Farrukh K Pitafi's Official Website

As the media struggled to cover the ongoing economic crisis, an interview with the MCB chairman Mian Mohammad Mansha stuck out like a sore thumb. Although he offered views on many policy issues, the observation that fascinated me the most was this: Pakistan’s biggest problem is not corruption; it is incompetence.

Now let us face it. It is easy to dismiss this statement as a stereotypic view of a rich man. After all, is it not how all entitled and affluent people are portrayed in those films and television series? Yelling at their staff for alleged incompetence? Except it is getting harder to dismiss these comments with every passing day.

Before addressing the issue of incompetence, let us pay some attention to how businessmen and traders are portrayed in Urdu literature and, to an extent, the entertainment industry. I think Mushtaq Yusufi has got our number. In his Zarguzasht, he maintains that in Urdu epics, traders and businessmen feature only for one purpose. To get robbed. And that too in a way that your sympathies invariably remain with the robber.

This animus towards the moneyed classes may have any number of deeper roots that need to be explored. Still, Aitzaz Ahsan’s The Indus Saga and The Making of Pakistan makes a valiant effort to explain away conspicuous consumption in the land of the pure when it quotes this saying by Waris Shah:

Khade peeta lahe da, Baki Ahmed Shahe da (Whatever you eat is yours, the rest belongs to Ahmed Shah).

Nations that are repeatedly invaded know what to do with their surpluses. Use them or lose them. Wolf it down or throw it to the wolves. The rich in this paranoid worldview are either hoarders, the complacent, the corrupt or often all three simultaneously. Hard not to dislike or distrust them then. Should it be that way, though? Certainly not. In a merit-based system those who are rewarded should be celebrated, not rebuked. And their suggestions should be welcomed with open arms.

Now we return to the issue of incompetence. You do not need to share my experiences in the public sector to know that something is awry in our work cultures. We demand less, we offer less, we settle for less, we produce less, and the first thing we do when we undertake any serious project is to look for safe exits and ready excuses just in case. With due apologies to Balzac, behind every big failure is a quitter and a truckload of premeditated and elaborate excuses. Again should the things be that way? Certainly not. Unhealthy.

What is the way out? The answer is in two parts: one, the broken reward and punishment system. Human beings run all systems, and they invariably come from the same society. If it is dominated by the incompetent, the first thing such a society does is bulldoze the merit system. How could such a dominant class allow the rise of the competent? Its own existence would be jeopardised otherwise. Consequently, you come across paper pushing and only ritual work in public and private offices. Upward mobility becomes a dream, society obsesses about ideology, not destiny and no one worries about embellishing a Pakistani dream.

The second part is the response of the working class. What are we told is the purpose of our lives? To get a degree, get a job, find a spouse, start a family, support elders, acquire some modest property and get ready to meet our Maker. Not exactly climbing the mountain Everest of ambition. But the more the society learns to shoot for mediocrity, the more elusive those modest goals become. The bottom is always crowded, remember? Gradually, we all settle for whatever we have, never working to enhance our capacity, well within our comfort zones, and blame the fates.

There is another way to approach this problem. In his brilliant 1996 book Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity, Francis Fukuyama takes us to the root of the societal bonds — family. He highlights three types of family — extended family (let’s make it a joint family), nuclear family (parents and dependent children), and single-parent family. While the last one creates enormous problems for individuals, the first type is an engine of inefficiency. In extended families, the critical social capital is blood relations. Family above everything else. That means if you are highly competent and a cousin of yours is not, you will have to put yourself at risk to get them somewhere. Society’s merit system is bound to collapse because family loyalties displace competence and merit. The ideal type is, of course, a sustainable nuclear family where kids leave the nest as soon they come of age in pursuit of work. This means their first loyalty is to their own selves and their work, not inefficient familial links. And they go where work takes them and do not refuse to leave the city or town where their relatives live. This is the most efficient organising principle one can find societally, and that’s precisely why we go to remarkable lengths to reject it by obsessing about our so-called family values. If you really want to know how ineffective those values are, don’t look beyond Chaudhary Afzal Haq titled Ek Punjabi Zamindar Ki Kahani — the tale of a Punjabi landowner. These bonds come into effect when people need something from you, not when you desperately need help.

There is also a way to push yourselves to limits. To make your life count. To make society better. To realise your unrealised potential. And that is by challenging yourself. Push yourself out of your comfort zone. Throw yourself into conversations with better-informed people. At first, you will find yourself out of your depth, but then with increasing demand, will come the enhancement in capacity. In your mind, travel back to your age when your thoughts were unmolested by the harsh realities of life and recall what you wanted to be. Find out if your work is in accordance with your aptitude. If not, ask yourselves how to fix that. Before going to sleep every night, I ask myself four questions: 1) Am I happy? 2) What did I learn today? 3) What did I teach others? 4) What can I do to make my life and of others around me better? When I don’t like the answers I attempt to find appropriate solutions.

In this age of global connectivity, no excuse is good enough. Professionals worldwide are going out of the way to generate content to help you get better at things. If you do not like printed word, audio and visual material is available. And most of it is free. Global opportunities are a click away. All you have to do is look. If we can’t avail of this opportunity, we should know we consciously choose to be part of the problem.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2022.

In their wholly remarkable book The narrow corridor, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson bring up a Congolese joke. It is said that since its independence from Belgium Congo has had six constitutions. But they all have one thing in common — Article 15. And it reads Débrouillez-vous (Fend for yourself). Obviously, it is a joke and there is no such article in the Congolese constitution.

Nor does such an article appear in the Pakistani constitution. In ours, Article 15 pertains to the freedom of movement, etc. But you will agree with me that the inherent sense of abandonment in the given joke feels increasingly germane to our harsh realities. From law and order to the economic exigencies you are bound to feel at bay when the tragedy befalls. All alone and without a clue. The state that was supposed to hold your hand and guide you through all thick and thin seems to have developed troubles of its own and is too busy to care.

I have said it elsewhere too and will say it again. If you create a linear regression model of the state of Pakistan’s capacity to offer good governance from 1947 to this day it would be a solid and consistent downward slide. Not a downward-facing dog for yoga enthusiasts but a slide that keeps descending from the start to finish. That doesn’t mean (forgive the double negative), that the government never had the capacity to tackle the needs of its citizenry. It did at the start. When there were more opportunities, less population and liabilities, and highly trained state machinery. But it has been steadily declining. And if you concentrate you might be able to hear it declining further as you read these lines. That is why senior leaders like former prime minister Imran Khan can be heard often eulogising the sixties. Because the state was still more unencumbered. But the fact that the decisions made then invariably led to today is often missed by our national discourse. Can’t be good decisions, can they? Ayesha Jalal in her book, The struggle for Pakistan, brilliantly documents how every decision from tax collection to resource allocation was killing the federation at that time. Nostalgia just plays strange tricks on our minds.

But this consistent weakening of the state conjures up the image of an ailing father who once enjoyed great power and prestige among you but is now ineffectual and in many ways helpless. This image, I grant you, is utterly soul-crushing. Even if you did not agree with many of his decisions a father is a father.

When Covid struck Pakistan and people you knew started dying this helplessness could not be more palpable. To our horror, we learned that there were only a few thousand ventilators for a population of hundreds of millions. Then the sudden spike in the prices of life-saving drugs and implements further revealed the hapless state of affairs in the Islamic Republic. Given that it was Donald Trump’s time in America who would casually toss around names of random medicines as the potential cure of Covid one had to pray that he wouldn’t name any medicine one regularly used or else the rackets in our dear society would either make them extinct or cost-prohibitive. The state, of course, for a long time was no show. Naturally, things changed the day the army was mobilised and we later witnessed the creation of NCOC which did its job really well.

Another case study would be the provision of safe drinking water. And the collection of sewage. In these two departments like many others, the state just seems to have given up. I understand that this is a large territory to cover and being a libertarian I do not believe in big government. But shouldn’t the government as a regulator introduce policies and frameworks to ensure investment in such sectors where it can improve the living standards? Likewise, public transport. Cities are supposed to have the most powerful pull for such projects and even there we could not witness ample breakthroughs. In the rural parts with sparsely populated regions trains are supposed to cater to the needs. But that element is also rapidly decaying. So, in the end, what is the state saying? Fend for yourself. And this message is problematic because as a post-colonial economy that grew like wild shrubs a key component is missing — imagination. Because of that the investors and the moneyed classes are prone to the attacks of the herd instinct. Ergo so much investment in probably one of the few most inefficient sectors — real estate — which hardly creates any jobs or delivers useful goods and services to the consumers.

Mind you this trend is not unique to this nation in the region. In India, the common man was abandoned long ago even as the state made all the necessary noises about socialism. A road trip that I took from New Delhi to Agra a decade ago revealed to me that shining or incredible India’s good governance disappeared 30 miles outside the union capital. But even then India has done a fairly decent job of ensuring that its Panchayati (local government) system is there to cater to the needs at the grassroots level, unlike Pakistan where the absence of this tier of the elected government and the presence of a centralised unrepresentative bureaucracy gives the system shape of a proto-colonial set-up.

So what do you do when the state has no capacity and the market has no sense? In his book, The third pillar: how markets and the state leave the community behind, former Indian RBI chief, former IMF chief economist, and the Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Raghuram Rajan proposes community as the third pillar of the society. Sadly, the sense of community in our dear nation is also trapped in a downward spiral. Here and there when it exists it moves mountains. The excellent work done by the Aga Khan Foundation in the northern parts of the country is an impressive example. But elsewhere the absence of such miracles proves that they are exceptions, not a rule.

These woes are further exacerbated by the recent tough economic decisions that the state was forced to take due to the IMF’s insistence. While these steps were critical to avoid default, to the working class they spell doom. While the rich may survive it without much trouble and the state introduces targeted subsidies for the poor the middle class that has not seen any serious increase in income is already feeling the heat.

And in the middle of all this, the reaction of our ruling elite and the political class? One video by the name of coffin dance comes to mind. Look it up. Until something changes, Article 15 it is then.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2022.

It is a useful art. Contrition, guilt, loss, grief, and shame are all silent killers. This art is important right now because smoke is billowing from our federal capital. I believe it was Mohsin Naqvi who in one of his verses told us about a mother who saved her son’s life from the cold by burning his wooden tablet and books. But there was no existential risk involved in Islamabad. We heard explanations. But none informed us that any life was at risk.

I don’t mean to understate the ordeal faced by the protesters in Islamabad. Particularly little kids whose only crime was to be born in a household whose heads valued their political views more than the lives of their children. This by the way should’ve been illegal. Political activism needs consent. You cannot legally give consent before you turn eighteen and are an adult in the eyes of the law. Parents who cannot understand this subtle nuance should be educated by the state.

Please do not think for a moment that this diatribe is meant to oppose one party’s political position. Far from it. My contempt for everything political stems from the fact that politics cares so little about the legitimacy of the methods and means. But here and there we come across some moments that are enough to lower our heads in shame. For instance, watching the footage of burning trees and little children trapped in these fights.

See these developments through the eyes of a foreigner. Who was fighting whom? Pakistanis fighting Pakistanis. Why? Because they couldn’t resolve simple differences through dialogue. What was burning? Public property. Who were these children and who had brought them there? Minor Pakistanis, exposed to these risks by their parents. What was the purpose? Elections? But sooner or later the elections have to take place at any rate.

A day before the protests a policeman was shot dead while he was carrying out orders. Someone senior? No, a constable. In a country where human life is not considered very important, the value of a poor man’s life is not worth the bullet that killed him. Remember these fights are always of the elite. Only they prefer to risk the lives of the poor who are compelled to sacrifice their lives. And in the end, they can resolve their differences in a heartbeat, form electoral alliances and profess undying mutual fidelity.

If you are reading these lines, like me shame has utterly failed to kill you. What is your coping mechanism then? I ask this because I have learned through experience that this was one onerous moral ordeal. If you managed to cheat it you have perfected the art of not dying of shame. When I am this sad, embarrassed, or ashamed ants start crawling on my skin. I want to find a dark corner in the house where I can curl up and die. What would the world think?

Let me build up the agony further. It is important not only to see these happenings through a foreign lens but from a child’s eyes too. One of the most difficult conversations of my life was when I had to sit my children down and explain to them why a set of adult men claiming to act in religion’s name had killed children at a school and why the state was incapable of protecting them when this was its stated objective. Needless to say, it was a harrowing experience bringing a premature end to their innocent little worlds by warning them that the next victims could be someone they knew. While going through this I was hoping that with time I wouldn’t have to go through the same hell again. But sadly this explanation has become a part of my brief as a parent, of late.

Mind you this is a very different generation. Sharp as a tack, better informed, and better connected than most of us. But it has gone through challenges upon challenges. In the federal capital for example where I live shutdowns have become a matter of routine. Only recently have they emerged from the Covid-related lockdowns. After two years of hiatus from the face-to-face classes, they have returned to the school. On the day of the protest, my children had to appear in their class annuals. And they were canceled. That’s not all. In this age of social media and fifty-odd news channels, it is impossible to shield them from bad news and disturbing images. On one side we teach them to care about the environment and nature, on the other political activism burns it down before their eyes. What is one to tell them when they ask why this is happening and when it will all end? I am not proud to say it but despite my valiant effort, this is becoming an exercise in futility.

What almost kills me these days is the realisation that what we are witnessing these days is a violent clash of the two interpretations of the national interest. All done in the name of patriotism. From both sides. The system’s schizophrenia is such that one side keeps stabbing the other, one leg trips the other and calls it a victory. I am a proud man and standing in New Delhi, Washington, and many other capitals I have told my peers that I am proud to be a Pakistani. But suddenly I feel that the powers-that-be are so invested in their petty fights that they don’t care what comes in their way and the things that are permanently lost. I think I am just such a thing. It is getting hard to take pride in an identity that cares so little about my views. There was a time when one felt one could escape from this reality. Now one feels that there is only enough energy left to collapse before it.

See. This is why you need this art. Not to ignore reality but to make peace with it. To make life more meaningless than death and by doing that close the only escape route out of this shame. That is how you ensure you don’t die of shame. Because this bickering, these self-righteous fights, these acts of grandstanding from all sides, let’s face it, will never end. Only faces will change but the spirit will go on destroying more lives and more generations.

I believe in the Bollywood film Mr. Natwarlal there is a song where a character played by Amitabh Bachchan is recounting a journey where he comes face to face with a lion. What happened then, asks someone in the audience. What happened, what happened, well he tore me up and ate me is what happened. Ate you? But you are alive. Do you call this life a life you fool, barks back the protagonist. Let’s keep living through sheer bloody-mindedness.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2022.

What do you do with a government that wouldn’t take yes for an answer? Its governing partners gave it carte blanche to effect the much-needed if painful reforms by removing unaffordable fuel subsidies. But for the better part of its tenure, it seems to be frozen in the headlights. Two days back it brought a sweeping ban on the import of numerous items. This might provide some solace to the hemorrhaging forex reserves. But that’s about that. You can stop money’s flights but can’t bring in more foreign exchange. You need a shot in the arm. The kind that the IMF administers.

Consequently, the national media, which has been systemically cutting out its economic and business coverage capacity to make room for more political absurdities and theatrics, is walking all over it. In the government’s defence, this reluctance to jack up the fuel prices comes from a good place. Inflation in the country is already touching unaffordable levels. A hike will most certainly have a cascading effect on the prices of other items. As if that was not enough Imran Khan whose government was ousted slightly over a month ago is threatening to lay siege to the federal capital until his demand for an early election is met. If that exercise succeeds and the country goes for premature elections this could become a huge political liability. The ruling party’s influential members often throw this question around. Are they being asked to sacrifice themselves politically to save the country? If that happens they suspect Imran Khan, the man they so painstakingly removed from power, would be propelled back to the government.

It takes some effort to remind them that they have already decided to take that risk. In removing the former PM they gave him all the material to build his chosen narrative and decry a conspiracy. And here is the problem with sustaining an impossible subsidy. As the rupee sinks and global fuel prices soar the size of the subsidy increases. And that is not all. In the intervening months since the price concession was announced net fuel consumption has increased. So basically you are subsidising your own economic meltdown. In the end, you will be forced to remove this subsidy at the most inconvenient time possible. And then it will really be too late. Relief is good if it does not irreversibly damage the economy. In the current scenario, however, where it could take you to bankruptcy the shock to the system could sweep away all progress made so far.

But the way the media has approached the matter is quite alarming. Instead of focusing on the immediate concerns, it spent Thursday evening spreading sensational rumours about the government’s longevity. Nothing damages the economy more than an environment of uncertainty. But here were some of the leading channels running special transmissions about the premature, if imminent, end of the government. Please remember that in the past a few of the country’s leading anchors have been accused of bringing down the stock market with their negative coverage for their narrow personal gains. Sadly no investigation was launched to study such alleged malpractices. But the way the coverage went on stinks to high heaven. This is the time when the talks with the IMF are going on. Needless to say that such negative speculations can harm their outcome.

But the media’s negative impact does not end there. Right now you are listening to a running commentary to the effect that the government is ineffectual because it cannot take tough decisions like removing the fuel subsidy. Wait until the government is forced to make these decisions. Then the very same anchors and analysts will tell you that inflation has killed the little man and the government has already dispatched the economy to hell in a handbasket.

But why do that? Are these talking heads against the current government? No, they are not. With a few notable exceptions, a majority of them do not have even a nodding acquaintance with the fundamentals of the economy. Sensational news generates higher ratings and they will burn their own houses down to get maximum viewer engagement if they have to. And then there is zero self-accountability.

Today, these pundits will tell you that the present government has failed because it could not effect meaningful change. But given the current monetary volatility and the deadlock in talks with the Fund are partly due to the abrupt change in the SBP leadership our honourable colleagues will never let you recall that many of them kept projecting Dr Reza Baqir as a foreign appointed governor-general and the SBP under him as the East India Company. Similarly today you remember how the PTI government exacerbated the financial crisis by dragging its feet in making critical decisions at the very start. But will the media remind you of its own odious role in the malicious campaign against Dr Atif Mian when his name surfaced as a potential member of Imran Khan’s finance team? These are some of the finest minds in finance and economics that the country has produced and we keep losing their services even when they uproot their lives to come back to the country just because idiots set the agenda.

