Politically, Pakistan is one of those countries, where
politics has by and large revolved around the most powerful institution of the
country that is the Army. Army has been busy forging alliances, vilifying
particular parties, defaming political leaders, elevating certain touts to the
level of a leader, then using their resources to glorify him and
when they succeed in all their vicious games, they finally are able to launch a
coup over the country because all the actual political leaders are by then made
to look like crooks with no integrity whatsoever. And because the political
leaders are left with no utility in public’s eyes, the coup gets successful.
The first time, Ayub and Sikander were able to do it in a great fashion in 1958. They
kept putting up mindless creatures on the throne and in the end, when they
knew nothing could be corrected, they put up Hussain Shaheed Suharwardi, a man
of great skills and a lover of Quiad-e-Azam. However, it was just another
political move as the duo knew that nothing could be improved now. They handed over
the seat to Suharwardi, he couldn’t make it right, lost his integrity as well
and so Ayub and Sikander were left with no obstacle in their way. They got rid of him and
imposed Martial Law on the country. The smarter one, Ayub, hardly after a week,
struck down Sikander as well, and thus the long tiring Army rule began which
ended after 13 years and took away Bengal from us to make it Bangladesh.
Since then, the forces have mastered the art and have been
successful in imposing three martial laws. One of them was by Zia in
1977 and the other two were imposed by General Musharraf on Oct 12, 1999 and
Nov 3, 2007. All, but the one in 2007, were accepted by the public by and large
without any serious resistance. But in 2007, the masses, the civil society, the
media and everyone in their capacity resisted and most importantly the lawyers
and the judges were up in arms against it. It is a delusion that the judiciary,
the media or the civil society were able to resist it because these
institutions have got stronger. This notion is false and rejected straight away by my brain as
these institutions are still no stronger than an army of think-tanks and
evil-geniuses who are sitting in that GHQ. The main reason why public was able
to resist it was the credibility that Musharraf and his dark regime lacked.
They did not have the guts to fight a judge and a few lawyers only because he
did not have the credibility that could get him support from the masses. As a
result, he had to get an election conducted in time and the two biggest political
parties PPP and PML-N came to power. It’s a different story that People's Party
wasn’t able to deal with the politicking of the army again and couldn’t fulfill
its promises that it had made to go into an alliance with Muslim League.
Musharraf had to leave the Presidency and Asif Ali Zardari who had
long been declared corrupt in the eyes of the masses, got himself ascended to the throne. Now, the lack of
governance, corruption charges (right or wrong) and a complete disconnect from
the public and its aspirations made the ruling party to lose its credibility in
the eyes of the public. It is sad to observe that Pakistan People’s Party was
unable to deliver and thus almost everyone knew that in the next elections, PPP
would not be able to get any considerable success.
Normally in democracies, the opposition is considered to be
the government in waiting. Same was the case with Pakistan. Almost everyone
knew that Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) was going to win the elections
whenever they were conducted and would lead the country afterwards. But, as the
real masters of this country sitting in the GHQ are way more advanced in their
thinking as compared to us, they are always loaded with surprising tricks that
they unleash just at the right time. We, the “mango people” cannot even think
what the masters are planning about our lives. Same happened this time. How?
Let me explain.
We thought PML-N was the government in waiting. They knew it
as well. Nothing has changed. PML-N will come to power and they also know it
and they don’t have a problem with that. So, what wrong have they done? Why am
I cursing them? Actually, they have masterfully cloned out a leader on the social and
mainstream media naming Imran Khan. This poor chap is good for nothing and does
not even know what a politician is, how politics is done and what are the
qualities that a leader must possess. He has studied at Oxford, has read a few
books and feels he knows a lot and as Adnan Rasool once put it in one of his
tweets, “…to him what he knows is all there is to know”. So, poor guy kept
longing for a break, like the extras in a film industry wait for their chance,
but every time he got a chance, he failed to capitalize on it. This time,
however, the masters felt that this guy can be used and if it works, they have
a game at hand for sure. So, with all theri might they started to make a leader out of the crap.
