Pandemic Vs Politics
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
One could bet with certainty that Imran Khan is learning the hard way the true meaning of the old adage: uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
The Covid-19 pandemic is only the latest in the series of challenges that IK has faced since donning the mantle of Pakistan’s political leadership in August, 2018. But, to use a cricket analogy befitting the legendary Kaptan,this pandemic challenge is like facing a beamer or bouncer on a very sticky wicket.
Of course, the pandemic challenge to a country like Pakistan—mired in all sorts of problems, not least of which is a moribund economy—is huge; and saying so is only an under-statement. It’s not only huge but could also be grave, given the abysmal state of the country’s rickety and barely-functional health-care system. Pakistan is, to the discredit of its governance, among those countries of the world that allocate only pittance for its public health system.
Even in the league of developing countries of the world, it has very low ranking. Amongst the South Asian group of countries, Pakistan spends much lower than India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh on its healthcare system.
So, those leading Pakistan—or, to be precise, those in the vanguard of fighting the global scourge of Corona—should thank their stars that the contagion hasn’t quite hit Pakistan with a ferocity initially feared. As of the writing of these lines, the tally of those testing positive for the virus stands at around 22,000. The fatality count has gone past the 500 mark (it’s 525, to be precise) and the number of those who have recovered is more than 5,800. That works out to a low 2.3 percent mortality rate—much lower than in Europe or the US. The recovery ratio in Pakistan’s case is more than 26 percent, again higher than in most countries afflicted with this unwelcome scourge.
Imran’s government’s economic constraints are no secret to anyone. However, in spite of it, Imran has boldly come up with his Ahsas program to relieve the burden of lost wages and lost employment for the most needed in Pakistan. On the face of it, the program allocates a whopping 1.25 trillion rupees to throw a life line, under most trying circumstances, to more than 12.5 million poor families hardest hit by the pandemic. A monthly cash stipend of Rs 12,000 may seem minuscule when matched against the rising curve of essential commodities and consumables in the country’s inflation-prone economy. However, it’s better than nothing. It’s much better than the cash doled out to the most indigent in neighboring India, BD or Sri Lanka.
Imran’s cash relief package has come in lock-step with his gamble on preferring what has been christened by his pandemic-fighting team as ‘smart lockdown’ over a total lockdown. It makes a lot of sense, given the daunting ground-realities of Pakistan’s hobbled economy. Even in affluent economies of the world, a total lockdown is no better than a kiss of death. Many affluent Western countries are learning that to their peril. One could well imagine the death-knell a total lockdown could sound for millions in Pakistan.
However, it’s on the business or debate of which is better warranted to tackle the blight of Coronavirus that Imran has run into the brick wall of stout opposition from those holding power in the province of Sindh.
Common sense dictates that in the stifling embrace of a pandemic as grave as Covid-19, Pakistani politicians should give a pass to their infuriating instinct of opposition for the sake of opposition. IK’s government has been saddled with the opposition parties’ innate and congenital resistance to all and every one of its moves. But one would still have hoped that the pandemic (could there be anything more serious or challenging) should effect a change in the calculus. However, that has turned out to be a pious false hope—a pipe dream, to use a cliché.
Not relenting in the perennial battle of nerves is the order of the day with the People’s Party government ruling the roost in Sindh. As every pundit is aware of it, Sindh has been in thrall to the People’s Party for more than 12 years. But in all this period the Sindh government has served only the interest of Asif Ali Zardari, PPP’s godfather since the time of BB’s unfortunate demise in December, 2007, and has cared two-hoots for the interests and welfare of the people of Sindh. It’s a government that serves at the pleasure of Pakistan’s most notorious politician with a world-wide fame in the dubious honor list of corrupt politicians.
The master-Klaptocrat Zardari had—disingenuously, of course—piloted with all his guile and cunning the passage of the 18 th Amendment in the Pakistan Constitution while he was holding the country to ransom as its president from 2008 to 2013. Zardari’s agenda was Sindh-specific, where he was sure his PPP, totally at his mercy and command, will hold on to power for as long as possible. The Waderashahi of Sindh has a lock on the rural representation of the province, given their chokehold over a largely illiterate people.
Zardari got full support from the Punjab leadership, then hogged by the Shareefs. PML-N had its own lock on power in the largest province of Pakistan and the two Shareef brothers thought their supremacy in its governance would remain unchallenged for a long time to come.
