“We have created for Gehenna many jinn and men. They have hearts, but understand not with them. They have eyes, but see not with them. They have ears, but hear not with them. They are like cattle-no, they are further astray. Those-they are the heedless”. 7:179
Becoming heedless (forgetful, neglectful) of fellow beings, amounts indirectly to becoming forgetful of God. Some call this human aberration, not a simple matter. The Qur’an says they are, “further astray”. They get equated with shirk.“Those who are heedless of Our Signs, those-their refuge is the Fire” 10:7-8. The Qur’an and the Sunnah, both very closely inter-connect human insensitivity, or lack of empathy with hell-fire.
William Chittick and Sachiko Murata in their wonderful book, “The Vision of Islam,” go to the extent of saying, “…forgetfulness and heedlessness are fundamental faults because they negate Tawhid. One could equally say that to forget God is to forget oneself, since the human being is the form of God…” page146. Alas, the PPP government and its inept leadership by any definition of the word have not only become thick-skinned; it also has become inhumanly insensitive. Its retribution would be dire as the impact of its inept rule on the nation had been tragic. It always sacrificed principles in favor of persons.
Pakistan unfortunately appears to have fallen into the pathway of tragedies. Some of which are natural, like the current most devastating floods, or like the earthquake of 2005, but the rest are the creation of the mis-governance of the regime in power.
In her insightful article, “Disremembering Pakistan”, Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, Professor, University of California at Berkeley, depicts the direness of the situation in Pakistan, “Today Pakistan is fighting three wars of international providence and confronting four secessionist movements in the provinces of Sindh, Balochistan, the North West Frontier Province and in Karachi…Pakistan is a federal country where the central government has all but failed and the only stable institution - the military - might be on the verge of fragmenting …” . Democracy puts lofty demands of character, honesty, fairplay and justice on the politicians. They however begin orchestrating the mantra of democracy because it offers to them a short-cut to power, and a license to indulge in corruption without inhibition.
President Zardari’s visit to France and England at a time when no leader, no matter how naïve or block-headed he may have been, did what even the floods could not have done. It sealed his and his government’s fate. According to Mr. M. Ilyas of the BBC News, the criticism of President Zardari for his absence from the country when it was struck by the worst floods in living memory was unprecedented. “The absence of president has been criticized by the international media for his apparent indifference”. I call it his state of “heedlessness”. The media’s scorn, according to M. Ilyas, has a deeper meaning and motive. “It hints at tensions between the country’s civilian democracy and the powerful military establishment”. Mr. Ayaz Amir opines, “President Zardari would have done nothing had he remained at home, but at least he could have spared the nation’s feelings”. Newspaper Dawn in its editorial had been more pungent, “Mr. Zardari had traveled to England as a man possessed, who cares nothing for the torrents at home”.
According to M. Ilyas, ostensibly there had been two reasons behind President Zardari’s passion to go abroad. First, he had personal motives. “He wanted to shine in the limelight, enjoy European summer and launch the political career of his son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari”. Some even go to the extent of musing that he went there to look after his business. Second, he embarked on the trip to show his disregard for Pakistan’s military establishment.His pliant PM Gilani on Thursday intoned, “He would have been remembered and criticized even if there were no floods in the country”. The story did not end there. President Zardari’s European tour had been “reduced to a pleasure trip”, after Mr. Cameron’s remarks, “The army reacted in a timely and dignified manner”, by canceling the ISI chief’s UK visit, as is articulated by Pakistan Observer in its editorial. And now he plans to fly to Russia.
The criticism resulted in two things: first, Bilawal Bhutto denied that he was planning to address the Pakistan People’s Party rally in Birmingham, one of the main reasons for Mr. Zardari’s trip. Second, PM Gilani informed journalists that the ISI chief had not, in fact, scheduled a visit to the UK in the first place. The unfortunate happening at the Birmingham rally as reported by the GEO, further resulted in the stoppage of relaying of its programs on TV cables. All this confusion is the direct result of one main fault in the realm of personality ethics: a total lack of empathy and sensitivity on the part of the top leadership with regard to the sufferings of people. Never before the people of Pakistan been governed by such a band of ungrateful and insensitive leaders as now.
