The scriptwriter

Optimists in Pakistan are besieged by a worrying realisation of the fragility of the enormous gains this country has made in the last decade. These gains have been exposed as fragile at D-Chowk in the course of the last one month.
The two distinct crowds there, as well as the national news media that oxygenates those crowds are deeply connected. This connection is much more insidious than any alleged ‘script’. The PTI and PAT crowd are connected to each other, and to the national discourse at large, because they share a fallacious rage: that everything in Pakistan is broken.
Those at the PTI dharna believe only Imran Khan can fix it. Those at the PAT dharna believe only Tahirul Qadri can fix it. Those who are not deluded to the same extent are the most depressing lot. They have given up hope that anyone can fix anything.
Too many of those cynical folks are in our national media, and they are the life support system for the bogeyman of impending national doom: they help Khan and Qadri today, and will help other, perhaps even worse political actors tomorrow. They may not be following any script, but their low-calibre analysis about both the recent past in Pakistan, and the probable future is deeply cancerous for this country’s ability to fight off its demons, beat back the gains of enemy actors, and win a 21st century future that befits the sons and daughters of the Quaid-e-Azam.
Pakistan faces multiple crises, of this there is no denying. But the PTI, PAT and the cynics’ brigade that claim everything is broken and only miracles can fix things are flatly, and utterly wrong. Of the many deep and systemic failures that define Pakistani state and society, corruption and injustice are two biggies. Yet the despondent narrative that Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri, and far too many of Pakistan’s anchors promote each night on television is contradicted by the facts.
Let’s recap the last decade alone. Since 2004, Pakistan has, roughly in chronological order, stripped bare the lie that unconstitutional dictatorships can govern better than lawful elected governments (Gen Musharraf’s PML-Q 2005 onwards), recovered from a devastating earthquake (2005 onwards), developed an enduring political consensus on federalism and democracy (Charter of Democracy 2006), elevated rule of law as a fundamental principal of national cohesion (lawyers’ movement 2007 to 2009), withstood and pushed back against one of the world’s most potent terrorist organisations (the fight against TTP 2007 onwards), rid itself of a dictator (Gen Musharraf 2008), elected a democratic government that completed its term (PPP-ANP-MQM 2008 to 2013), re-calibrated its national fiscal structure (the 7th NFC award 2009), enacted the most significant constitutional reform in its history (18th Amendment 2010), endured the catastrophic side-effects of climate change (floods from 2010 onwards), changed direction on its relationship with its most important neighbouring country Afghanistan (2011 onward), repaired relations with the world’s most powerful nation (the United States 2011 onward), produced a viable, energetic and deeply potent third national political force (PTI 2011 onward), enacted major electoral reform (the 19th and 20th Amendments 2012), constructed and completed the transition from one elected government to another (to the PML-N government 2013).
A decade is a short breath in the life of nations, even if we erroneously consider the term ‘nations’ to be a construct of Westphalia. The pace and magnitude of change in Pakistan has been fast and furious. Not all the change has been good. Extremism and intolerance have grown, pluralism is being asphyxiated, almost without challenge, more chatter is often being erroneously confused for genuine voice, and greater visibility for women, often being erroneously confused for more empowerment.
Most of all however, one of the biggest changes in Pakistan is that the state and the idea of the state, have been drained of legitimacy and authority to the point of paralysis.
That single factor is what enables a perpetual stream of invective to be hurled at the country’s institutions, interrupted only by commercial breaks. Parliament is ‘fake’, the judges are ‘sold’, the armed forces are authoring ‘scripts’ and the world is ending!
This is the kind of public diplomacy that terror strategists for organisations like Al-Qaeda and the TTP have salivated about for the duration of their existence. That the entire edifice of modernity with Muslim-majority societies have struggled with, from the beginning, would come crumbling down, not by the force of the TNT and plastique that they deploy to rend asunder the bodies of innocent men, women and children, but instead under the weight of its internal contradictions and constraints.
Overcoming those contradictions and constraints, however, is part of the beauty of modern institutions of the state. Constructing them, whilst maintaining some modicum of civilisational dignity, was not easy in France, or England, or America. It required nuclear destruction in Japan. Those institutions still do not exist in places like China.
Justice is not easy, and does not come from atop containers. The builders of a just society are not saints. Bulleh Shah never ran for office and he never said a couplet about wet shalwars. Just societies are built over generations that incrementally inch forward toward an ideal articulated by forefathers about whom there is national consensus.
There’s a robust competition for Jinnah’s Pakistan that Pakistani liberals keep losing. But Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan is uncontested: rule of law, federalism and democracy are uncontested areas of national consensus. They are the fruits of the last decade of this country’s life.
This country’s voters, notwithstanding the electoral irregularities of the 2013 election, gave Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif a glorious opportunity. He had a majority, a clear mandate for the economy, energy and terrorism, and he had the experience of being prime minister twice. He had a stable of elderly politicians that could have managed his relations not only with the traditional politicians of the PPP, JUI-F, MQM and others, but also with the fresh challenges offered by the PTI and non-parliamentary actors like the PAT.
He had young talent in the party that could have been deployed to solve the easier problems. He had an army that was learning to allow incompetent politicians to carry on, notwithstanding many impulses to intervene. He had, without question, the single greatest opportunity to shape Pakistan since the national reset of 1971.
What has he done? He came to Islamabad ill-prepared, and lacking even the desire to feign an interest in his job. He ignored the stock of political wisdom in his party, relegated young elected talent to the periphery, encircled himself with sycophants and relatives and has overseen a complete self-destruction.
I could care less if this self-destruction ate away at the House of Ittefaq. But his indifference to the greatest job in the world, the greatest honour in the world – to be the prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan – has eaten away at the country’s institutions and their ability to help negotiate this country through challenges, present and future.
Nawaz Sharif has let those down that believe in Pakistani democracy and in second, and third chances. He has harmed his own legacy as a builder of this nation (through the Charter of Democracy). Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri are no heroes. They have damaged this country in the last month. But they have a total of less than 35 seats in the National Assembly. The prime minister has over 150.
Khan and Qadri could be forgiven. The prime minister cannot. If ever there was a script, the principal author of its final chapters is Nawaz Sharif. For this he should never be forgiven. And these chapters, never forgotten.
The writer is an analyst and commentator.