Hazrat Ali (RA)said, “The richest person is he who has
knowledge and wisdom, and the poorest is theignorant who does not even know that
people laugh at him”. Knowledge and wisdom are two different things. A
knowledgeable person is not necessarily also wise. Wisdom is a blessing of God.
It is a reward for God consciousness or Taqwa as known to the Muslims who care
to know.
Wisdom enables people to differentiate between myth and reality, right and
wrong, truth and falsehood, selfishness and sacrifice, integrity and corruption,
just and unjust and rights and limitations. Wisdom creates good sense and sense
of proportion in the wise. Above all it makes one conscious of human limitations
and one’s role in making of destiny vis a vis Divine power, justice and
intervention. The wise know that the matter is indestructible and what goes
around comes around.
Two categories of people in Pakistan are adept at turning all the logic on its
head; the Mullahs and the politicians, especially those who came after Ayub.
One of the knowledgeable politicians while censuring the government in strongest
possible words demanded, ‘A stress free political system’. That is innocence
personified.That is asking for paradise on earth. Life is a stressful business.
The government is incapable of removing his stresses. He perhaps meant NAB free
political environment. He must know that peace comes with sacrifice, not loot.
It results from self-denial, not self-worship. It is essential to kill the ego
before wishing for a stress free life.
National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is a blessing in disguise. With NAB the
Divine accountability might be delayed. When it comes from above, there is
nowhere to run. It has happened before. Our recent history should serve as an
eye opener. Some political families have become history. Where are Bhutto’s real
heirs? Bilawal is a pseudo Bhutto. Fatima is a genuine Bhutto though she remains
rather recluse. Bilawal is in vain trying to cash on Bhutto’s legacy.
They have lost sons, suffered humiliation and ignominy on various accounts,
earned ugly reputation and contacted untimely ailments, but their conscience is
in deep slumber and they do not learn their lessons.
One more political stalwart asserts that if anything happened to his leader,
Imran Khan would be held responsible. Did IK tell him to commit theft that he is
famous for? Remember, what goes around, comes around. It is time to wakeup to
the ground realities. Look the way the wind is blowing. The atmosphere is
charged with the word accountability. If NAB fails to nab the culprits, Divine
accountability would ensue. Who knows it might have already commenced. Who can
tell the abrupt sinking count of platelets, the ever-rising sugar level,
galloping BP, the angina and even the stone in the kidney and hernia are not the
harbinger of the ominous.
Then there are royalists more loyal than the king. They turn and twist the logic
to defend their respective godfathers and cannot wait to shift the blame
elsewhere, be it the government, NAB, the courts or the Military. They insult
the common man’s intelligence and his ability to tell simple right from wrong.
In this they also commit a sin against God. He says, ‘And do not mix the truth
with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know (it)’, 2:42. And, ‘We know
what they conceal and what they declare’. (36:76)
Her own party man, President Laghari had sacked BB’s government for corruption.
The President was convinced that she was patronizing her notorious husband. In
addition, he should have asked for investigation and taken her to court.
Ghulam Ishaq should have done the same with Nawaz Sharif when he sacked him for
corruption. And when it came to Musharraf, he in his impetuosityforgot that
Nawaz Sharif was also guilty of crimes against the nation. He had sufficient
grounds to indict him for corruption and get rid of him once for all. All of
them had failed to nip the evil in the bud. The tumor grew into cancer and it
fell to IK’s destiny to treat national political cancer also.
The Maulana’s march has turned into a sit-in. Politicians, who fear NAB more
than they fear God, have joined him. The Maulana is one of them. He is not far
back in the queue. The mullahs cum politicians are a deadly combination. They
have unlimited ability to turn wisdom into folly and folly into wisdom and get
away with murder. Still it looks as if all their usual mantra failed to bear
fruit.
A wee bit too early in the day the Maulana had started seeing red. He thought
1977 was in the offing. The others also know that anarchy is the only hope to
save them from the onslaught of accountability.Yet they are not prepared to
stick their necks out all the way.It is doubtful if the Maulana would dare it
alone. But if he indeed unleashed his goons to “arrest the PM as he claims” the
government is not unlikely to act purposefully to quell the rebellion. All the
undemocratic tactics and practices that Pakistan has so painfully endured in the
past must be finished for good. The salvation of this government, nay, that of
Pakistan is at stake.
DGISPR’s statement was excellently timed. The Maulana was obviously jolted. This
time his boasts were aptly answered.
He has limited options now. His dream to create large scale law and order
situation all over the country will result in dilution of his limited resources
and degradation in detail.
His agitation has won him a universal exposure in Indian media and pleased the
Afghan Taliban whose banners he has shamelessly displayed. If that were his aim,
he had achieved it. In that case Indian resources have been well spent.Beyond
that the Maulana would turn out to be a big looser.
(Major General (retd)Askari Raza Malik is the author of the book, Pakistan in
Search of a Messiah)