Had Asif Zardari been allowed free entry, it would perhaps have been a minor event. But the official machinery itself turned it into something big by going into unnecessary overdrive. What might have motivated the government to act the way it did? Fear. But fear of what?
HAD Asif Zardari been allowed to be received by his party crowds, heavens would not have fallen. In fact, he would not have taken over even one provincial capital. But that at least seemed to be the assumption behind the over-reaction of the provincial government acting under direct orders of the federal government. Nothing moves without orders from up there.
April 16 had been planned by Mr Zardari for a ceremonial return after a brief stay with his children and wife. That is all the poor politicians are left to do. And he chose Punjab only to reinforce his patriotic credentials, which are always suspect in a province other than Punjab.
In deference to the fears of the government, Zardari arrived six hours earlier than scheduled. It could have been easy to whisk him away quietly without any one knowing about it, at least not the world through BBC, CNN and all the rest. People will also read about it in the Newsweek and Time in a few days time.
One wonders how much crowd would Zardari have attracted? They were on orders from his wife Benazir to be at hand. But the government’s crackdown preceded by weeks of preparation at the cost of everything else redounded to the credit of Zardari. The government, in the end, had thick egg on its face. No one of his entourage was allowed to disembark. Journalists accompanying him were manhandled. The police chief of the area went into the plane and begged Zardari by touching his knees — a feudal rite to suggest abject submission — to accompany him. He quietly followed.
Political leaders are soft targets and they are not the ones to resist orders. He would have obeyed if he had been asked. After all, he spent the largest part of his middle age in jail, and must have visited all of them by now. The difficult nuts to crack are in the clergy, the military allies, whose statements are enough to send shivers down the government spine.
Had Zardari been allowed free entry, it would perhaps have been a minor event. But now it is a mega event. What motivated the government to act the way it did? Fear. The last six years of the general’s rule have been without opposition. He first jailed the duly elected prime minister on charges of hijacking a plane he was not even riding. A year later, the prime minister became a serious embarrassment and his wife a potential threat. But then inexplicably Nawaz Sharif quietly slipped out as part of a secret bargain. That left Benazir as the only serious threat who chose to stay away for fear of being jailed. After all, with her husband in jail for eight years, some one had to look after their kids.
This suited the general superbly. With pygmies left in the ring and the clergy play-acting the role of opposition, he had nothing to worry about. And then he had the ultimate approval of the White House for being the frontline state. He was promoted to being a non-Nato ally, whatever the status means requiring more services in return.
In 1986, when Benazir had returned to a rapturous welcome by an unprecedented crowd in Lahore, she did not — or could not — take over even a provincial capital. She had to wait for heavenly disintegration of Ziaul Haq high in the skies and an election with lots of compromises with the murderers of her father before she was allowed near the seat of power with authority seriously curtailed and some areas completely denied to her.
Getting back to Zardari though, it was a botched operation. Leaders were brutally beaten and arrests were made. Punjab police is the best in the subcontinent when it comes to practising brutality. One has to read Shorish Kashmiri to better understand and believe it. What happens to the ladies in the police stations one doesn’t know. Access to police stations was denied and one can only guess what treatment these minions of law meted out to helpless ladies at the all-male police stations. They all had to be taught a lesson.
To make sure that nothing went wrong, a circular was issued by the administration warning transporters against renting out any vehicles to the organizers. If they did, there would be consequences and they were threatened with cancellation of their route permits etc. Pakistan Railways had orders not to accept group bookings. Television channels had orders not to accept advertisements from the party. Billboards, banners, buntings, posters and party flags were taken down. No chances were being taken.
Hundreds of activists were arrested. A number of them went into hiding. Asif Zardari is virtually under house arrest, claims to the contrary notwithstanding. Asif Khwaja, a mercurial MNA of PML/N made a very startling disclosure on the floor of the Assembly that cases against his namesake were concocted. That is why no case could be proved against Zardari in spite of spending eight years in jail.
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has protested against the brutal treatment of members of civil society by the Police. Without a magistrate to control their tempers, the police went berserk on orders of their masters and dragged women by the hair and put them in their vans. The latest unfortunate episode is reminiscent of Ziaul Haq’s and Ayub Khan’s strong-arm methods deployed against the opposition. We bend backwards to normalize relations with India, but don’t even feign to talk to our own people. The general has left India completely flush with success and with a lot of goodwill and bonhomie. The last time he went to India he could not even visit Ajmer to be able to pray there. This time he took no chances and took the precaution of starting his visit with Ajmer. He has the full support of the people in this enterprise though.
