There must be moments in Nawaz Sharif’s mind when he questions whether it has all been worth it. The humiliation at the unfeeling hands of Z.A. Bhutto’s nationalisation, the confiscation of his newly wedded wife’s jewellery stored in the office safe in Ittefaq Foundries, the grovelling before a PPP government to have it restored, the sycophancy before Gen. Zia-ul Haq, the puppet years as Punjab’s finance minister and then chief minister, the gruelling rigours of electioneering, the bittersweet fruits of three prime ministerships, incarceration in Attock Fort, the 24-karat alms given as political zakat by the Saudis, the luxury flats in London, the obese bank balances held abroad, and the widening rift in his father’s family. Was it worth the price? Now, he sits by the bedside of his ailing wife in a London hospital, helpless witness to her suffering, unable to compensate her for the years of separation and her self-sacrifice during their 46-year marriage.
Nawaz Sharif’s political oscillations remind one of the person who had a nightmare that he was making a public speech, and awoke to find that he was. In Nawaz Sharif’s case, his recurring nightmare has been of being removed from office by forces inimical to him. Thrice he has woken and found that he was. In 1993 the Supreme Court granted him a reprieve, but it proved shortlived. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton rescued him over the Kargil misadventure, but could not prevent the coup by Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s cohorts. And now, in 2017, he has again been ousted. None of his friends (CPEC notwithstanding) have volunteered to help him. The ex-PM is growing in similarity to King Charles I.As each day passes, Nawaz Sharif grows in similarity to the dethroned King Charles I of England. Vainly did the deposed king assert that “Princes are not bound to give an account of their Actions but to God alone”. Unheeded went his claim that “the King can do no wrong”. And in his final moments, on the scaffold in London’s Whitehall in January 1649, he uttered these words: “I Am the Martyr of the People.” Many argue that the National Assembly byelection will be the barometer of Nawaz Sharif’s popularity. Whatever the result may be, it will be a false reading. No more than one swallow doth a summer make, one byelection does not an electoral landslide create. The test for all the parties determined to have a say in the governance of Pakistan — elected or self-appointed — will be the next general election. They are currently scheduled within 90 days after June 2018, or whichever earlier date Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi may be told to recommend to the President. After those elections, whichever party (if any) gains an absolute majority, whichever person (if any) secures the prime ministership in his own right, whatever the authority (if any) of the federal cabinet, none of them will be able to escape the reality that is today’s Pakistan. It is said that outgoing US President Barack Obama left a letter for his successor Donald Trump, which Mr Trump has chosen not to read. That is understandable. Mr Trump doesn’t want to be prejudiced by realities. Pakistani PMs have never left such letters for their successors. Althoughthey failed to do so, here is a bucket list of tasks our future PMmight like to ignore: Control the population. The latest provisional census has revealed that there are 207.77 million Pakistanis. Half of them are under the age of 25, and will in time procreate. No man is an island, but every nation is. We have a limited territory within which to live. Implement a national curriculum.
Nations are not built from bricks of different shapes and sizes, fired in unsupervised kilns.Ration water usage. Water, like a mother’s love, cannot be taken for granted. Water, water nowhere, and not a potable drop to drink. Encourage vertical urbanisation. The sky is the limit. Control consumption. No nation can afford $50 billion of unbridled imports, more than twice the value of its exports. Pity the nation whose fish suffocate in polluted rivers, yet hungers for imported smoked salmon. Justify defence expenditure. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Dwight D. Eisenhower’s words, not mine. The law is not malleable play dough, to be bent and twisted at will in exercised hands. The list of imperatives is endless. It will grow, not because Pakistan’s problems are insoluble but because every government — whatever its constitutional paternity — has chosen to oscillate between rapacious governance, inept governance and vacuous governance. Why does Nawaz Sharif then crave a fourth term?
By arrangement with Dawn
