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violence Mob
madness Yeh
Woh exodus In
the local literary tradition Sceptic’s
Diary
violence The killing of a
private school principal, Abdul Rashid, a local leader of the Awami National
Party (ANP) in the city’s Ittehad Town, a few days ago, is a grim reminder
to the party about the extent of threat they face. It is considered the most
ominous development at a time when the general elections are approaching. It
prompted the ANP Sindh President and Senator Shahi Syed to declare that no
big electoral campaign rallies would be held in the city as part of an
overall strategy and the election campaign would be carried out door-to-door
to avoid attacks. Over the last few months,
the ANP Sindh has lost several workers and leaders allegedly at the hands of
militant outfits in Karachi. Prominent among them who fell victim to the
Taliban were Hanif Advocate, Sardar Ahmed, Saeed Ahmed Khan while the ANP
Sindh general secretary Bashir Jan has been attacked twice. “Around 30-35 activists
of the ANP have been murdered by the Taliban during the last eight-nine
months in the city,” said Shahi Syed. Talking to The News on
Sunday, the Senator said they have closed 30-35 party offices in Sohrab Goth
and other areas. The resistance is so strong that the party cannot even hoist
its flag in these areas. He said the militants have
not only been targeting their workers, they have ‘imposed fines’ up to
Rs10m for ‘crimes’ — of being associated with the ANP. The Taliban have
carried out three attacks on one of their leaders who refused to pay money to
them. Such incidents have
strengthened the perception that the ANP may be facing more threats from
extremist elements than their perceived traditional political or ethnic
rivals in the provincial capital during the forthcoming general elections. Following military
operations in Swat and Waziristan, the ANP reportedly supported the influx of
displaced persons in Karachi on account of supposed ethnic affinity. “But
gradually, the militants started targeting the ANP activists after getting
hold of the areas, said SSP Niaz Ahmed Khoso. “The Taliban have almost
wiped out the ANP from some areas,” believed the police officer who
recently presented a candid report about targeted killings before the apex
court. A few month ago, Naib Amir
of the TTP Mufti Wali Rehman sent a letter to the Mehsud tribe in Karachi,
asking it to dissociate from the ANP. Mehsuds were considered a
‘backbone’ of the ANP and these were the people who were believed to be
‘resisting’ the militants. Fearing possible implications of such threats
to their security, Mehsuds have started distancing themselves from the ANP.
There are around 3-4 lac Mehsuds in the metropolis, mostly involved in
different businesses such as construction in Sohrab Goth, Baldia, Hijrat
Colony, Landhi and other areas. The source said that the
Taliban are targeting the ANP mainly on three counts: First, they consider
the ANP as a nationalist party, second, a liberal and secular party, and
third, for their perceived support to the drone attacks and operation against
the militants in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa where their party ruled. SSP Khoso also concurred
with this view. “The main reason behind targeting the ANP is that the
militants consider them ‘supporter’ of the government and the US.” The police officer revealed
there are wall chalkings in Pakhtun-dominated areas in the metropolis which
say that despite being ‘same nation’ (ethnic affinity), the ANP is not
supporting them (the militants) against drone attacks and killings of Pakhtun
brethren. However, Senator Shahi Syed
said they are being targeted because they condemn their militant activities
— and it’s not recent but has been going on since the onset of the Afghan
war. Syed recalled that the then
ruling establishment in its ‘vain hope’ of turning Afghanistan as the
‘fifth province’ of Pakistan, destroyed the country by patronising these
elements who have now made even GHQ and airbases insecure. About the extent of
penetration of the militants in the city, SSP Khoso said almost whole of
District West is under the control of militants. In Orangi Town, Manghopir,
Kunwari Colony, Pakhtunabad etc, the fear of the militants is so severe that
even the police shudder to move. The senior police officer
said that around one month back, when Sohrab Goth police arrested one
suspect, the police station was attacked by armed militants who got their
colleague freed from police custody. Khoso, however, does not
subscribe to the view that the Taliban are targeting the ANP to snatch the
Pakhtun-dominated areas from their control to establish their political hold
— “Karachi is basically a hideout of the militants who fled from Swat and
Waziristan”. The militants are also
threatening the JUI-F leadership for supporting the government and not
joining them to resist the drone attacks. Journalist Ahmed Wali
Mujeeb said during the general election 2008; the ANP got two Sindh
Provincial Assembly seats — one each from Metroville-SITE and Landhi —
mainly due to seat adjustment with the JUI-F. This time, they planned to
field more candidates but the religious parties are reluctant to make any
electoral alliance with the three parties, namely ANP, PPP and MQM. Consequently, the religious
parties are fielding their own candidates — thus Pakhtun votes would be
divided between three religious parties, namely JUI-F, JI and Ahle-e-Sunnat
Wal Jamaat. For instance, Wali pointed out that the ANP Sindh general
secretary Bashir Jan planned to contest election from Metroville-SITE. But
the JI has fielded their candidate Abdul Razzak against Jan. Similarly,
