Between Perfidy & Dignity

As a rule wealth that is stolen is gleefully plundered once again by those left behind. Saddam Hussain’s famous palace, Muammar Gaddafi’s gold dinner sets, Hosni Mubarak’s billions of dollars stashed abroad and Shah of Iran’s kingdom were all left behind, like many mighty monarchs and billionaires before them. The kind of inglorious end that they met is an objective lesson in history. Hussain was smoked out of a hole and hanged. Gaddafi pulled out of a road side culvert and shot. Mubarak was literally tried in a cage where his stolen treasure was of no use to him. And Shah of Iran was disallowed to be buried in the country where he once ruled with such pomp. A few yards for his grave were lent by Egypt where he rests unattended. A similar fate befell Philippines Ferdinand Marcos, and the African strongmen like Nkrumah and Idi Amin. Yet every other potentate believes that an end like that would not be his.

There is a different category of public figures that millions would want to emulate yet they remain self-effacing, humble and unpretentious. Nelson Mandela was reputed to have refused to try his infamous jailer who tormented him with all sorts of indignities for decades in jail. The iconic Abdus Sattar Edhi is seriously unwell. There are innumerable standing offers for his free treatment abroad, but he steadfastly refuses on the grounds that such a facility is not available to the poor in Pakistan. Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar was the governor of West Pakistan, and his children cycled to school and back. These are the signs of truly great men and their superb character.

Our otherwise compassionate prime minister, and for that matter, everybody who is anybody in the scheme of power, heads abroad literally on the first sneeze. It should really have been a matter of principle and national pride, a sense of proportion and personal example to desist from such ill-considered indiscretions. No amount of pious talk, passion soaked speeches and self-serving pity can erase an avoidable impingement like this one at public expense. One prays that the prime minister recovers soon. “His must have been the only miraculous open-heart surgery where a patient was up and about within five days,” opined a renowned heart surgeon hwo felt that “it was medically not possible.” There is also noise about the strange absence of any customary press release by the host clinic in London or an official spokesperson. This raises uncomfortable questions on the entire episode. A more transparent and informed approach to a simple medical issue could have been more helpful, preventing it to become a butt of needless speculations. The prolonged absence of the prime minister is adding to the haze, making Pakistan look rather dys functional.

Boris Yeltsin had a heart problem, and was to be operated upon. One of the aides suggested that he be flown to the USA. Yeltsin simply refused, and was operated upon in Moscow by Soviet doctors. Similarly, Mahatir Mohammad had his heart surgery done in Malaysia. We are still to hear a of Chinese or an Indian leader seeking to be treated abroad.

As history tells us, there was a governor of a city during the early Muslim period who was accused of negligence of duty, and was ordered to appear before a court of enquiry set up in the town square .The charges against him were read out, and he was asked to explain. The first charge was that he was constantly late coming to the office. His reply was, “I have no servant, therefore have to knead flour myself, wait for it to absorb yeast, cook my breakfast and then leave for office. That causes the delay as complained.” The second charge was that he locks himself up in the house on Fridays, and only appears for the Friday prayer, wasting an entire working day. “I have only one presentable pair of clothes that I wash on Fridays. I have to wait for them to dry up before leading Friday prayers,” he deposed. The third charge was that once in a year he suffers a bout of madness, and is heard crying aloud in his house the whole day. The governor requested to be relieved of his duties after his response, “I was a child when a newly converted Muslim was being tortured by pagan Meccans. We would make fun when he would scream from pain. Whenever that day arrives, I am gripped by the terrible fear if God would ever forgive me.” The crowd was dumbfounded. There was pin-drop silence as the governor gracefully got up, dusted his clothes and slowly walked out of town.

No one is asking our leaders to behave like that, but at least a realisation of wrongdoing must exist, something is utterly missing.

The Panama leaks have affected administrations, businessmen and bureaucrats across the world. There have been honourable reactions, and there has been pitiable evasiveness. We are a part of the latter minority, and regrettably so. India has just signed a European-led convention against corruption to unearth money siphoned out of that country, while we are busy conniving to raise a ToR smokescreen to hide behind. The difference here is not in the amount of money or power but in the quality of character and measure of self-worth, between a principled lifestyle and ruthless extravagance at public expense. Character is what Prime Minister David Cameron showed when he resigned after the British nation voted itself out of the European Union, which he was supporting. No one had asked him to step down but his praiseworthy moral make-up.