In 1971 our valiant generals gleefully surrendered before the combined command of India-Bangladesh, but would not talk to the leader of the majority party. This government would like the outside world to believe that there is freedom of expression here when that is not exactly the case. Apart from incidents involving journalists, it was interesting that at the recently held debates of students at the Convention Centre in Islamabad, the general had to point to his uniform as being the source of press freedom kindly granted by him. This he said in reply to a student who had pointed to the photograph of the Quaid-e-Azam hanging over the hall and asked the general rather rhetorically what would the Founder of Pakistan say to the general if he met him wearing the presidential hat.
On his part, the banker-turned-politician prime minister has achieved a feat of sorts by keeping his employer pleased all these six years. He does not seem to have much interest in putting his own imprint on the administration. Somebody recently remarked that his predecessor was doing slightly better. There couldn’t be a more sordid state of affairs in this proverbial state of Denmark.
Mohammad Khan Junejo had defied his appointing authority and was dismissed in three years. But doing nothing is no guarantee of a long lease. Zafarullah Jamali had stopped transferring even joint secretaries and yet lost his job. The law of longevity has nothing to do with one’s performance or the lack of it. Three years is the maximum that the GHQ can stomach a civilian prime minister.
What does the future hold? It seems that a wave of anger has run up the workers’ bile. The PPP will not forget the high-handedness of this government. The anger and frustration will assert itself and perhaps the unwinding of the present administration may start. After all, the general has to face some opposition some time. This time he would. The MMA and Zardari may find some common ground after all. The future is going to be interesting.
Similar bravery was not shown when religious leaders threatened the government through statements for the restoration of the religion column in the passport. Likewise, a quick retreat from a minor procedural change in blasphemy laws demonstrated the iron resolve of this government. The showdown with Akbar Bugti did not do much credit either. The military takeover on Oct 12, 1999, follows the typical pattern of the previous military rulers. An election of sorts was held after three years of unbridled power, in 2002, and the results pre-ordained. The outcome conformed to the persuasion of the political arm of the military, the ISI and MI. But the results in Sindh could not be fixed to the entire satisfaction of the establishment. In Sindh, the Peoples Party showed a strong presence in the provincial assembly and was the single-largest party, but was still denied power, and a non-entity was superimposed on a strange coalition. Thal, Kalabagh, NFC and other grievances apart, the decision to keep the PPP away from power has only accentuated the ill feelings in Sindh.
It is fashionable to compare any crisis in Pakistan with 1971, but this is difficult to sustain as an argument in the absence of an official account of that national shame. The people of former East Pakistan were literally kicked out of the federation for claiming power after having won the general elections fair and square. The establishment, of which the military is the major part, and civil bureaucracy the minor, considers it the God-given right to disregard people’s wishes with impunity and without regard to the consequences.
The establishment thinks that post-1971 Pakistan is a contiguous piece of territory where movement of troops and Air Force is not hampered by alien territory and therefore any uprising will be ruthlessly crushed. They fail to realize that the border with India runs the entire length of Pakistan from north to south. When there is trouble within, there will have to be interference from outside.
Recently there was trouble in Balochistan. Akbar Bugti called the bluff, and the military had to beat a hasty retreat. Not that confrontation would have served the nation well, but the confrontation triggered by foolish government policies should not have been engineered in the first place.
Coming back to Sindh, the situation there is frightening. The latest tiff between the Chief Minister and former Revenue Minister Imtiaz Sheikh is symptomatic of a deep crisis. It should not be forgotten that if pushed against the wall, even Sindhis might be forced to seek help from somewhere.
The Sindhis are patriotic people and they wish very much to be a part of Pakistan. The party that they have been voting for in the last few decades stands firmly behind the federal concept of one Pakistan. The foolish policies of the establishment in demolishing major political parties appear to be threatening the delicate balance of forces in Sindh, which can threaten the very federation of which it happens to be a part.
Had Asif Zardari been allowed free entry, it would perhaps have been a minor event. But the official machinery itself turned it into something big by going into unnecessary overdrive. What might have motivated the government to act the way it did? Fear. But fear of what? 
