Ban If You Can!

When you think this government has stooped to its lowest, it surprises you with yet another kick down the pit of crass ignorance. As soon as the majority of the Supreme Court judges gave a verdict in favour of the PTI being a political party with all relevant credentials, the government mouthpieces claimed to be getting ready to have it banned. As if banning the largest national party with majority seats and a landslide victory in the February elections was merely a simple tactical move, a show of cards. The reality is that most citizens can read the writing on the wall as pressure builds up from the international community: the UN, the US, and internally from the rejuvenated judiciary (despite the incumbent CJP) to conduct an impartial probe into the irregularities of the election and to free all political prisoners, the government and its string pullers seem to be playing the blind man’s game.

When the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) took away the election symbol of the bat from the PTI, a decision that the SC endorsed, neither realised that this decision would come back to haunt them forever. To add to its sins, the ECP refused to allot reserved seats to the SIC-PTI combination and distributed them, much like Halloween candy, to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and others. This was challenged in the SC and thankfully heard by a full court where the majority’s verdict was that the PTI was eligible for the reserved seats. This has reduced the strength of the PDM coalition partners and made the PTI the largest party in the National Assembly. The PDM-2 still has a majority, but not the two-thirds, that it needs to bring about any changes in the Constitution.

Nothing that this government has done since it came into power seems to have been well thought out, or even just thought through. Which government, in its right state of mind, would approve further perks for itself and for an already bloated bureaucracy while slapping the already crippled salaried class with further taxes, letting the retailers and agricultural landlords go free? If one was younger and full of anger, one would say this is why the French Revolution happened in the manner it did. Fortunately or otherwise, this nation is too comfortable with the wrongs done to it, and it has learned nothing from its erstwhile fraternity, the Bengalis in East Pakistan. The latter rose as one unity when the Awami League was banned. The rest is history, a history from which our unnamed rulers are loath to learn from.

The shenanigans this government has been carrying out are tragically farcical. As the country’s economy plummets, most who are young, educated to some extent, and can afford it are leaving the country, and industry is at a standstill. Petrol prices are at a record high, and everyone knows that this indicator drives up the prices of consumer products, including simple foodstuffs. Even as families commit collective suicide or cut down on the education of children to meet health and food expenses, infrastructure projects with billions in loans are being announced. The future is dim beyond recognition, our majority of the ever-bulging population being illiterate, fit only to break rocks for constructing roads that wash away with the slightest of rain showers. Very soon, we will be populated only by the old, the infirm, and the illiterate: in short, those who are “unmigratable.” As the slow and painful fire engulfs the near-dead nation, Nero plays the flute and plans for yet another IMF loan. It is not as if this is a window to the future. It is here, happening, and in real time.