As political instability increases, for once, a consensus of sorts is emerging that perhaps it is not the political class that is to be blamed. The current episode in the country’s heady political journey was set in motion by a controversial decision by the court. And it was that decision that, in turn, had caused another crisis, the verdict on which the court is to give on Monday.
The Honorable Lordships are in a bit of a bit of a fix. They have to contort themselves into some rather uncomfortable shapes as a result of their earlier judgments. Perhaps the biggest hit in the drama that played out the other day at the Punjab Assembly wasn’t the one that the PTI took but the judiciary, the loopholes in whose decisions are now being discussed rather spiritedly.
There is talk of “moderate intervention” as well. By quarters specifically whose intervention is the reason why we find ourselves in this mess in the first place.
If one were to compare the three i.e. the military, the judiciary and the political class, it is the beleaguered third that has a constituency to answer to. In addition, of course, to the other two themselves. The judiciary and the establishment face no such concerns. Their performance or lack thereof is never quite evaluated. Nothing to answer for. It is not enough to say that the two institutions also face flak on social media. There should be consequences for the decisions of these non-representative state institutions who forget their place in the scheme of things. One is a pillar of state that treads on the turf of the legislature and at times, even the executive. Whereas the other is just a department within the executive.
There needs to be a reckoning. And the sooner the political class, across the aisles, realise this, the better for the polity.
