J. Edgar Hoover was the first Head of FBI and remained its Director for some 48 years from 1924 to 1972. Under Director Hoover, FBI became a very powerful organization, highly effective in law enforcement although sometimes a little controversial. It was rumored that the Director maintained secret files on successive Presidents of the United States. The 36th President Lyndon Baines Johnson famously said of him “Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.” That is a great strategy to control a Frankenstein like that, if the system has created one.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has a team of such specialists, quite unlike his cricket team of yesteryears who specialized in different departments of the game. These specialists speak from inside the tent (the readers know what I actually mean), mostly say the same thing, pick the same topic and then go hoarse repeating it ad nauseam. From early in the mornings to late in the evenings, they start taking airtime one by one and sometimes together on the most frivolous matters. One talks about the same thing from Islamabad, soon followed by someone from Lahore and then from Karachi. I have never seen them say anything of substance, or something concerning the betterment of the extremely poor people of Pakistan. They are so one dimensional that most people can tell you what they are going to say even before they say it.
Even the Prime Minister is getting extremely one dimensional no matter what the occasion is. The speech is the same, well most of it. I guess what new can you come up with if you speak every hour or every day? Familiarity does breed contempt after all. The Prime Minister does not tire talking about the past and sometimes I wonder why he lives so much in the past rather than the present? For example, he talks about a welfare state, which we all like, but his plan to make Pakistan a welfare state with this burgeoning population is impossible to achieve. And he never ever talks about the fast increasing population of Pakistan. In my view both go hand in hand. Just imagine if our population, a ticking bomb, was just 80 or 100 million compared to 220 million, how prosperous and happy Pakistan would have been?
The Prime Minister when living in the present, talks a lot about the People’s Republic of China (China) and its phenomenal growth, eradication of corruption and now just last week eradication of poverty. One of the major or perhaps the biggest reason for China’s growth was one-child-one-family-policy implemented in 1979/80 primarily designed to control the rapid growth of population. According to one estimate this step by China prevented some 400 million births. This policy was enforced across the board for the rich and the poor, educated and the uneducated, for the powerful and the weak. This policy alone made a world of difference between China and India.
But then we, in Pakistan, have a national disease called “indispensability”, which essentially means that without me you will go nowhere or you need me to succeed. Everyone in every job or profession embarks on longevity track even though the graveyards are full of indispensable people.
Getting back to the topic, to tick off this brigade of specialists, one of the Sharif’s just has to take a walk outside in public view or say a few words and the whole battery will be out to batter that Sharif and all the other Sharifs to no end. In their exuberance they will even throw in one or two Zardaris for good measure. Poor TV channels air this pathetic show by choice or by force or for the love of government or its advertisements is anyone’s guess.
This is not the first time we the people of Pakistan are made to suffer hoarse voices, bad language and unsubstantiated allegations. PML(N) remained in power in J. Edgar Hoover style for some thirty years in the Punjab and a little lesser years in the Center. It also created a team of specialists sitting inside the tent. One of them was the current Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed. Prime Minister Imran Khan has very wisely kept Sheikh Rasheed in his tent from where he is more effective against the other two large parties. There were others like Rana Sanaullah, also famous for his “speeches”. PML(N) went a step ahead and created a thing called “Gullu Butt.” Once this word enters a dictionary, and it is just a matter of time, it will mean “sporty vandalism.” Mian Nawaz Sharif, the ex-Premier, except for a brief period after his ouster by the Supreme Court, generally remained calm and quiet during his long tenures. I wish he had heard Enoch Powell, the British Conservative Politician say “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.” Exactly! But then we, in Pakistan, have a national disease called “indispensability”, which essentially means that without me you will go nowhere or you need me to succeed. Everyone in every job or profession embarks on longevity track even though the graveyards are full of indispensable people. The most astonishing is the track taken in the national game of Cricket. We have at least a 100,000 high potential, high quality and top-of-the-line cricketers in the waiting but no present day cricketer wants to retire or is even allowed to retire by PCB itself staffed by same kind of stuff. So, a 100,000 dreams die without materializing. But who cares about dreams of our masses?
How can we forget the way Karachi suffered, indeed the whole country suffered, the MQM leaders’ speeches at the drop of a hat with a very captive audience out of an obligation to support the party. Their tent was pretty large and strong for years and years and they had many specialists. Even then, the same speech was, more or less, repeated by several leaders. They wielded enormous power and with President Musharraf watching their back they could have really transformed Karachi. I wish, how I wish, they had fixed the water and electricity problems in the city and eliminated water Mafia, and fixed KESC. Changed the traffic habits of people forcing them to observe traffic rules, and introduced good public transportation through the private sector if the Provincial government did not care. None of these three measures would have required large amounts of money but would have changed the shape of this beautiful city. And they had the street power to implement these measures and then some. That is the sad part. They used that power instead in making speeches and over speaking and under doing never helps.
Then there were two MQMs and we had to suffer the leadership of both with essentially the same message. Now there are maybe three MQMs and the frequency of its leaders’ appearances is becoming less and less for now because of this division and their declining effectiveness. Otherwise just imagine the leaders of all three MQMs taking airtime? There would be no time for anything else. Not even for PTI leadership.
The Pakistan Peoples Party has its fair share of specialists in the tent, but has improvised over the years and made sure its specialists graduate to higher offices and show less of themselves. Its Chairman, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has improved over the years and I think he will become a prolific speaker, like his mother, given the time and training to control his voice just like that of a soprano or a tenor and speak from the chest rather than the throat. This is one way to remove hoarseness.
We have other players in the field but I cannot possibly cover all and want to stick to the active politicians because the nation looks up to them for problem solving not speech making. Have we ever thought why Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was so great that he over-shadowed all other leaders of the time whether British, Hindu, Sikh or even other Muslims? He achieved all this through sheer greatness of his character and iron will. Spoke little and did more generating credibility among the masses. Maybe it’s time if we have to look at the past then we look at the recent past, and look at Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the dignity he enthused.