The dead horse was given a third chance, a large number of
media personnel were told to use the word “change” in their discussions,
this word “change” was made a slogan of PTI and then it was beaten like a drum
everywhere. Interesting thing to note is that they were not even able to make a
term of their own and it was imported from Obama’s campaign in the US or his
elections. PTI targeted the youth of the country, mainly because it is
delineated from the politics of the country by and large and it was the only
faction of the society that had no prior affiliations with parties. Youth, the
poor youth, knows nothing about the politics and the political history of the
country and thus are the most vulnerable to be politically exploited in the
name of “change”. They do not even know what change actually is.
As a result, Imran became a popular face on the media, solo
interviews were conducted with him and some of the shows like the one on Dunya TV
interviewed him almost twice a week. He was given the most air-time on TV and
thus was able to communicate his message to a large number of people. Then the
October 30th occurred and the mad guys like me kept standing in the
Iqbal Park all day long to see their leader speak. He criticized everyone and
also gave a few suggestions to improve the situation of the country that he
considered were the only hurdles in the country's way towards glory. He was given a task by the
masters to take on one political party only. Why? Here the game actually starts. I have already said that it
is all about credibility. So Imran Khan kept putting a dent on PML-N’s
credibility by questioning their assets. Now it is a vague sort of thing to ask
someone to declare the assets and when one does, tell him to declare the actual
ones. God knows how this thing could be sorted out but our poor youth who does
not even have a hint of what they were up to, kept dancing on the same beat the
masters wanted them to.
However, PTI started to take old faces in the party and with time, the
actual PTI started to diminish. All of those who had been giving their best to
the party for the last 15 years were sidelined and a new group of politicians
took the charge. It is said that it was a necessity of Imran Khan to take them
in the party but then I ask why? And how can we say that he was forced by the
conditions to take them in? The fact is that he was always alleged by Musharraf that he left him
because Musharraf was not willing to give him 100 seats by forging the elections. We
refused to believe that dictator but it was proved this time that he was right.
The point is that it was the first time that political stalwarts actually
decided to join PTI and without even a hint of resistance Imran took them in.
It is another story that no “wicket has fallen” ever since the departure of
General Pasha. Last night, on the eve of August 13, 2012, Sheikh Rasheed was also
taken into an alliance by PTI. It was a message clear enough for those who know that
there is no reason now to believe that Imran Khan is not a GHQ’s man. It was a
flop show and a very little number of people attended the gathering and even out of those few a
large number of people were raising slogans in favor of Nawaz Sharif.
It was a clear indication that PTI is nowhere near winning an election,
at least in Pindi where the former Senior Vice President of PML-N Javed Hashmi
says, PTI will sweep from. A large number of workers have already left PTI and
more are to follow the trend after last night’s flop show. It has also become
clear that media and facebook cannot make someone a leader and it is only
the people who decide who their leader would be. A recent Gallup survey has
showed that PTI is just a balloon and in none of the provinces, it holds
anything called sweeping majority of population behind it. In most areas it is
the second best and even this survey was conducted 6 months back when PTI was
at its peak.
So what did the GHQ get out of it? That is not too hard to get. PPP had already lost its
credibility. PML-N was forced to go back to the traditional politics that is constituency based and in which strong candidate is the most important thing while the third option stands today as an establishment’s
stooge. Next government will be made by PML-N but the dent that this Imran Khan
phenomenon has put on their integrity will be quite hard to correct. The third
option has already been labeled as a gimmick, which it actually is, and just
like Ayub got to the throne after defaming all, there will be another General
who will come forward as saying “My dear countrymen…..”.
A few of the readers may say media, judiciary or civil
society and their role have not been discussed in this piece. Sorry folks!!!
But I feel them to be irrelevant. It is only between political parties and the
establishment. Rest are mere side ways that can be altered at will by the
masters when the road needs to be constructed, just the way they did it last year to make a leader out of nothing.
1)
27 kilometer long route beginning from Shahdrah
Town to Gajju Mata near Kasur district.