I do not want to imply that these political governments or the IMF are beyond reproach. I have never been given a satisfactory explanation of why capital expenditure is calculated as a part of the fiscal deficit. Do you realise how extraordinary this practice is? Likewise, the Fund’s current inflexibility in the face of a looming crisis is beyond me. For over a decade I have consistently argued that it must be viewed as an ally. Surely what is going on in Sri Lanka is a wake-up call to the proponents of neoliberal policies. I am sure in the back of the mind of our policymakers there must be this fear that a sudden increase in the fuel prices may generate a backlash as severe as that witnessed on the streets of Sri Lanka. We might struggle in achieving our goals from time to time but surely the Fund cannot possibly want us to fail or go bankrupt. There is a time for tough love. This isn’t it.

In the meantime, Imran Khan is about to march on the federal capital to extract the date for the snap polls. Instead of going by the media hype about the number of participants in his public events, he should consult with some of the leading pollsters to know where his party stands right now. Also, a meeting with good economists to know the inflationary effects of early elections in this volatile situation. Remember if you get your heart’s desire in the shape of an early election and an electoral victory all of this may become your headache again. Let us learn from the cautionary tale of the dog that caught the car.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2022.

The first commodity you will need in abundance if asked to put together a fantasy league of Pakistani politicians is imagination. While the new federal cabinet seems to have come into existence as a result of similar experiments with imagination there are limiting factors. For one the new team had to be picked from a parliament that is about to begin the last year of its term. Then at least a third of the players were not available for the picking as their leader was seized by the spirit of the pied piper. Where we go one, we go all, kind of stuff. But pray do not think for a moment that I am comparing the former PM’s followers to rats, kids, or the QAnon. To borrow his own words, absolutely not. The purpose is to highlight the strategy in the calculated irrationality of their behaviour and the way it impacts the talent pool of both candidates and voters. Mr Khan was repeatedly told that his replacement would come from within his party and he executed what is called the ultimate suicide pact in office politics. To the deep blue sea, we go one, we go all. A healthy sign for succession processes in our political parties.

Then remember the disparity in the number game also plays out. How can you have a dream team when you have to pick more players from one party than the other.

Speaking of succession and picking a team, it looks like the system has not fully recovered from the recent head trauma. For one there is the problem of double vision. Two of almost everything. Two finance ministers, two premiers, two energy ministers, twice the price, and on. This matter surfaced when the premier was hurriedly summoned to the UK by his elder brother along with the ranking members of the cabinet hailing from the party. Someone definitely benefited from the optics of it all. Something tells me it wasn’t the federal government or the PML-N.

Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the legitimate concerns of a political party and its organogram. I even appreciate the situation where the system wants to keep someone out but a party gets votes in his/her name. They have to bend some rules from time to time to placate the said person. But more than succession this is a problem of delegation and trust. We already know that succession is the party’s Achilles’ heel and all power distribution is tentative. But good team leaders delegate and trust their players. That doesn’t seem to be happening. Also meeting MNS is one thing, but giving Ishaq Dar a veto on the economy when he was the first person to abandon it does not go down well with the voting public.

At any rate, the PPP and the PML-Q have shown us that their central leaders understand the system better than others. The Q league for instance understood the schizophrenia that is hampering the system. It understood how to tackle such a situation. One Chaudhary of Gujrat went away with one party, the other with the other. Yet their mutual affection remains unchanged. And in the PPP it seems that the matters of succession have either been resolved or momentarily suspended. While Asif Ali Zardari positions himself as the architect of the political structures present and future, Bilawal gets to learn the ropes as the foreign minister in the footsteps of his grandfather. If the PPP forges ahead with this harmony it may soon start looking like a more compelling national force. Of course, we mortals know the knack of self-sabotage. So far however things are moving ahead smoothly.

As for optics, the PTI may not realise but it is also facing a silent killer. After the allegations related to Farah Gogi and her husband, Ahsan Gujjar, surfaced and then the latter confessed on record regarding his enduring friendship with the former first lady’s ex-husband and of knowing Buzdar before the ex-PM himself things have taken an ugly turn. Remember that Mr Khan did not announce his match on Islamabad when he was removed from office but he came up with a deadline the day Buzdar was sacked. This story and the drip drip drip of allegations will dampen the enthusiasm of voters as the elections near. The least he can do is cut his losses and distance himself from such individuals.

Let us now talk about the nub of the gist of the problem. The election date. It is clear that the PML-N is now regretting taking over power. The ongoing economic crisis seems too big to handle in a short period. It is really concerned about the optics. While the shabby state of the economy could easily dismantle Mr Khan’s conspiracy narrative the PML-N has not paid any heed to his initial conclusions about the so-called conspiracy. The PTI, in the meanwhile, thinks that it can win big if early elections are called.

Sadly, these assumptions are mere assumptions. Mr Khan and his party are masters of public rallies. This has been going on since 1996. But this pull grows weak when it comes to fence-sitters and the rural population. If you talk to any credible pollster or any half-decent actuary you will learn that the chances of elections returning an even tightly hung parliament are much higher. This is due to many factors. One, the number of viable actors (PPP, religious parties, TLP et al) is increasing every day. Two, the animus between the PTI and the traumatised system. And finally, the PML-N’s loyal vote base which survived even Gen Musharraf’s eight years of anti-Nawaz rule.

And the economy continues to melt down in the meantime. Two cases are instructive — Afghanistan where an entire state vanished in the wisps of smoke before our eyes and Sri Lanka which is going to pieces as we speak. An early election would suspend all proactive measures needed to rescue the economy. For three months at least, a caretaker government will step in which will not have the constitutional mandate to make long-lasting decisions. And even after that, there is no guarantee that a stable government with a clear majority will emerge. What happens if a country with such a struggling economy gets caught in an election-spiral Israel? Bedlam. But taking tough decisions without broad consensus might create a Sri Lanka-like situation. Consensus will not come under a political government in this polarised environment. Probability suggests we are heading towards a technocratic setup with a clearly stipulated time period that is longer than the usual period meant for a caretaker setup. Common sense tells us that expecting such sanity from our politics is foolish. And that we are invariably heading towards a disaster.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2022

We live in a fascinating age. Technology is quietly re-sketching the contours of our lives. And yet we only quibble about the old things.

Only a little over a month ago a team of scientists unveiled the most complete human genome of all time, filling in millions of missing pieces. The scope of it all is nothing short of revolutionary. From combatting genetic diseases to amending the genome the possibilities are endless.

As Elon Musk prepares to take over Twitter, his backed cutting-edge research into space colonisation and environment-friendly technology is already bearing fruit. And even as his attempts to create the human-machine neural interface might have backfired royally resulting in many injured monkeys, you will agree it is a direction that can dramatically change the course of human progress.

Facebook owner Meta is opening up access to a 175 billion parameter AI language model to the AI research community under a non-commercial licence. While this will help address the known problems like behaviour toxicity it will also help revolutionise how the broader AI developer community will move ahead thanks to the access to the capital-intensive large language models.

This might look like a disparate list of random things but it is not. They all underscore a pattern and forewarn you of the shape of things to come. And yet certain technological breakthroughs in the recent past also raise alarms about our effortless normalising of path-breaking innovations without grasping their true significance. Let’s say the revolution that was ushered in by the advent of smartphones, high-speed internet, and non-combatant drones. How many jobs have been lost to these changes? The video store across the street is gone, the music record shop is gone, the photo studio you used to get your pictures developed from is no more and public phone booths are also nowhere to be seen. Granted new jobs are created every single day but they all need a different skillset each. How will you prepare for the change if you do not even appreciate the scope of it all? Let us not forget our own profession. Many print copies were replaced by online publications. Media staff migrated to TV news channels. Now YouTube and countless other apps are giving these channels and their business models a run for their money.

There is a reason why I bring these matters up. These innovations are now likely to rework the contours of national power and sovereignty. And if you are still compensating for the deficiencies in the old world realities you are unlikely to pay heed to the new things.

Let me give you an example. Only a few months ago while interviewing the then-national security adviser I asked him if the country was giving its space programme its due importance. The response I got was non-committal at best. The country had many far more pressing issues. I reminded him that if ignored the country risked getting boxed in by the Indian space programme. When the new government took over I put the same question to the new minister for industries. He assured me that the government would happily facilitate any private sector interest in the sector but for the government, it was too premature to take a position. What are the odds that the private sector he spoke about would end its real estate obsession and other hackneyed pursuits to explore the possibilities in space? I am not hopeful. Remember this warning then. If you do not act now you run the risk of getting frozen into what will soon feel like a primitive age.

Along with technology, the context of national power and sovereignty is also changing. There is a clear example from history to illustrate this point. In Germany shackled by Versailles Treaty terms before Hitler, there was one Gustav Stresemann, a true visionary. Stresemann realised that the treaty obligations prohibited the growth of an outdated weapons industry and it did precious little to curtail innovations in the field. So even while complying fully with the treaty obligations he doubled down on innovation. It was an unmitigated tragedy that the Weimar republic’s unpopularity overwhelmed its stellar work in recovery and gave way to Hitler’s populism which finally resulted in the country’s destruction. Otherwise, Germany would have been a far stronger power today than it is.

Compare this innovative leadership to our national discourse today. We are debating a cipher sent by our diplomat to own government as proof of a conspiracy. What a useless echo chamber we have constructed. Maybe this serves us right for our unbending desire to remain in the momentary emotional high of the 1980s and 1990s. The leaders you chose back then are now in their sixties and seventies but the country has no plan to move on. The generation that doesn’t instinctively get this age is still calling the shots. Do you honestly expect any breakthrough? If Putin and Erdogan are any examples, leaders with prolonged exposure to power become egomaniacal with age and less open to change. Their nations then pay the price of their arrogance.

For a long time, I have vociferously advocated for innovation. In most cases, my assessments have been on the money. When almost two decades ago Bill Gates announced his charity to combat diseases and poverty I told you that the viruses spreading these diseases were not much different than computer viruses. They sure had more variables but his expertise could come in handy. During the Covid pandemic, his efforts proved my point right as mankind developed vaccines in record time.

During this pandemic on November 28, 2020, in a piece titled ‘Learning in the time of corona,’ I wrote: “In the middle of all this the mere possibility that the quality of remote learning can be improved is lost somewhere. For instance, even if the use of interactive artificial intelligence may not be possible at this stage, I would have expected that at least for high-end customers a few big tech companies would have employed virtual reality technology coupled with visors and haptic gloves to create virtual learning spaces. Imagine if such an immersive experience could be provided how fun education would become. Once an innovation is introduced it takes no time for the business to scale and become cost-effective.” Today platforms like Meta are proving me right. There are ample examples to compile into a multi-volume tome.

And yet my own people keep defeating me. They take without permission or acknowledgment when they like and underplay well-reasoned arguments when not useful. Do not pay heed to sane counsel if you don’t want to, nor pay the piper, but will you quit whining? At no point in history have we seen worse times than post-war Germany or a nuked Japan. But now look at them and look at yourself.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2022.

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The quarter of a century spent writing opinion pieces has taught me a few things in life. The first one is frustrating. The herd instinct. As opinion writers most of us obsess about more or less the same things. As we do so, many important stories get crowded out. The growing flatness of South Asia’s intellectual tradition can largely be ascribed to this.

The second thing that stands out is the politicisation of everything. Economics, religion, family, entertainment, even sports (especially cricket), all politics in South Asian mills.

The third is about the danger posed by political tribalism. Tribalism might be doing a number on the west just now, but it tore up every South Asian country into a post-truth society ages ago. In Pakistan, the differences grew to such an extent that a section of the society thought that killing itself to kill others was a good idea. Shouldn’t a country that has suffered so much in such a short period at the hands of tribalism be more circumspect in dealing with and resolving differences?

The fourth and the last one: we seldom learn from mistakes and that’s why this piece and the ones like that I wrote on April 19, 2018 titled ‘A dissenting note’ will always be unpopular because they do not conform to the black and white interpretation of reality. The reality, to this scribe, is always messy. Grey, brown, yellow, and often uncomely.

In our long excruciating history of tribal wars, the nicest things always become the collateral damage. Creativity and culture are its two biggest victims. The third is the idea of a true celebrity. And just look at how they all are punished. Let’s start with the most provocative examples first. Especially because you, most likely, will not like that which is to be said. And yet somebody has to say it because you know it needs to be said.

In recent political scuffles, one thing became surprisingly clear. An overwhelming majority of Pakistani celebrities still side with Imran Khan. In a country where multiple narrative arcs feed on your imagination and collide, it is difficult to digest. Artists, entertainers, and in short celebrities of all sorts occupy a cultural space where they benefit and reinforce pluralism which the religious zealotry seeks to erode. Time and again Mr Khan has chosen to ally with groups whose outlook is clouded by religious intolerance. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the Jamaat-e-Islami was his ally of choice. In the war on terror, his advocacy against the crackdown on fanatics grew to such an extent that the TTP nominated him to be a part of the Pakistani state’s negotiations with them. Much before that, he had found a way to be dubbed Taliban Khan. And yet so many celebrities still like him.

I don’t think anyone has caused such an uproar online as Mahira Khan when she tweeted a message with the name of Imran Khan followed by the emojis of Pakistan’s flag and hands raised in prayer. For a long time, she has endured repulsive attacks by troll armies online. In Pakistan’s political space anti-liberal trolls are usually associated with the PTI and Mahira Khan, like most celebrities, is considered a liberal. So is it a textbook case of cognitive dissonance? Social media was too quick to judge.

Similarly, Samina Peerzada and Shan Shahid are very vocal too. Seems only yesterday that the former had faced controversy at the hands of the clergy when she and her husband in real life in a TV series had to act in a divorce scene. Clergymen shouted that since it was a televised scene viewed by countless witnesses it amounted to real divorce. Those persecuted by religious bigotry should not stand with its known appeasers, the critics say. And that’s why their fondness for Imran Khan, the PTI, or their government made little sense and they must either be bought or brainwashed.

This last hideous take is nothing short of tragic because it robs thinking human beings of their agency. The thinking human beings who have already given us a lot to be grateful for and proud of. Is it possible to simultaneously disagree with them politically, while respecting them personally? Absolutely.

I can give you a hundred heartbreaking explanations as to why a celebrity who had to face misogynistic attacks throughout her career would empathise with a politician who has ostensibly blamed the attire of rape victims for their ordeals. Like they love their state and their state loves this so naturally, they end up having sympathies for this as well, albeit at a personal cost. That religious indoctrination for decades makes them believe that their career choices are actually wrong and that is why they atone for this as soon as they can. Remember I once shared with you one episode where one famous singer told me that singing was sinful? And finally, as one Twitter critic put it, it all has something to do with the PBCDs (Pakistan born confused desis), the cultural contradictions of Pakistan’s upper-middle class. But none of these explanations mean anything. Why? Because you are going to such lengths just not to respect their individual choices. Are you then any better than all those fanatics who have little regard for their career choices?

Politics be damned. For a healthy society to grow you need far more cultural products than the dynamics of power. Have you wondered why a nation of storytellers has stopped telling good stories? Why do even some of our best platforms like Coke Studio spend more time recycling old content? Why is it that when we talk of our entertainment industry most of the time it is in the past tense? Because we have abandoned them all to their fate. Because there is no support system nor an efficient market for their talent. You will be surprised how little or less often they are paid for their hard work.

Back in the 1990s when PTV was the only major network I remember how many well-known drama actors would emerge from the one number wagon in an exceptionally shabby state. Ask yourself why do many comedians choose to be a prop on late-night variety shows on news channels rather than perform in their own space? Because there is job security and assurance of being compensated on time.

I can’t believe that a nation of opinionated and politics-obsessed viewers is criticising its celebrities for having a political opinion. The fact that our celebrities, artists and performers have survived despite these shoddy conditions should be enough to offer them unconditional respect. Politics may have a short fuse but it also has a shorter shelf life. Culture and entertainment have a far more lasting effect.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2022.

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and
forfeits his soul?” — Mark 8:36

Two weeks ago I wrote about the American political sitcom Veep and what a perfect metaphor it is for our times. Before that, I have repeatedly told you that I do not see the appeal of the public office. Political power is overrated and what use is it to force people to do your bidding? To top it all, political power intrinsically does not have any value of its own. Not until you bend some rules. From a traffic warden to the world’s most powerful office a job is just another job. Power is only enticing when you are ready to exploit it. Otherwise, you could easily be as powerful by being a librarian in a backwater country.

And yet so many would do a lot, sacrifice a lot including their souls to climb up and sit atop the greasy pole. What gives?

When in the final episode of the Veep, Selena Myer throws her daughter’s marriage under the bus, selects the worst excuse of an accidental politician as a running mate, and sends perhaps the only staff member who cares about her to prison, just to be president again, there comes a moment when she is in the Oval sitting alone. She looks at the empty room in melancholy and sighs before being distracted by work. We are then fast-forwarded to 24 years later when she is dead and her funeral is going on. As she is laid to rest, the breaking news of Tom Hanks’ death at 88 offsets the coverage, and fickle news channels cut away from her funeral. And one cannot help but think what a waste of so much talent. Why go there? What you gain through such compromises is always finite, meaningless in the long run, what you lose in the deals (your soul, your well-meaning friends, love and relations) is permanent? Power is only an opiate meant to dull the pain. But make no mistake. The pain is there. What gives?

Many of you must already have guessed where this is going. A fortnight ago, when in my piece titled “Explaining gravity to a chicken”, I quoted Amy from the show telling Selena Myer that because of her poor governance no woman would win again, I thought I was being more than obvious. In fact in the end I said as much. Too bad if no one was keen on taking a hint. It took decades to convince the system to go out of its comfort zone, its safe list of candidates and break the mould of the two-party system and make room for a third one. But what happened next was so traumatising for it that it may not trust another outlier for a long long time.

What are the key administrative strengths of the democratic order and why would a bureaucrat prefer a democratic system over a dictatorial one? It is inclusive, it is owned by the people, yes, yes, yes, but you are not getting the question. Administrative strengths. Administratively it guarantees a system of succession and peaceful transition of power. Come hell or high water the term based civilian to civilian transition is constitutionally ensured. No wars of succession, no protracted pitched battles, and certainly nothing out of the ordinary the public servants are expected to do. Just do your job and leave the rest to the constitution and the people. The second administrative strength of a democratic system is change because it does not believe in life tenure for an elected office. You can argue that it is a weakness, that a good leader should remain in office much longer. Okay, but who succeeds him once that good leader being a mortal dies? Any systemic guarantee that another good person succeeds him or her? None. You can have an angel running the show for twelve years succeeded by 80 years of a satan’s rule. Terms in office and term limits ensure that no such tragedy befalls the nation. In a nation with a mixed democratic autocratic experience whenever a dictator went out of power the country went through hell. So what happened on April 9 was the system’s nightmare come true.

