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Gilded lives
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Masood Hasan
While most of what Mr Jinnah said is largely irrelevant in today's Pakistan, it still makes interesting reading. At one of the earliest cabinet meetings, the ADC asked Mr Jinnah if they were serving tea or coffee to the ministers. Mr Jinnah snapped, "whichever of the ministers wish to have tea or coffee should drink it before leaving his home or when he returns. The nation's money is for the nation and not for the ministers." As long as he was head of the nation, nothing other than plain water was served. Can't see Shaukat Aziz surviving long in such terrible circumstances.
A few other random incidents come to mind. In 1990 while attending AdAsia in Malaysia, the king arrived to formally open proceedings. His car was accompanied by two motorcycle outriders and one police car – that's it. Prime Minister Mahatir introduced him to the office-bearers, and then led him to the hall and the 450-odd delegates that were there. The king bowed, took his seat on the stage, got up a few minutes later, delivered a brief speech and declared AdAsia open. He then left. There were no ADCs scurrying about him like anxious rats, no one "carried" his file, no one pulled out his chair. Some friends recently back from a visit to Mongolia – yes Mongolia, with a literacy rate well into the 90s, say that the same happened there. Can one even imagine anything remotely similar happening here?
As and when the cameras take us inside these hallowed chambers where our servants reside, one is not impressed by the customary pan-down-from-the-chandelier shot to the criminals gathered under, it but simply disgusted that in a country as poverty-ridden as ours they should have the gall to lead lives of such opulence. Shots of the banquets that never end where people you would not consider for the job of a chowkidar now sit and call the shots and preside over our lives, are so commonplace that people have developed immunity to it. You look at the elaborate table settings, the grand floral layouts, the crystal glasses and the gleaming cutlery – how many can identify a fish knife? – and you wonder which planet we live on and which one they inhabit. Now and then noises are made for public consumption about cutting down expenses, but what are we talking about? These palaces are a mockery, a final insult hurled in our faces and additional proof that there exist yawning chasms between the people of Pakistan and those whom destiny has catapulted into positions they do not deserve. One could understand the mindsets of those who grabbed power here illegally again and again, the great saviours who learnt more about real estate than national security, but whatever happened to those the common folk put in high places? Why this callousness that defies all logic, all reason and only reinforces the belief that these specimens are as rotten as the ones before them?
Pakistan is in dire straits. Not for me to recount that long and sad list that shows no sign of reduction but only increase. An agricultural country, where prices of onions can give most people heart attacks, where fruits cost the sky, where everything that you need to basically survive is in short supply or available for the few privileged fat cats, where you have no power, no water, a deteriorating law-and-order situation, a country awash with illegal arms, mercenary forces of all shapes and sizes and where every deal is tainted with bribery and corruption – what kind of country are we all building?
Yet the affluent ones are regally indifferent. Wearing the flag of Pakistan on their imported designer suits impresses nobody, because this kind of patriotism is not worth a rat's ass. Perhaps Pakistan has insurmountable problems and perhaps everything that you do is bound to hit you back in the face, but where is the exemplary leadership that Mr Jinnah showed us not too long ago? Why do we bow and salute his picture when we are not the least bit pushed about him or what he stood for? What kind of mockery is this? And yet, shamelessly, it is enacted day after day. Look at the moral indignation that we express every time drones attack us, or Blackwater operators rain down on Islamabad and look at the noises we make when our sovereignty is trounced, but tell us that a few nickels are awaiting us in Swaziland and we will make a beeline for it, without shame and with a begging bowl the size of Maulana Fazalur Rehman's torso, complete with dishwashing cloth. The president thunders at the United States, wags threatening fingers at the Congress and tells our media that Pakistan will not take any dictation. Is this a soap opera? Since when did beggars call the shots? The prime minister thunders as drones waltz in Pakistani airspace. No one will dare mess about with Pakistan's virginal sovereignty, he roars. I am sorry to shatter the dream, but this ain't no virgin. In fact it's been had by just about everybody and the rates hit rock bottom years ago. So shout as much as you like. No one is fooled.
When a state is unable to balance its income and expense streams, it turns to regressive taxation, which, by definition, imposes a much greater burden on the poor than the rich. The 2009-10 budget allocated Rs3 million daily for prime ministerial foreign tours, Rs0.6 million for the president (surely he is spending more; he's hardly here) and Rs50 million a month for the legislators, all 342 of them. The presidential allocation under "staff, household and allowances" is Rs1 million daily. "Constituency Development" -- read political bribes -- is Rs20 million daily. Each minister costs us Rs3-4million/month or Rs100,000 daily. The US has 15 cabinet posts. Switzerland seven, the UK 21. We are hitting 100! A Mercedes-Benz S-Class, known as S-Guard, costs Pakistan Rs160 million. We have spent over Rs10 billion on such VIP vehicles. And we are not counting the luxury jets. In short, the Government of Pakistan spends a mind-blowing Rs500 billion more than it earns.
If expenditures in the upkeep of the Presidency, the Prime Minister's House and the opulent Governor's Houses are reduced, it is not going to pull Pakistan out of the cesspool it is in right now, but it is important that it is done, because it would mean something and prove that we are not the spineless morons that the world sees us as. What justification has Mr Salman Taseer, a man who always claimed to have the common touch, in living on like a Viceroy in that monstrous relic on The Mall? How wonderful would it have been had he opted to stay at his lovely home in Lahore rather than lord it over here where termites have eaten through all our little remaining values. But why would he do that? He is the Governor, remember, and wants his 30 seconds of glory. In a meeting of about 60 people in the days when Gujrat ruled the land, there were about 20 split air-conditioners blasting away at settings of 16C. The hall was so cold that everyone was shivering and running to the loos, but no one stopped the charade as an elaborate dozen-course lunch was served by an army of meticulously attired waiters. Our foreign expert who was at hand asked if this was how meetings were conducted and was about to keel over when I told him that this was precisely how it was done here. And poor Mr Jinnah returned a pair of socks in Ziarat's bitter cold to Col Ilahi Bukhsh saying they were too expensive. I can tell you one thing. Mr Jinnah wouldn't have lasted a day here.
The writer is a Lahore-based columnist. Email: masoodhasan66@gmail.com
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