THIS is with reference to the report ‘Bajwa seeks world’s help for peace with India’ (March 18) which quoted the army chief as saying that it was time “to bury the past and move forward”. There is a Chinese saying that wonders “when the house is crumbling, is it the time to busy oneself in the garden!”

Speaking at the first-ever Islamabad Security Dialogue, Gen Qamar Bajwa said: “Unless our own house is in order, nothing good could be expected from outside.” How true.

When Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s prosperity, assumed power in the late 1970s, he found himself at the helm of a nation that was still poor, weak and isolated. The key lesson that Deng learned before 1949 was that ultra-leftist, ideologically-driven attempts to achieve rapid progress had led to disaster. He waited for the dust to settle down.

After the death of Mao Zedong and the debacles of the ‘big leap forward’ and the ‘cultural revolution’, Deng introduced his economic reforms, turned his back on the essence of Maoism and Stalinism, and concentrated on three of his four modernisations — agriculture, industry, science and technology — and changed the course of world history.

Pakistan is caught between a hard place and many rocks, with a nuclear bomb in one hand and a beggars’ bowl in the other. The country is at war with itself and tearing itself apart. The combined opposition questions the legitimacy of the government and is threatening to topple it. Most of its leaders are either in jail, or on bail, or in exile, facing mega corruption charges which the prosecution has failed to prove during the last two years.

This is an eerie period in the history of Pakistan. The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. The poor are hungry and angry. Prices of basic necessities are soaring higher on a daily basis. One of the lessons of history is that when hunger and anger come together, people sooner or later take to the streets and demonstrate Lenin’s maxim that in such situations voting with citizen’s feet is more effective than voting in the elections.

The bringing together of anger with hunger is like the meeting of two livewires. At their touch, a brilliant incandescence of light and heat occurs. Just what and who would be consumed in the illumination is hard to tell.

Imran Khan has the qualifications to confront and master the severe political and economic predicaments, but, like Deng, he must set his priorities right. First things first. He must place the country above self. The country is at war with itself. His top priority must be to set the house in order.

Roedad Khan
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2021