Asif Mahmood
What we are witnessing in KP is perhaps the worst example of the worst kind of governance. Administrative problems are simmering in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The law and order situation is extremely poor. Terrorist attacks are taking place almost every day. Our security forces are risking their lives in the battle to defend the country’s integrity, yet the provincial government appears completely detached from all these realities.
The Chief Minister keeps travelling from one province to another, staging one spectacle after another. He seems to have little concern for his own province, little concern for the situation in the country, and no apparent concern about the deteriorating law and order situation. Good governance seems equally far removed from his priorities. In the parliamentary history of the country, it is difficult to recall a government quite like this one. Comic and unserious governments may have existed before, but perhaps none quite like this.
The world is on fire. The world is facing the danger of a Third World War. The supply of petroleum products has been severely disrupted across the globe. Pakistan itself is facing threats from hostile proxies. In an environment like this, these people are heading towards Islamabad in the name of a long march, effectively marching on the capital.
Instead of concentrating on good governance in their own province, competing with Punjab on the basis of governance and demonstrating where they have performed better, they are moving ahead with a long march designed to inflame emotions and provoke passions.
It appears that construction is simply not their forte. All they seem capable of producing is hysteria, disorder, provocation and destruction. At a time like this, taking mobs towards Islamabad is nothing short of hostility towards the state.
And then there is their accompanying narrative: “We will turn Islamabad into Somnath.” That statement itself tells us something about the mindset they are operating from. It is as if this has become a cult in which, if the leader of the cult is not in power, they believe that their loyalty to the state has either ended or been severely weakened.
They have no concern for what loyalty to the state demands. They have become prisoners of their own cult, their own hysteria, their own hatred, their own disorder and their own politics of provocation.
Not one of them appears willing to bring his own children or family members along. They will call upon the children of the poor and put those children in confrontation with the power of the state. Their only objective, it seems, is to collect dead bodies. This is deeply tragic, and indeed a shameful form of politics.
Before even beginning their long march, they are taking provocation and hatred to such a level that they are raising slogans of freedom or martyrdom and talking about turning Islamabad into Somnath. What does this mean? It means that they want confrontation.
What exactly do you want to achieve by keeping your own children safely at home while bringing other people’s children onto the streets and putting them in confrontation with the power of the state?
If there are serious-minded people within PTI they should hold their leadership accountable and ask it to examine these matters with seriousness and a sense of responsibility. This long march, and the narrative being built around it, has nothing to offer except disorder and destruction.