Now let us talk about the unproven hunches. Some parts of the system believe that on the 9^th there was a conspiracy but those accused were not responsible for it. That whoever designed it wanted one of two things. Either a division or even a clash among the country’s top military brass. Or the outright imposition of Martial Law that would have been rigged to meet the same fate as the 2016 failed Turkish coup attempt. These parts believe that the plan for a public pushback was in place. And the people who came out a day later would have been clogging the arteries of the country a day earlier had martial law been imposed. And then someone uncontentious would have been forced to fill in the void by bringing back the former premier. Those who were looking for division within the army’s ranks underestimated the military discipline. The system believes it dodged a bullet and vows to never let it repeat.

But what is the source of the conspiracy? Look at what went on in America, Europe, and many other US allies for an answer. The cold war never went away. Russia is not as strong as the Soviet Union but it has made good use of technology and hybrid warfare. The Mueller Report bears testimony to that. In his speech before the Ukraine invasion, Putin refused to honour the agreements made in 1991. If he hasn’t forgiven 1991 do you think he has forgotten the 1980s? All western allies are going through this schizophrenia, Russia and its long-term allies like India are not. Among the western allies, there is a reason why the ambitious ones from Trump to Netanyahu, from Erdogan to Marine Le Pen, and Nigel Farage all lined up to meet Putin. The former premier’s Moscow dash is read in the same context.

In the final season of Veep, there is an interesting development when Myer seeks China’s help. First in South Carolina the black voters are turned back from the polling booths, and then on the Election Day too an implied intervention takes place. China’s reference is incidental. China is still a US ally or at the very least harbours no malice. Russia does. It is believed that the writer used China and Myer’s accidental campaign manager Kieth Quinn to hint at Russia’s interference in 2016 and Steve Bannon’s role in it. Exploiting Pakistan’s emotional cadres is a far easier job.

So a picture emerges of a man who had cut many deals. One, the above. Two, the Buzdar deal because of superstitions I mentioned last week. Three, with the hard-right pro-Taliban faction. And finally with the elements who care little about the institutions, and the constitution and do not mind jeopardising the national integrity for personal gains. Remember unlike Pakistan Turkey has no territorially ambitious neighbour sitting next to it to devour it. It could afford the 2016 failed coup. Pakistan cannot. I don’t get why someone I believe is fundamentally a good person would cut such deals. But of course. Ambition!

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2022.

Attention all readers. This is not an obituary of the last government, the party that went out of power, or for that matter of the politics of its leader and former premier Imran Khan. Nor does this piece seek to thumb the nose at any of that. That is despite the month-long horror show that became pure torture on every PTI sympathiser’s soul. Or seek to ridicule the PTI’s loyal base. It only looks for an explanation, especially because in this charged environment none of the narratives proffered by the main political actors adds up.

Let me clarify the first part before anything else. After a long time, a party has enthralled the country’s younger population and people who seldom vote. Who is to say that their convictions are less valuable than yours or mine? Likewise, we have seen Mr Khan’s charisma in play whenever it was put to good use in the service of this nation. It works. Add to it some brilliant initiatives that were undertaken during his rule. From expanding the BISP to a much wider tent under Ehsaas, Langars (soup kitchens) and shelters for the extremely poor, and the health card for all. So, no I will not pile on. Despite the hopeless attempts to evade the final reckoning and its inaccessibility the party and its leader have earned my respect in more ways than one.

The PTI leadership claims that it has been a victim of a foreign conspiracy. It could have been but there is no smoking gun. A dispatch sent back home by the country’s ambassador cannot automatically be counted as one. Why? Because words are not deeds. Especially the ones assessed by a diplomat, not a trained investigator. For a cable to unearth a conspiracy it would need far more forensic evidence in it. For instance, apart from the perpetrator or instigator’s name and motives, it would contain the means adopted and an elaborate causal chain that connects deeds with action, and motives with the end result. And when the NSC statement calls the communication “blatant interference in the internal matters of Pakistan” it was more in the spirit of “mind your own business, you nosy git” rather than “we have unearthed a conspiracy”.

Let us disambiguate a bit. If you try to tell me how to write my column that amounts to blatant interference in my affairs. If you try to de-platform, kidnap and kill me to stop me from writing that amounts to a conspiracy. I know, why would you? But never mind. The subtle difference in the current situation and the scenario I just described is between ‘trying’ and what sounds awful like “threatening”. When you are caught trying you already have produced enough evidence to implicate you, when you threaten the prosecution has to go an extra mile to connect the threat with the action. For instance, you live in Europe, I live in Pakistan. One morning you threaten me through an email or a tweet. The next morning I am dead. There are people to whom the fact that you burnt my picture or figurine after threatening me might be enough to prove your guilt but that is not how it works. To prove your conspiracy the investigators and prosecutors would need the proof that either you traveled from Europe to Pakistan or hired a hitman to do so. From the money trail to conversation records everything would be needed and some proof that it is a better explanation than that I tripped and broke my neck. So for now it is “mind your own business, you nosy git” and nothing more.

Now the real whodunit. If there is no conspiracy how does an unprecedented vote of no confidence bring down a government? The opposition of yesterday and the ruling alliance of today have offered many explanations. For example, the PTI government oppressed the common man on the street so much that he took revenge in the end. But did you see any widespread agitation on the street? Any massive momentum outside the parliament?

The second explanation particularly emanating from the quarters that have claimed that the 2018 elections were heavily rigged concerns the former premier’s alleged tiff with the establishment. That he somehow managed to alienate the permanent institutions. There are many versions of this. From the alleged ambition of the incumbent military leadership to foreign policy choices to the deadlock over the appointment of the head of the country’s premier intelligence agency. Sadly, they do not fly either. The ISPR has set the record straight on the first.

Finally, there are dire explanations, particularly regarding corruption and attempts to steal the next elections through the use of the EVMs. But if unsubstantiated allegations were to be factored in then none of Mr Khan’s detractors would enjoy a second or a third chance.

If there is no such factor involved then how did the government collapse? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? The PTI government had many strengths and weaknesses. But its biggest chink in the armour was its lack of homework in the economic domain. Consequently, soon after coming to power, the government had to rely heavily on military diplomacy to get financial bailouts. The Saudi and the UAE visits would indicate as much.

The second chink was its inflexibility. Due to this any attempt to find a way forward at crucial moments was becoming impossible. Add to it the narrative of electoral illegitimacy that the opposition was successful in pushing and you have the image of a civilian government increasingly becoming a liability for the permanent institutions.

The issue of liability is also interesting. Pakistan’s political system is possessed by entropy. The decay in the mandate and the ability to exercise power begins from day one and then it is a constant downhill journey. So, had it not been for the permanent institutions’ deterrence the previous government would have collapsed immediately due to its narrow majority.

Was there any straw that broke the back of the proverbial camel? The source of the inflexibility. There was a broadly held perception that the rigidity was due to superstition. For instance, Usman Buzdar’s implausible survival as the CM of Punjab. Makes zero sense otherwise. Even today you can hear people say that the end of his tenure brought you down. No sir. He stayed in power for so long because you were in power. Not the other way around. And in the end, he became an unaffordable liability that sank your boat.

If it is really about superstition dear readers then it is because of our collective failure to convince the former premier that he came to power because of the people’s vote, support, and prayers and not because of any supernatural causes. If he can be convinced even today a very important political career might be salvaged along with countless hopes and aspirations of the people. Otherwise, in the long tragic tableau of Pakistani politics, we have arrived at another heartbreaking moment.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 16^th, 2022.

“Amy: I have bitten my tongue so long, it looks like a dog’s cushion. But no more! You have made it impossible to do this job. You have two settings – no decision and bad decision. I wouldn’t let you run a bath without having the Coast Guard and the fire department standing by, but yet here you are running America. You are the worst thing that has happened to this country since food in buckets and maybe slavery! I’ve had enough. I’m gone.

Selina: (as Amy walks to the door) Well, I guess she’s finished with her little…(Amy walks back to her) oh, nope, look at that, there’s more.

Amy: You have achieved nothing apart from one thing. The fact that you are a woman means we will have no more women presidents because we tried one and she …. sucked. Goodbye, ma’am.” –Veep, Episode 5, Season 4.

Both the quoted lines above and the title of this piece come from one of the finest American political satires immortalised by the stellar performance of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tony Hale, and later inimitable Hugh Laurie. Let’s be honest. The wall-to-wall stellar performance is so memorable that name-dropping of any sort will do it a disservice. The harsh language takes some getting used to but once you get over it you cannot help but be impressed by the whole thing. They say another sitcom 30 Rock has the most jokes per minute. But even if that’s true, Veep has the largest collection of political zingers. And clever ones too.

I hope that’s enough of a homage to this wholly remarkable work. But while reading or watching a political satire usually is great fun, living in one is not. And one of my biggest beef with elders is that they did not welcome me into this world with a clear mention of the terms of reference. Something to this effect: welcome to a mediocre sitcom, you tertiary character, you!

Even if one did not believe it, the last three and a half years provide ample proof that we are cursed. That whatever we touch turns to manure. Go figure, King Midas.

The first arrows that one received during this time were from what one called like-minded friends for the last thirty years. One has always believed that there exists a pro-democracy constituency in this country that holds democratic values supreme. But to understand what happened to this constituency I will have to take you on another arduous journey of metaphors.

Music from another room is an underrated but beautiful rom-com. Starring Jude Law and Gretchen Mol, it is a story of a hopeless romantic who returns to his childhood town to fulfill the dream of marrying the girl he once said he would marry. But she has grown up into this morality and a duty-obsessed young lady who thinks she cannot afford romance. Whenever they come close unfortunate things happen. Law decides to give up one day and leaves for the railway station. Realising the love of her life is fleeing the city, Mol follows him and accosts him at the terminal. He is about to leave. After entreaties and his rebuttals, there is one unforgettable dialogue. “What have I done to you? ….. What? ….. You sound just like me”. Listening to your pro-democracy friends spout the same nonsense you grew accustomed to from the anti-democracy fanatics was a constant heartbreak.

In some cases, it was legitimate if personal angst. If you have been accused of “35 punctures”, hounded, and abused, I grant you it is not easy to forget or forgive. Likewise, if you blame one particular party for your job displacement it is not easy to forget in earnest. But when a grievance is manufactured just because you are too politically aligned or simply hate an individual it becomes impossible to make peace with it. Just remember many of us also went through hell in the past ten years but then we got over it. Life must go on.

But that wasn’t the only tragedy. The PTI supporters also turned out to be a remarkable bunch. We knew that when you have spent over twenty years being pushed around and ridiculed for your political outlook you are bound to have developed brittle edges. But this brittle exterior takes one year of being in power to dissolve. Then it is business as usual. But in this case, perhaps because there are too many aspirants and too few jobs, the party’s structure has taken the shape of a coliseum where plotting against your own, grievance politics, and machinations never end. The vacuum left behind by hierarchy is filled by unquestioning cultism. What chance then an outsider has in this space? Fresh vows of fealty become the passport to any room you want to enter.

But a quick question. What does it all remind you of? What do Imran Khan’s language, politics and attitude remind you of? Of Nawaz Sharif’s politics in the 1980s-90s and Bhutto’s politics in the 1960s. What else is common? All three favourites of the permanent institutions of the time. All of them used abusive language against their rivals (Bhutto against Fatima Jinnah, Nawaz Sharif against Benazir Bhutto, and Imran Khan against Bhuttos and Sharifs together. All three declared their rivals (Mujib, Benazir and Nawaz respectively) traitors. All three tried extra-constitutional methods to extend their stay in power. The first two fell from grace and the third one is on the fast track to doing that.

What? Cognitive dissonance? Can’t see the point? The country’s permanent institutions seriously need to revise their criteria meant to separate the wheat from the chaff.

There is also a need for revising the foreign policy criteria. Independent foreign policy means you expand the circle of your friends. Expand means gaining new ones while retaining the old. It should not mean that you go dance at the wedding of the exes of your ex. Because then you will invariably be late to every party.

Finally, in the time of transition, it is difficult to remind people of the rare episodes of decency. A recent incident prompted this reminder. The exchange of harsh words between Fawad Chaudhary and Matiullah Jan. Your politics is your lookout but during the upheavals of the past three years, three people who were remarkably decent with me in the otherwise exceptionally trying times are Chaudhary, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Dr Moeed Yusuf. Thought I’d put it out there because we Pakistanis are so fond of conquering and subduing our own. Especially when they are out of power.

As for the so-called cablegate, a part of my heart wants to see more evidence to surface. Because otherwise, this seems like the remake of Wag the Dog. And that would mean the last three years were irretrievably wasted and nobody would probably want to experiment with a third-party candidate ever again.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2022.

As the current political crisis unfolded and one by one the government’s erstwhile allied parties and dissident members chose their path, an anchor on a private channel asked an undecided member of the parliament whether he had made up his mind. The answer came in the negative. Deliberations were going on and when he arrived at a decision he would reach out to the media and break the news. Then the anchor asked something stunning. Would you first go to ARY or Geo to make the announcement? To most viewers the question was clear. But it was also a rare admission of the posttruth nature of the Pakistani media where one media outlet refuses to see either the government’s flaws or strengths. Opinion replacing objectivity.

But you will say what is new in that? In a country where both Zia and Bhutto are declared martyrs this is no new thing. Also, is it not increasingly true of the entire world? Fox and MSNBC, Sky and Channel 4? The world functions in binaries does it not? The like and unlike buttons. Upvotes and downvotes. Maybe. Maybe not. But here is the problem. You can try to escape responsibility by citing such examples but cannot shut your eyes to the threat such trends pose. For instance, even if these trends now appear old when coupled with the new or the unfixed they can wreak havoc. For instance, name another country whose citizens were radicalised to such an extent that they ended up killing eighty thousand fellow citizens, mostly co-religionists, in the name of faith. Similarly, the civil society (both secular and religious)’s treatment of the acts of terrorism perpetrated by the religious extremists and the sub-nationalist entities as two different realities is another case in point. An act of indiscriminate mass violence meant to terrorise the population can be called terrorism. Why should the perpetrator of any such act be treated as an estranged brother or sister?

This matter is important to highlight because owing to fifty years of state-sponsored piety and then twenty years of the war against the very same characters you once lionised the country has developed a soft underbelly of toxic if populist religiosity. This happened especially because at the time the crucial decision was taken to fight obscurantism and terrorism, there was no elected parliament in the country. Ergo no way to sell a legitimate policy shift to the people. Televised broadcasts can convince some people but they are no substitute for your elected representative reaching out to you deliberately and repeatedly to change your mind. As a result, a huge part of the religious-minded community either views the state’s agenda with apprehension or with hostility. This fact is further complicated by the small matter of there not being any concept of a nation-state in the doctrine of the state’s chosen religion. Political consensus and religious interpretation (ijtihad) had malfunctioned as institutions by the time nationstates emerged. Consequently, the muscle memory of its clergy always leads it to strive for the establishment of empires or khilafa directly undermining your nation-state. Not an empire centred around your capital, but the empire where your individuality merges and dies. So, in the past twenty years, everything has become my way or highway. Many in the religious elite see the Pakistani state as a liability and actively plot against it. This problem could be cured if there was an honest dialogue. The only challenge is that we are so polarised that from the parliament, the constitution to the free press we are ready to burn down every institution that provides us an avenue to resolve differences.

And political and business opportunism further exacerbate the crisis. Ours is not an ordinary state. It may find it harder to cope with the crises like the ones posed by Trumpism and the 1/ 6 attack.

They say that with age, experience and power comes wisdom. If that was so, the state functionaries both serving and retired would have been helping us use critical faculties rather than being swept by the emotionalism of the zeitgeist. Consider this. Even though one cannot spell it out in granular details everyone knows that at the heart of this political crisis lies the crisis of consensus within the state apparatus. That means that not only have we failed to evolve a mechanism in this country where such differences are resolved amicably but we are willing to make this crisis about a conflict between good and evil. Do you remember any country where such systemic inanity and opportunism has led to anything good or constructive? The Soviet Union collapsed because of this polarity.

Likewise, you may find many ex-officials who are so sentimental that the small matter of constitutionality does not matter to them. When you follow the opinions expressed around the ongoing crisis by many who retired after serving in high positions you are sorely dismayed. It is as if they do not even want to pretend that there is a constitution in the country or constitutionally mandated institutions whose job it is to function in a certain manner and in accordance with their constitutional mandate. What can motivate someone who has tasted the salt of the state to do something like that? Ignorance, obscurantism and passion. And who was supposed to shield the citizens from such elemental corrosion? Why the state itself. It is the responsibility of the state to imbue citizens with the desire to use critical thinking and believe in constitutionalism and institutionalism. As I have been shouting atop my voice for a decade and a half now there are no villains here. Only misunderstanding, ignorance and opportunism. But how will the state do this when its own functionaries both current and former allow the polarisation in the society to indoctrinate them? Vicious cycle? Ouroboros? In any case our fate seems sealed.

Let me take you back to the Cambridge Analytica expose by Channel – 4. One CA office-bearer bragged to the channel’s undercover reporters that elections are not won on the basis of the policy debates or rationality but on the basis of emotions. And the strongest of these emotions are fear, anger and hatred. Now these emotions may help you in winning elections and making money but they most certainly can destroy fragile states. Let us hope our state and society or at least the rich and powerful here realise that it is time to restore the proverbial middle ground. If not we are toast.

The writing on the wall is overrated. Do you want more of the same? Endless whining or victory laps? Oh-I-told-you-so, at any rate? More of the shame? Egos driving the political agenda or the policy debates? The endless discussion regarding the glass being half empty or full? The writing on the wall is edited, written and deleted, written and updated with the ink of power.

No, if you want things to change you want that which was omitted. That which was deemed inappropriate to be kept on the wall. Why would anyone tell you that the glass whose fullness or emptiness is the subject of all the controversy, does not even exist? Either broken and hidden, pawned and sold, or simply stolen, when you pour more water into this make-believe glass ostensibly to fill it, you in essence are throwing it all away. So, interested in what was kept off of the proverbial wall?

How did we get here? And what is kept on the wall? That another government is about to fall under the weight of its contradictions and that of the system. That this time the departure, if at all, threatens to be messier than usual. And all this goes on our eastern and western borders couldn’t be farther than stable. That no matter who goes and who comes things are unlikely to improve. Somewhere in faint handwriting also that since 1947 the administrative capacity of the executive branch resembles a consistent downward slope and there is no shortcut to improving the situation. That the next budget will be a tough one because the government had expended whatever fiscal space it found on providing the people with short-term relief. And that in Sri Lanka’s economic meltdown there is enough food for thought for Pakistan to convince the country not to even think of putting one toe out of the line mutually agreed with the IMF. And that the absence of recent data on outflows is seriously alarming.

