Pakistan's State of lawlessness

Editorial:

There has been no peace and tranquillity in Pakistan for quite some time, but what we witness happening on the streets now almost on a daily basis is nothing but extreme political disorder and confusion. Not a day passes without angry protestors running amok in the cities, highways are blocked for hours, innocent citizens are gunned down by contract killers, and police exhibits its expertise in raping women in custody and frequently lunges in with long sticks and powerful water cannons at the demonstrators. If earlier it was Lahore, Faisalabad and other industrial cities of Punjab taken over by the rampaging crowds protesting against electricity and gas shortages, the nation's industrial-financial hub, Karachi, and some other cities of Sindh are in the tight grip of abounding lawlessness and violence. What keeps on happening in Quetta, Peshawar and other cities of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is too well-known to be recalled here. Even otherwise, the peaceful Northern Area has been of late a new battlefront for the holy warriors. If lady health workers cannot protest opposite national parliament in exercise of their constitutionally granted fundamental rights where should they go - should they go to the nearby Margallas to narrate the tale of injustices and discrimination that they are enduring? The treatment meted out to them in the heart of the capital with millions watching live images on television was simply apocalyptic. If the nurses and paramedics march to the Governor's House in Karachi, is it to be disrupted by water-cannon jets, tear gas and manhandling by the ruthless hounds in police uniforms, then who should they appeal to? A polity couldn't be more insensate than what we are turning into. Accepted, the ongoing terrorism in the tribal region is not of the present government's doing as it got it in inheritance and going by the realities on the ground there is not much that can be done in the short- and medium-term to control it. Also accepted that the ongoing insurgency and its side-show like sectarian violence in Balochistan is traceable to outside interference. But not the whole of it, for if the members of the provincial assembly are involved in crimes like kidnapping for ransom, then one would tend to say there is something seriously weird about the political elite. Had the present elected elite performed with any degree of sincerity we as a polity would not have come to such a sorry pass. The sad coda is that nothing is working - the industry has collapsed, homes and streets are insecure, trains get stranded at desolate places, highways are being ruled by pirates, air-travel remains uncertain. And; acts of corruption, cronyism and nepotism are rampant. Then there are the challenges of the courts being ridiculed and defied, policymaking in limbo and prices breaking through the ceiling. Now that the city roads are choked with shining cars (often stuck in traffic jams for there is no electricity to regulate traffic through signals) and high-rise plazas are being built all over the place, more and more Pakistanis are going under the poverty line. If what we see happening right before us is painful enough, what we do not see as the side effect of this lingering malaise is far more lethal to the nation's body politic. The rising intense confrontation between the various political power-contenders is now increasingly metamorphosing into ethnic polarisation. If nationalists are raising their flags in Sindh, in Punjab, the ruling PML (N) leadership is blaming the PPP-led ruling coalition of subjecting the Punjab to step-motherly treatment. In Balochistan, ethnic cleansing is a going concern and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is confronted with the challenge of bifurcation along the Pushtun-Hazarawal divide. That leaders don't resist the temptation of using provincial cards as electoral tools is indeed short-sightedness now a hallmark of our national politics.