Chances of 'Mullahs' in the forthcoming elections..
From 1985 to 1997, we had five elections with an average gap of 30 months. In none of these elections the religious-Right could ever muster a respectable number of votes. It's through stamping ballots in free and fair elections that any society expresses its political priorities. People of Pakistan had thus been loudly showing their distance from the religious-Right in very consistent a manner.
Yet, instead of appreciating and projecting the obvious reality, BBCs and CNNs of this world keep introducing our country as a hub of fundos, where ferocious looking Jihadis are prying the streets to get the 'infidel Westerners,' for their breakfast perhaps. It's only after General Musharraf's coming on the scene that they feel slightly at ease. Though the fear remains whether he could maintain the absolute control. It perhaps was for this fear that President Bush spared time, right in the middle of intense and high level consultations with his security and foreign policy advisers at the family ranch in Crawford, Texas, to remind it to the world that President Musharraf was "tight with us in war against terrorism and that's what I appreciate." As if to provide substance to his declaration, the US ambassador in Pakistan also signed rescheduling the payment of $3 billion debt to her country last Friday.
Nusrat Javid writes today in the News....
<<It became the burden of Mullahs to confront the designs of 'modern imperialism of multinationals'. Cutting across the sectarian divide, they had established Muttehidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). With one election symbol and flag, the said alliance has all the pretensions of fluttering towards the coming elections. If they are really serious in contesting them, important is to find and field formidable candidates in all the constituencies of the national assembly; also the four provincial assemblies. For around 300 seats of the National Assembly we have to have direct elections in constituencies spread all over Pakistan.
Will any leader of the MMA take the trouble of telling us as to how many candidates have been nominated by the said alliance? More than a hundred could be named, no doubt. But initial reports also suggest that many of them are just not eligible to contest for the lack of a degree, equivalent to university graduation. Even an overwhelming majority of those crossing the first hurdle can just not make it to the national assembly, at least from Punjab or Sindh. Liaqut Baloch and Hafiz Sulaiman Butt are very strong candidates in Lahore. But they would click in the anarchistic but fun-loving streets of the Punjab metropolis for very different reasons.
It's only from some odd pockets of NWFP and the Pushtun belt of Balochistan that some Mullahs can return to the national assembly. But that would have happened even without September-11. What, therefore, calls for the train march?
Even if accused of spinning a conspiracy theory, this scribe wouldn't hesitate asserting that the MMA had boarded the train to test the possibility whether the postponement of elections can be 'enforced' through stirring the streets.
Their first round from Rawalpindi to Lahore via the Awam Express the other day had miserably failed in this context. The dismal response to it had rather compelled the MMA to postpone the second round for around a week. "We need to do this," its spokesperson claims, "for, our leaders and activists are busy getting their nomination papers through personal appearance before the returning officers in respective constituencies." Spinning the said excuse, the spokesperson never cared remembering that the schedule for submitting and appearing before the returning officers was announced at least ten days before the MMA decided to take a train to Karachi from Rawalpindi.
It's by not responding to their first round that the 'illiterate and gullible' people of Pakistan had compelled the after-thought. No one else should claim the credit for enforcing the postponement. We say this. For the PR managers of our 'Railway-Babus' are working overtime to pretend as if their sticking to rules for boarding a train had frustrated the street hardened Mullahs.
Police pickets were certainly there for checking mobility to Railway Station in downtown Rawalpindi. But they were not enough, even if a determined crowd of 1000-plus had been there. Around an hour before Lahore comes Gujranwala. It has three to four very established Madarassas (religious schools) catering for the extreme fringes of the sectarian divide. Pakistan Railways' 'sticking to rules' couldn't stop a respectable crowd assembling at the station there.
The 'reception' of the MMA travelers was not that bad at Lahore either. It had to. Because, Jamaat-e-Islami's headquarter is there and Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan was willing to receive the MMA leaders.
The 'silent majority' of Pakistanis is cool to the MMA. 'Illiterate and gullible' they appear to be for Imran Khans and General (retd) Naqvis of this world. But, whenever given the opportunity of expressing their choice through free and fair vote, mass of the people of Indus always rejected the spiteful worldview of our Mullahs. We fully remember that while struggling for a separate homeland for the Muslims of South Asia, Quaid-i-Azam savored the privilege of named 'Kafir-e-Azam (the ultimate infidel)' by the ancestors and spiritual mentors of present day Jihadis.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah could hardly communicate in any of the local languages. He apparently lived like a 'Westernized liberal.' But an overwhelming majority of South Asian Muslims knew that he was farsighted and sincere. They trusted him blindly. To a lesser scale, we also had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1970. One hundred and fourteen Mullahs of all sects collectively issued a FATWA (religious edict). Saying that voting for his PPP in elections that year would amount to committing blasphemy. Yet the majority of our people opted to vote for him in droves. Things haven't changed much since then.
From 1985 to 1997, we had five elections with an average gap of 30 months. In none of these elections the religious-Right could ever muster a respectable number of votes. It's through stamping ballots in free and fair elections that any society expresses its political priorities. People of Pakistan had thus been loudly showing their distance from the religious-Right in very consistent a manner.
Yet, instead of appreciating and projecting the obvious reality, BBCs and CNNs of this world keep introducing our country as a hub of fundos, where ferocious looking Jihadis are prying the streets to get the 'infidel Westerners,' for their breakfast perhaps. It's only after General Musharraf's coming on the scene that they feel slightly at ease. Though the fear remains whether he could maintain the absolute control. It perhaps was for this fear that President Bush spared time, right in the middle of intense and high level consultations with his security and foreign policy advisers at the family ranch in Crawford, Texas, to remind it to the world that President Musharraf was "tight with us in war against terrorism and that's what I appreciate." As if to provide substance to his declaration, the US ambassador in Pakistan also signed rescheduling the payment of $3 billion debt to her country last Friday. |
