Pakistan: A Country where Illusions Thrive -2
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA
“Prior to the French Revolution, a man served fifty years in prison for whistling at Queen Marie ‘Antoinette. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so surprised when she found the peasants revolting, or why she was being beheaded”.
A Massachusetts soldier in the Civil War, observing a bird hulling (separating) the rice from the husk, learned this art, and invented the famous Hulling Machine which revolutionized the rice business. A simple noble or heroic act of one man has often rescued a nation. The Quaid-i-Azam did that; Lincoln did that. Even a humble cricket once saved a ship from wrecking which was on a military mission to South America. The commanding officer and the soldiers went to sleep, trusting that the watchman was awake. Had it not been for a tiny cricket which a soldier out of fun had brought on board, and which on smelling land nearby broke the long silence through its shrill notes, warning all to wake up on time to save the ship from dashing against a rock. Where is Pakistan’s tiny cricket, or its hulling bird? Well, they are there, in fact, they have always been there, only if someone could have the eyes to see them, and the mind to think about what was happening around.
President Zardari, (some say because his Peer wished so), chose to stay in Karachi, and the clueless PM did not know what to do; the ministers and the members of the Parliament deliberately stayed away till Dr Tahir ul Qadri had firmly settled in Islamabad. Basically, it all happened like it happens in a game of musical chairs. Here Dr Qadri was the ball. Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa in her article, “A Closer Look at Qadri Thesis”, contends that “everyone wants a piece of him”. The establishment wanted him to derail democracy; MQM to tap into the Barelvis element, and to blunt the Jihadis; PML (N) to humble the PPP government, and to force it to announce the date of elections; and the PPP to embarrass the Punjab government. Like a game of chess, they all made their vicious movements, while Qadri kept advancing. There were others like PTI, and PML (Q), who chose to play safe by remaining indecisive. I believe he is a factor to reckon with. Dr Qadri has registered himself well, and that is one reason that all the hopefuls are now engaged in the game of mud-slinging.
Martin Luther once said, “We all have gods, it is just a question of which ones. And in American society our gods are celebrities. Religious belief and practice are commonly transferred to the adoration of celebrities. Our culture builds temples to celebrities the way Romans did for divine emperors, ancestors, and household gods. We are a de facto polytheistic society. We engage in the same kind of primitive beliefs as older polytheistic cultures. In celebrity culture, the object is to get as close as possible to the celebrity. Relics of celebrities are coveted as magical talismans…,” quotes Chris Hedges in his book, “Empire of Illusion”. Alas, Pakistan, a country of the Quaid, and of 180 million people, has become a Jerry Springer Show, in which the politicians expect from their followers to shout nothing else but “Jeeeeerrrrryyyy”. Dr. Tahir Ul Qadri may be wrong in the way he put forward his demands, and which came too late and in too threatening a tone. But the content of his demands has been genuine as it echoed the voice of the people in a clear and loud manner right in front of the Parliament House and the Supreme Court.
What is there for Pakistan and Bangladesh to celebrate? The Economist says it is the survival of democracy for five years for the first time. Well! It is just like asking a cancer patient to cut the cake of celebration because he has survived for five years. To be wily and to be manipulative can be good as it had been in the case of Abraham Lincoln, who brought, cajoled , coerced and even bribed those members of the Parliament who were not willing to vote for the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, freeing the Slaves. His aim was noble and sublime. His purity and unselfishness was his highest authority. “If I have succeeded, it is only as anyone of you can succeed merely because I have tried to do my duty as I saw it in my home and in my business and as a citizen… there is no great secret about success. It is just a natural, persistent exercise of the commoner’s every day quality”.
Lincoln succeeded because he exercised the humblest, every day rural, rustic virtues. He was a man, and his manliness lay, not in arrogance, but in humility, in being straight-forward, and in being down to earth honest. But he had the biggest hunger too, which being to be somebody so that he could help all, be it even a pig stuck in the mire, or a poor widow in trouble or a farmer who needed a piece of advice”, writes Orison Swett Marden in his wonderful book, “Pushing to The Front.” These are Islamic values which he practiced and applied. Our leadership consists of people who hold the Qur’an on their heads, and then sing their own praises. One, Mr. Faisal Abidi, a motor-mouthed Senator, on a question of differing with his leader, President Zardari, was heard using the phrase, “Naooz o Billah” a term used by Muslims exclusively in regard to Allah Subhan o Talla and His Noble Prophet(s).