What is missing from the wall is an in-depth explanation of the reasons. The causes we have trained our minds to ignore. The reasons our impatience, egotism, and politics conspire to obscure. The series of bombs planted by our relentless population growth that have been going off since the very inception of this nation eroding our institutional capacity. No matter how pundits underplay our population explosion, the fact remains that the burden on every institution created for the public good has been increasing by leaps and bounds. Take an average class size in public schools. In our school days, the average class strength used to be somewhere around 20-25. A decade later it had climbed up to the mid-forties. Now in many reported cases, it has reached in hundred(s). Likewise in hospitals and other such institutions. No state can be asked to keep ramping up its capacity because the population, in all likelihood, will not stop multiplying.

Our second tragic flaw is our shaky grip on numbers. We do not let verifiable numbers or ascertainable research data come in the way of a seductive if populist policy choices. What we can afford and what we cannot do not matter. Will a said policy proposal have any real traction among the people does not matter either. What matters is the will of the leader. Whatever he says goes. Whatever he or she says is popular. Miscalculations stemming from this insistence lead many governments to their early grave but by then it matters little. The people whose government you wrecked are unlikely to hold you accountable for they are gone. The new ones ask different questions and favours. The wheel is invented again. Until it is too late to learn lessons.

The third problem is our perpetual insecurity. Conservatives the world over are considered an insecure bunch with untrusting, suspicious minds. But liberals everywhere find ways to cut you slack. Granted this is changing rapidly owing to the cancel-culture outbreak but even then liberals are more tolerant. But not in our sweet republic. Here tribalism means severed head of the rival. But the rich are mostly related so there is a mulligan for an estranged cousin. Not for the working class and the poor though. Nah. Ye shall hang for the crime of showing some agency instead of acting like a mindless serf.

The fourth issue is the trust deficit between the federal and provincial governments. This is primarily due to our rather troubling obsession with centralisation and inadequate resource pie. Only sustainable and inclusive long-term growth will enable the country to be just internally and stable externally. Until then we will bicker on the 18^th amendment and try resolving disputes by the forced creation of new provinces. Such hard to execute and easily reversible adventures can never be a solution to our problems caused by the absence of a provincial finance commission, powerful local governments, and bicameral legislatures for the federating units where a territorial house ensures the rights of all districts.

Let’s also talk about our intelligentsia, shall we? If you look at the public discourse in the developed world it is dominated by young, dedicated professionals. Not by the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none journalists (generalists) like me, or retired career government officials like many of you. This merit-based discourse might be informed by your and my input because our experiences and knowledge cannot be written off either but its voice will essentially remain predominantly young and prudent. In the absence of such a merit-based system, where exceptions occasionally do surface the majority that fills the void is of the born again revolutionaries devoid of any meaningful insight or regard for the long term interest of the country, adamant on wearing their hearts on their sleeves ready to chop down the hands extended in their support. Often for the sake of ambition.

And finally, the twin crises of patience and critical thinking threaten to seal the fate of this nation. As long as the ruling elite feels obliged to play to the gallery, placate jingoistic sentiments to survive and the yes men around the rulers pretend there is nothing wrong with that, the country is bound to teeter on the brink because real reform then cannot begin. If you want to progress you will have to learn to tolerate the opinions of those who want to speak truth to power. Stop labeling patriots as traitors because then you will also not be able to prove your patriotism.

Also, I don’t know if you are as tired of the demands to pick a side every few months as I am. But somebody should tell these dumdums that that choice was made years ago and that’s why we all are sitting in your boat. Ergo all our sufferings. About time you decide how to bring the boat out of crises.

I see many other things left off of the writing on the wall. But I think this much bitter truth must suffice for now.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2022.

My salutations to thy sacred streets, O beloved nation!

Where a tradition has been invented

– that none shall walk with his head held high

If at all one takes a walk, a pilgrimage

One must walk, eyes lowered, the body crouched in pretense and stealth

– Faiz Ahmed Faiz

“I said it was crude,” said Dumbledore, who sounded disdainful, even disappointed, as though Voldemort had fallen short of higher standards Dumbledore expected. “The idea, as I am sure you will have gathered, is that your enemy must weaken him – or herself to enter. Once again, Lord Voldemort fails to grasp that there are much more terrible things than physical injury.”

– Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

At the height of the ongoing no-confidence drama, when the government accused the dissidents of accepting inducements worth 20 crores or 200 million rupees a colleague asked me what I made of all this crisis. I told her that politics had never attracted me as a career and I had never even thought of running for public office but all this talk of this much free money was so tempting that it was forcing me to reconsider my position. Mistaking my cruel, acerbic joke for a statement of fact she asked me if the thought of financial gains could ever motivate me to run for public office. I looked into her eyes and barked: almost exclusively. Before we move forward a disclaimer: if you are faint of heart, this piece is not meant for you.

I said a cruel joke because that is exactly what it is. Every person makes promises to ownself at the start of his/her career. I made four. One, never become a willing part of financial corruption. Two, always respect people’s boundaries and never exploit their weaknesses for personal gratification. This includes always honouring our so-called family and professional values. Three, help everyone that you can. Four, anything for the country. It may sound surreal but so far I think I have done a decent job of honouring these four pacts. So it is a cruel joke. Cruel on me, actually.

But what to make of all this din? What do you make of all those pundits who spent the past four years recounting the evils of what they called a hybrid civil-military combine as a threat to democracy and now are content in seeing the civilian side go down with the satisfaction that the two are not on the same page? I make nothing of it. There is a reason why this country is where it is. Mind you I cannot crow about my foresight either. This is what I wrote in this space two weeks before the last elections:

“We will have to address the issues pertaining to the civil-military divide someday. But I am convinced this is not the right time. Let us first conclusively defeat the spectre of terrorism. Also having observed our political masters for the last decade and knowing how little they have done to bridge the civil-military divide, I am looking to find and vote for a leader who can be trusted by both sides, especially our soldiers.” – From “Scars of a patriot” by the author, July 12, 2018.

Mind you on terrorism my views were not very different a week before the 2013 elections when I wrote in this space:

“However, as we gingerly approach the polling day, fear mounts that our counterterrorism agenda may come in direct conflict with the democratic process, as our two major political parties have time and again shown aversion to the war… But the lives of 40,000 martyrs cannot just amount to nothing. Battle-scarred as we are, we cannot afford to become a prisoner of the Stockholm syndrome and end up bonding with our own assailants. War fatigue is one thing but not to notice the existential threat posed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is downright criminal.” – From “A farewell to arms” by the author, dated May 3, 2013.

A journalist must avoid becoming a part of the story. But in the past nine years, especially the past four my resolve to push back against terrorism was severely tested. I found my voice being lost at crucial junctures. I was severely punished whenever I was proven right. Losing jobs, platforms, perks, occasionally basic rights, and as pointed out earlier even voice. After all this, I should have been proudly able to say that my struggle amounts to something. But it doesn’t. That I stand vindicated. But I don’t. There is something about the South Asian soil that refuses to change. Authors from Mustansar Hussain Tarar to Qurratulain Hyder have extensively written on this. Perhaps that is what motivated me to write pieces titled “A case of ‘unevolving’ monkeys” in this space on April 26, 2013 and “The mad who drink their own blood” on December 22, 2011.

Since I didn’t try to keep it a secret many of you must already know that on the 2nd of this month I survived a massive cardiac episode and a part of my heart literally died. As I was lying on the operation table undergoing angioplasty, as is customary, my entire life flashed before my eyes. Did my life amount to anything? Answer: No. Will it amount to anything? Probably not. What becomes of my two daughters? You know what? Since I was blessed with them I have gone out of the way to advocate for women’s rights, in the hope that today I speak out for other people’s daughters tomorrow somebody will for mine too. But do I hope? No.

I feel particularly gratified today because this time I voted with a view to winning the trust of a valiant segment of our society. And now I am told that the reason why this government will go is because of the dissatisfaction of the very same segment. And that happens when we build peace with the terrorists that hunted us for 20 years. Sure. But who will answer for the four years long purity and loyalty tests that we had to go through?

There is a lesson here somewhere dear reader. That if you are in a domain with political or public exposure and you are in it for anything other than the money you are wasting your time. Your life will also be entirely pointless. So, I may soon quit journalism and run for public office. With absolutely correct and realistic motivation. There are those who appreciate love, devotion, and dedication. Others who only see the money. This society belongs to the latter category. Until then I leave you with the following random quotes:

“For 22 years, I’ve lived here. Every morning l take a walk, down this street. Every morning, the street asks me my name… Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here? Do l have a reply? After half a lifetime spent here… this land still remains alien to me, and l to it.” – Opening lines of an Indian movie.

“We can’t even think as to where we want to go

We’re moving forward without a path

We don’t know what we’re searching for

Our hearts are weaving dreams all the time

Time has done such great injustice

You’re no longer you and I’m no longer me” – An Indian song, I am sure you have guessed it.

What? Too much sentimental drama? Tell me you don’t deserve it?

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2022.

Growing up in Pakistan with a hunger for books I found one Pakistani title rather alluring. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s The Myth of Independence has the kind of ring to it that instinctively gets what generations of Pakistani policy pundits have been failing to underscore so succinctly. But that is where the book’s miracles end. In plain speak, it is yet another uninviting explainer of a politician’s career and choices. A smart politician of course. But a politician, nevertheless. His role in building a relationship with China should be lauded. But that is the extent of his big foreign policy influence.

Every five-six years circumstances bring us to a situation where our leaders or at the very least our pundits are found complaining about our alleged, helpless and hopeless propinquity to the west. The yarn of counterfactuals that then is woven takes us to the lackadaisical journey of make-believe opportunities. But pray, treat all such attempts to reinvent history with extreme prejudice. Second-guessing the past is the most useless of enterprises imaginable because none of us has a time machine to go back and change what was done. And that’s not all. The diplomatic options you were told you had throughout the country’s history, in all likelihood, are lies invented by people like this scribe to make you or your favourite rulers happy. In the realm of foreign policy, Pakistan never had the luxury to choose between blocs. The only freedom of action it had was regarding its own behaviour — competence versus incompetence. The country tried both. When we were competent we did more damage to ourselves. When we were not, the fallout was restricted to the ruling elite. You live in a rough neighborhood. If you have anything valuable, your first responsibility is to draw attention away from it, rather than bragging about it. By being inconspicuous. But I don’t think that is one test our political class can pass. Because there is nothing marketable or sexy in it.

Pakistan is not an unimportant country. With a population of 210 million and endowed with countless resources it can expect to be treated exceptionally. But that has only compounded its problems rather than offering solutions. When your citizens instinctively know that the country is exceptional they expect exceptional results. But then the country’s policymakers know that it is neither the only important, nor the most important country around. For one it is encircled by nations with far older cultures and even more significance. China and India with their over one billion population. Iran with its oil reserves and unique religio-cultural and geographical clout. And Afghanistan, the tip of the spear of every great game played in the region. Some of these neighbours have an unrelenting history of trying to undermine Pakistan. Never a dull moment. Leaders can make clever use of the country’s underutilised dimensions but cannot invent new ones. The variables that define a country’s foreign policy trajectory remain finite, inflexible, and often very limiting. These leaders then often pick and choose between their nation’s relative strengths to leverage foreign relationships and enhance prestige at home. By a remarkable coincidence, Pakistan’s most leveraged feature under every government is its geography and not its people.

Now let us revisit some key myths about Pakistan’s foreign policy choices. First, the Soviet Union invited the first premier of Pakistan to visit but Liaquat Ali Khan chose to visit the US on President Truman’s invitation instead. This story somehow aims to convince us that Pakistan’s elites were so desperate to join the western camp that they openly rejected Moscow’s invitation. But here is a funny thought. There is no record of such an invite neither in Pakistani records nor, to the best of our knowledge in Russia. So what happened? Nehru had already been to the US and Liaquat had not. The report of this invite generated enough interest and shock in Washington to lead to a formal counter-invitation. There is a serious chance that the whole thing was a figment of someone’s overactive imagination, albeit a highly useful figment. Likewise, the country’s entry into SEATO and CENTO came after the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case, another implausible scheme that feels specifically congealed to endear the country to the western bloc. If it was, it worked. Please do not judge too harshly. A newly born country with little to show for and faced with a powerful if influential adversary, in desperate need of aid, did what it could and I for one am proud of it. Shuja Nawaz in his book Crossed Swords tells us the dilapidated state of military hardware that the country invaded and how a Pak-US military agreement led to a dramatic improvement in the country’s defences. Similarly, the country did not have much choice when faced with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and more recently the US-led war on terror. Today, the ruling party says it did not support the Afghan war. But it was among a few major parties (major now) that publicly supported Gen Musharraf’s referendum that took place after the invasion which amounts to roughly the same thing. I know it because I was aggressively opposed to the invasion at the time and no political parties, not even the religious ones, were truly against the intervention. Twenty years later I can tell you with confidence that the country had no choice.

So today when we hear the promise that Pakistan will not succumb to partisan pressures one fears that those promising this do not even realise what is really wrong with the whole thing. We are conditioned by our circumstances. Our circumstances force us to take sides. Usually, we fear that if we don’t take a position we may lose salience. This fear takes a general to Kabul, a PM to Moscow right when these photo ops could seriously injure the country. In that context, I really wonder what has truly changed.

There are only two reasons why you would be insecure about such things. Fragile economy. And disputes with the neighbours. So, ideally, a truly independent foreign policy would lead you to build peace with all your neighbours in such a fashion that it complements the country’s economy. It matters little who rules these neighbours if it is your national interest that drives the decision. I know it is not easy to make peace with an India ruled by Narendra Modi. But when you establish relations with Russia when Putin is in the middle of invading a sovereign country you are well past moral dilemmas.

Does all of this ring a bell? Geoeconomics over geopolitics? While it is a politician’s job to reach these conclusions independently, in Pakistan it is a man in uniform who reached there first. General Bajwa has delivered a number of public talks so far on the subject. And it all adds up.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2022.

What’s the point? The more you want to fix it the more it all crumbles. You can wake up someone who is sleeping. You cannot rouse someone who is pretending to sleep. You can protect someone who faces an imminent threat of death. How can you defend someone who wants to kill himself? The human condition for you in the good year 2022.

In their book The Narrow Corridor, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson quote Lewis Carroll’s book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There to introduce you to the term, the Red Queen effect in the following words: In the book, Alice meets and runs a race with the Red Queen. “Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterward, how it was that they began,” but she noticed that even though they both appeared to be running hard, “the trees and the other things round them never seemed to change their places at all: however fast they went they never seemed to pass anything.” Finally, when the Red Queen called a halt, Alice looked around her in great surprise. “Why I do believe we’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!”

“Of course it is,” said the Queen, “what would you have it?”

“Well in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”

What do you do with a world that threatens to blow itself up every five minutes? And then all these crises have this weird The Truman Show-like sensation about them. The world goes to pieces on live television but our camera shot variations capture the spectacles perfectly. After 20 years of relative calm when Kabul falls, the Taliban live footage almost transmits the taste and odour of the desperation and helplessness in the air. The same experience with India’s sudden and heartless lockdown where millions were stranded and had to travel by foot. And now the air of hopelessness in Ukraine.

When recently President Putin delivered his long speech on Ukraine, and Nato, and 1991, shortly afterward he officially recognised the two breakaway territories. As the footage and the pictures of the signing ceremony circulated on social media someone noticed that the watch the Russian president was wearing showed time before the speech. And then started an avalanche of Twitter posts carrying pictures of his Security Council members, all wearing watches that showed a different time. Weird. Did they all wear broken watches? Remind me of another crisis with similar incoherence of time. And the piece se resistance. When the next day (22/2/22) President Biden announced the first tranche of sanctions he concluded his speech and turned back exactly at 2.22 PM the local time. There is some unmistakable hint of historic irony somewhere in there. I mention this because it was being discussed on social media in those days.

But before you join QAnon or some similar cult, here is a simple fact for you. All these sights and sounds are made possible because of technology. The better technology you have the better chances of capturing the sights and sounds of an event. And then there is the matter of the omnipresence of technology. Every smartphone is now equipped with a relatively decent camera. Naturally, you cannot then miss the kind of opportunities that time presents to you. Including some of the most distressing footage like people clinging to and falling from the rescue planes last year. Also, regarding date and time let us remember that they are quantified values we attach to random things and intrinsically these units of time do not have any value of their own. Nor is it the Biden administration’s fault that the year is 2022, the month February and the date happened to be what it was. All they could do was to pick the time and I can imagine the grinning face of a young prankster among the policy circles

Even so, everything that happens seems to want to hurt you. And the cherry on the top: the technology that makes these visual sensations possible seems to be failing to provide mankind with antidotes.

I do share with you these random thoughts because they stand out in daily observation. But then I am always cognizant of the fact that they can easily be weaponised to resemble conspiracy theories. I can only add disclaimers and shrug off. Throughout my working life, people have mercilessly taken and used my ideas without any credit or acknowledgment. Why should I get the blame for the weird stuff when you wouldn’t credit let alone reward me for the good ones that you have taken.

Sharing personal distress about these global events is incredibly difficult in these polarising times. Especially in a region where a sizeable chunk of the population (I can only hope not a majority) by default roots not for Abel the slain but my man Cain. When you do not comport to the predominant view you get marked. The Mark, again, not of Cain but the slain. The most pitiable stigma imaginable.

It worries me a lot, dear readers, to think how this constant reminder of televised cruelty and barbarism will shape the minds of our children. Will it not make it a new normal for them? And what frightens me the most is the lot that can easily rationalise the wholesale disenfranchisement of young women in Afghanistan in the name of realpolitik and national interest. Will they do not the same to our and their children if circumstances brought us to that fork in the road?

The worry continues. The worry to preserve human life. The worry to preserve the difficult status quo, to borrow Galtung’s term, negative peace? With one fault line (Ukraine-Russia) already exploding, what will happen to the other ones that threaten to do the same? Like the ones between China and India, India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, Russia and the West and on?

And then you have the cheerleaders of strongmen to whom moral nuances are meaningless.

We spent an entire cold war under the threat of a nuclear brawl. The leaders of that time did not let it happen. But with hotheads and angry leaders all over the world, we now have those who act on the wild impulses and have fun documenting it all for the viewers. There is a reason why Donald Trump, the reality TV star, got elected to the world’s most powerful post. It is the age designed for reality television. What is life when the Red Queen effect is the end in itself? Why not come to terms with own mortality and be done with it.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 26^th, 2022.

