Surveying the national and regional landscape yields a plethora of issues of concern with profound implications for the future. Let us take up the regional aspect first.
The Kartarpur Corridor that has allowed India's Sikhs and the considerable Sikh diaspora around the world to visit the shrine of Baba Guru Nanak Dev is a breakthrough development that has fulfilled the long standing desire of the Sikhs for access to the holy site. The inauguration ceremony on November 9, 2019 addressed by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was drenched with emotion, warmth and goodwill on all sides. Peripheral reports in recent days that the Kartarpur Corridor initiative was likely to resurrect India's suspicions that Pakistan was once again playing the 'Sikh card' were mercifully laid to rest when even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the day of the inauguration thanked Imran Khan for his cooperation on the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor.
On the same day, the Indian Supreme Court awarded the land on which the razed Babri Masjid stood to the Hindu community to build a Ram Temple on the purported birthplace of Lord Rama. Disappointed as the Indian Muslim community was on the apex court's overturning the Allahabad High Court's verdict dividing the Babri Masjid site land two-thirds, one-third between the Hindu and Muslim communities, a verdict appealed by both sides in the Supreme Court, their response was highly restrained and respectful of the Supreme Court while reserving their right to disagree with it. Stringent security measures for fear of communal violence at and around the site proved not to be needed, at least so far. However, whether this deep wound for Muslims, including resentment at no punishment for those who started the controversy in 1949 by placing Hindu gods' idols in the Babri Masjid or razing it to the ground in 1992, the latter act resulting in 2,000 persons killed in communal riots, would continue to be responded to with this exemplary restraint remains to be seen. The Supreme Court decision has further polarised the religious divide in India and heightened the alarm over the incremental transformation of India into a Hindutva state and society. That, as always, could also have spillover effects on Pakistan-India relations.
At home the ridiculous handling by the government of Nawaz Sharif's health crisis has blackened its face and threatens far worse if, God forbid, something happens to him, either in Pakistan or even abroad. The government cannot now escape the blame for being cavalier about his deteriorating health, making fun of his eating habits and showing the height of insensitivity and lack of basic humanity and decency. As usual, only when things had reached a pretty pass did it dawn on the government that it had better change course. Even then, despite Prime Minister Imran Khan's instructions to ministers and party leaders not to politicise Nawaz Sharif's health issue or make disparaging statements about it, some insensitive Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) heavyweights could not contain their basest impulses and continued to rant on about the matter in a highly inappropriate manner.
As these lines are being written, the issue of the removal of Nawaz Sharif's name from the Exit Control List to allow him to fly to London for treatment remains a political football being tossed between the government (ministry of interior) and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), with neither side seemingly prepared to take responsibility for putting their imprimatur on the removal order. Meanwhile, Nawaz Sharif's critical condition is not helped, and may even worsen because of this unnecessary stonewalling and delay. It is surprising how, despite having been persuaded in principle of the necessity of allowing Nawaz Sharif's treatment abroad, the government has thrown the ball into NAB's court, inviting further wrath if the delay proves detrimental to Nawaz Sharif's health. It appears the government is still so much a prisoner of its 'container' rhetoric that it cannot even consistently recognise and act in a manner that is in its own best interests.
The PTI government has by now set new records in making parliament dysfunctional and legislating through Ordinances. The other day, reportedly on Imran Khan's instructions, 11 Ordinances were passed by the National Assembly within half an hour without any debate or discussion. That has earned the Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri the prospect of a no-confidence motion, however that may turn out. Rule by Ordinance has replaced legislation through the normal means and channels of parliament, which stands rendered dysfunctional. The Speakers of the Senate, National Assembly and Punjab Assembly are seen not only siding with the treasury during sessions on almost all occasions, they have regularly violated their impartial status as custodians of the House by participating in political parleys with the opposition on behalf of the government. Parliament's rules and conventions are being shredded as we speak.
The Maulana Fazlur Rehman-led sit-in in Islamabad seems to have lost steam after a few days and the virtual withdrawal of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People's Party. That does not mean the nuisance value of the Maulana has been reduced to zero. In fact his sense of standing alone may persuade him and his followers that desperate measures are now required, opening the door to possible confrontation with the government. Wisdom dictates the Maulana should be mollified and given a face-saving way out of the impasse before things get out of hand.
Media censorship has now found a new companion: artistic expression. An art installation as part of the Karachi Biennale 2019 that represented symbolically those subjected to enforced disappearance or killed in the metropolis over the years was reportedly closed, smashed and trucked away by plain clothes personnel under the purported command of a Colonel sent by the Corps Commander. This may or may not be true, but the act of suppression of artistic creativity has added one more blot on our image of intolerance and strangling of critics and dissidents.
Meanwhile, despite the government's daily dose of optimistic casting of the floundering economy as on the path to (if not arrived at) stabilisation and a subsequent turnaround, the lived experience of the people in their daily shopping for groceries and other necessities says the opposite. Inflation is at an all-time high, industry, trade, commerce, the wholesale and retail markets are struggling, jobs are being lost all round, and a gloomy desperation is settling in people's minds. By the way, this includes increasing numbers of erstwhile PTI activists and supporters, whose hoped-for socially upwardly mobile dreams under PTI lie shattered.
People in Pakistan have grown so desperate under the revolving door of military rule or incompetent civilian leadership that they have developed a knee-jerk response of clutching at straws. In this museum of dashed hopes can be lumped Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and now Imran Khan. Where are the people to turn to now? There are no easy or quick answers to that one. Only a long, hard struggle for mobilising a movement for change from this pattern of civilian incompetence and military domination can provide the chink of light in a very long dark tunnel.
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