THE entire Pakistani nation — from the northern mountains to the sea, from west to east — can be forgiven for feeling slightly baffled. For no rhyme or reason, quite out of the blue, it is first thrown into turmoil by the no-homework-done-talk about the Kalabagh dam.
When the controversy so generated threatens to get out of hand, when Frontier and Sindh make it amply clear that they won’t stand for it, a deft about-turn is executed and the Kalabagh dam project is returned to the same back-burner where it has been languishing all these benighted years.
Why the drama? If the end result had to be nothing better than going back to the starting point, what need for the false start? Apologists of the present order say it is necessary to educate the nation on the necessity of big dams. If this is their idea of education — kicking up a holy mess and then going back to the beginning — heaven preserve us. Another such foray into national education and we won’t know what hit us.
Now we are to go in for the Bhasha dam, up near Skardu, of course without consulting the people of the northern areas who will have to put up with the consequences of this huge dam, all big dams along with benefits also having dangerous side-effects.
All the same, troubling question is: what stopped the military government from starting work on Bhasha six years ago? If the government’s heart bleeds so much for big dams, we could have had one during this period. Six years and three months, the time Gen Musharraf has been in power, is a long enough stretch by any reckoning. Kalabagh has always been a dodo because the Pakhtoons and Sindhis won’t accept it. Why didn’t we start work on another dam during this period?
What do Pakistani governments, all governments, take the people of Pakistan for? Idiots, devoid of intelligence, a commodity to be taken for granted?
Pakistan is not a bad country. It has more than its share of good things. Despite our failings and our consequent knack for self-laceration, we are a hard-working lot and if only we had a better crop of leaders or self-appointed saviours, there is no reason why we shouldn’t have been at par with the success stories of East Asia.
Time was when we were ahead of most of them. Now our workers die to seek employment in places like Malaysia and South Korea.
What accounts for this backsliding? Perhaps the glare of a malignant star which for reasons still not fully understood brings us the gift of inept leadership. A series of short-sighted and self-perpetuating figures, worthy of being housed in a museum of sorry faces, bringing a fairly promising nation to a helpless pass.
CIA missiles target and kill Pakistanis in Waziristan and Bajaur and our government is so in thrall to its misconceived alliance with the United States that it can’t bring itself to protest loud enough against this outrage. The National Assembly already reduced to a joke under this quasi-military dispensation witnesses the further shameful spectacle of the government moving hell and high water to prevent a joint resolution against the missile attack in Damadola, Bajaur Agency, in which, lest we forget, at least 18 men, women and children were killed.
The US has not even bothered to express its regrets. But then why should it? If the military government cannot bring itself to express any anger, if Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz feels no qualms in going ahead with his visit to the US, why should the US be upset?
Not that the US is above apologizing. But it apologizes only when it has to. When China forced a US spy plane down on Hainan Island in April 2001, it had to say “very sorry” before it got the plane back, that too after about a fortnight. But that was China, this is Pakistan. Wouldn’t the US just love to give Iran a good kicking over the nuclear issue? It would but it can’t because it is overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran, proud and defiant, is not willing to be pushed around. Happy the day when we take a leaf from Iran’s book and start behaving like a self-respecting nation.
Surely we deserve better. Surely this is not our destiny. But we have to be clear about one thing. Before this nation of 150 million souls — and all the time increasing, given our talent for procreation — can come into its own and fulfil its potential, it will somehow have to rid itself of the jinx of poor leadership, get out of the rut of authoritarianism.
There is, however, a silver lining in every cloud and there is one in the controversy over the Kalabagh dam. The military government has back-pedalled on this issue not because it has been convinced by the power of argument but because there was little else it could do given the unparalleled unity of the people of Sindh.
Barring the Pir of Pagara, self-avowed GHQ’s man, no other notable figure in the province supported the federal government on this issue, not the Sindhi ministers in the federal cabinet, and not, to his enduring credit, the Sindh chief minister, Arbab Ghulam Rahim, although his job may have been on the line and, who knows, perhaps still is. This opposition might have been expected. What was not expected was the stance of the MQM which unequivocally joined Sindhi mainstream opinion and threw its weight behind the anti-Kalabagh front, MQM leader Altaf Hussain indeed going to the extent of saying that as long as he lived there was no question of going ahead with the Kalabagh dam.
Altaf Bhai, as he is known to his supporters, was always the undisputed leader of Sindh’s Urdu-speaking population, his distinctive constituency both the source of his strength and a mark of his limitations. But in taking a clear and pro-people stand on the Kalabagh dam and the military action in Balochistan, he has emerged as a national leader, indeed far more relevant at this juncture to what is happening than the disjointed and out-of-touch leaderships of the PPP and the PML-N.
Consider another thing. When the religious alliance, the MMA, called for protest rallies against the CIA missile attacks on Damidola, the MQM joined in, even though there has been much bad blood between the two organizations. All this amounts to a remarkable political feat. Even as the MQM remains a part of the government — its coalition partner at the centre and in Sindh — it has managed to keep its distance from it on vital national issues.
Contrast this clarity with the waffling of the ARD (the paper alliance for the ‘Restoration of Democracy’ which brings together the PPP and the PML-N). Twice in recent days the ARD announced plans for bringing out rallies in Lahore against the Balochistan operation. On both occasions these had to be called off because of a lack of popular response. The Musharraf government may have achieved nothing else but it has successfully made tame circus lions out of both these parties, or rather their leaderships. You see them roar and you are impressed. But that’s about it.
Anyway, what lesson are we to derive from the retreat on the Kalabagh dam? None other than that when the people are aroused and united they are unbeatable. If Sindhi unity had been any less complete, if there had been more quislings in the ranks of its leadership, rest assured we would have had an announcement on Kalabagh by now.
To smash the yoke of their present circumstances, to come out into the light, history calls upon the people of Pakistan to display similar unity on two other issues: the revival of democracy and ending our American alliance. Having had enough of authoritarianism, it is time we moved on. Having carried America’s bags for far too long, it is time we learned some self-respect.