Ahle-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat’s leader Aurangzeb Farooqi, who hails from
Abbottabad, is contesting from Landhi on the Provincial Assembly seat that
was won by the ANP’s Amanullah Mehsud during polls in 2008. But threats from the
Taliban and possible division of Pakhtun votes are not the main factors that
would undermine the electoral prospects of the ANP. There were also
‘differences’ within the ANP against the perceived undesirable attitude
of the party’s provincial chief Senator Shahi Syed. Wali said Tariq Tarin
was leading the ‘disgruntled elements’ in the ANP against the party’s
provincial leadership. The Senator said in order
to check their vote bank, the ANP has decided to contest 30 seats of
Provincial Assembly and 17 seats of National Assembly in Karachi during the
forthcoming polls. Since, all the parties are
preoccupied in dealing with ‘internal differences’ over allotment of
tickets, the ANP has so far not started talking with any political or
religious parties for electoral alliance, said Shahi Syed. “The ANP is facing
serious threat from the Taliban, who might attack the party during the
forthcoming election campaign,” apprehends the journalist. caption ANP (Sindh) President
Shahi Syed.
Last Tuesday night,
one Muslim asked a young Christian to turn off music in his passenger vehicle
after a nearby mosque started airing call for prayers in Francis Abad Colony,
district Gujranwala. The Muslim’s demand turned in a debate between the
Christian driver and some other passengers and resulted into a harsh exchange
of arguments and a scuffle later on, according to the local police. Next day, scores of Muslims
from nearby areas of that Christian Colony, comprising around 3,000 members
of the minority community, gathered outside the colony with their plan to
“teach the Christians a lesson.” First they lodged a complaint before the
local police and later, equipped with batons and some with arms, gathered
outside the colony calling the Christians to come out. The situation turned tense
with the assembling of the Christian community also with batons to defend
themselves. Tension escalated when the Muslim mob attacked some shops,
vandalised them and damaged some vehicles on the roads when police tried to
control the situation. The tension continued the
whole night, resulting in heavy deployment of police in the area, appealing
to both sides to calm down. The incident happened the
same day when the Supreme Court of Pakistan disposed of the suo-moto notice
of a recent burning of more than 175 houses in Joseph Colony, Lahore, over an
alleged blasphemy row. The residents of Joseph
Colony, Lahore, have shifted to their newly maintained houses after a violent
Muslim mob of more than 4,000 charged people attacked their houses on March
9, ransacked and later burned the whole households over an alleged blasphemy
row. The then Punjab government
quickly started reconstruction of the houses to avoid international disrepute
and set up permanent police barricades on the entrance of that small
Christian colony. Their houses are reconstructed and white-washed but it
seems hard to remove fear from their minds and hearts of those horrible
moments when the violent attackers burned everything in the presence of heavy
contingents of police. The Punjab government
admitted in the Supreme Court last Wednesday that police had deliberately
avoided engaging a charged and violent mob which torched the houses of
Christians and desecrated their holy books at Joseph Colony on March 9. The
police also admitted criminal negligence of the duty officers. The court also asked if the
Punjab government and bureaucracy were suggesting that taking risk for the
safety of minorities was not advisable as had been demonstrated in the 2009
Gojra riots in Faisalabad. The police had also admitted in an inquiry report
that the force and their commanding officers had taken refuge in a nearby
godown when the miscreants started pelting them with stones before setting
ablaze the houses. The newly appointed
Inspector General of Punjab Police Aftab Sultan assured the court that he
would try his best that no such incident occurred in the future and said that
the Capital City Police Officer Mohammad Amlesh was supervising a detailed
police inquiry. He told the court that they have arrested 50 culprits
involved in the arson and departmental inquiries initiated against the
negligent police officers. In Gujranwala, the police
was doing its best till late night to address the Muslim mob to avoid clash
and attack. “We engaged the district
peace committee members and deployed heavy contingents to avoid any untoward
incident,” Waseem Dar, a police officer concerned says, adding, “Some
people were injured in the incident but later the police controlled the
situation.” The new police chief also
told the court that the challan of Sawan Masih, the Christian accused of
blasphemy — the incident which led to this ransacking — has been
completed and would be sent to the trial court very soon. “Sawan denies allegations
of blasphemy,” Naeem Shakir, the counsel of the accused says. “His trial
would be conducted in jail.” He says the police have not provided the final
challan report to him yet, that the challan of the persons arrested for
attacking the houses is also awaited. He says that prompt
prosecution of such cases can set some examples to avoid such incidents in
future. “We are happy with the
government to the extent that it provided us shelter after the burning of the
houses and also gave us financial assistance,” says Bhola Masih, one of the
residents of Joseph Colony. “However, there is still fear in our hearts
because such incidents are happening anytime anywhere,” he says, “while
citing the recent incident in Gujranwala.”
