DAWN - Cowasjee Corner; 11 April, 1999
The advent of spring
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
NAUROZ, March 21 : "Bahar amad, bahar amad; Gul-i- surkh-o-hazar amad; Zameen sabzazar amad; Bahar amad, bahar amad......" No holiday for us, we were all at work. The weather was good, the flowers were blooming. We danced all night.
Item : Dawn, April 4, Governor of Sindh Moinuddin Haider 'reportedly' blames IGP Rana Maqbool for mishandling the Bhoja kidnapping case which has led to serious differences between them. "The federal government has 'reportedly' made known that if it came to choosing between the two it would put its weight behind Rana Maqbool...." The federal government is also 'said to have' informed the Governor that it is annoyed about the delay in setting up anti-terrorist courts. "However, the governor 'reportedly' has the full backing of his former institution which is said to have enabled him to continue in his office so far despite the federal government's attempts on several occasions in the past to replace him." (In this two-column news item the word 'reportedly' occurs seven times and the phrase 'said to have' four times.)
Now, we are confronted with a puzzle. What are we to imagine could be the governor's "former institution"? The Alpine Club of Pakistan? The Towel Exporters Association? The Kennel Club of Pakistan? The whole world knows that Moinuddin Haider is a retired Lt.-General of the Pakistan Army. It has never been a secret. Naturally, the army, if it could, would support him. Nawaz Sharif will let Haider stay as long as he wants him to stay. The governor is happy doing what he does and the presence of Rana Maqbool is not going to drive him to resignation.
What is more, the governor is doing a good job, he has put right many things that were wrong. The majority of the people, the masses, the not-so-deprived, the rich, and the filthy rich are all getting along well without the 'elected' ministers. It is only the shameless politicians who mourn the loss of their illicit income. Liaquat Jatoi lives contentedly calling himself 'the suspended chief minister of Sindh' demanding his police escorts and perks. The people say, let the corrupt ministers live in suspended animation, let the governor rule until peace and sanity are restored. Our norms of democracy do not preclude a province from being ruled by a governor.
Item : Moinuddin Khan, a private sector banker, wishing to return to Pakistan, was imported by Nawaz Sharif to sort out the CBR. This is precisely what he was prevented from doing. Attuned to normal business ethics and practices, he always returned phone calls made in his absence. In my case, one day this suddenly ceased. My calls remained unanswered.
Annoyed, I sent him a rude fax asking if he had fallen into the civil service rut where it was a strict rule, observed to the hilt by the members of that uncivil service, that under no circumstances was a response to be made to a message left. This brought a call from him. He was most apologetic, and said he was speaking from a private number in Lahore, as he had it on good authority that my telephone was tapped. The good authority was none less than Intelligence Bureau Chief Chaudhry Manzoor who had informed him that the IB knew he was consorting with me, an enemy of the state. He suggested that Moin desist.
The new IB boy, I told Moin, is obviously unaware that my telephone has been tapped since the day Jinnah died and that I have lived quite happily with it. If he wants to know what I have to say about most of the stupidity that surrounds us he should buy 'Dawn' on Sundays. Besides, a fat lot of good it is for you calling me from Lahore as a subterfuge, as the goons must be listening in to this conversation. Expect another admonition.
Sure enough, the big chief thereafter complained to Interior Minister Chaudhry Shujat. Moin had foiled the IB's plans to entrap me as he had let the hidden black cat out of the big black bag. "Meray ghonsley sey chiria oura dia," was how he put it.
The funny part is that when a corrupt government is booted out and goes to court, its misdeeds are exposed by the lot that follows. One constant is the accusation of phone tapping. Hundreds of people such as I remain on the list of government after government - a case of listing the usual suspects. What a waste.
Poor old Chaudhry Manzoor was shortly thereafter sacked for botching up the US missile affair. And Moin is now happily swimming in the private stream once again, far more relaxed, far less harassed, and he is at least getting paid for his work, which he was not in the CBR. He will have to write off his Pakistan sojourn as one of those quirks of life.
Item : Kunwar Idris, retired civil servant, both civil and able, is now by vocation a banker and by avocation a commentator and columnist in this newspaper. After a lifetime in the civil service, he cannot help but talk, laugh and write as do the few good civil servants we have had. Last week he produced a column on the question of an interest-free economy, an issue now being adjudicated in our Supreme Court. We discussed his column and agreed that condensed in one sentence his 1,400 words conveyed : " If our honest independent judiciary does not throw out the case on the grounds that it is a political question and does not fall within their domain, if it hears it and issues one of its 'historic judgments' it will only help our major loan defaulters at the cost of the people."
Item : Ayaz Amir, columnist, would-be politician. A few months ago, he resigned from his seat in the Punjab Assembly. The government has so far not accepted his resignation. How can any man in his right senses not be a member of the ruling party, not be an accomplice, aider and abettor, in the ruination of the country, exclaim the sages. He still receives his salary and allowances, to which he himself says he is not entitled. He has decided to donate what is not his to receive to the Chakwal Public School.
It is fun to read him again. Even Basra must have had a laugh at his April 9 column.
Item : Mushahid Hussain, journalist by profession, minister of this Muslim League government, is an amiable and cheerful man, whose company and official prevarications one enjoys. He now laughs longer and louder than ever. It is little known that he holds an additional portfolio to that of information. He is our minister of tourism. He admits that tourism is a leisure industry, that tourists seek R&R, W&W and song, and that without the three main requisites it is no go. You cannot have the one without the others. Mushahid agrees that we have no right to impose our particular brand of morals on foreigners of all races and religions who we may lure here for a holiday, relaxation and enjoyment. We must either give the sun-and-fun seekers what they want and are accustomed to, or forget about them. For laughs, see the photograph that hangs in the entrance hall of Mushhid's official Islamabad residence. It portrays Mushahid and our Mian, squeezed into a chairlift for two, ascending to Malam Jhabba. It would make an ideal tourism poster.
Item : Asma Jehangir. No laughing matter this. Our society is so brutalized and brainwashed by fanaticism that a mother, an educated woman, was prevailed upon by her husband to take along with her a professional gunman to kill her own daughter in the offices of the daughter's legal adviser. Our government does not realize that if it achieves its heart's desire of having its 15th Amendment Bill passed through parliament, it will simply further brutalize and maim the minds and mores of a society fast nearing the bounds of redemption.