Governance in Pakistan is not a child’s play. It is the hardest country to govern. Pakistan is in urgent need of a man who has some manliness besides being a leader. When Garfield as a boy was asked, “What do you want to be?” His answer was, “First of all, I must make myself a man. If I do not succeed in that, I can succeed in nothing”. A clever fox often fails where a hedgehog succeeds because it has the tenacity, patience, consistency, singleness of aim, and a rocky confidence to defend itself. The hoards of politicians that saunter Pakistan are not leaders. Jim Collins is right when he says, “We cannot predict the future, but we can create it”. They just cannot rise above their own egos and their hunger for money.
Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott both attempted to reach the South Pole. Both confronted similar geographical and environmental conditions. Amundsen became the conqueror, and Scott a loser. Both were almost of the same age ( 39 and 43); both were experienced. The temperature for both was the same, below 20 degrees of the freezing point; both had no means of modern communication, both had no access to such things as cell phones, or satellite tents, etc. The difference lay in their training and in their attitudes to approach a challenge. Leadership is all about these three - practical training, realistic attitude, and preparation for the worst.
Amundsen believed, “Victory awaits him who has everything in order… defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time”. He trained his body and he learned from practical experience as to what actually works. He spent time with the Eskimos who had thousands of years experience of living in ice; he learned how Eskimos used dogs to pull sledges; he learned by observing how Eskimos never hurried, and why they moved all the time steadily and slowly, avoiding excessive sweat that could turn into ice in the sub-zero temperatures; he learned why Eskimos wore loose fitting clothes, (to help the sweat evaporate), and he learned why Eskimos used dogs instead of ponies because dogs have no body pores and they breathe through their mouth. His philosophy was, “You don’t wait until you are caught in an unexpected storm to discover that you need more strength and endurance. You don’t wait until you are ship-wrecked to determine if you can eat raw dolphins”. He even learned how to feed the weak dogs to the strong dogs. That is called preparation. Pakistan needs such leaders. Governing Pakistan demands vision, preparation and leadership as if it were going to the South Pole. Tried and rotten politicians are just not fit for the job.
Scott on the contrary was different. He should have trained like a maniac, but he did not. He did not go with the Eskimos; he did not learn why the Eskimos prefer dogs to ponies and he chose ponies instead of dogs because they were faster. Ponies sweat on their skins, so they became encased in the ice sheets when tethered, and also ponies do not often eat their own meat.
People are not successful because they are luckier or are more creative, visionary and charismatic, blessed, risk-taking, ambitious, and heroic - the usual accessories of a leader. Those who succeed, they often have three qualities in them, says Jim Collins. They are fanatically disciplined, like our Quaid-i-Azam was; they are empirically creative, which means they learn from concrete examples. In moments of crisis they do not look towards the dead like most people do (PPP leadership is well versed in this art), or to the authority figures, (Abba Jee Khethy Ao… Dad! where are you?),but to their own intuitive clues, and to their fund of readiness and preparation that guide them how to proceed in such times of uncertainty, and last, they are the people who are somewhat paranoid too. They often fear for the unexpected disasters, and hence they always remain vigilant, ready, and they keep preparing themselves for the unexpected events.
Our next door India, in recent times, produced some glaring examples of individuals who changed the fate of people by dint of their leadership. The first one who pops up in mind is Mr T.N. Sessan, India’s 10 th Election Commissioner - 1990-1996. He had the audacity to confront and curse the politicians, reminding them, “Make a list of 200 political leaders of the central government, the national parliament and the state parliaments. Are you able to find one single person on this list to whom you can go for help?”… today honesty and integrity are banned from public life”Politicians called him an Al- Sessan Dog. But he was more like a Turtle which does not loosen its grip even if its head is cut off. He was an IAS officer, known for his integrity, honesty and unbending attitude”. “What prevented you from yielding in your career as a bureaucrat?, asked an interviewer. His answer was interesting. “Five days after joining my first posting as a sub-collector of Dindigul, I was travelling with the minister in his car, and was dropped off in the middle of the road - where I stood for 100 minutes when it was 45C. All this because the village officer I took action against was the husband of the Tehsil Officer, who belonged to the Congress Party”. He cleaned up the Indian election system in a way that even a sweeper would not clean your front yard. He did not even let the winning parliamentarians take the oath, unless they had produced a clean-up slip by removing all the graffiti from the walls of the city, and had submitted the full details of the expenditure accrued on the elections.
