From my blog:
Sanctity of vote and ‘qeemey waley naan’
I grope for a tool, a magic, a medicine, a gadget or software to alter my nativeness as I lose every bid of pride I had in being a Punjabi. Lahoriites have particularly just thrown away their tag of ‘Zinda’dilaan-e-Lahore’ after performing the greatest act of betrayal in the known history of mankind.
May 11th, 2013 would be remembered for a host of reasons, chief among them would be the acknowledgement that Imran Khan was born to a nation which did not deserve him. This date could also be remembered as a National Betrayal Day.
Abraham Lincoln once said that “elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” One cannot agree with him more. But Punjab has turned its back on this fire not for the first time and Sindh is not a strikingly different story either.
What the country in general and Punjab in particular did not like in PTI’s manifesto is a mind-boggling question. They did not like Imran’s commitment to eradicate the most devastating form of corruption in a matter of months or his pledge to enforce merit ruthlessly? They disapprove his promise to install the most professional team to run the country or rejected his will to go for outright austerity measures for his government? They did not rate much high a fivefold increment in the education budget or did not think much of blanket tax collection? They shrugged him off for his vow to take down drones or laughed him away for bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table? They did not approve his policy to safeguard country’s sovereignty or his resolve to build self-reliance? They did not like to see energy crisis ending or hate to see inflation getting tamed?
They opted for a loan defaulter instead of the grandson of the man who laid the ideological foundation of the country they live in. They chose to go along with a seasoned land grabber instead of a young, dynamic and educated man who built a hospital for the people of a remote town. Most of all, they preferred a businessman over the man who built them a miraculous cancer hospital which became an international identity of Pakistan and the last bastion of hope to people who are left to die for want of money. In the city of his residence, Imran turned out less vote-worthy than a ticket-holder of his party.
Punjab has created a Sindh of its own as it established a political cult of Sharif while we were already struggling to cope with an undying Bhutto phenomenon in the southern part of the county. When votes go to personalities instead of manifestoes, associate gods come into being. And gods are worshiped, not questioned for performance.
Pressed between a rock of dictatorship and a hard place of political cults is democracy, gasping for breathing space and looking for help from voters who weigh their votes against a plate of biryani and qeemey waley naan. But once everything is counted, we know that this thankless nation actually does not deserve a selfless leader like Imran Khan.