At this moment I am acutely reminded of two fables. One is mentioned by Stephen R. Covey, the author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, and the other is a short story written by Prem Chand in 1935. Both will elucidate better than what I had been trying hard to express so far.
Describing the seventh habit of renewal and continual improvement Stephen Covey describes the fable of the goose and the golden egg. A poor farmer’s goose began laying a solid gold egg every day, and the farmer soon became rich. He also became greedy and figured that the goose must have many golden eggs within her. In order to obtain all the eggs immediately, he killed the goose. Upon cutting it open he discovered that it was not full of golden eggs. The lesson he draws from this fable is that if one attempts to maximize immediate production with no regard to the production capability, the capability will be lost.
The PPP government got fired erstwhile two times on the charges of corruption. One will not be surprised if it gets fired again on the same charges. The poor people of Pakistan can be easily equated with the goose of the fable that had been laying quite assiduously a golden egg of power for it. The main leadership of PPP can be likened to the greedy farmer. Each time it laid a golden egg for the PPP government, and brought it into power, it never felt any moral compunction to pay them back, by serving them better, by taking care of them for maximum production capability. Like the foolish and greedy farmer of the story, its leaders, instead, killed the very goose of the people.
The second story that further best illustrates the theme of this article is enshrined in Prem Chand’s masterpiece, “The Kufin”, or The Shroud published first time in 1935.
“Gaissu and Madhu were two father and son. Madhu’s wife, Budhia, had been crying all night due to child-birth pain, but these two did nothing to find some relief for her. Instead, they sat all night in front a fire outside their hut and roasted potatoes. None dared to leave the place and go inside and inquire how she was doing, fearing lest the other should eat up the rest of the potatoes.
“Both Gaissu and Madhu were known for their laziness. One thing they both hated most was work. They also had some other bad habits. Both would not mind stealing; both would not keep a promise; both were extremely good at tailoring excuses. When Madhu, the son, showed concern that there was not a single bit of thing in the hut like a piece of ‘Gur, Sund, or even oil’, in case a baby was born, the father, Gaissu, consoled him by saying, ‘Do not worry, if Bhagwan wished, and a baby-boy was born, these very people who do not want to give us anything, would on their own call us and give money to us. It had happened so nine times in his case till his wife died, and it would happen again”.
Thus, talking about who had fed them best in the past, and eating the hot, roasted potatoes, and in as much as they could, they both stretched themselves around the warm, soothing ambers, till they went to sleep. In the morning Madhu went into the hut finally to find out what was born, and how his wife, Budhia, was doing. He found her cold, stiff and dead. Sometime during the night, she in great pain had expired. He began raising great hue and cry in lamentation. Both of them then went to the local landlord to seek some financial help in order to arrange for her cremation. The landlord knew them well. He first cursed them, but then gave them two rupees. Once he did that, the rest of the villagers followed suit. Soon Gaissu and Madhu had a handsome amount of five rupees in their hand.
Both immediately started for the town to buy some wood and shroud, Kufin, for the dead. Wood, they thought, they would manage to collect locally. On the way they also began thinking about the ritual of using Kufins and on the uselessness of wrapping the dead in a shroud. “A Kufin does not go with the dead; it also gets burned; only the soul goes to Bhagwan; by the time we reach home it would get dark and who would mind seeing a Kuffin in the darkness” .Thoughts like these began crowding their minds. In short, and much to their own convenience, they, somehow, found themselves standing in front of a liquor shop. Both read each others intentions well. “But what will the people say if we did not bring any Kufin (shroud) for her”, finally said Madhu. “Don’t worry on that account. People will bring a better one than we can even think of”. First they drank; then they bought sweet-meats and “Kajories”, and then ate them to their fill. Even gave some of the left-over to a beggar. Both thanked the deceased, Budhia, for serving them well - both when she was alive; and even better when she was dead. But Madhu’s grief was heart-wrenching. It would not dissipate. The compassionate father, Gaissu, consoled his aggrieved son by saying, “Why are you bemoaning. Be happy; she is relieved of ‘Mia-jaal’, the material world. She was a Bhagwan, fortunate, that she succeeded in breaking off with the ‘Mia-mao’, the material world so soon.”
I leave it for the readers to figure out who in the story is Budhia and who gets represented by Gaissu and Madhu. It is not much of a puzzle.
