Why is Pakistan’s worsening and chaotic national scene reminding me so much, these days, of tales from Greek mythology that I can quite well do without in normal circumstances?
There was this — as history tells us — not-so-beautiful Athenian princess (and, on top of it, she was a married woman) whose abduction, or elopement, to the rival Troy launched a thousand ships and unleashed one of the bloodiest sagas of ancient times.
But I was lost for an answer to the question that had been agitating my mind since the odd-couple of Imran Khan and Tahir-ul-Qadri unleashed thousands of their followers and aficionados against the national capital, the city of Islamabad. The question was who had given such phenomenal courage and gumption to the duo to take on the legitimate and constitutional government of Nawaz Sharif right at the center of his power? It was, come to think of it, akin to bearding the lion (and this one happened to be known as the Lion of Punjab) in his den.
I must thank Javed Hashmi, the venerable Makhdoom from Multan, for lifting for me — and so many others like me — the cover of fog that was clearly standing between my perception of the unfolding situation and the reality behind it. His no-holds-barred expose of why and how Imran — held in near-iconic esteem by the intelligentsia of Pakistan as perhaps the last hope for redemption of Pakistan’s Byzantine politics — ventured into aligning his forces with a shady preacher-cum-politico like Tahir-ul-Qadri.
Those of us who have followed and tried to understand Pakistan’s intriguing political culture know who Javed Hashmi is and what credentials he carries.
Hashmi, in my book, is perhaps the most principled of Pakistani politicians, who has paid a heavy price for his moral integrity. He was humiliated, tortured and jailed for seven years by that cavalier Pakistani Bonaparte, Pervez Musharraf, for daring to remind the Khakis of their constitutional obligation to serve the state and not own and lord over it.
Hashmi’s political pedigree was Pakistan Muslim League and he served Nawaz loyally until he got fed up with the royal pretensions of the Mian from Raiwind and linked up with Imran Khan’s PTI because he found its platform closer to his vision of a democratic Pakistan. All this is necessary to understand that Hashmi is neither an upstart nor a gold-digger — as most of those sycophants surrounding Imran credibly are.
Hashmi — as he made a clean breast of his agony before the media on September 1 — was aghast when his party chief, Imran Khan, surprised many of his close confidants, like Hashmi, by rallying his forces to join the demagogue, Tahir-ul-Qadri’s aficionados in storming the off-limits Red Zone of Islamabad in violation of their written agreement with the government before they were allowed into Islamabad.
As per Hashmi’s version of the macabre episode, Imran tried to smooth his cohorts’ ruffled feathers by confiding to them that the Khakis wanted it this way and it was part of the script prepared for them. Hashmi says Imran ignored all protestations of his ‘kitchen cabinet’ to the contrary and said, cockily, that it was all part of the scripted scenario and that fresh elections had been ordained (by power-that-be?) for end of August/early September.
Most ominously for our vaulted high judiciary, Imran also claimed that the newly installed Chief Justice, who succeeded Justice Gilani, was also on board. Let the new CJ come clean, publicly, on this hideous insinuation if his hands are not soiled.
So, that’s how the proverbial cat has leapt out of the bag and taken care of all that mist of mystery that had been hanging over so many minds engaged in finding a clue to Imran’s bizarre decision to hitch his wagon with the fire-brand Qadri. The notorious cleric’s agenda, incidentally, had been clear to every perceptive mind from the moment he landed on Pakistan’s soil after years of hibernation in Canada. His rhetoric-fueled mission was a single-item agenda: to spread anarchy in Pakistan and de-stabilize the elected government to pave the way for his mentors to take over.
Of course, it had been crystal clear to all observers of the anarchic scene in Pakistan that both leaders, Imran of PTI and Qadri of PAT, had a personal axe to grind against Nawaz. But Imran had a more plausible logic for launching his crusade to get rid of Nawaz, who had been accused by him, relentlessly, of having ‘stolen’ the 2013 general election. Qadri, on the other hand, had a vacuous alibi: he wanted to uproot the entire system, warts-and-all, to build a new Pakistan from scratch in his own convoluted image.
Imran had the sagacity — notwithstanding his increasingly fiery and inane rhetoric matching that of Qadri’s — to see through Qadri’s game. He decided not to coalesce with the crafty juggler from Canada and refused to march in tandem with him to bring down the citadel of Nawaz in Islamabad. That was fair and judicious until the Kaptan went off his rocker and fell in behind Qadri’s nefarious scheme to breach the security of the Red Zone. The duo has finally moved in together on the ramparts of Imran’s container-citadel.
Imran’s disastrous solo flight that landed him smack into Qadri’s dubious charade wasn’t a spur of the moment brain-wave, as Hashmi’s candid expose tells us. That Imran, in a huff, has lashed out against Hashmi, too, in the same pungent tongue-lashing that has become his signature tune, lately, is ample evidence that Hashmi didn’t invent the episode. Truth, after all, is a bitter pill to swallow, even for a self-proclaimed moral crusader that Imran has been desperately portraying himself.
Exposing the questionable script that launched hordes of hooligans from PTI and PAT against the august symbols of the State of Pakistan may be an act of daring from a man whose credentials as a genuine crusader of democracy are immaculate. It may have caused a stir—as it no doubt did—in the hearts of ordinary citizens of Pakistan.
A jaded pundit would only be repeating himself—as this one is to his own annoyance—by reminding every student and observer of the ongoing upheaval in Pakistan that the buck, in hat land, stops not at the vaulted National Assembly of Pakistan.
Anyone doubting that need only follow the series of ISPR statements since Islamabad’s siege became effective. GHQ has been ‘advising’ both the government and the protestors to restrain themselves from the use of force. Their ‘advice’ has been brushed aside as inconsequential by the besiegers of Islamabad, while the government finds its hands tied because of the Khakis’ diktat.
What the military command forgets in its obvious hubris, is that the armed forces are part of the federal government and not independent of it. The army is, constitutionally, obligated to carry out the orders of the government in power and not order it to do the Khakis’ bidding.
Islamabad’s security was handed over to the army, back in July this year, by the federal government under Article 245 of the Constitution of Pakistan. It is clearly failing in its primary duty and responsibility to safeguard institutions of state against the invading hordes of PTI and PAT goons.
The army lays claims to protecting every inch of Pakistan territory but stands back on the back-foot to let the mischief-makers tear down the august National Assembly’s gilded fence and invade its precincts. Is that its sense of safeguarding Pakistan’s honor?
Dispensing equal doses of inane advice to the legitimate government and illegal trouble-makers and militants makes no sense. It was a macabre scene that enforcers of law just stood by while hooligans breached the sanctity of PTV headquarters with impunity.
The saga of Islamabad is not over yet. Nawaz may have received a boost of morale from the joint session of the parliament which has come out loudly and vociferously in his favour and in defence of the democratic order. But the oracle of khakis hasn’t spoken the last word; and that matters a lot in the Pakistani equation.
But Imran could still do a lot of good to his tarnished image by remembering the lessons of the siege of Troy. One, the battle saw the end of Hector and Achilles—both of whom thought they were invincible. Two, Troy was destroyed because its denizens were undone by the Trojan horse. Take your own pick; what’s Qadri’s role in the episode? - K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
(The writer is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