Our media and leadership relish deriding Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his unfriendly stance. Agreed, but see his remarkable grasp of national affairs with which he addresses his audiences locally and abroad for hours with great coherence and fluency. We too have one whose commitment to the vital issues of the country can be gauged by the number of pieces of papers that he produces out of his pocket to read out haltingly. It is only fortuitous that he does not hop over to his favourite basket for dishing out ghost motorways, universities, hospitals and metros while speaking abroad. However his fluency is impressive when secret personal dealings are questioned, where he can quote page, line and verse from family history of their ghost riches and supposed aristocratic ancestry.

There are others in this sordid circus who dole out millions of rupees out of a provincial budget to a madrassa in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that has the dubious distinction of being the mother nursery and alma mater to the likes of Mullah Omar, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, Omar Khurasani and even Obama bin Laden. In this background it can be reasonably predicted that PTI’s plans for a forthcoming agitation against the government would be a dismal show. People of Pakistan have no patience left for “closeted” Taliban sympathisers, financiers and swindlers of public money.

Fabulous riches, treasures and splendid palaces do not enrich a man nor endear him to people, far less to his kith and kin who usually eagerly await his final departure to partake of his unfairly amassed wealth. It is one’s goodness, service to humanity and acts of benevolence that really matter in the end. An abiding benevolence like Ganga Ram Hospital Lahore has made Sir Ganga Ram immortal long after he was gone. The funeral of Amjad Sabri, a renowned Sufi-poetry singing qaawal, in Karachi the other day had more grieving men and women than an emperor’s.

Those who become rich by dishonesty, manipulation and excess are intrinsically insecure and scared sub-species. Their nagging moral deficiency surfaces in many different ways. Some become tyrants, others psychopathic bullies, supercilious snobs, and a few tight-fisted misers. However, their common traits are paranoia, fear of deposition and a high degree of superstitious-ness. They are afraid of dying as a class not because it is scary but more because once they depart their massive wealth would be left behind, disused and scooped up by others. Pushed by their guilty conscience and fear of ever-present imminent loss, they tend to hover around “holy” men, seeking their blessings and protection against unseen calamities, which in fact reflects their own sense of guilt and insecurity.

Our lot is a strange mix of a sermonising priest in the body of a Dogra Maharaja who bought his kingdom for a sack of gold. Like the Dogra, our people also manufactured their pedigree after mounting the throne of Lahore. The Maharaja at least had a credible lineage; ours were simply men forging and honing Sikh tillers’ plows in their smithy in a small village in Punjab. They seem to have remained faithfully the same even after billions of rupees, and a good part of a century later. Their chronic self-consciousness for want of real substance drives them to the edges of ridiculousness. See the way they project their very private familial routine, or perhaps its absence, on TV screens to showcase their devotion and traditionalism, a clever device to trap popular sentiments.

As the result of a seriously skewed worldview their faulty statesmanship has already touched rock bottom. Our national interest has been drowned under the weight of business prospects, and inexplicable aversion to those who talk of Pakistan’s sovereignty and prestige. It does not really matter to them if neighbours shell across our border, kill people and destroy houses. Nor does it seem to move them if they blast our border control installations out of existence, and then threaten us of dire consequences or paint us black as terror sponsors. Their stony silence and complete detachment from such slurs and serious provocations are puzzling, to say the least. It appears they are either deaf or dumb, or leaders of a country far away in the North Pole. However, going by PM Modi’s recent statement soon after their EAM’s angled disclosure about Modi-NS equation, it appears our leadership has been able to petition to the world albeit by the dint of their deficient intelligence quotient, native cunning or both, that they have to look over their shoulders before international undertakings. Modi’s well-put remarks amount to a subtle scorn and pity on the state of their empowerment, which they are sufficiently naive to accept as empathy. A dishonest mind loses the ability to retain dignity. Between perfidy and dignity there is only falsehood. A choice has to be made what legacy to leave behind.

(Published in Monthly Tribute International on 01-08-2018)