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RECENT events make it appear that the ‘P’ in PML-N stands for pedigree so any perceived transgression or misstep by the middle-class leaders of the party necessitates that they fall on their swords without much ado.
However, if you are seen as part of the pedigreed inner circle of the Sharifs you can be sure of longevity. The prime minister uses his ire selectively for one institution or the other as he puts down his foot when trouble seems close to home, and has no issues offering middle-class sacrificial lambs if that helps.
The list is long and begins with Mushahidullah Khan who famously told the BBC of a meeting where the prime minister confronted the former army chief with recordings of phone-tap conversations of the ISI chief during the famed dharna of 2014 implicating the latter as an instigator of the campaign.
The moral of this story is that the Sharifs are quick to hang out to dry middle-class leaders when they perceive a threat from institutions that can bring a sudden end to their rule.
The military was livid. Before long Mushahidullah Khan had to fall on his own sword, and on the eve of an important international climate change conference, the country’s environment ministry was left headless. The minister’s sacrifice did serve to preserve democracy or you could say the Sharifs should you wish to.
(Frankly, PML-N activists such as TV anchor Tariq Aziz of the popular Neelam Ghar of yesteryears and Olympian hockey centre-half Akhtar Rasul were among the middle-class party activists who took the fall for the attack on the Supreme Court in the 1990s.)
Fast-forward to the Dawn story of late last year which talked of a security meeting where the civilian element of the country’s power structure warned its khaki defenders that indiscriminate action against militants groups was the only way to pre-empt the international isolation Pakistan was facing.
The security establishment overreacted, in my view. When the positive part of the story that the civilian and military leaders present had also agreed to specific measures to obviate the isolation threat was ignored, one knew some heads would roll.
It became obvious Pervez Rashid’s sacrifice would not be enough — he was the first to be axed from the cabinet for his inability to have the story ‘stopped’ after he was alerted to it; there was little thought given to how he, or anyone else, for that matter, could have stopped it.
Once the inquiry committee recommendations were received by the prime minister, more middle-class sacrificial lambs were led to the altar. The prime minister only dug in his heels when he perceived a direct assault on his office with the DG ISPR’s ‘rejected’ tweet which seemed the result of a misunderstanding anyway.
If the security establishment has often appeared overly sensitive when faced with criticism, the PML-N tends to overreact grossly as well and starts to betray signs of a siege mentality while facing challenges. The ongoing Joint Investigation Team ordered by the Supreme Court seems to be making the governing party and its top leadership a bit nervous.
While the court proceedings may have been troubling enough, the PML-N leaders seem to have taken a particularly dim view of the summons to the prime minister’s sons and their questioning by members of the JIT and the fact that one of the sons had to wait a couple of hours before being invited in.
Gratefully, the prime minister has maintained a dignified silence over the proceedings, but a cabal of sidekicks seems to be articulating the deepest fears of the leadership. While the PML-N discards middle-class leaders with alacrity when expediency demands, it is equally true it is rather loyal in rewarding them as well.
Therefore, the supporters feel it is incumbent on them to try and outdo all others in what they see as the loyalty test. This is perhaps what happened to Nehal Hashmi, a middle-class Karachi lawyer, who one must say stood fast by his party publicly even when the MQM used to bare its teeth way too often.
He is reported to have said he meant no disrespect to the judiciary when he uttered what seemed like threats to those asking ‘questions of Nawaz Sharif and his children’ as he was fasting. So, the fit could have been triggered by low sugar or perhaps he committed political suicide as he had visions of a much grander (political) hereafter. Who knows?
The moral of this story is that the Sharifs are quick to hang out to dry middle-class leaders when they perceive a threat from institutions that can bring a sudden end to their rule. However, where policy failures are concerned a totally different criterion is seemingly applied.
Ministers in charge of the power disaster, of a social media witch-hunt where human rights activists have been targeted and lethal radicals spared, and those who failed to widen the tax net, thrive in office as if they don’t have a worry in the world.
This also gives one the sense that the Sharifs seem pretty self-assured about their performance in next year’s general election because they seem to have no fears of a blowback from policy failures such as long hours of load-shedding that proved to be the undoing of the last (PPP) government.
They must feel if they can successfully thwart the (non-electoral) challenges that could cut short their tenure or decapitate their party leadership they are home free. And if this does happen all the selfless, discarded middle-class courtiers will be amply rewarded.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2017