“My six years as CEC have been the toughest times of my life. Narasimha Rao as PM offered me the post of governor, then, ambassador. But I have resisted temptations. I read the Gita every day… I was transferred from my post of Cabinet Secretary in charge of then PM Rajiv Gandhi’s personal security, to the unnecessary 12 th man in Hedge’s Planning Commission team`… one time he was transferred perhaps 6 times in one day between 10 am and 6 pm.” Will our Chief Election Commissioner be able to do all this in the 2013 elections? Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim has the will and character, only if his age and energy do not fail him.
Nitish Kumar as Chief Minister of Bihar in recent times turned this thug state, Bihar, into a model state of India. He had performed a similar feat as Railways Minister. He resigned from that post just because of one railway accident. All love him except the 70,000 criminals he nabbed and then put in jail. Ransom, thuggery, kidnapping and cheating were the chief characteristics of this biggest state. It was almost a written off state. Doctors, teachers and businessmen, all preferred to work outside their own state. Regionalism, religion, caste and the coalition- curse, all combined to earn Bihar the name it carried. Nitish through courage, fairness and transparency transformed it within years. He targeted the female population and empowered them. He went after the powerful and most corrupt people who indulged in criminal acts or who supervised such acts. He did not just stay contended with their arrests, but he brought them to open trials, by providing security to the witnesses.
He forced all civil servants to declare their assets, and then he posted them on the state’s website; he improved the economy, lifting it from a dismal 2% and bringing it to 11% in 2005-2009, and in 2011-12 to 14%. Bihar has 40,000 villages, and he aimed to pave them all. He improved the infrastructure, built roads and schools. He provided bicycles to the middle school girls, and meals in schools. He recruited 150,000 teachers, 50% more than the next door UP. Women overwhelmingly voted for him. He is being touted for the highest post in India, the future PM because he is fair, secular-minded, and faultlessly honest. When his wife died, hardly anybody knew that she existed. He has one son, but hardly anybody knows him. That is called winning hearts through performance, not through power.
And last, the Civil Servants. What Dr Tahir ul Qadir missed in his big March, was the case of the civil servants. They basically are the backbone of the country because virtually they run the show. Senior Bhutto deflated them by taking out their strength from them. He made them insecure in their jobs, and put them at the mercy of the wily, corrupt, manipulative, and criminal politicians. Now the best minds have become the docile, maimed and spineless personal servants of these politicians.
One Civil Servant in India, Mr. S. R Rao as Municipal Commissioner of Surat, which then was declared by Indian standards as the dirtiest and filthiest city, succeeded in transforming it into a model city. In 1994, plague broke out in Surat. Constant rains for two months, filth and corrupt bureaucracy resulted in the death of hundreds of cattle. Dengue fever killed the rest. 50% of population had no access to piped water, and 70% had no sewerage system. On transfer, when Mr. Rao in 1995 walked into the city dressed in simple blue denim trousers and canvas shoes, with a cigarette in his mouth, he introduced himself thus, “I am S. R. Rao.” Hardly anybody took notice of him. He started his job by raiding eateries, roadside haunts, fast-food shops, sweetmeat shops to show what the people were eating. Then he walked into the filthiest slums, encouraged people to clean up their surroundings, told the civic sweepers what to do and included himself in the effort; he got the officials engaged in cleaning the city.