This unholy confluence of political agendas of the two most brazenly corrupt political clans was at the core of the 18 th Amendment which, literally, dealt a knock-out blow to the center in Pakistan’s federation. It took away subjects like health care and education from the centerand deposited them into the lap of the provinces. No wonder Pakistan’s health care system has further deteriorated since the passage of the notorious 18 thAmendment. As Islamabad is so entangled with the government of Sindh—and the two have locked horns—over the issue of lockdown. Islamabad believes in the efficacy of a ‘smart lockdown’ while Sindh has virtually paralyzed Karachi with a suffocating, all-pervasive, lockdown.
The ongoing battle of nerves between Karachi and Islamabad is a pointer to the paralysis that the 18 thAmendment has induced in the working of the federal system. It has not only drained resources from the center—which opens up a whole new debate of why the center should be dependent on the provinces, instead of it being the other way round—but is cramping its much-needed initiative to combat the pandemic according to Pakistan’s ground realities.
The ground reality is—much as those arrayed against Imran may dispute it purely for politicking—that Pakistan can’t afford a long, suffocating and paralyzing lockdown. Just look at India where Modi’s knee-jerk total lockdown has spelled disaster and inflicted immense suffering for the teeming hundreds of millions of poor people.
Karachi is the economic motor and heart of Pakistan. Shutting it down the way CM Murad Ali Shah—a minion of Zardari—has over the past more than a month has ulterior motives writ large over it. The move is calculated to cripple Karachi, which, in turn, could deal—if it hasn’t already—a devastating blow to Pakistan’s economy and its industrial fortunes. Zardari is using his loyal servants in the Sindh government to sabotage Imran’s rule and subvert Pakistan with the sole intent to raise the stakes against Imran Khan. It’s a move conceived in malevolence and is aimed at triggering an economic setback that may take years for the country to undo.
In the midst of all the horror the pandemic has kicked up, Sindh has also raised an alarm that the PTI government is planning to revisit the 18 thAmendment. Not just that, but a piddling, upstart politician like Bilawal Bhutto has had the guts to wield the old, hackneyed, Sindh card and shed crocodile tears over the ‘threat’ to Sindhi rights. It’s surprising, to say the least, that Sindh politicians should be crying wolf over a non-issue while there’s no move, as yet, from Islamabad to reopen the thorny issue of the 18 thAmendment.
There’s, of course, need to review and revisit the impugned 18 th Amendment in the light of these developments. The need couldn’t be more urgent. But any review should await the ending of the pandemic, which has assumed a priority over every other thing.
The 18 th Amendment is an anomaly of a devious sort. It has weakened the center against the universal trend where in every federation the center gradually acquires powers over the federating units. Zardari and Nawaz Shareef, no friends of Pakistan got together in a criminal conspiracy to weaken the center which, in ultimate analysis threatens Pakistan’s defense preparedness against a revanchist and fascist India.
There’s, in fact, need to revisit the entire issue of what suits Pakistan’s national needs and priorities: the current federal system or the presidential system which worked with great efficiency under Ayub Khan. Overall progress recorded in the ten years of Ayub’s rule has never been bettered or surpassed. ZAB, purposely and mischievously, strived to undo much of Ayub era’s material progress. ZAB, of course, did the ultimate damage of breaking up the united Pakistan bequeathed by its founders.
The post-Covid-19 Pakistan, under IK, should be making a serious attempt to sort out these fundamental issues of governance in the light of experience gained during its currency. Petty-minded politicians—such as those holding Sindh under their siege at Zardari’s behest—and a mafia of equally corrupt news anchors and publishing houses, seem guided only by their parochial agenda to overthrow IK.
The pandemic has embarked Imran Khan on a learning curve of its own; he should be gleaning useful inferences from how his adversaries have stuck to their shenanigans with no thought given to the travails and sufferings of the people of Pakistan under the contagion’s assault.
The whole episode sheds a light on the priorities and vested interests of a class of politicians, blithely abetted by a myopic segment of nihilistic news media; they would still give primacy to political wrangling and squabbling. Their order of the day still focuses on short-term gains in total disregard of the epic battle to contain the pandemic. In the game of thrones, the fight against the scourge of the pandemic takes only the back bench, as far as they are concerned.
The old Greeks were so right in their belief that whom gods wished to destroy, they turned them mad, first.
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
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