We have read much about the confluence of religion and politics, militancy and politics, and why even military and militancy. But one topic flying under the radar and hovering almost beyond the edge of sight is the collusion between the business class and religion. This might be the most important factor yet to define the contours of our reality.

Have you ever wondered why in every polity where an overwhelming majority is usually moderate bordering on liberal, conservatism keeps winning? Why is it that despite a lot of evidence to prove that the clergy of each nation usually ends up undermining its national interest, states and institutions seem helpless before its onslaught? Need evidence?

Just imagine if a bunch of people with nothing to do with religion, living in a compound mostly built on state-owned land in Islamabad was to declare autonomy, hoist the flag of the country’s known enemies, hold citizens hostage and unleash violence on the streets. How do you think the state would treat it? Needless to say that they would be uprooted and brought to the book in no time. Now, remember we are not judging the state right now. The purpose of these lines is to highlight the paradox we call religious politics in this country. The Red Mosque lot is still relevant despite its showdown with the state a decade and a half ago. Likewise, of the three major sit-ins that paralysed the federal capital two were totally led by religious groups and one partly by one of them. We saw how little resistance they encountered. And in all of this, the sympathies of the vernacular media mostly remained with them. Likewise, the Waco Siege in Texas instantly became a religious right talking point despite mainly being a law enforcement issue.

Bearing in mind countless similar examples from around the world you are compelled to wonder if the game is so rigged that the religious right can never lose. Perhaps it has something to do with how religious identities have shaped over the years in each of these countries. That is one explanation although, as we will see later, not a comprehensive one.

In India, Akshaya Mukul’s brilliant book Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India tells us the tale of an affluent Indian trading class vying to assert its identity and driven by devotional sentiment laid the foundation of the country’s religious right. Likewise, during Faizabad dharna, you might have heard accounts of Rawalpindi’s trading class bringing food and supplies to the protesters. But while these examples show you the sympathies among traders for such causes this is not what I mean by the confluence of the religious right and the business interests. These sympathies underscore the symptoms and not the cause. The traders of any country, hailing mostly from the middle class, only represent the dominant narrative instead of setting it. To see who sets the narrative you will have to cast a wider net for the bigger fish.

The regular readers of this space would remember a book I mentioned in one of my pieces. Kurt Andersen, the American writer and the host of the Peabody-winning public radio programme Studio 360, wrote Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire. A breathtakingly original tour-de-force, it is a vivid survey of American history that brings key nodal points to light that while making the country unique also contributed to all the ongoing weirdness in the nation today. The use of religion as a grift finds a special mention. Time and again countless men and women conned the unsuspecting, the simpletons, and the gullible out of their wealth. But that too is not the comprehensive explanation we are looking for. A more recent book by the author at least launches you in that direction.

Andersen’s Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America is less impressive in scope than the previous volume but it instinctively, if unwittingly, touches the nub of the gist of the problem. Instigated by a personal epiphany where the author realised how little the fashion sense had changed between 1987 and 2007 he dove deep into the inner workings of the American economy and re-emerged with one word — nostalgia. Nostalgia not just as the visceral sensation that haunts us all occasionally but the distress caused by the change that compels you to long for a pristine if make-belief past, simpler times, which in turn can be exploited by big businesses.

The radical transformations of the 1960s were too distressing for many. The liberal policies back then were taking America in a more equitable direction when sensing the onset of a cultural shock morphing into nostalgia, the economic right led by Milton Friedman and Lewis Powell pounced. Popular TV series in the 1970s were all set in the 1950s. Nostalgia as a construct led to Reagan’s economic policies resulting in permanent exploitation by the rich and ossification of inequality as an accepted reality of the society. Religious right also banks on guilt, cultural shock, and fear of social change.

In her book Strangers in Their Own Land, American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild does a sterling job of unmasking the unholy alliance between the clergy and corporate greed. So much toxic waste is dumped in Louisiana’s waters that the locals do not eat the red parts of the fish and yet the population remains deeply conservative wedded to the Republican party’s pro-rich policies. How? Through the indoctrination of the right-wing punditry. For the poor the kingdom of heaven, for the rich and the religious elite everything on earth. Collusion to manufacture consent in plain sight.

Then you should not be surprised when you hear about the collusion between Modi’s BJP, Ambanis and Adani. In his recent column, Jawed Naqvi saheb brought up an interesting opposition slogan: “India is ruled by four men from one state. Two are selling the country. The other two are buying it.” All four are from Gujarat and religion is their favourite weapon to addle your brains and manufacture consent. Likewise, why be shocked when you learn that a renowned property tycoon sheltered the Red Mosque people from the consequences of their actions?

In a world where the rich get richer and the poor do not realise that things are being taken from them, religious manipulation works like a charm. And because the rich have money this collusion sets the agenda which eventually envelops the state institutions. Because we all are primed to do what is easy, not what is right.

Let me now break the tension by bringing up a laughable episode of karmic humour. Remember I once mentioned how India under influence of its corporate elite kept pushing for the suspension of patents on Covid vaccines and when it did not get its way conspiracy theories about alleged chips in the vaccines exploded in the world. India is known for its influence campaigns and all of this had Ajit Doval’s fingerprints on them. A few days back a man rammed into Doval’s high-security residence and claimed that he did it because he was being controlled remotely through a chip in his body. Yeah, life comes at you fast. But you haven’t heard the funniest bit. They actually scanned his body for the non-existent chip!

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2022.

Any noble intention can be twisted, perverted, and weaponised to produce the most troublesome results. Do you need examples? Consider the opposition to the invasion of Iraq. This opposition produced a mass movement across the western world and led to highly publicised million marches. Sadly, this movement could not stop the invasion which would unhinge an America already traumatised by 9/11 and almost Pavlovian conditioning by a highly ambitious political elite trying to capitalise on the paranoia generated by the said attacks to reshape the world. This invasion also broke the Arab world and through refugee crises made Europe highly volatile. It was a Republican president who made this invasion possible. And yet another Republican president honed the invasion-related grievance to demonise his political rivals including many Democrats who never supported the project.

Donald Trump, who originally supported the invasion on the Howard Stern show in 2002, would go on to claim that he opposed it and that it was proof that there was a swamp of dirty politics in Washington that needed to be drained. And who should drain it? Why, he, the Republican candidate, who else?

The conservative forces that supported his candidature from day one were essentially a product of the Tea Party movement, a nominally libertarian resistance to Obama policies which soon acquired highly reactionary and often racist overtones. Libertarianism on its own is a beautiful idea. But in these hands, it was to turn ugly.

When in 2008 Obama won, many of us, tired of the Bush Cheney administration’s endless wars and hunger for opening as many fronts as possible (remember, the axis of evil?) heaved a sigh of relief. The idea was that the newly elected president would close down Gitmo, end the war in Iraq and eventually in Afghanistan and we would return to normalcy. To many like this scribe, his election was incontrovertible evidence that America’s voting public was as wary of these wars and a post-racial society had arrived. But the system made all that nearly impossible. America’s conservative circles often accuse the Democrats of being soft on security. Then the new President was not just black (half black but who would care?) but had Hussein as the middle name.

 So he was repeatedly asked to prove his patriotism, toughness in national security-related issues, and above everything else zero tolerance for terrorism which by now thanks to the Bush-era narratives was synonymous with Islam. He bent over backward but even that was not enough for his detractors. As the result of the presidential election was announced word got out that a mournful silence had enveloped the Bagram Airbase.

Bob Woodward in his book Obama’s Wars tells us the impact of the first intelligence briefing on the then President-elect Obama: “When Obama returned, his demeanour was different. He was more reserved, even aggravated. The transition from campaigning to governing — with all its frustrations — was delivering another surprise. His people, the inner circle from the campaign, and the brain trust of Democrats he had carefully assembled to guide his transition, were being excluded. The first customer-elect was going to have to go it alone.”

He had to retain Bush’s defence secretary and most of the security apparatus. Shortly before leaving power, former vice president Cheney said that a hasty withdrawal would destabilise the Arab world and Pakistan. When Obama tried to withdraw forces he had to contend with stiff resistance and snail-paced compliance. In his book Reign of Terror, Spencer Ackerman documents how Trump brought everyone who actively sabotaged Obama’s attempts to control Bush’s unruly War on Terror into his administration. And when the withdrawal from Iraq was complete the entire region exploded as a result of the so-called Arab spring. And today the Iraq invasion carried out by a Republican administration is a Republican talking point and grievance. Remarkable.

Any lessons here? Those responsible for failures often usurp the talking points of their critics and weaponise against them. Governance is a closed model. It takes a while for the criticism to reach the top and by the time it reaches there, those who had hitherto resisted it appropriate it, reshape it to suit their agenda, and put it to use while simultaneously disempowering the real critics. To know why this happens you have to simply look at the cast of characters. From major businesses that profited from the invasion to the public office holders who ended up on the boards of those companies. And allied countries too. Want names? Remember the country Saddam would attack with his missiles? Also, the country that was actively supporting armed resistance against the Taliban before 9/11? Israel and India. While Israel’s main activism stems genuinely from concerns about survival, India’s is driven by ambition to become a superpower. Territorially it wants to absorb all small neighbours and globally it doesn’t mind rising at the cost of its main benefactors.

Speaking of India, here is another interesting example of innocent ideas being hijacked by the wily bunch. Have you seen a movie called Munna Bhai MBBS? The story of an affable goon whose bark is worse than his bite and who in the end wants good things for everyone. Remind you of someone? Why, Narendra Modi’s portrayal in the media and to a lesser extent now of Yogi Adityanath. Any idea can be perverted, you see.

Yet another example. Today, Hindutva politics might be used to terrorise India’s minorities and disenfranchise the lower castes but its proponents try to couch the whole project in the name of decolonisation. Likewise, cow protection values come from Jainism, the world’s most pacifist faith and yet it has been used to kill innocent minorities.

If you want to study the origin of the rhetoric that is unhinging the west today you will need to see the kind of brainpower, money, and effort that is going into it. It seems Democrats in America and liberals everywhere else can’t seem to catch a break. Within minutes their victories turn into dust. Then take note of how dissent has been crushed in the above two countries that were coalition partners in the war on terror. And finally who has access to the western resources. If you are told Russia and China are doing it, it is a bald-faced lie. China doesn’t have access; Russia doesn’t have resources.

The Bush administration’s eight years hardened the security apparatus of allied states. Their intelligence agencies internalised and normalised the visceral hatred of the cultural other, the enemy. Now the tail is wagging the dog. And your antiviruses are programmed not to catch these viruses.

Add to it the rise of billionaires and business executives that have risen in the intervening period. Causes that are close to Elon Musk’s heart from Trucker rally in Canada to reports of ghettoisation of his black workforce. Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and its role in the 2016 Cambridge Analytica scandal. If in the face of so much evidence you cannot put two and two together, you are programmed not to notice it and it means the future of mankind is doomed. And even if you do, where is the reset button?

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th, 2022.

As the post-election crisis simmered in the US, a nameless, faceless French programmer (identity withheld by the authorities) decided that the decline of the Western civilisation was inevitable and with his health deteriorating so before ending his life he would send his bitcoin savings to far-right pundits like one white-supremacist and holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and several creeps of the same order before ending his life. He posted his death note on his blog which had been dormant since (wait for it) 2014 and killed himself after sending out this money. Fuentes received 13.5 bitcoins (values at a time at approximately USD 250,000). Most of the rest of the 28.15 bitcoins went to 21 other bitcoin wallets owned by other far-right elements. One month later Fuentes would be seen taking an active part in the January 6 insurrection.

The most remarkable thing about this story is that it stinks to the high heavens. For instance one, why is it that authorities are withholding the identity of the far-right donor who is already dead? How many other terror financiers are extended this courtesy. Two, the nature of the original reporting. Research by Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency compliance startup, is referenced in the original Yahoo News story, and the said Yahoo News story is referenced in Chainalysis research. This ouroboros would suggest that certain law enforcement or intelligence agencies are on the trail and revealing this information to the journalist writing the story who in turn takes it to Chainalysis. But why not do it yourself instead of exposing a journalist to potential political consequences. And finally, since this report surfaced in the aftermath of 1/6 the trail seems to have gone cold. Either the intelligence agencies on the trail were too satisfied with the answer or then were too distracted (yeah right) by some factors to follow this through. But wait a minute. You don’t need to read too many spy history books or conspiracy thrillers to know that the whole story seems to be too contrived. A month before 1/6, an ailing computer programmer who incidentally has forgotten to update his blog since 2014 decides to take his life, is overwhelmed by his concerns about the allegedly declining western civilisation, looks into his bitcoin wallet flushed with cryptocurrency, and decides to send money to Nick Fuentes who has never received a donation bigger than two thousand dollars? Okay. The 1/6 commission since then has summoned Fuentes. We haven’t heard if either of the above-mentioned startup or reporter was summoned. The reporter later also filed a story questioning the bona fides of one staff member of the commission from the intelligence community.

The same report also mentioned two other names, malcontents of the same stock. Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi who will live in infamy for his Heil Trump slogan and salute after the latter’s shock victory. The other name is of Andrew Anglin, the editor of Daily Stormer, an out-and-out neo-Nazi website. Anglin received USD 60,000 worth of bitcoins in 2017 according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Both these names are important.

Richard Spencer launched Alt-Right Corporation and the website AltRight.com with the Swedish far-right figure Daniel Friberg. Before joining Spencer, Friberg and his business partner John Morgan established a publishing company called Arktos Media and took their business to India. In India Morgan would convert to Hinduism, live in Hare Krishna Ashram, and help Friberg in making the far-right publishing business successful. All these details have been expunged from their Wikipedia pages but Benjamin Tietelbaum’s book War for Eternity would preserve all of this for posterity. Their four-year stay in India ended in (wait for it) 2014. These names are also linked to other far-right elements like Steve Bannon, Jason Jorjani (a white nationalist of Iranian origin) and Aleksander Dugin.

The Daily Stormer is important because despite being a neo-Nazi website in 2017 it placed Yair Netanyahu, son of the former Israeli PM, in its banner, calling itself his number one fansite. What? A neo-Nazi website/paper a fan of a Jewish premier’s son? Makes no sense, does it? But go back up and look at the year when its editor got $60k. Also 2017. When it comes to neo-Nazis Bibi and his son are a gift that keeps giving. They took steps down this slippery slope in opposition to the billionaire George Soros. But then it morphed into something else. Benjamin Netanyahu’s blaming of the Palestinian grand mufti for the holocaust, his alliance with various Christian Zionists, who want Israel to be fattened as a sacrificial animal to be slaughtered during the rapture and otherwise can’t stand Jews, all speak to what a great gift he was to the racist far right. His policies towards the African Jewish immigrants to Israel also speak of a colour bias. Meanwhile, some of the white nationalists like Jared Taylor, President of the New Century Foundation, now claim to treat the Ashkenazi Jews (European Jewry that looks and sounds white) as whites. Not all neo-Nazis agree though and you can tell it will end in tears.

I do not know to this day whether by the western civilisation Samuel Huntington actually meant only the whites or other colours too because his last book Who are we undermines the idea of a pluralistic western identity and the title of this book sounds eerily similar to William Luther Pierce’s Who we are. Yeah, the author of the Turner Diaries. Pierce’s website is incidentally where I first encountered Savitri Devi’s works, the European Nazi who went to India in search of a caste-based society. What she thinks of all Abrahamic religions will become clear when you read A Warning to the Hindus. She married a Brahmin during her stay in India. Another convert to Hinduism, who jumped on the Huntington train is one Vamadeva Shastri née David Frawley. Read his book Hinduism and the Clash of Civilizations to know how this bug got to this lot. Remember a caste-based world order is what the neo-Nazis now want. It requires a major disruption like another world war to bring about these changes.

Castes are important to them. Nothing else can give them an advantage in a fiercely competitive world. Isabel Wilkerson in her brilliant book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents shows how racism is also a form of casteism. She explains how the eight pillars of casteism preserve this linkage. These eight pillars are: 1) divine will and laws of nature, 2) heritability, 3) endogamy, 4) concept of racial pollution, 5) occupational hierarchy, 6) dehumanization & stigma, 7) terror as enforcement and cruelty as means of control, 8) inherent superiority versus Inherent Inferiority.

If all of this doesn’t make it clear to you what awaits you, just read three books. Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit by Manoranjan Byapari and Caste Matters by Suraj Yengde. And of course Turner Diaries. You will be disabused of any delusions.

I highlight 2014 again and again because the invasion of Crimea wasn’t the only thing that happened that year. Modi rose to power in India. And a few months before that Ajit Doval went to Shastra university to pitch for a ten-year rule for the RSS-BJP. And also presented what he called the idea of defensive offence. I have written too much on this. Just look it up and connect all dots.

In my view, if a war between the US and Russia does not materialise then perhaps Iran or North Korea will spark something similar. Constant vigilance is needed.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2022.

Is Russia about to walk into a trap in Ukraine? What are the forces that may want it to invade? Should Russia’s insistence on protecting its sphere of influence be compared to Hitler’s claims on Europe or America’s Monroe Doctrine? And what the consequences of an invasion might be? Could it lead to war? Could the resulting sanctions cripple Russia’s economy?

Something about this time reminds you of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, the fateful strategic mistake that led him and his country to ruin.

But I think I can do one better. When we want to look for an explanation regarding the rise of the far-right in the west and elsewhere we try to study the second world war. But that was more a consequence of a previous one that broke our world. The first world war known to its contemporaries as the great war unhinged the world, paved the way for the Third Reich and WWII. And if you notice the triggers were quite similar. Back in those days, major armies took a year in mobilising and the war could have been stopped at any time but a copious amount of misunderstandings and miscalculations would give you a war that would break the seals of hell.

You are often told that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by Serb terrorists led to the war. But his death was not of that much significance. Owing to his choice in marriage he was a marginalised figure within the royal family. As for the two leaders of the war, Russia and Germany, many still do not pay attention to the fact that their monarchs were cousins and best friends. In fact, their letters written mainly in English addressing each other as Nicky (Czar Nicholas II) and Willy (Kaiser Wilhelm II) are part of the public record. To top it all one must mention another of their cousins, Georgie (British King George V). With that kind of familiarity, the three cousins led Europe to war and its ruin.

The Czar gave up power as a result of unrest and his country would soon withdraw from the war as a result of the Bolshevik revolution. The Kaiser had to abdicate in 1918 and the country remained rudderless until the Nazis took over. Conspiracy theories about the causes of the great war abound. In fact, a 900-page report about the munition industry’s role in starting the war called the Nye Report was presented in the US Congress in 1936.

