In the barbaric centuries, if a poet, a writer, a thinker, a noble, a heroic farmer, or a religious leader used to raise his voice against the king, he was to be jailed, exiled or guillotined. Unless of course, the king decided not to be merciful that particular day, in which case the critic was to be tortured first and then jailed, exiled or guillotined.
Fast forward to 21st century, and you find far more merciful kings. For instance, the PML-N's 'business-friendly' government silences its critics by either threatening their business or by giving them business. Isn't that a royal mercy? In recent news, Dr Hafiz Pasha, Managing Director and CEO of Institute for Policy Reforms (IPR) resigned from office on 4th February 2016. That it took IPR more than a month to make that announcement is rather confounding. But the reason behind Dr Pasha's resignation is crystal clear.
IPR's press release issued on Tuesday this week, said that "the reason cited by Dr Pasha is a possible and potential lack of independence in IPR in the future because of government pressure." This does not come as a surprise. Ever since Haroon Akhtar Khan - the brother of IPR's chairman and CEO Humayun Akhtar Khan - was assigned as the special assistant to the Prime Minister for Revenue with the status of Minister of State, IPR's independence was sent to sleep with the fish.
The good thing about Pasha is that he made it clear - via IPR's press release - why he resigned. Other voices that have been muffled by PML-N haven't been fortunate enough to be as vocal. For instance, a leading economist heading one of the business schools in Islamabad was politely asked by the sitting political kings that he must stop writing in a widely read local newspaper, otherwise his school would start facing shortage of funding. And so he did.
When the head of a Lahore-based university heard of this, he politely turned his guns quiet - and thus Pakistan lost another voice of reason, which was much needed to keep the government in check in so far as economic policymaking is concerned.
Other economists have been a little luckier. Their criticism was silenced by giving them business, instead of threatening to hurt their business. One has been acting like a close advisor to CM Punjab, whereas another - along with a leading Lahore-based policy research institute - has been given donor-funded consulting contracts by the government of Punjab. And that too is an excellent example of PML-N's intellectual capture.
The consequence of intellectual capture is obvious: when the voices of reason, the voice of critics are silenced in one way or the other, the kings shall do as they please as there shall be no one to challenge their wisdom. Only in PML-N's case - and unlike the kings of barbaric centuries or military dictators - they have done the job more subtly without inviting much hoo-ha.