It is in the nature of people to define ‘things’ in the light of their special longings, their specific needs and their peculiar circumstances. A year or so back, most stalwarts of the Pakistan Peoples Party were going overboard in their resolve to root out all the evil that General Musharraf and his cronies had sown in the country during their “illegitimate” reign. Today the Pakistan Peoples Party happens to be in power. The man in the Presidency happens to be the party’s boss.
The one in the Prime Minister House is the party’s Vice-Chairman. Has the evil sown by General Musharraf and his cronies been rooted out? Has the cause for which Latif Khosa, a PPP stalwart, got his head ‘bloodied’ during the lawyers’ movement in 2007, been addressed?
Does the mission, for which the party’s heroic leader Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto laid down her life, stand fulfilled? Has the political will of the martyred PPP leader which is known to the world as THE CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY been honoured in letter and spirit? To all these questions, ‘the once-fired-and-committed’ stalwarts of the PPP have an identical response – an unashamed evasiveness that culminates in impassioned recalls of the party’s past sacrifices and services in the cause of democracy.
Except that the President’s name is Asif Ali Zardari instead of Pervez Musharraf, that of the Prime Minister is Yousuf Raza Gilani and not Shaukat Aziz, and of Punjab’s Governor is Salman Taseer instead of Khalid Maqbool, nothing else has changed. If the events of November 3, 2007 were the high-point of the evil that General Musharraf’s era stood for, the man for whose ‘elevation’ General Musharraf had imposed that mini-martial law remains in command of the judicial system of the country. Not a ‘comma’ has been removed from the constitution that Musharraf manufactured for his convenience.
Democracy is being rediscovered and redefined by the PPP leaders. “Whatever our leader does sitting their in the Presidency is the essence of the Charter of Democracy?” says Madam Farzana Raja the eloquent spokesperson of the regime. “So why worry?”
(This Column was first published on 07-02-2009)
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