vaqargillani@gmail.com
Yeh Woh Whether it’s an
individual or a group of people; a house or an office building; and whether
its peace time or war; when something or someone needs care you find women to
provide it. Going by consensus in
Pakistani politics however, it’s retired judges, serving lawyers and
journalists, and health professionals – all men – who are best caregivers
for a raped and plundered country nursing its wounds in the short period when
one set of ravagers departs and the next is yet to come. What is it about men
and what do they learn in these professions that makes them fit to govern? Judiciary and courts have
featured among the top state organs perceived to be corrupt, year after year,
in Transparency International’s annual reports (6th in 2010, 4th in 2011).
News media would have been a close neighbour on the name-and-shame list but
for the fact that while it helps form a public perception of corruption
towards state institutions, it does not wash its own heap of filthy laundry
in public. The corruption of media therefore does not get picked by the radar
of public perception. And the performance of doctors and health
administrators is clear to everyone who has ever set foot in a public sector
health facility. So, it’s all about
managing corruption, or rather, its perception. Since men do most of, if not
all the corruption, only they can take care of it in the interim period. Male
medical doctors, judicial officers and newspaper editors get picked to run a
province or a country because they have shown an understanding towards ‘how
the system works’ and are sympathetic to the view that elected civilians
should be afforded every possibility to loot state resources because it is
better than an army general doing the same, and more democratic. It’s their
belief in democratisation of corruption that makes them acceptable interim
candidates for all major political parties. They are not here to change
the world. Heck, all the doctors and lawyers in all the cabinets cannot stop
their colleagues from going on strike every other day and occasional
hooliganism, and all the journalist ministers cannot find a way of putting a
newspaper owner in jail for decades of blackmailing. Their cameo is scripted
down to the last syllable and they have the Constitution and the superior
courts to work on them as acting coaches. So why don’t we give the job to
top students of public administration and business management? Let it be a
useful experience for the future leaders of our nation, rather than a freebie
for the old, frail, and the failed. This interim government
business is a sideshow anyway. We need to keep our eyes on the prize: an
opportunity to find out what side of the corruption divide do ‘we’ stand
on. We have surveys and reports that tell us the last five years of this
country have seen unprecedented levels of corruption in public sector. It is
not institutions that indulge in corruption; it is people, elected
representatives and the bureaucrats they command. Will this knowledge make
you vote someone out? The last time an elected parliamentarian was faced with
corruption charges — a fake degree submitted to the election commission —
he resigned voluntarily, went back to contest by-election from the same
constituency and won with a bigger margin. He called it a victory for
democracy. It was actually victory for corruption, through democracy. It
allowed him to distribute his corruption among all those who voted for him.
