The national assembly session was prorogued on Friday after passing 10 bills. Not a bad job for a ten-day sitting. Having said that however, it appeared comical when the House also passed a bill related to the establishment of an Institute of Space Technology. A space technology institute? when we have yet to get our basic act together even on the ground. Now that’s what I call being optimistic. But this was not the most interesting of things to happen. The most interesting sight on the last day of a session is that of members jostling, shoving, elbowing each other in the rather small assembly office receiving their questions to be included in the question hours of the next session. Just like our over exuberant cab drivers, one member even cut off another by tactfully placing his leg across the approaching colleague who should actually be grateful that he didn’t fall and end up kissing the concrete floor of the hallowed grounds of our citadel of democracy. It was surely a rather unsavoury sight but come to think of it, all this open jostling and manoeuvring was still being done for the larger public interest as it involved posing of questions of public importance. But what about the ongoing covert manipulation of power levers and players, that is way more disgusting and is not even in the larger public interest. On the contrary, it is only in the interest of select vested interests. So what is happening in the shadowy side of Islamabad the beautiful, the sinister, the conniving? is the question on everybody’s mind.

A few weeks back, some official functionaries (not diplomats) of one of our key western allies had an informal meeting with a group of young, and not so young parliamentarians and had a candid discussion on the political and personal future of its top honchos. After an hour or so one of the Pakistani parliamentarians enquired about the possible future prospects of the president and the reply, given by a gentleman with a heavy southern drawl, took everyone by surprise both for its abruptness and content. The guy replied almost instantly, “You will see the change before the mangoes ripen on the trees”. Whether he was referring to the mangoes of the Caribbean which ripe in a different part of the year or right here we don’t know, because our mangoes aren’t ripening before June. Talking of quick fire responses, it surely doesn’t end here.

On Dec 27th, a top western diplomat who has been around and going all around for a while now was having lunch with some people in Islamabad. If you recall, those were the days when after months of laying low in his presidential bunker, President Zardari had just started to come out and adopted a tough aggressive posture towards his detractors. It was the day when addressing a public gathering in Sindh he had blasted away at the judiciary, the army, and the yanks. Anyway, one of the guests asked the top diplomat about the possible negative ramifications for the bilateral relations between Pakistan and that particular country were there to be a change in the presidency, whether for legal or any other reasons. The questioner even asked whether it would amount to a “crisis, a problem or just a bump on the road”. I know because I was there. Once again it was as much the content as the quick fire response that warrants introspection. The questioner had barely finished speaking when pat came the reply, “None really, it would be neither. We have excellent ‘institutional relations’ and whatever else happens is the internal matter of Pakistan”. Having said that, the top diplomat attacked the salad plate with a renewed vigour. With this country out, or at least not in, and army too being said to be involved in its own decision making process, that pretty much leaves Allah to pin presidential hopes on. And the way matters appear, a massive divine intervention is sorely needed by our extremely powerful man.

Talking of interventions, maybe Tehmina Daultana needs to cease hers in the legal domain. I am personally fond of the lady who is more of a man that most of her male party colleagues but her legal interpretations were silly to put it most politely. Article 248 has been discussed for probably hundreds of hours on TV by a horde of eminent lawyers, millions of words have been printed in the newspaper on this subject and yet the lady insisted on voicing her absolutely wrong and amateurish assessment of the article.

But when it came to embarrassing her parliamentary leader Ch. Nisar, the lady was bang on target. Only last evening, Nisar had ripped the prime minister while accusing him of defending corrupt leadership and double speak. Tehmina, in stark contrast, praised the prime minister and said, “The system is running because of the vision of the prime minister”. Now what’s happening here one wonders. Nisar says PM is bad, Tehmina says he’s good, what Nawaz Sharif says ultimately could make the real difference. The questions is will Nawaz ever be asked to express his opinion, or are we past that stage already?

By: Mohammad Malick