Wars have consequences. Great wars doubly so. If you look at the annexation of Crimea you will notice that it too was not without consequences. That was more or less the time when far-right politics exploded in Europe, led to Brexit in a year and Trump in two.

This time if an invasion of Ukraine does take place there are clear signs that regardless of the reaction it will lead to a further rise of the far-right all over the world. In fact, if you look at how the far-right pundits like Tucker Carlson are framing the conflict and how it is being misinterpreted by the mainstream pundits. Carlson’s job is not the avoidance of war but only that right-leaning America does not take part. Why you ask? Because when the liberals and moderates have exhausted their energies and their goodwill in an avoidable conflict, the far-right can pick up the pieces and shape America and Europe after its own image. Liberal pundits call Tucker a Russian stooge. But he might be much more than that. And the habit of the western intelligence community of blaming Putin for everything wrong speaks more to their flawed programming that has its roots in the war on terror and Huntington’s clash of civilisations thesis.

If you haven’t noticed it yet the far right is playing four-dimensional chess with the established institutions of the world. The resources needed for such a grand campaign go beyond anything that Russia’s economy could furnish. There are richer countries that could do that. Countries that are allies of the west have unfettered access to western resources. And now a Nazi bent of mind. And allegedly a spiritual connection with the west’s closed spiritual cultures.

Only a couple of days before India’s republic day its government did something unthinkable. It extinguished the eternal flame commemorating India’s unknown soldiers and replaced it with the statue of Subash Chandra Bose, an Indian freedom fighter who raised his own army, allied with the Axis powers, contributed Indian legion to the Nazi forces, and died an untimely death. This statue was a signal that India now was what the RSS-BJP wanted it to become — a Hindu Rashtra and not a modern republic. India’s war heroes would later be referred to by a retired Gen Bakshi as mercenaries. When people pointed to Bose’s tragic choices they were told that he was bigger than these choices. That might be true. People are more complicated than their choices. But the reason why a BJP government chose his statue is down to the exact same choices. There is a pattern of the BJP lionising such individuals in history. For example, Sardar Patel’s tall statue is there because of his Islamophobia. Godse is celebrated because he killed Gandhi. And on.

In my previous pieces I have already highlighted the contributions one Maximianaximiani Julia Portas known to India and western Neo-Nazis as Savitri Devi Mukherji through her links to Savarkar and the Hindutva thought. Recently she has been called Hitler’s Priestess because she believed that Hitler was an avatar of Vishnu. Her works are now contributing to the esoteric Nazism. She came to India because she thought that all humans should not be treated equally and India’s casteism had the world figured out. Through various linkages like these, the upper caste Hindutva Indians believe that they can find their place in a Nazi world capitalising on the Aryan myth. Putin and his detractors are all being egged on by their vessels like Aleksander Dugin and Steve Bannon. Fourth Reich then is just waiting to be born.

Another tell. You can see India’s shadow in the anti-vax campaign around the world as well. For a while, it sought suspension of vaccine patents. When that was not to be anti-vax propaganda exploded in the world. India’s current government also came to power in 2014.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2022.

What makes someone or something great? A work is great if it takes the civilisation a step forward (genuine, innovative work) or if it is a bestseller? If originality, innovation, and progress were the standards for greatness then Socrates wouldn’t have to drink poison hemlock, Galileo wouldn’t have been blinded, Van Gogh wouldn’t have to kill himself in anonymity, or the Muslim scientists you want to cherish today wouldn’t have been treated as pariahs by the society in their own time. Bestseller then?

And that’s the other thing about the word greatness. It forces you to believe in absolutes. Was Gandhi great? To the world he is. I like to believe he died fighting for Pakistan’s rights. He already had enough traction upon his return from South Africa to compel Tagore to give him the title of Mahatma (great soul). But did you know that the Mahatma did not subscribe to the germ theory and that is why when his wife was on her death bed stricken with pneumonia and doctors told him that a shot of penicillin could save her, he forbade them. Their children begged him to relent but instead, he asked them to be content with holy chants. Ring a bell? He, on the other hand, allowed doctors to save his life with quinine when he was suffering from malaria.

A character made great by way of demonisation is Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last governor-general of India. But when it comes to greatness he was neither here nor there. A bumbling, failing character out of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster books, with an emphasis on pride in whiteness and close association with Hitler sympathiser King Edward VIII, the uncle of the incumbent queen, who was forced to abdicate. His wife Edwina, again demonised for her romantic escapades, was a better, caring human being. In fact, she was so competent and caring that had she been the governor-general instead of her nincompoop husband probably millions would not have died during the partition. But a woman, right?

Likewise a question about Churchill. Was he great? He saved the world’s bacon from Nazis, didn’t he? So definitely great. But was he good or evil? Depends on whom you ask. The world loves him, India hates him and he and the Mahatma (two greats of history) hated each other’s guts.

Moral of the story so far: people and ideas are complicated and it is bad to approach anything with prejudice or preconceived notions. Please bear in mind that words or ideas like state, society, politics, civilisation, and economy all are constructs put together by ordinary people like this scribe, whose job it is to look for the best ideas for your consumption.

That is precisely why I have made a habit of not approaching an idea with prejudice. Nor do I judge a book by its cover. That is a courtesy usually reserved for the elements like me who at times are accused of growing cowardice with age or giving in to expediency. But that is a cross for the ahle safa, mardood-e-haram, to bear and I for one would wear it with pride while simultaneously offering to volunteer for a polygraph test to prove that I believe in what I preach.

I learned the lesson of shunning all preconceived notions from Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s book Ghubar-e-Khatir. In one letter he tells us that his father was opposed to all worldly knowledge because it could lead him astray, away from the faith. Maulana tells us that in the face of repression he did not stop and kept studying. He admits that momentarily he lost faith as a consequence, and says people choose to give up in one of these stages but he did not and eventually he regained faith, and it was his earned faith. I envy everyone who is too sure of himself or herself because I don’t think this world is made for such certainties. No, this life was meant for a never-ending quest, the journey being its own reward. That is why people who want to see meaning in history from Hegel, Marx and why the best one of them all, Habermas, all talk of exchange of ideas, dialectics so to speak.

Approaching without prejudice becomes very difficult in this day and age because everything is steeped in tribalism and you are pressured to choose sides. Renowned psychologist and writer Steven Pinker wrote The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. While the title says it all, it was a bold assertion based on the author’s study of historical evidence. But an equally brilliant book by a noted anthropologist and a gifted archeologist titled Dawn of Everything does not just seek to pulverise the central thesis of his book that the emergence of a hierarchical society and a strong state brought peace to our world but bulldozes Rousseau’s soft justifications for a state and Hobbes’ hard ones through a unique take on history. So not just the future but the past too is in contention. When unnerved by such uncertainties I return to people whose work I know and trust. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, for instance, out with another book titled The Narrow Corridor. I love their candor when they assert that liberties are not given but won through struggles. A granular, inspiring work.

Approaching without prejudice is important because we have two instructive examples in our neck of the woods. Maududi, who never went to a seminary and approached the study of the Quran with his own preconceived political notions. Resultantly he ended up interpreting everything politically. You have to read Maulana Wahiduddin’s Tabeer ki Ghalti (just google it) to learn about the damage done here. I had to read his Tafheem, cover to cover for a fourth time to spot the issues after this. And the other, Syed Qutb, the one who went to the UK without any homework about the host country and received a cultural shock so immense that he ended up radicalising generations through his work and Ikhwan ul Muslimin. If you read Wahiduddin you may find he furnishes plenty of evidence that the approach of Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) to amr-bil-maroof-wa-nahi-anil-munkar was individual, not collective, missionary, and inspirational not primarily political. The problem with combining politics and religion through the state is that it invariably hurts religion. Because a state’s approach to everything is utilitarian. An example is of this damage is evident in the Mu’tazila crisis. If it had prevailed, the caliph of the time would have been seeking to amend the Holy Book. Also, a state’s sprawling bureaucracy usually acts as a regressive element, either carrying orders too literally or then seeking rent for selfish gain. Individuality on the other hand is proven by tradition. To seek forgiveness all a Muslim has to do is to turn to God and neither to a cleric or the state to buy indulgences, for God and God alone is the ultimate arbiter of vice and virtue. It should be a state’s job to shelter its citizen from fear, want, disease, exploitation, and ignorance. And that’s about it. It is an article of the Muslim faith that the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was guided directly by God and today’s states are not because of the conclusion of the apostolic tradition.

That said I promise I will keep an open mind for stronger arguments and better ideas.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 22^nd, 2022.

The butter versus gun debate has become a perennial part of our national discourse. It was bound to be. The country has faced external existential threats since its inception. No matter what spin India tries to put on its machinations the truth remains that its intervention was instrumental in the fall of East Pakistan. And that was the least of its posturing. Today India’s rulers openly vow to isolate Pakistan in the international arena and the head of the RSS, the ideological fountainhead of the ruling party, daily predicts that the Pakistani territories would soon become part of India (Akhand Bharat, if you please). I don’t get this obsession with trying to occupy a sovereign country. Usually, countries that seek to gain territory try to do justice to the people already under their control first. Unlikely to happen anytime soon. But if this is not textbook revisionism I don’t what else is.

This month the butter versus guns debate has acquired new importance for two reasons. The government has finally managed to get the Finance (Supplementary) Bill, 2021, and the State Bank of Pakistan (Amendment) Bill, 2021 passed in the National Assembly. The opposition claims that the bill ensuring the central bank’s autonomy compromises the country’s sovereignty. That is a likely story. The last we checked the SBP was headed by a Pakistani national. I am loath to this particular brand of parochialism that seeks to cast aspersions on the integrity of a perfectly patriotic citizen. Those who question Dr Reza Baqir’s loyalty to the country because he served at the International Monetary Fund should be ashamed of themselves and should look up Dr Raghuram Rajan, one of the best governors of India’s Reserve Bank who served as the Fund’s Chief Economist and Director of Research between 2003 and 2006. Sound technocrats do not fall from the sky. They work and a job is just another job but this should never be used to question their loyalty to their motherland. Let’s do something new. Let’s put faith in people and see if they ever disappoint you.

The second reason why this debate has acquired importance is the adoption of the country’s first National Security Policy. Dr Moeed Yusuf is the country’s fifth National Security Advisor that I questioned more than once about a national security document. While his predecessors were also thorough professionals none could give me a satisfying answer or a definite date for the formalisation of such a policy. From this, I deduced that either there was systemic resistance or that the governmental machinery’s many moving parts were failing to align at the same time. It was only the incumbent who promised that the government was on it. And finally, we see the fruits of his labour. We have finally managed to find a doer, a closer.

And guess what? Dr Yusuf’s loyalty to the country was also questioned when he assumed office. Some went to the extent of calling him a foreign national. I have seen many countries grappling with a critical pundit class but I have seldom seen or heard such toxic punditry where loyal citizens of the country are disowned based on insinuations, hearsay, or egotistical likes and dislikes. In fact, something deserves to be said about the pundits of this country too.

As the abovementioned two bills were being voted on news emerged of a tiff among the ruling party’s higher echelons. Defence Minister Pervaiz Khattak had expressed his displeasure over gas prices and the lack of gas availability in the province. Then guess what happened. It was as if Christmas had arrived early and our pundits flocked to the TV screens and reminded you that their predictions about the end of the current political dispensation were coming true. What I particularly find almost physically painful dear readers is the savage pleasure this lot, nay this rot, takes in the prospect of an elected government’s fall. I know it is not your first rodeo and you vividly recall the previous cycles. When the PPP was in power, you could be forgiven for thinking that this breed of primarily Punjab and Karachi-based hypergeniuses was brought up on the invective and a healthy distrust of all things Bhutto. When the PML-N was ruling you could deduce that this party was brought back to power after a long exile resulting from a military coup. Ergo the apprehensions were systemic if not endemic. But what is the excuse this time? You and I were lectured ad nauseam for decades for allegedly lacking the fundamental patriotic fibre because we were late to support the Khan train. And now that their promised Valhalla has arrived why are they the first ones to jump the ship? I have seen many vices in nations but never an intellectual class that is so hopelessly wired to undermine the idea of democracy. Lest you forget free press and civil societies are functions of democracy and the former two cannot hope to survive without the latter being buttressed. Two explanations present themselves. One, the God complex. We alone know what is good for you and if you put one toe out of line you be damned. Two, naked ambition. Most pundits you see on television are prospective federal ministers. So, when they are not picked (and I dare you to earn their ire by picking one of them, leaving others baying for your blood), they want to derail the system. Let us invent a third and a charitable one. In their infinite wisdom, these pundits have been trying to sell their idea of national security and that’s why they do this. Milking guns so to speak. Too bad then that half-way through their security paradigms magical creatures start appearing, chittering birds hold extensive though instructive human-like dialogues, genies present themselves, pitched battles take place on flying carpets, end of times lay everything to waste and donning blue turbans they work themselves into such a frenzy that watching from your living room you fear that they would soon shatter the TV screens, step out to choke you into submission.

Given such benightedness, you needed a national security policy. As long as everyone has their own, reductive interpretation of national security it is easy to undermine every institution, every good intention. Working as a blockchain this document will ensure that interpreters do not drift too far away from the agreed-upon path. Seen through this prism the said national security policy is a coup de grace against the forces of anarchy and chaos. Hopefully, it will put an end to the dimwitted industry of milking guns. So do not expect the pundits to come welcoming this development. Just feel grateful that the state sees what you see now, that without a sustainable economy no aspect of national security can be safe. This nation is bound for greatness. When you get there, spare a moment for the men and women who allowed their souls to be crushed by this disgraceful insanity, constant questioning of their loyalty, and the disgusting whispering campaigns to take you there.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2022.

27 December 2021: The People’s Party is organising the anniversary of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in Sindh. In the past fourteen years, the event has become an established occasion of the show of force by her party and her next of kin. Media on this day instinctively knows not to draw attention away from it. But this time at least one news channel cuts away from the coverage of a rather important breaking news. Maryam Nawaz has just tweeted what Benazir Bhutto meant to her. When on top of the hour the news bulletin begins it leads not with the reports from Garhi Khuda Bakhsh but with Maryam Nawaz’s tweet. This by the way is the news network that finds a mention in Ms Nawaz’s Jayi Thayi media management audio leak beside one of the most controversial media houses in the country. No one asks you to judge the community of journalists, pundits and media owners by any principled standards. Judge them by the standards of simple common sense, at least.

January 5, 2022: The Director-General Inter-Services Public Relations holds the first media briefing of the year. It looks like a self-fulfilling prophecy that on this day of Kashmiri significance the journalists present would ask him to comment on the rumours about the alleged second coming (or is it tenth) of Nawaz Sharif through a secret deal. The DG rebuts the rumours and asks the media to demand evidence from the rumour mongers. Then in a heroic segue, a journalist asks him about the possibility of the army chief’s extension. Sigh.

In case you are wondering, these rumours are important because these days they alone pass the gold standard of ace punditry and journalism in the country. I am sure that the defence beat reporters present there were encouraged by their media houses to ask these questions. Because then the answers are used in the prime time talk shows to shore up ratings. But spare a moment to think about the genesis of these rumours and what kind of lethargic and intellectually bankrupt effort went into them. Ready?

In a country that has seen four military coups, the matters pertaining to transfers and postings are given more importance than they might deserve. Recently the country’s punditry worked itself into a tizzy when a notification regarding the appointment of the new Director-General Inter-Services Intelligence failed to materialise quickly in line with a press release issued by the ISPR. The subsequent statements by various federal ministers would indicate the presence of a communication gap, misgivings or even tensions. But only in our punditry’s Bollywood addled brain, this would automatically lead to one of three scenarios: a military coup, an in-house change through palace intrigue or a secret deal with one of the major opposition parties. You can rule out the first two because the first would require some extraordinary defiance of the myriad regional exigencies and the second some supernatural level of shift in the number game in the parliament. So what’s left? A deal with a major opposition player? Ok, but which one? Hey, how about the folks I met the other day who were nice and cozy and enjoy exceptional rapport with the media house that employs me. Right? So, a secret deal it is. Don’t worry. The story will grow in the telling. Every group has various political sympathisers within its ranks. They will help embellish the story. And even if it doesn’t pan out, I will say something funny and move on.

Sure. Except that this kind of media speculation can make a pig’s breakfast of governance in the country like it has for the past fourteen years of the resumption of the political order in the country. Remember that fine 2010 evening in Islamabad when speculative media reports claiming that the then People’s Party government was about to withdraw the notification reinstating the judges deposed by General Musharraf led to an exceptional late night full court session of the Supreme Court which could easily bring an end to the democratic process. This time too, these speculations took attention away from Kashmir and Afghanistan, the two very serious unfolding humanitarian crises and to a dud invented by the punditry whose imagination oscillates around access and privilege. When this happens some very smart, professional and respected senior journalists eventually fall prey to this charade too because tribalism forces them to.

Want proof of the tribalistic pudding? Double back and go through this piece again. At no point in this discussion did this scribe suggest that no tension existed along the civil-military divide. Nor that it could never lead to disruption. Or that everything was now hunky-dory. If you thought it was suggested it is because your mind is conditioned by tribalism to project the most simplistic interpretation onto every analysis. If this writer is not agreeing with the notion he must be against it. No. I cannot do that either because of two facts. One, frictions are built into our system owning to our unique historical experience. Two, there is not enough data to build a case one way or the other. This is not an AP Creative Writing class and I would rather deal with facts than misguide you just to prove that I am in the know.

But I can share a few pointers with you based strictly on my personal experiences and deductive reasoning. One, if a disruption comes it will start in Punjab. If you thought the PML-N was in any state to work out a deal it would have already brought down the Punjab government. Its internal divides render it incapable of doing that. That doesn’t mean that disruption cannot still materialise. Just do not count on the PML-N to play any part.

Two, with the change in the Balochistan government the next logical step for the former CM was to be elevated to the federal cabinet. Likewise, in the current international scenario, the Governor in Lahore could play a far more important role at the Centre. But because the country’s punditry has no brain cells left to pay heed to these two gentlemen no one is paying attention to the potential advantages.

Three, if a disruption were to take place at the Centre it wouldn’t result in a political dispensation but a technocratic one. Not good for any political party.

Four, about extensions and appointment of the next army chief. First, if an extension is under consideration at all, it will be a short one. The Pakistan Army (Amendment) Act of 2020 imposes an age limit. The maximum age is 64. Gen Bajwa turns 62 by the end of his current term. So a one- to two-year extension is the extent of it if you do not want to reinvent the wheel. And what happens if that extension is neither sought nor given? Here is another extrapolation. Don’t convince yourself that you know who the next chief might be. If you think you know the name, please note that that fact alone makes it an unlikely choice. Nothing local or political here. This post is not meant for domestic consumption.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2022.