Saved in the court of voters, he is now finally in the dock of a court of law
and so are nearly 200 other former parliamentarians. Some have already
received jail terms and a couple of them are on the run. The trial courts and
Election Commission of Pakistan are doing what we as voters are supposed to
do. It’s our job to weed out the sick elements in our governments so that
what’s left is healthy and productive. But do we really consider corruption
a sickness? Do we consider lying under oath corruption? If you are looking for a
court conviction that so and so embezzled so many billion rupees from the
treasury, before you decide to act, it’s not happening. For more details
read up on cases against Asif Ali Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Altaf Hussain,
Pervez Musharraf, Malik Riaz et al. The courts know a defendant through
evidence presented for and against them, you know your local candidate in
flesh and blood. While courts and ECP can only weed out documented
corruption, it’s your vote that’ll decide whether or not we, as a nation,
will continue to be violated by the corruption of a few. masudalam@yahoo.com
exodus They were killed,
houses set on fire, villages occupied and made homeless to look for shelter
as internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kohat, Hangu and Peshawar. The
people of Tirah Valley would have never thought to be wandering for shelter
after leaving their homes in one of the most beautiful valleys at the mercy
of militants. Tens of thousands of Afridi
tribesmen have come down from Tirah to the settled areas of Peshawar, Kohat
and Hangu as well as the tribal Kurram and Orakzai agencies after militants
have taken control over most parts of the remotest valley of the Khyber
Agency. The clashes in the valley
were going on for the last many months as militants wanted to take control of
the area and make it their stronghold to control operations in Peshawar
Valley. The local tribesmen supported by an armed group, Ansarul Islam (AI),
were offering stiff resistance since a fresh attack in January. However, the
AI and tribal volunteers had to surrender after inflicting heavy losses in
terms of lives and properties. They had to leave Maidan, the main town of
Tirah Valley, which has now fallen to the militants associated with the
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and supported by Lashkar-e-Islam (LI). Leaving Tirah was never an
easy decision for the Afridi tribesmen. Some of them had never gone out of
the valley in their entire lives but they had no other option, only to pack
up and go down the mountains. Climbing down the rough mountains for up to
seven hours or taking a ride on ponies was the only option for those leaving
their homes. They had to walk, take pony ride and then board a coach, truck,
tractor trolley or whatever they got in their way to Orakzai and Kurram
Agency. Till a few years back,
Tirah was known only as the summer hill station for the tribal Khyber and
Orakzai Agencies. People of Khyber, Orakzai and Kurram Agencies used to spend
their vacations in the area, mostly with their relatives since it was not a
developed tourist spot. The access to the area was not that easy as one had
to walk up the mountains for several hours due to the road condition. Located close to the Durand
Line, Tirah remained virtually independent since the colonial times. It was
in 2003 when, for the first time, Pakistani forces entered the Tirah valley
after militants started spilling over to different tribal areas, first from
Afghanistan and later from the North and South Waziristan. The huge mountains along
with the difficulty of its passes and the fierceness of its inhabitants
protected it from all the invaders whenever they tried to take control of the
valley, comprising the major towns of Maidan, Rajgal, Waran, Bara and Mastura. The five chief valleys are
Maidan, Rajgul, Waran, Bara and Mastura. Maidan, the summer home of the
Afridis, lies close under the snow-bound ridges of Koh-e-Sufaid. The hot
summer used to take the tribesmen of Khyber and Orakzai Agency to this remote
hill station which has now been vacated by even its own inhabitants. “The authorities are
receiving the IDPs coming down from Tirah at Kalaya town of Orakzai Agency
from day one. They are being provided with transportation and other
facilities from Kalaya to take them to New Durrani Camp or Jalozai camp near
Peshawar,” Adnan Khan, the spokesman for the provincial disaster management
authority (PDMA) told The News on Sunday. The PDMA authorities have
unofficially estimated that around 4000 people have come down from Tirah
already while more are feared to come down to the settled and tribal areas
due to the situation in the valley. Around 274 families have so
far been registered at the Jalozai camp located in Nowshera district, close
to Peshawar. “They are being provided assistance by the PDMA after
registration. The assistance includes cooked food for first week and once
they are settled, they are provided with ration and other facilities,” said
Adnan Khan. There are reports that PDMA
and the Civil Secretariat for Fata are looking for a suitable site somewhere
in Peshawar where these IDPs can be registered and later taken to Jalozai.