Vested interests had made encroachments all over the city in connivance with the politicians and municipal officials an accepted fact of life. 40% of the city population consisted of emigrants and lived in slums. Without being deterred by any one, he cleaned them all, and gave the people of the city a sense of cleanliness. And they saw the difference. When a local MLA of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly brandished his licensed revolver while his henchmen threatened the civil team, which was demolishing some illegal constructions, Rao rushed to the spot and ordered the MLA to come out and meet him. In front of hundreds of onlookers, the arrogant politician came out flaunting his revolver, and he fired it in the air. Rao kept his cool and gave the MLA a resounding slap on his face. He then ordered his men to continue with the demolition while the police arrested the MLA. Now after Chundighar, which is just like Islamabad, Surat is the neatest, cleanest city. When he left, cleanliness had become the order of the day. Garbage bins got placed all over the city. He introduced a unique night-cleaning system. Every street and corner was to be scrubbed at night and garbage bins cleared so that the Suratis awoke to a clean city each morning. His predecessors still remember him as a person who set the system in place.
Lastly, why everyone in India is scared of Mr Arvind Kejriwal?. He had been an ex-Revenue Service man. He has made his mission to expose all the big wigs without being deterred by anyone. He and his followers wear the Gandhi caps, emblazoned on their chests, “Main Aam Aadmi Hoon.” I am a common man. This bespectacled man exposed none else but Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Sonia Gandhi on October 5, 2012; then on October 10, he seized an opportunity to corner Union Law Minister and the current Foreign Minister, Mr. Salman Khurshid about some financial irregularities in a Trust for the disabled which was chaired by him. On October 17, he targeted BJP President Nitin Godkari. His fearlessness has inspired other IAS officers like Ashok Khemka, to expose the rot in government.
Mr. Kejriwal exhorts other bureaucrats to join him in his crusade. Why these senior officers are turning into reformists? The reason is obvious. They had been very honest and straightforward, and hence they fear nothing. “Politicians know there is no way to silence us. We cannot be bought. And we have thick skins that can deflect all the mud they are trying to fling at us. As Anna Hazare taught us, one of the five principles of public life is that you must have the strength to swallow insults (apmaan peene ki shakti).” Mr. Kejriwal, a former Indian Revenue Service IRS officer, is not as charismatic as Anna Hazare is, nor is he as good an orator as other such people are. His uniqueness is enshrined in his “ordinariness”. Mr. Yogendra Yadav, political scientist and an undeclared ideologue of Team Kejriwal, is apprecitative of his “energy, the capacity to cut through the clutter, ability to vibe with ordinary people, and his absolute integrity”.
I wish Dr Tahir ul Qadri had emphasized the annulment of or amendment in the Civil Service Act of 1973, liberating the bureaucrats from the fear of losing their jobs and their perks. The people of the country pay for them, but they appear to be working for the corrupt and the powerful people. And, by the way, where are the members of Pakistan’s cream service? Who castrated them, depriving them of their manliness? What happened to their integrity, and to their pride in being the best? The above cited examples can be found in the civil servants of Pakistan as well, but they are either not duly highlighted or they are too rare. The reality is that they stand intimidated, scared, and neglected because the media too is tilted and biased against them. Why does the media not propagate this muted voice of the best minds, and the agony enshrined in it, the voice of the most important people who practically run the country?
Pakistan is passing through the same phase which America passed through during the time of the Civil War of 1861-1865. Everything is at stake. David Von Drehl, in his book, “Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year”, cites an example of how everyone pulled Abraham Lincoln from all directions. In those days one Mr. Blondin had become very famous for his crossing the Niagara Falls on a tight rope. He had done a series of crossings over the roaring water, on a wheelbarrow, stopping in the middle to cook an omelet, and even carrying his manager on his back. Lincoln had visited Niagara Falls in 1848. Lincoln used the analogy of Bondin’s crossing the Niagara Falls in such a situation.
“Suppose that all the material values in this great country of ours, from the Atlantic to the Pacific - its wealth, its prosperity, its achievements in the present and, its hope for the future - could all have been concentrated and given to Blondin to carry over that awful crossing”. Suppose “you had been standing upon the shore as he was going over, as he was carefully feeling his way along and balancing his pole with all his most delicate skill over the thundering cataract? Would have shouted at him, “Blondin, a step to the right!, “Blondin a step to the left”, or would you have stood there speechless and held your breath and prayed to the Almighty to guide and help him safety through the trial.” I leave it to the imagination of the readers to see the relevance of this analogy with relation to Pakistan.
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