Amir Mateen
ISLAMABAD: Jamshed Dasti’s antics simply refuse to fade away.
While he remained quite in the House when Nisar gave a long explanation to his accusations, he was a different person once he went before cameras. As a former member of a media goon squad (chaapa team), he knows how to get into people’s bedrooms, if not pajamas. It was the kind of dirty speculation that we would not even like to discuss about for the sake of propriety.
But one obvious corollary of Dasti’s clowning is that it will promote vigilantism. It will encourage people to violate privacy of what goes around within the sanctity of four walls. Forget about the private life of ordinary people if our parliamentarians are not safe from such invasions. The pious brigades–the champions of Taliban-style amar-maruuf-nahiul-munkar squads–will be dying to invade the privacy of us the sinners and our dissenting nonconformist friends.
We can understand that Dasti is desperate because he is scared of being disqualified from Parliament. A three-year sentence for presenting a fake educational degree looms on his head and his future rests of a weak stay from the courts that could be withdrawn any day.
He would like to go down as a Robinhood who was victimized because he stood up against the high and the mighty. But the mess that he is likely to leave will bequeath a long, dirty trail. As frequent visitors to the Parliament lodges, we can vouch for Chaudhry Nisar’s statement that it’s a very homely environment out there. For god’s sake, most parliamentarians live with their families and, remember, one third of the members are females mostly living away from their families. Many male members were already worried about bringing their wives and young daughters who could now be observed suspiciously; or the families of female members will be worried about the ‘debauch’ environment that they have been accused of living in.
For a change, Nisar was right that this may have sullied the reputation of politicians as a class. Just when Parliament takes up the discussion over re-negotiating civil-military contract–pops out Dasti. This has put most politicians in an embarrassing situation.
Many smelled a more sinister agenda behind it. Even if we leave aside the dubious speculation, one obvious casualty of Dasti’s shenanigans is that has distracted the nation from the all-important national security policy on which rests the future of this country.
As the contours of the policy appear clearer it can easily be inferred that the real test will be in execution. It may be the most ambitious restructuring agenda with far-reaching consequences. The National Assembly will take it up for discussion in the coming week, but one thing is obvious: it will require some minimum national consensus.
Political parties will have to get together to negotiate a new deal with the establishment and for the Centre to take the provinces along.
That bipartisan atmosphere might have been sullied already.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did a good job by appeasing the opposition with his sweet talk in the National Assembly the other day. There was no need for Chaudhry Nisar to issue a press statement to violate the friendly spirit initiated by his own party leader. But it’s probably a compulsive issue with the Interior minister. He had to respond to Khursheed Shah’s statement, even after the PM’s intervention, lambasting the leader of the opposition for his, among other things, “confused” thinking. How do you expect Khursheed Shah to react after this.
The government definitely needs a cooler strategy if it wants to tailor out a national consensus. It definitely needs the opposition support in the ongoing “precision attacks” that could easily morph into a major army operation. There are already issues about collateral damage, IDPs, humanitarian crisis, to name a few. The Senate is incensed that it has not been taken into confidence about the national security policy at all. The situation in PTI is no different. It does not seem to be a bunch that could approach the issue with maturity going beyond petty political squabbles. We accused the PML-N of being ambivalent on major issues. The PTI is now one up on Noon-wallas. We have no idea what Imran Khan is thinking about the “fundamental shift” in the operational policy.
The skipper continues to stay away from the National Assembly. As the custodian of the most affected province, the national security policy should be the most important issue. The PTI is a rudderless lot. His Number Two, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, is also missing. We don’t know if they are enjoying joyrides of Tareen Airlines or reading the draft of the security policy. Javed Hashmi, of late, seems disinterested in party affairs–ever since he was demoted to the back rows. It seems the three PTI heavyweights from the Saraiki belt are up against each other. And we suspect if things are left to Lady Mazari, she would have an FIR registered against, in the words of the late Khalid Hassan, everything that walks on two legs in the media.
Another issue that got ignored, courtesy the Robinhood of Muzzafargarh, was privatization. It was obvious from the responses given by the new parliamentary secretary on Friday that the government will require to do a lot of explaining before it goes ahead with what is, again, a very ambitious agenda. Every unit will need to be discussed separately.
For a start, Ishaq Dar needs to at least attend the National Assembly.
More and more PML-N members follow the prime minister’s example by staying away from parliament. It’s supposed to be chic. Or so, it seems from the government attitude.
Hamza Shahbaz Sharif was seen for the first time in months. He is yet to say a single word in the defence of his government. The way members flocked around him showed the kind of clout and power that he enjoys in Takht Lahore. It’s about time that, perhaps, the prodigal son should switch position with his Dad. Or at least work for the House where you belong.
The News
March 1, 2014