However, the district administration of Peshawar is hesitant in allowing
registration in its area because of the law and order situation in the
provincial capital. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
has also halted its assistance to the Tirah IDPs till security arrangements
are made. The UN body suspended its
operations temporarily after a bomb attack at the Jalozai Camp last month
when a large number of people were waiting for their turn to get ration from
a food distribution center. At least 17 people, including a female worker of
a local NGO and a government official, were killed and several were wounded
in the blast. The situation further added to the miseries of the IDPs. Apart from UNHCR, a number
of foreign and local NGOs are working to help the Tirah Valley people, who
were initially not being considered even as IDPs for technical reasons by
most of the world bodies. The Al-Khidmat Foundation was one of the first
local NGOs to have rushed to help the coming IDPs. They have set up camps at
various places to enlist the Tirah IDPs and have appealed for assistance so
the helpless and homeless tribesmen can be facilitated. “We are registering those
who are coming down at different points. There are still a large number of
people who are coming down the valley,” said Shah Faisal, the tribal chief
of Al-Khidmat Foundation. Shah Faisal said those coming down the valley are
narrating horrifying ordeals while many disclosed that over 200 bodies of
those killed in the fighting with militants remained unburied for several
days. A number of IDPs from Tirah
Valley on April 2 protested at Jalozai camp for not being provided basic
facilities. These IDPs gathered outside the camp of the PDMA and protested
that they are being forced to share tents with those displaced from Bara. The
situation has not only bothered the new IDPs but the old residents of the
camp are also unhappy with the decision of the authorities. A large number of families
and individuals are temporarily residing with their relatives, some have
hired rented homes while others are still looking for shelter in or off the
camp in Bara, Peshawar, Kohat and Hangu. Media reported that LI men have
distributed pamphlets in Bara area of Khyber Agency, warning the locals not
to shelter those coming down from Tirah or face the music. Many of these
pamphlets were found pasted on the main squares, mosques and important
building in Bara.
In the local
literary tradition Salma Mahmud, an
educationist deeply interested in literature, felt her talent for writing
rather too late in life to blossom fully. In many ways, she was her
father’s daughter. M.D. Taseer had a volatile personality, who imbibed both
the cultures of the Walled City of Lahore and the academic and intellectual
environs of Cambridge University. He came home carrying the flavour of what
he had been exposed to in his stint abroad, to the local literary traditions
so as to be more in sync with it. He insisted that his
children should be well-versed in local literatures, like Persian, and his
eldest child Salma Taseer develop a well-rounded intellectual outlook. Though
she herself got higher education in English literature, she did not forget
her father’s advice and developed her understanding of aesthetics by
holding on steadily to both the traditions. Immersed in English literature in
particular and European in general, she always insisted on giving both a
local habitation and a name. This she did despite the many setbacks like
carnage at the Partition, migration of the family and the untimely death of
her father when she was barely stepping into teenage. Her writings tell of an age
that is now long gone and is firmly part of history. The intellectual
debates, the artistic innovations and the political points of view that
originated in the 1930s and then flourished in the 1940s, leading up to the
Independence somehow make one wonder on the tragic aspect of the narrowing
down of a much broader Catholic outlook that the leaders in politics and the
realm of ideas had envisaged and nourished. As it is, the intellectuals
and the artists have their own world which they create, not in conformity
with the rest. They are viewed with suspicion and curiosity, some disapproval
and their style and life is not that of the ordinary man. What they might
consider to be normal is not what others view as commonplace. Also, when one is scion of
a famous family, it is inevitable that the focus shifts to other members of
the family rather than remaining on just one. The same seems to be the case
with Salma Mahmud because it is through her writings that one has gotten to
know so much about the other members of her family. Of course, she did it as
a daughter or a sister would, but to the general reader, it revealed the much
wanted and desired information about the family, especially her mother. She must have inherited the
grit of Christabel and Alys because both the sisters married Indians and came
to stay their whole lives in India and then subsequently Pakistan. Very
little was known about these two exceptional women till Muneeza Hashmi wrote
about her aunt, mother and maternal grandparents and then Salma Mahmud about
her mother and her family. It had been a remarkable
tale of courage and determination against challenges which were unfortunately
man-made. Both the women decided to stay here sticking to their decision till
the very end. Both chose their final resting places to be the land of their
husbands. As an educationist and
teacher of literature, Mahmud played a fulsome part in passing the spirit of
enlightenment among the generations of women who were venturing forth after
discarding the taboos against circumscribed education, like home economics
and embracing a wider and liberal worldview, and not the well guarded and
selective world of ideas and letters. She was particularly worried about the
lack of interest in history in the younger generation. For her, history and
literature were the two subjects that provided the fountainhead of knowledge.
‘The Wings of Time’ was
a delectable account of the lives of the intellectuals in the northern part
of India as seen by a girl growing up but laced with retrospection. The
vignettes of Mian Aslam, Allama Iqbal, Patras Bokhari, Majeed Malik,
Badruddin Badar, Rajbans Khanna, Hamid Ahmed Khan, Aftab Ahmed Khan, Abid Ali
Abid, Somnath Chib, Victor Kiernan, Nazir Ahmed, Sufi Tabassum, Faiz, Mian
Nizamuddin, Bebeji, Iqbal Singh were lovingly recounted. She was busy writing her
next book, ‘Power and Glory’, about the Punjab through one hundred and
fifty centuries, from the very beginning, the Soan Valley to Mehargarh,
coming down to the 19th century. It was to dwell on the glorious periods like
Gandhara, Maurya and Gupta. It is hoped that the book
gets published soon to atone for her starting late in life to write. — Salma Mahmud passed
away in Lahore on April 1, 2013.