Happy new year, dear readers. Or whatever helps you sleep at night. If I were to look for a phrase to encapsulate my thoughts about this year changing business, I would have to borrow another phrase from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five apart from the title of this piece that comes directly from the book. And that phrase is — unstuck in time. Let me elaborate.

It feels like only yesterday when as a child one would contravene the bedtime restrictions to experience the onset of the new year. What a time it was! Potential revolutions lurked in every nook and cranny. A world full of endless possibilities. From that to this. The revolution of the other kind. The one that the bullocks at the outdated waterwheel wells (rehat) experience as they go round and round in circles and believe it is progress. Unstuck in time.

As the first morning of the year, 2022 dawns and these lines reach you, you cannot possibly fail to appreciate the insanity of our times. The civilisation is ambushed by a deadly disease that refuses to go away. And the reason why Covid is still around is down to just one fact. Our sheer stupidity as a collective. Our best and brightest came up with a whole host of vaccines in record time. The rich and the powerful came together to make it free for most of us. These variants will not stop coming until we all are vaccinated. All we had to do was to receive the gift of life. And what did we do? We let certifiable idiots like Alex Jones and opportunists like Tucker Carlson lead us astray. The world’s richest man Elon Musk and most successful podcaster Joe Rogan helped because they are helpless before their man-child egos. And the leaders of the most powerful nations would rather fight wars than work in tandem, the minimum need of the hour. So it goes.

The collapse of a 20-year nation-building project in Afghanistan is recent news. But approval rating shock that it generated in the west, particularly in the US, makes it almost impossible for the administrations to pay attention to the hungry children sitting in tents in Afghanistan’s subzero temperatures. And why just blame them. Afghanistan is a Muslim nation. Last month representatives of 57 member nations of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation met in Islamabad. Non-Muslim countries also sent their representatives. Speeches were made. At the start, Pakistan made a valiant effort to underscore the fact that apart from the humanitarian aid Afghanistan’s collapsing economy needed a way to revive its almost dead banking sector. Western nations had already made significant pledges. But there was no way to transfer that money except for the sake of basic subsistence. Never mind the collecting method what was needed was a delivery mechanism. In their infinite wisdom these 57 nations, some of them very wealthy, announced that they will open a trust fund (charity collection account) in Jeddah based Islamic Development Bank. This bank account will be made operational anytime between today (1^st of January) and the end of the first quarter of 2022. Most likely exactly after winters. No news of any significant financial pledges reached this scribe. And what about the delivery mechanism? We will cross the bridge when we come to it. That is after a substantial amount has been collected. And before you cut the nose to spite the face pay attention to this disclaimer: these are my raw thoughts alone and have nothing to do with the thinking of the Pakistani state or its functionaries. What? Non-Muslim western nations look like angels already? And so it goes.

And this pesky little phrase ‘so it goes’ that has undoubtedly begun to annoy you, particularly if you have not read the aforementioned book, also needs some explaining before it drives you away. The expression comes from German “So geht’s” which when accompanied with a fatalistic shrug means ‘that’s life’. In the novel, it represents the alien Tralfamadorian philosophy. The Tralfamadorians are four-dimensional beings which means they can discern time like we can perceive the three dimensions known to us. So they can see all moments of our existence at once, from birth to death. Viewed in that context death is only one sad part of the epic adventure called life.

What captures the true essence of our times where humanity faces existential challenges daily, human ingenuity heroically offers astonishing solutions and yet mankind scoffs at these benefactors and walks into the embrace of certain death? A recent Netflix film called Don’t Look Up. This star-studded flick is a satire on the inanity of the human race and the human condition today. Two scientists detect a nine-kilometre large comet hurtling towards earth with the ninety-seven point something probability of an extinction-level event. And what is humanity’s response? Politicians act like politicians, businessmen like businessmen, media like media and we, the people, like whatever we have become. A total madhouse. You have to watch this movie to know what a delight it is.

This after all is a great time for the film and the television industry. Strange time too. When the usual mediums may stop to operate like we have known them, both television and cinemas as they have functioned so far. They may work more as a few conduits available but not as the main emblems of the underlying systems they once represented. Their whole industries supplanted by streaming mobile apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max and Disney Plus. And yet these businesses bring with them endless financing opportunities, next level cutting edge technology and no medium restrictions. A storyteller’s dream come true. But so it goes.

The above-mentioned movie does a great job of representing the problems we face today but what is the solution. I found one great book that lays bare the problem and then seeks to provide solutions. Our problem after all is that things are falling apart because people keep losing faith in established institutions. And that is because wrong people keep getting important jobs. Political scientist Brian Klaas has written a brilliant book titled Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us. This exceptionally well-resourced book tells you how people with what it calls dark triad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) find their way to power and unhinge our world. The solution is simple. Sift them out and attract the right kind of people with empathy and the right motivations to these jobs. It might be too late but at least we are getting somewhere with this book. I highly recommend you read this book because it is the start of a new year and I don’t want you to get stranded with me, unstuck in time. Happy reading.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2022

A piece that appears on the 25th of December and addresses neither the birth of Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Quaid-e-Azam or the great leader to us) nor Christmas seems to be a waste of space. But here is the thing. It’s been 145 years since the Quaid’s birth, slightly over 74 since he created this homeland, and slightly over 73 since he passed. In these years voluminous books have been written on his life. Throughout my life, I have read works after works interpreting and often misinterpreting, quoting and often misquoting him. The worst form of mental lethargy is reserved for the writers who try to project their own views onto him. For the religious right, he is a staunch cleric without a beard, to liberals he is the epitome of social liberalism and progressive outlook. Sadly what it amounts to is a trial in absentia. Human lives are complicated. Our words and choices cannot be divorced from the lives we live and vice versa. Must we use his name for this moral cop-out? Any attempt to reduce the founder of the nation to a ventriloquist’s charge does not seem very becoming. The man gave you a nation. Its well-being and progress is your responsibility, not otherwise. So I fail to understand what I can contribute to the discussion, except that a father’s memory is best preserved through our accomplishments and happiness. Let’s try to do that then.

The problem is further complicated when you talk about Christmas. Christianity has been around for over two millennia. What can I possibly contribute to this discussion either except telling you that I have always loved the festivity and the merriment of the day? When it comes to celebrating religious holidays nobody does it better than our brethren in the west. Let us then wish everyone merry Christmas and happy birthday of the Quaid and move on.

There is a pressing issue at hand. That of the timeline we live in. When we take a look at our collective ordeals of recent years two elements stand out. The glum environment which brings to us one shock after another. And man’s undefeated spirit. The classic setting for a brilliant novel. Many of us made peace with the darkness of George W Bush’s eight years in office and his wars the day President Barack Obama got elected. It was proof that the world we lived in was not beyond repair. But even though we were not paying attention the lingering undercurrents did not go away. In 2015 we got a rude awakening. As he ran his campaign, Donald Trump was reopening all old wounds. Clashes between nations and faiths, anti-immigrant and anti-minority sentiments, weaknesses of globalisation and to our sheer panic and embarrassment the so-called race relations. Since then a debate has been quietly raging among the intellectual circles about the nature of our dystopia. Which one is it? There is near consensus among scholars that study the craft that no two authors have given us more perfect dystopias than George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. While the former speaks of a highly repressed autocracy with a stratified society and suppression of information, the latter of a world given to the deliberate infantilisation of the human race through overindulgence and honing of information as a distraction. Writing a long time ago both could not foresee the pace of technological advancement (the title of Orwell’s book is a dead giveaway), but technology as a weapon and society being manipulated by it are the common threads.

Before we allow the debate about technology to distract us, it is time for some dishonourable mentions. For years I have told you that I blame Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilization thesis, his appropriation of Toynbee’s reductive definition of civilisation and then the weaponisation of the term for the mess we are in and have been for the past two decades. The methodology was simple. Identify the depressed identities of the time with nostalgia about a pristine past, throw the bait in the shape of attention and predictions of their rise and then sit back to see them going at it making your words self-fulfilling prophecies. Classic demand and supply relationship. You demand. We supply. For the Muslims of the world clamouring for a political identity since even before the fall of the Ottoman Empire this was fait accompli. For China struggling with the ghost of the century of shame, it was a callback to a past that transcended the immediate socialist experience. His construct of Judeo-Christian civilisation proved less tenable as is evident from his own work, Who are we, where he almost manages to reduce the American identity to the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. But Trump’s allies mostly call themselves the defenders of the Judeo-Christian civilisation. Even notorious Proud Boys call themselves the ‘western chauvinists’. One who knows how hate cultures function could not be surprised when the word Judeo was surgically removed from the equation. India also chose that moment to start embracing the BJP’s Hindutva ideology.

I must confess I was not paying attention when I held Huntington solely responsible for this propaganda. He surely wasn’t pretending to obscure the source of it all after all. I must say my assessment of Arnold Toynbee was coloured by two books. Mukhtar Masood’s Awaz-e-dost that showers him with high praise and his own 12 volume Study of History. The latter takes you to such granular details of history that you stop paying attention to the author’s biases. It wasn’t until I read his Civilization on Trial that I realised that he was the source of the problem. As a historiographer, he believes in the inevitability of such clashes.

That brings us back to the question of the Huxley vs Orwell debate. So, which one are we living in? One or both? As long as you think there are multiple irreconcilable entities poised to clash you can have both. After all, doesn’t QAnon in the west remind you of Huxley? And does the fact that a Chinese citizen on the street cannot even recognise the picture of the Tank Man of the Tiananmen Square fame not remind you of Orwell? There is only one country where both Huxley and Orwell have been deployed rather successfully. In India. Orwell for the minorities and the poor. And Huxley for the majority and the affluent.

But rather than picking one dystopia or the other, I think I can do better. Technological advances cannot be stopped, nor pandemics or other shocks to the system. But whether we live in a dystopia or not depends on whether we are capable of learning from the mistakes of the past two decades. The great power relationship will be the key. If the only superpower (America) and the three great powers (China, Russia, Europe) learn to work in tandem and identities like Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jewish people and others can find a way to coexist in peace we will never be reduced to a dystopia. Otherwise take Huxley, Orwell, add some Margaret Atwood, Ayn Rand and some. And that would be the least of our worries.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2021.

In the American cult classic TV series Arrested Development one major character is Maeby Fünke. While the complexity of the role played by Alia Shawkat goes beyond the scope of this article, suffice it to say she is this very resourceful child of a dysfunctional marriage in an extremely dysfunctional family who does often ridiculous and occasionally awesome things to get her parents’ attention but they are so self-involved and wrapped-up in their failing fantasy worlds that all her attempts fail abysmally. Whenever she is mentioned that is to use her as a prop to settle arguments. Now substitute names. Let us assume Maeby represents the people of Pakistan, her parents the elite of the country and let’s assume that Arrested Development is Pakistan. And let’s talk about Pakistan’s suicide problem.

Recently, you must have come across one or two reports about suicides by people tired of unemployment or poverty. There is a good chance that you did not see the actual reports but were forced to look them up because a politician or influencer brought them up in a talk or on social media. Usually, these mentions occur when someone tries to use them to make a political point about how bad things are right now or how badly the economy is being managed. Such mentions reinforce my utter and total contempt for the political tribalism in the country. Over the years my contempt for this particular tribalism has grown so intense that I often am forced to think that we might have reached a point beyond redemption. Consider this. A broken shell of a man or woman committed suicide and with zero insights into his suffering or trials, you saw this story and took to the podium to use it against your political opponents. If there is a more heartless example of political point-scoring then I am not aware of it. Well, perhaps the use of the stories about poverty forcing people to sell and kill their children. But all is grist that comes to this mill. Fünkes and Maeby, see!

But this political swashbuckling obscures a grim reality. That Pakistan has a persistent suicide problem that has continued unabated year after year and under every government. If our politicians and influencers were not so eager to use this sorry state for political ends they could perhaps make themselves useful. These bully pulpits could go a long way in averting such tragedies. But why would anyone care? As long as there are suicides and the media frames them in equally blasé fashion you will never run out of political ammunition. If these words sound too mean to you please note that they are so intended. The only other explanation is ignorance in which case these people neither deserve to be politicians nor influencers.

Let’s hold a mirror up to a society that withdraws all its support to the ones going through a crisis. I know a lot about this because of two reasons. First, many people I know and care about have taken their lives. Many others have at least tried once. And don’t even get me started on how many have seriously thought about killing themselves. Second, as someone who has struggled with manic depression his whole life and who managed to improvise creative ways to combat this problem at an early age, I can tell you that seeking help or a basic diagnosis is not a cakewalk. In my case, a shrink friend, much later, acted on an impulse and invited me over for an assessment. Half the time the person going through the ordeal is not even aware of the condition. And in this society real experts seldom bother to advertise in newspapers or television. Usually, quacks do. You have to put in a lot of effort and expose your vulnerabilities to seek legitimate help.

So back to the societal response. It is not as if people with suicidal ideation keep everything secret. Remember, suicide is the last desperate act. Before that, there are plenty of signs that a person is sinking deeper and deeper into desperation. The person in crisis calls attention to their suffering. What is the response? Abandonment, withdrawal and avoidance. If you know someone who eventually took their life, can’t you remember what you did when they brought their problems to you? You most likely found a way to escape the room and stayed clear of their company. When someone goes through hell their friends, colleagues and usual support system, all retreat to one side and wait for the worst to happen. Once the person is dead, there comes the outpouring of shock, disbelief and affection. In many cases, even that doesn’t happen.

It is difficult to obtain substantive data. In the absence of annual local reports with credible data, you have to rely on the WHO’s reports. There is a stigma attached to suicide cases. The same clerics who took fifteen years to declare suicide bombing haram and even often glorified it refuse to lead funeral prayers if they learn that the dead person died by suicide. Despite featuring some shocking numbers the Wikipedia page on the subject is woefully out of date. The closest I came to finding an authentic work on the subject is a year-old survey piece titled “Pakistan’s silent suicide problem” by Atika Rehman and Jahanzaib Haque in Dawn. If there are other well-researched works they have failed to call attention to them.

I first thought of this piece when certain influencers started tweeting out reckless comments about a man who killed himself in a mall a few weeks back. But the real trigger that necessitated it was a report that appeared in New York Times last week titled “Where the Despairing Log On, and Learn Ways to Die” and a subsequent Twitter Space hosted by tech journalism savant Kara Swisher which I chanced upon. The story reveals a network of websites that are actively assisting their audience comprising mostly very young users in committing suicide. In this age of acceleration, the cases of hopelessness and despair keep mounting and thanks to global connectivity these ideas spread across national boundaries like wildfire. Back in our youth only banned books were there for the purpose. Now, these websites soon morph into phone apps and then can reach everyone in their native language. Now consider a country where there is no critical infrastructure for mental health, no national suicide prevention helpline, precious little avenues for counselling or help and an elite that is blissfully oblivious to the threat. Welcome to our arrested development.

The country’s leaders, politicians and influencers can play an important role. In the past few years, I have seen the miracles of their clout. When the PM talks about our obsession with the English language I see pieces being written on that. When he calls Priyantha Kumara’s murder shameful, I see even most conservative folks using the exact same words. When opposition leaders use a new derogatory term for the government within minutes it is on many lips. These powerful people could easily inform their followers to value their own lives and of others and in case we are lucky to one day have a national suicide prevention helpline give out the number.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2021.

India’s first Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat perished in a helicopter crash along with 12 others a few days ago. I have already publicly offered my condolences. His sudden departure has given birth to a host of questions, some about the future of his newly minted offices, some about the overall direction of the country’s defence policy. But for now, the South Asian media is obsessed with something that it has no qualification, capacity, or knowledge to assess — about the crash.

The Russian-made MI-17 V5 might be a widely used reliable workhorse with advanced avionics on board, but it is a chopper nevertheless prone to the same vulnerabilities as any other. Just go to its Wikipedia page and read the section titled “accidents and notable incidents”. You will find a long list of crashes since 2000 and since 2008 often more than once each year. A tri-service inquiry has been ordered by the government. An overkill, in my humble view. Why? Well, let’s see how the Indian Navy’s expertise proves useful in probing Tamil Nadu’s topography. But even with such a high powered announcement, the drip drip drip of speculations, insinuations and conspiracy theories has continued. Sadly under Modi, the Indian mainstream media has become a one-trick pony and so divorced from facts that it cannot help it. That’s why I have argued for long that instead of betting on the prophets of ignorance if you invest time and energy in fair-minded professionals you may find them being fair to you as well. But then the late general liked this kind of ‘journalism’.

In fact in one such talk shows Brahma Chellaney, an otherwise sane analyst, first drew a parallel between this crash and the one that killed Taiwan’s Chief of General Staff Shen Yi Ming in January 2020 and then blurted out that he did not mean there was a link. One wonders what else he could have meant. This from an academic who is trained to deal with facts. But despite his insinuations, there is hardly any comparison between the two incidents. Gen Yi-ming was travelling on a Black Hawk, investigations revealed weather-related oversight, and senior officials were sacked as a consequence. Gen Rawat was travelling on a Mi-17 V5 and the above-mentioned open-source Wikipedia article will tell you of 50 such accidents in the past two decades.

But I agree with one sentiment. General Rawat did not need to be on this flight. Had the incumbent Indian government adhered to the established norms and merit system in the matters of military promotions he would never have become the army chief. Before his elevation, the seniority principle was a well-established tradition in such appointments. Rawat was not the senior most official. Likewise, the office that was invented to keep him in uniform (and some improvised uniform it was) would not have existed had he not become a willing pawn in Doval’s game to undermine the very institution that made him. Ergo, no need for this travel.

Please, do not take these accusations lightly. I am aware that he was a sword of honour recipient at the military academy, son of a general, and a decorated soldier. But that is precisely why his ambitions and subsequent betrayal are so bizarre and inexplicable. These days you hear a lot about his efforts for jointness and theaterisation but the fact is that he politicised these concepts too by waiting for the end of his COAS term to get elevated to this post and not letting someone else take this position. In 2019 he helped the incumbents return to power through the Balakot PR blitz. Once they carried the election he was rewarded for his complacency with the ToRs for the new office tailor-made for him. Do you think I am exaggerating? Well, in the Indian army the age of superannuation for a four-star general is 62 or the end of a three-year term. For him, the age for the CDS office was extended to 65 because he waited for the date of his retirement, and of course, the aftermath of elections, to get elevated to the new office. His new office was used to compel the three service chiefs to get with the Hindutva programme. To do this he was also made the Principal Military Advisor to the Defence Minister, the Secretary heading the Department of Military Affairs, and the Military Advisor to the Nuclear Command Authority. The Department of Military Affairs deserves your attention. It was another office created just for him. By virtue of being the secretary he controlled the purse strings of the three services ensuring their complacency. I can understand extensions in a country like Pakistan where less than fifteen years ago there was a president in uniform. But in India where pundits never stop bragging about civilian supremacy, I do not get this.

