa Firoz, a 12-year-old boy from Mansehra, has recently been declared first in a mathematical competition, conducted in over 200 countries. A 9-year-old tiny little girl, Sitara Akbar, from Chiniot, is the youngest student in the world to have passed her "O" Level exams with distinction. One, too, would desperately like to see young students from Shah's province to excel in the field of education and related disciplines where there is an acute shortage of spirit of competition and will to excel.
Now coming to issues other than the state of education in Sindh, where, as reported widely in the media, the provincial education minister's drafted bill on education, presented the other day in the provincial assembly, was full of both grammatical and spelling mistakes, so much for his own educational credentials, consider the province's performance in the field of sports. There is not a single outstanding athlete, hockey player, cricketer, swimmer or a squash player from rural Sindh, even at the national level, what to talk about the international level. How pathetic, indeed!
In the professional field, one would like to see Sindh produce world class doctors, engineers, economists, IT specialists and scientists with rural background and progress in all walks of life. What we have in Sindh is the rule of the dacoits, waderas and jagirdars who run their own jails where only the other day close to 150 men, women and children, shackled and living in a most horrific state, imprisoned by the despicable waderas, were rescued, recovered and set free under a court order. How shameful, indeed!
Instead of threatening his adversary with a march on Lahore by millions of Sindhis, the chief minter should start and lead a march of millions of Sindhis against poverty, unemployment, disease, hunger, waderas, jagirdars, karo-kari, lawlessness, graft, corruption, maladministration, social injustices, cheating in examinations, nepotism and eradicate sense of depravation as opposed to promoting a severe persecution complex. If Sindhis are persecuted, they are being persecuted at every level, by their own leaders who continue to exploit them under the so-called self-serving 'Sindh card'.