Sceptic’s Diary Fidelity to a
system is genuinely tested when the system fails to bring the results you
want. This is a central issue facing the workers and supporters of Pakistan
Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Can the party’s zealous support base accept the
outcome and retain their faith in our chosen system of democracy if they fail
to ‘sweep’ the coming elections? The biggest danger is that
defeat might turn into contempt for the admittedly slow workings of a
democratic system. Already one sees a deep and abiding confusion in the PTI
ranks between contempt for bad governance and democracy itself. Many of its
party leaders have proclaimed on TV shows, “We don’t want this
democracy”. Well, tough luck and thank God this choice was not left up to
individuals trying more to overthrow a government than to get into office. One of the deepest
tragedies in our system is that the place of democracy, along with multiple
other things, is still not secure. This of course stems from decades of
dictatorship, the associated propaganda and, for a smaller segment, partly
also because of a misplaced romance that a ‘Khilafat’ system will bring
better results. All of this is actually resentment against bad governance and
yet an entire system gets blamed. At times I feel PTI thinks that democracy
is a necessary evil for its cause. Well even a ‘tsunami’ has to play by
the rules I suppose — whether they like it or not. A sizeable mass of young
people, disillusioned with governance and confusing it with contempt for
democracy, will only add to Pakistan’s woes. Will the PTI continue to be a
force or a movement even if it loses Elections 2013? What if Mr. Khan exits
politics in the next five years or say ten years? Will this rhetoric for
change subsist or will it then be a mass of people who just blame democracy?
Take Khan out and there is little credibility in the ‘change’ mantra —
after all Mr. Hashmi and Mr. Qureshi hardly represent change. They may
represent many other things but change is hardly their sales pitch. Now moving onto the other
recent rhetoric by PTI which makes me queasy. Since the party held
intra-party elections, it has started accusing other parties of not being
democratic enough. Mr. Khan went so far as to say that no other party in the
sub-continent and most in the West do things his way. Sure they don’t. And
the most important question is: why should they? The purpose of a political
party in any constituency based election is to win that constituency; pure
and simple. It is not bound to choose the candidate most popular among its
own members. It has to choose a candidate that it thinks it can sell to the
people and who can grab any swing voters. For that it has to organise a team
and a team that can, according to a judgement call made by party leadership,
get the job done. No party becomes un-democratic simply because it chooses to
take a path different than what Mr. Khan has in mind. All the parties
contesting elections are fulfilling the most important pledge; putting
forward a candidate and letting the people decide. How they choose that
candidate and whether they make intra-party elections a pre-requisite to that
(subject to any Election Commission guidelines/rules of course) is and should
be their prerogative. In fact Mr. Khan’s claim
that no other party in the region/the world has done this exercise of
intra-party elections on the scale of PTI offers its own rebuttal. If most of
the parties, including in countries with thriving democracies, have made
choices a certain way and those have been validated by the people later, that
tells you something. Parties contribute to democracy by contesting elections
and putting forward manifestos that are for people to decide; not necessarily
by letting a majority of party members in a constituency decide who shall
run. For a number of reasons
people from a particular party might be unpopular among its own members. But
their policy or appeal in the overall constituency might be a huge advantage.
Should the lack of a massive exercise of intra-party elections prevent a
party from choosing that candidate for a constituency? Of course not. Should
it even prevent them from appointing him to a particular office? There is a
strong argument for saying no. And if you don’t like that, join another
party. I would be interested in
hearing about how any religious minority members can be expected to come to
the fore in intra-party elections in a country such as Pakistan. Is the
democratic spirit based only on a majority vote? But that is a topic for
another day. So each day we get closer
to Elections 2013 and temperatures rise. And sure you should base your
judgement on what you think is the right choice. However, it is important to
see beyond the rhetoric of change and accusations at other parties of lacking
the democratic spirit. We have chosen a system in which there is a certain
play in the joints allowed for each party contesting elections. How parties
choose their own leadership is their prerogative; but it is definitely not a
basis for others to throw accusations at them. Let us hope that the
rhetoric of change will have some substance in terms of subsistence even if
things go awry for PTI come the E-Day. |
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