IT’S about time that everyone started preparing lists of those they are ready to spare for the bloodthirsty goddess of democracy. With or without the aid of the Panama Papers, the clamour is not going to die down unless a few souls are sacrificed. In contrast to a revolution that can accompany a lot of bloodletting, this is the maximum that a democracy demands, tied as its fortunes increasingly are to frequent bouts of anger against corruption.

The rulers have known it all along. Among them the PML-N has been particularly keen over the years to deliver to the masses examples the party has made of the corrupt. It has been very successful in finding the corrupt in the bureaucracy and administration, and publicly humiliating them to satisfy the urge for finding the villains of the system and summarily punishing them to the people’s satisfaction.

Respectable and all-commanding officials have been embarrassed with the cameras there to record the action. No drives to clean the stables where these officials had learnt their bad ways have ever followed. The rulers knew they needed to feed the corrupt-hungry goddess who must be delivered a package from time to time to prevent her from going berserk.

The fraudulent, greedy government servants alone would make the menu look dull and narrow. There needed to be others on the list apparently under scrutiny for their misdeeds. For long years, rival political parties which have taken turns at governing have been at each other’s throat, hoping that the theatrics that have seldom if ever been backed by court conviction in Pakistan would be sufficient fodder for the masses. They could well have continued with the same routine of persecuting but for the obvious boredom with which the people had lately come to greet this old, predictable script that did little more than keep the two rivals in politics — the PPP and PML-N — alive and relevant.

The corrupt have been weighing on the people’s minds just too heavily.

Popular demands have changed. Many today, understand that one way of easing out a former ruling party would be to not provide it with the chance of playing victim. Persecution of any kind could lead to a perception that such and such party and personalities were being victimised at a particular time, and this could revive public sympathies for them. Slowly the thinking evolved suggesting that if examples were to be created — like those of publicly humiliated government servants — they needed to be found from among the serving lot. The corrupt-hungry goddess baulked at stale stuff. It liked its servings fresh grown.

Diehard democrats will be upset with the model the army has provided. There is an outcry in some circles insisting that the six — or whatever their number is — senior army officers who have been dismissed over their misdoings in an oft-ravaged Balochistan should have ended up in jail.

The more spirited among us have post-haste committed to saving democracy come what may. They would all find it really tough to deny any longer the argument that democracy cannot go on without offloading the corrupt after every few miles. The corrupt have been weighing on the people’s minds just too heavily.

The current rulers should have been more aware of the approaching necessities, just as they had earlier been so adept at flaunting the catching of the dishonest in the bureaucracy, police and other administrative units. NAB, for instance, was increasingly considered an institution that, with the reported support of a once again very popular army, was stalking the ruling party’s camp for possible prey.

The rulers saw it as an attempt to penetrate their long-guarded territory. They didn’t allow these were necessary ‘adjustments’ to give the impression that the system was not only working but was moving ahead dictated by modern popular demands.

The advance was brusquely rejected by rulers who were known to humiliate those more remotely linked with him such as bureaucrats. They should have sensed that circumstances compelled them to sacrifice some of their own to ward off the catch-the-corrupt devils.

The minds with a Machiavellian tinge to them would readily point out that wise rulers always have at hand expendable associates — which are separate from those who are hard to compromise. They would point out the set-up needed to anticipate the advance of the accountability train. At an opportune moment, they should have tried to pacify it by offering a few of the more easily spared souls from camp. This didn’t happen and soon there was Panama.

Now whatever the results of the probe into the working of these offshore companies the political parties and all other known and less known institutions in the country must learn that a process of accountability without constant results and punishment is no more going to be acceptable to the people. Very frequently, there have to be ‘proven’ cases of those responsible not performing their task well or being corrupt in financial and other ways.

It is the inevitable fate that everyone in the system must ultimately reconcile with, and they might redirect their energies to trying and saving those who are more worthy of being saved than others. There have to be always a few who must fall to allow the rest to continue with their journey. There is no other way to address the popular demand for the lynching of the dishonest.

There will always be this danger that once in motion the process may lead to the big leadership sitting at the top of the set-up. That is the risk the politicians and others covered by accountability rules must take. The danger will always be there and given the people’s mood it appears that, hopefully, more areas and organisations will be exposed to it in time. But maybe those at the helm today still have to keep the ship moving by offloading a few of the less wanted.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2016