But the real betrayal was his role in perpetuating a political order that constantly undermined the secular character of his forces. The RSS had unfettered access to military units under his command. That is not all. I cannot begin to imagine what the Muslim, Sikh, and Christian service members must have felt when they saw their relatives, a few even Indian war veterans no less, being told in Assam that they were not Indian citizens or the broad day murder of Muslims in the federal capital or protesting farmers being called Khalistani. There is no doubt in my mind that had it not been for these two gents — Rawat and Doval — Modi could not win in 2019. Take a bow.

Through his machinations in Myanmar, across LoC especially during the Balakot episode and later on the China India border he showed he would do anything to stay in the limelight. People close to him claimed he had a secret plan to eventually make peace with Pakistan. If true he was too late and took those plans to the grave.

I would have called him the first political general but that notorious title goes to another vindictive predecessor of his, one General VK Singh, who colluded with the BJP and became a junior minister just because he could not get his desired corner plot upon retirement.

While the Indian media will tell you that his replacement will soon be announced, I don’t think there is any enthusiasm in any of the three services for the job. The old dictum — if it ain’t broke don’t fix it — sounds true here. What his office was trying to accelerate was an evolutionary process spanning decades. And as it turns out not even for the right reasons. Upon reaching the end of his tenure he would either have continued as the Secretary of the Department of Military Affairs to manufacture consent or been elevated to Rajnath’s job. In any case, members of Modi’s security team do not retire, they die. Consider Arun Jaitley, Manohar Parrikar and Sushma Swaraj. The fact is had it not for his ambitions and betrayals, Gen Rawat would have been alive today, enjoying the perks of retirement. And perhaps the service that made him would have been less overstretched or distressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2021.

Two menaces keep devouring Pakistan. The egotism of the elite and polarisation of the masses. Egotism because it is the epitome of classism which invariably brings you back to the precipice. In its very essence, it is the most egregiously dogmatic and exaggerated view of your own or your class’s abilities. I alone know what is good for you, it shouts out. Polarisation because it now threatens individuality and free thought. You may think that people are bothered about the issues that make or break their lives. Some are but not enough to do something about it. The rest, use the wrong lens to see things. That of superstition. South Asian states abdicated the responsibility of shaping the minds of their citizens on any rational lines a long while ago. Those glorious examples of high achievers assuming powerful positions around the world are outliers and exist in spite of these policies not because of them.

Back to egotism. Let me lay out a few rather quirky anecdotes for you to sample. To show what our people think it means to be a part of the elite.

Two and a half decades ago the Quaid-e-Azam University was a much different place. Less populated, overwhelmingly green and free of the higgledy-piggledy pigeonholing that passes for buildings and structures. Its main library was truly a shrine to the goddess of knowledge. This shrine was often populated by two species of students. A carefree minority out to explore the vicissitudes of romance and a majority that wanted to pass the entry tests of the Central Superior Services (CSS), the escalator that takes you to the upper-class life.

I don’t recall his name but there was this senior who had been attempting to clear the CSS exams for years. One day we learned that he had exhausted all chances and had now appeared in the Punjab Public Commission test. He got through and became a policeman. One day a breathless junior interrupted our long-winded debate at Majid’s hut. Something funny was going on and without wasting any time we must come and see it.

When we reached the university’s periphery we noticed that the inspector saheb, as everyone would call him later, had returned in a white Alto and had decided to walk around the campus. Our gentleman was attired in a starched-to-death white shalwar kameez and them pointy handcrafted khussas. Although he was accompanied by a uniformed cop, this subordinate was walking behind him carrying the cage of his pet partridge. The occasional crackle of his handheld wireless set piercing the silence around him seemed to attest to the inspector’s belief that he had arrived. Today’s lads call it peacocking. But this unvarnished projection of the feudal spirit taught me something. To arrive in Pakistan means the ability to control even subjugate other human beings.

Ostentation in the beloved country merits a separate piece. In my school days, the Urdu curriculum used to feature a story by Chaudhary Afzal Haq titled Ek Punjabi Zamindar Ki Kahani i.e. the tale of a Punjabi landowner. It was a true cautionary tale of how ostentation and the desire to seek the approval of the extended family drives a young couple into bankruptcy, is abandoned by the same family in tough times, and rescued only by hard work and manual labour. That it is no longer taught in schools does not obscure the fact that ostentation and the tyranny of the extended family are still pertinent issues.

Back to egotism which is perhaps one of the most underreported but important factors in our politics and officialdom. You will be surprised how many ACRs (annual confidential reports — for evaluation) and subsequently, careers are ruined for absolutely insane reasons like a junior officer’s failure to greet a visiting senior, standing in respect, vacating his seat, or oh wait for this one, the crime of offering three fingers instead of entire palm for the handshake. It has also been a common occurrence in politics for ages. Ministers during various governments lost their privileges, powers, and even office just because they failed the ultimate test of fealty called sycophancy. Please don’t read it as an example of the above but it is too good an anecdote to omit. Iqbal Akhund in his book Trial and Error recalls an interesting day during Benazir Bhutto’s first term. The then PM was concerned about the alleged insubordination of her cabinet members. “Arriving at a cabinet meeting one morning, members found before each seat a paperback copy of a book entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People, by one Dale Carnegie”. Go figure.

Tribalism and polarisation in a society where all egotistical leaders and why, even intellectuals demand total conformity, stymies critical thought and imagination. Each individual’s knowledge and experience wires his/her mental circuitry uniquely. You fail the test of individuality if you totally and blindly endorse another’s worldview. But with every passing day, anything less than a hundred per cent conformity is deemed not good enough. In my book, if someone agrees with more than fifty per cent of your views and does not run after you with a pitchfork and a torch qualifies as like-minded enough to be a potential ally. Time and again the expectation of total conformity creeps into the institutional culture and often enough manifests itself in the attitude of the state. Why do you think past allies, even surrogates, so quickly become personas non grata? If fairness, honesty, and agreement with the broader principles were the standard to gauge a person’s utility no one would lose allies so rapidly.

Why is it important right now? Because these twin menaces have already destroyed the fruits of the past twenty years’ worth of evolution. The system’s crash has only just begun and no one can say with certainty when it will end. But our egotism and tribalism have already ruined the gains over the past years. Without prejudice let me remind you that the constant drip drip drip of accusations against the institution of judiciary undermines its image and consequently ability to dispense justice. It hurts the efforts to vanquish terrorist organisations like the TTP which have devised their parallel quasi-justice systems. Through these means, politicians may manage to get some public relief in cases which they lost in courts, but permanently damage the platforms that guarantee their constitutional role. You may win battles but will most certainly lose the war. Similarly the parliament and the media. You set out to dismantle the system but will end up irreparably damaging the state. In five thousand years, South Asia has not produced one noteworthy revolution. And no one likes evolution either. Even if a dramatic shift comes it will be for far different reasons than you think and will only benefit the clergy, not you. Try to learn from the experiences of your three immediate neighbours.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2021.

Muslims can preempt this by doubling down on assimilation

Reminder:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on December 7, 2015: Remember the poll numbers. So, listen. Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. (Applause). We have no choice. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing 25 percent of those polled agreed that violence against Americans — these are people that are here, by the way, people here, 25 — not 1 percent. By the way, one percent is unacceptable, 25 percent of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as part — think of that, as part of the global Jihad. (Crowd booing). They want to change your religion. I don’t think so. Not going to happen. As part of the global Jihad, and 51 percent of those polled agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Sharia. You know what Sharia is. (Crowd booing). Fifty-one percent. Sharia authorizes and look, this is — I mean, it’s terrible. Sharia authorizes such atrocities as murder against nonbelievers who won’t convert. Beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women. I mean, you look, especially women.

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on March 26, 2016: Center For Security Policy — Founded in 1988 by former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney, Jr, The Center for Security Policy (CSP) has gone from a respected hawkish think tank focused on foreign affairs to a conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement in the United States. Extremist Group Info: SPLC Designated Hate Group.

BBC report titled “India Hindu group prays for Donald Trump win” dated May 12, 2016: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has gained some unlikely fans — including a right-wing Hindu group in India. Members of the Hindu Sena held a prayer in support of Mr Trump winning the US presidential election. The little-known group said they supported Mr Trump “because he is hope for humanity against Islamic terror”. Mr Trump has proposed a ban on Muslims entering the US — drawing widespread criticism at home and abroad. He has also advocated killing the families of terrorists.

President Trump addresses the ‘Namaste Trump’ event in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad on February 24, 2020, as the crowd chants “Modi Modi”: Everybody loves him, but I will tell you this: He’s very tough. (Laughs) (Applause)… Prime Minister Modi, you are not just the pride of Gujarat — you are living proof that with hard work and devotion, Indians can accomplish anything — (applause) — anything at all, anything they want. (Applause).

Deep background — Wikipedia (as archived on November 26, 2021) — Entry title — The Truth: Gujarat 2002: The Truth: Gujarat 2002 (also called Operation Kalank) was an investigative report on the 2002 Gujarat riots published by India’s Tehelka news magazine in its 7 November 2007 issue. The video footage was screened by the news channel Aaj Tak. The report, based on a six-month-long investigation and involving video sting operations, stated that the violence was made possible by the support of the state police and the then Chief Minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi for the perpetrators.

The Guardian headline on February 25, 2020: Delhi rocked by deadly protests during Donald Trump’s India visit.

The New Indian Express dated February 27: Hindu Sena members march in Gurugram, raise ‘goli maro‘ (shoot them) slogans (against Muslims, dissidents).

The Atlantic piece by Mira Kamdar titled “What Happened in Delhi Was a Pogrom” dated February 29, 2020: India’s ruling party will allow nothing to stand in the way of its Hindu-nationalist agenda.

Let’s turn a page.

The Guardian story titled “Anger at Netanyahu claim Palestinian grand mufti inspired Holocaust” dated October 21, 2015: In his speech, Netanyahu purported to describe a meeting between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Hitler in November 1941. “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine]’.” According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.”… The comments in a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem… were condemned by historians and the Israeli opposition leader, Isaac Herzog, for trivialising the Holocaust.

Haaretz‘s piece by Robert Zaretsky titled “Eric Zemmour Isn’t France’s Donald Trump. He’s Far Worse” dated October 21, 2021: Take, for example, “grand replacement”. Coined by the extreme rightwing thinker Renaud Camus, the term distills the conspiracy theory that, with the connivance of a cosmopolitan and urban elite, the nation’s original population is being replaced with non-white peoples. Obsessed by this notion, Zemmour points to the case of Seine-Saint-Denis. This Parisian borough, “long the historical heart of France, where the tombs of our kings are located”, is becoming a “Muslim enclave subject to the rule of Allah”.

Narrator: Zemmour, by the way, himself a Sephardic Jew, also believes that the Nazi puppet Vichy government in France was lenient towards the French Jewry as ‘only’ 10 percent of them were sent to their certain death. This revisionist history in Netanyahu’s case, and his, seems meant to appease the western far-right that includes the swelling ranks of neo-Nazis and make Muslims a joint target. But it seldom works that way.

Commentary: Where did it all begin? 9/11? Huntington? Somewhere, somehow Muslims (even the most pacifist ones) became the bad guys. A threat at worst, an assimilation problem at best. 9/11 led to the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq. The Iraq invasion unhinged the region as we saw during the Arab Spring. This led to the emergence of ISIL. A civil war in Syria ensued displacing millions. Over 1.3 million sought refuge in Europe. As many of them reached Greece in 2015, right in the middle of its economic crisis, anti-immigrant sentiment reared its ugly head in Europe. This would lead to the far right’s rise in Europe and Trump’s triumph in the US. Only two western allies had firm far-right governments before this crisis: Modi in India and Netanyahu in Israel.

Trump was quick on the uptake and soon ended the war on ISIL with the claim of victory. The 2018 National Defense Strategy even stated, “Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security.” But after he departed from the White House the US-backed Afghan government collapsed and the Belarus-Poland border refugee crisis emerged. It is starting again. Muslims around the world will feel the heat. It all starts with the Muslims and ends with the rise in antisemitism and the attack on the US Capitol. Muslims can preempt this by doubling down on assimilation and building robust bonds with other minorities like the Jewish community and also the democratic institutions. Meanwhile, people in Muslim countries need to think of coreligionists elsewhere and be more flexible. Identity politics is overrated, survival is of paramount importance.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2021.

It is the 20^th of November. If you look out the window you may notice that heavens have not fallen nor hell frozen over. Today marks Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s 37^th death anniversary. While he is gone his work, name, and legacy live on. But pundits seldom have time to pay homage to legendary poets.

On the 18^th of this month, Tahreek e Labbaik Pakistan’s young leader Saad Rizvi was released from the government’s custody. Many of us have previously vented about the ease with which now-not-so-proscribed TLP extracts concessions from the state every time it marches on Islamabad. But in view of fierce debates about its origin, I feel that many unanswered questions deserve to be asked.

To many of you, the Faizabad sit-in is decidedly the first introduction to the TLP and its founder Khadim Rizvi. It was the moment when many first came to recognise its street power, particularly once the police had unsuccessfully attempted to uproot the sit-in. A two-bench Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Musheer Alam took a sua sponte notice of the incident and later released a detailed verdict. Given that the verdict was lauded by the moderate and liberal factions of the civil society it is difficult to point out three critical flaws in this document. For instance, the bench does not dwell on how the TLP procession traveled from Lahore to Faizabad without facing any impediments or police resistance. It also does not question the choice of Faizabad as the venue of the sit-in through the administrative lens. And then it seeks the financial data from the ISI which should have been sought from the FBR and the State Bank of Pakistan. When the agency’s representative submitted this, the bench spent a lot of time examining the mandate of the agency instead. Did it seek the given data from the concerned departments mentioned above eventually? We are not told.

A lot of this owes itself to the perception that the ISI had a hand behind the sit-in. But the three shortcomings mentioned above are critical to understanding the phenomenon itself. The travel area covered by the protesters between Lahore and Islamabad falls under the jurisdiction of the Punjab government’s home ministry. The administrative significance of Faizabad is that it is the first interchange beyond the jurisdiction of Rawalpindi, a city part of Punjab. The sources of the TLP funding are important because at the time of the dispersal of the protesters the state of Pakistan had to offer them nominal travel expenses. This crowd left Lahore and traveled to Islamabad without being accosted by the Punjab police and staged its sit-in right outside its jurisdiction and without a significant amount of money traceable through banking transactions.

Let me remind the readers that the PML-N was in power in Punjab and formed the government at the Centre again despite being weakened by the Panama Papers’ judgment. These days we interpret all of this in the light of the alleged differences between the houses of Nawaz and Shahbaz. But this late realisation deflects attention from a myriad of nuances and a rather remarkable cast of characters. The home minister of the province at the time was Rana Sanaullah. He had returned to this office after being removed to investigate his alleged role in the Model Town shootout. He was brought back to the position after his immediate predecessor Shuja Khanzada was assassinated by terrorists.

Now, there is a persistent habit to view Rana as an inextricable part of Shahbaz Sharif’s posse. But the days following the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif showed how he is his own man. When Shahbaz Sharif was nominated to succeed Nawaz and Shahid Khaqan Abbasi after getting elected to the National Assembly, Rana stayed quiet. Sources close to him claimed that he expected to be nominated the next chief minister of Punjab. However, when it became clear that consensus had emerged in support of Hamza Sharif he issued a statement. Shahbaz should not leave Punjab so close to the election. And Shahbaz decided not to go. Just like that.

But the story of the TLP did not start or end with the Faizabad sit-in. You first notice the TLP’s founder at the mammoth funeral ceremony of Mumtaz Qadri and the protests that followed his hanging. Policeman Mumtaz Qadri was hanged for murdering Governor Salman Taseer while he was on duty to protect him. Taseer was accused of blasphemy for meeting Aasia Bibi, an incarcerated Christian woman accused of blasphemy, and supporting her acquittal. That much you remember. And what about things before that?

Taseer, a businessman, media owner, and PPP stalwart, became an immediate target of hate when he was included in General Musharraf’s caretaker cabinet as commerce minister. After being appointed he went out of the way to support Musharraf. This was the heyday of the lawyers’ movement. On May 15, 2008, Musharraf appointed him as governor of the Punjab province. Yousuf Raza Gilani, the then PM, maintains that instead of consulting him the former president only informed him of this decision during a phone call.

The PML-N’s animus against the man hit a crescendo when after Musharraf’s departure President Zardari decided to retain him as the governor and following a court decision disqualifying Sharif brothers, governor’s rule was imposed in Punjab. This led to a long march with Nawaz Sharif and Aitzaz Ahsan in the lead culminating in the reinstatement of the judges deposed under the PCO and eventually to the end of the governor’s rule and restoration of the PML-N government in Punjab. In the meantime, a segment of the mainstream media continued a campaign against Taseer. When a police officer and a student walked out on the governor during two ceremonies it was the main lead in the news bulletins. Even after the end of the governor’s rule, the animus did not go away. So much so that on the day of Taseer’s death a significant portion of ‘Qadri tujhay salam’ text messages that reached this scribe was from the PML-N supporters. Many of their leaders still call him a hero.

There are unanswered questions regarding this episode. Find their answers and you may find out how the TLP came into being. Was Qadri a part of Taseer’s regular detail? If not who decided to bring him in? Were his views on the governor well-known and if not why was he not vetted? Who recommended the Aasia Bibi meeting to Taseer? Why did late Justice (retd) Khawaja Sharif, a judge accused of being allied to the PML-N, decide to be Qadri’s defence counsel? Why do all controversies take you to Faisalabad’s Ghantaghar?

We don’t know about this because our pundits filter out crucial details. No one goes out of the way looking for answers to difficult questions. Recently, when the TLP was marching again a day before the recent deal, a high-powered media briefing took place. I can tell you with confidence that at no point was a negotiated settlement ruled out as an option. But our pundit friends only shared the whispers of an impending clampdown. ‘Jaw jaw’ was reported, ‘talk talk’ omitted. And then they mistake mitigation for collusion.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2021.