The court is in your ball

OCTOBER 1996 - It is not surprising that the people of Pakistan are now convinced they are part of a great ping pong game that is being played in their republic. No prizes for guessing who is the ping pong ball. It is also no longer possible for any person in this country to open the daily newspaper (containing endless bad news) and make any sense of what is going on. The buck is not being passed around any more. It is simply being thrown about with great speed and no one wants to catch it.

This corruption caper for instance. I mean who exactly are we kidding ? The issue has been tossed about till we are all going cross-eyed wondering who is going to do what about it, when and most importantly, how. While we all wait for the dawn of the next century when undoubtedly we shall know who is going to do the corruption number, it is no exaggeration to realise that between the President, the Prime Minister, the Assembly, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the befuddled Leader of the befuddled Opposition, nothing at all will happen. We will all have a bad headache and newspapers will become even less readable with hollow words like ‘accountability’ and ‘responsibility’ sounding more hollow than ever before.

If anyone has cared to follow, of course not possible without the help of a large number of aspirins, the way each party has passed on the corruption issue around, it is obvious that no one is the least bit serious about getting to the murky bottom of this national pond of shame. First the President sends off two letters to both the houses of Parliament, which in case you have all forgotten and contrary to rumours doing the rounds, do exist in the fair city of Islamabad. He urges them to pass legislation against corruption. Why he asks them to do so, we will never understand. Firstly the only thing the legislators are good at passing we all know and that has nothing to do with corruption. Secondly why in heaven’s name should they pass legislation against themselves ? Who has run off with the President’s marbles we don’t know and for once it is not Asif Ali Zardari either. Understandably, the President’s offer is greeted with deafening silence from both the sleepy houses.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Mian Nawaz Sharif thunders in the house and asks for accountability from top to bottom, cleverly not mentioning whose top and whose bottom he has in mind. He even asks the President to appoint a judicial commission, who passes this unsolicited advice to Ms Bhutto, who passes the hot buck back suggesting the parliament committee is better equipped to handle this potato. When her views are returned by the President to Mian Sahib, he drops the judicial jingle and settles for the parliamentary one. Observers can see by now that nothing concrete has been achieved so far in the national ping pong mixed doubles.

The public (remember them ?) asks to be forgiven if they are not exactly thrilled with the idea of the fat politicos sitting on self-judgment. Give us a break they suggest at which the government obliges them by imposing more taxes and breaking their back in another five places. Mian Sahib suddenly snaps out of his snooze and reverts to the judicial commission option. Score ? Love all. The President’s letter to the two houses, which are still in existence even as you read these lines, only results in a go-slow show and the matter hangs in mid air while one after another, the country’s most corrupt stand up and deliver soul stirring speeches full of moral purpose, integrity and other endangered ethics.

The High Courts and the Supreme Courts as indeed the Chief Election Commissioner are also capable of cleaning up Pakistan’s stinking stables, but there are more worms here as well. The CEC is the PM’s right (and left) hand man, being ambidextrous in more ways than one. So is he going to snap at the hands that feed him ? Please.

And so it goes on. Every day half the country gets up and without even brushing their teeth, ask for accountability. Some want it from the time Ms Bhutto’s disastrous three years began. Some want to include her earlier stint. Some want it to start with Mian Sahib’s times and some want it to start from 5th July 1977. There are some, no it is not Imran Khan, who want it to start from the time of Mohammad Bin Qasim. You would think that with so many people wanting accountability, it should happen starting tonight, but of course it does not require much intelligence to realise that there will never ever be any accountability. Should that horror scenario unfold, there would be nothing left of our present leadership or our past heroes. There will no longer be any powerful families around and there will be no rich generals and no super bureaucrats with properties scattered over the whole wide world. So simply carry on crawling waiting for the next blow and read all the pious exhortations with a very large pinch of very salty salt. As one of our friends not too conversant with the Queen’s English put it one day, ‘the court is in your ball.’ Which court and which ball ? Your guess is as good as mine but don’t wait for miracles. That age is long gone.