Big Brother

JULY 2004 - I don’t know about you, but Ch. Shujaat Hussain has won me over within the short time span of a few days. In times where most of the nation is intensely concerned about depriving President Pervez Musharraf of his uniform – with the rest desperately clinging on to his epaulets, Ch. Sahib has risen above the rest and proved that he is a man of vision. In a short speech that he made to the press in Karachi, he advised the people of Sindh to appoint a lobbyist in Islamabad so that the province’s point of view could reach the concerned authorities. Of course he is too sagacious a player to remind the people that how concerned the authority is or how much authority the authority has, is another story.

This is the first time anyone has given a province such useful information and that too, free of cost. Provinces like Sindh should have long ago stopped blaming Islamabad for their woes and should have had the good sense to do what Ch. Sahib has asked them to now. It is well known that most people, who live and sometimes work in Islamabad, have never heard of Sindh. Therefore to expect them to be sympathetic or indeed positive about a place they have scanty knowledge of is wholly unrealistic. I am the first one to admit that the job of a lobbyist for Sindh will not be easy. For one thing, he or she, though it is unlikely that we will find a she, the lobbyist will have to first explain the very word Sindh. Most people in Islamabad are only conversant with sinned, which is an activity that is mandatory on all who serve here. The confusion arising right at the start of the lobbyist’s difficult assignment could be quite daunting. However should he get past that without losing his direction, he will then have the ever more daunting task of explaining to the people where this place exactly is.

It is a guess and I could be wrong, but most members of the National Assembly are going to find it very hard to understand that there is a place and that too a province – or at least they claim they are one that they have never even heard of. It is like saying that there is a peak in the Karakorams that is over 8,000 metres high, but how many people other than the Minister for Tourism would be able to understand what this bit of information means? Not many I can assure you. I do agree that most legislators, particularly if tackled before lunch, on the first day of the session, in the very first hour, might be able to actually get an idea of where the province is. Helpful suggestions like it being near the sea might be important because most do understand that there is land and there is sea and often people live near the sea. Since attention span in the National Assembly is under a severe supply crisis, it is likely that many not having heard of a thing called a sea, may lose all interest in the first few seconds. I think the lobbyist could try and show them pictures but then one place is like another and how many would be able to tell the difference? I also think it would be hard going with the Senate where the Senators are too busy trying on silk togas to be interested in anything else. The Chairman of the Senate, a man whose name I temporarily forget, is likely to be deeply engrossed in studying the new rules of TA/DA to pay any attention to what is, let’s face it, a matter of anthropology. Speaking of that wonderful subject, it is possible that Dr. Akbar S. Ahmed of anthro panthro fame could be called in and asked to hold forth on the exact location and cultural connotations of the province that remains a mystery to Islamabad, provided the good doctor is free from a lecture tour in Minnesota, USA. Similarly the NSC which is rumoured to be in Islamabad – though many think it’s the other way round, Islamabad being in the NSC, would have a hard time comprehending what the lobbyist is getting at. Still Ch. Sahib has made a great suggestion and it is up to the people of Sindh – if there is indeed such a thing, to make the next move.

While Sindh might actually achieve some attention in the capital, I am afraid it’s curtains as far as Balochistan is concerned. For those of you who might have missed the finer details, this is another land mass that claims it is part of the country, but other than arid mountains and smuggled 4x4s, hasn’t much to recommend it. They also claim that they are the largest province in the country, but then that’s just about as valid a claim as my saying that I am a faster bowler than Shoaib Akthar. I have heard here and there, but not that often, the place is known for some fuel or the other that it produces, though frankly I haven’t given the matter much thought since I reside in the Punjab. If a province needs a lobbyist, Balochistan’s case is even stronger and I wonder if the wily Ch. Sahib has decided to use this later after he has a lobbyist installed for Sindh. The lobbyist would certainly have a hard time explaining where this land mass is. Most people in Islamabad may have heard of seas or seen pictures, but what precisely is a landmass where all the barren hills look like each other? I can see puzzled MNAs giving quizzical looks saying that these could easily be pictures from the moon and not some lost part of the country. In any event, without lobbyists to present their case, at least these two provinces don’t have a hope in hell. The list of information objectives that will have to be communicated to all and sundry would be long as one can easily imagine and things like convincing Islamabad that people actually live in these provinces and worse, even claim to belong to Pakistan, are indeed huge obstacles, but then lobbyists are known to meet such challenges. That’s their job. Some people, obviously not on the super wave length where the country’s present leadership surfs, have found it strange that a short term Prime Minister who is basically waiting for the polling booths to be rigged up – sorry set up, should suggest the use of lobbyists for a province. Their argument that usually governments employ lobbyists in foreign countries, not their own, is laughable. A country where every other day someone wants a new constitution even though the truncated copy we have is now beyond recognition, can well afford the notion of the lobbyists. The logic is straightforward. You want something done in the capital; you need your own man to do it. Hopefully, Sindh will soon install one, someone who can swing with the punches and wave with the wind, like the clever Mushahid Hussain, my favourite man for all seasons and in between all seasons. He can be Sindh’s consultant to hire a lobbyist. High quality free advice offered in the national interest I might add.

Ch. Sahib’s other soap bubble that he floated the other day about all development funds being solely in the hands of the party in power is commendable. Suggestions that this could make a mockery of the devolution and good governance mantras are baseless. Who better to manage the funds than those who are in power? After all, in a gulli danda match you don’t offer your turn to the other side, do you? This farsighted thinking of Ch. Sahib could well usher in a huge revolution in how public funding should be handled in the future. I am not surprised he is the first one to suggest this because you have to be really brilliant to work such difficult things out. Any resemblance this plan has to George Orwell’s 1984 is purely coincidental. Orwell would readily agree.