Another Fragile Desi Ego Out of Control?

Saad S. Khan is said to be a rare breed of bureaucrat – principled and idealistic. Reports suggest that he still does not own a car or a house. If that is the case then he must certainly belong to a nearly extinct variety of the now rapacious genus civili servantus islamabadicus.

He is said to have a passion for writing and has written in journals, periodicals and newspapers and participated and lectured at several seminar and conferences. All was well with him until he wrote a passionate column in The Nation last November – it was addressed as an ‘Open Letter to the Prime Minister’. Since then all hell has broken loose.

Here are some excerpts from that column:

Mr. Prime Minister and my readers know of the contents of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s (HRCP) report on the Tharparkar bye-election. Government officials and the presiding staff was openly found stamping whole books of ballot sheets in your favor.

The opposition leaders were being detained and harassed. You got 156,000 otes, an imaginary figure, a number that has never been polled in the history of Tharpakar, nor ever will be in the foreseeable future. This massive “victory “, rather than strengthening your standing, would remain a living scar on your personal integrity and on the electoral history of our country. Blessed be he who gave you the idea of contesting from this seat and giving Dr Arbab a free hand to make you win by such a ‘miraculous’ margin.

I was again awed by your guts at your swearing in ceremony as Prime Minister. The utter contempt you displayed for the national language by taking oath in English, unlike all previous Prime Ministers who took oath in Urdu, speaks for your courage to rule the country without any pretense of being a son of the soil. All your practical life has been spent at the paid service of banks abroad. But the public display of your feelings at this auspicious occasion was amazing. It is a fashion to decry Urdu as a difficult and unrefined language because it was the language of an insignificant palace, Delhi’s imperial court, while English was being used by the Emperor’s British “servants” in the East India Company who later usurped our land and became our masters. I am happy that while abroad, you never lost touch even with Pakistan’s latest fashions in linguistics. Since the ritual of swearing oath to Pakistan, you are found religiously swearing allegiance to your own army chief everyday, equating democracy with his uniform.

The induction of your government had an equally ‘impressive’ start, when you appointed a whole army of ministers, many of them sons and scions of every jagirdar of our country whose loyalty for the ruler, whosoever he may be, had been up for sale. The defense of
our capital city, Islamabad, is now impregnable, because now two corps are placed there; the Army’s 10-Corps and Aziz’s Corps of Ministers.

Then he referred to three specific incidents:

1. The illegal confinement of Geo TV team by members of Anti-Narcotics Force who then broke the Geo TV camera and smashed the teams’ mobile phones and then subjected them to severe torture.
2. The killing by Faisalabad police of Qari Noor Mohammad while in police custody.
3. The raping of helpless women at Hyderabad’s Dar-ul-Aman by officials who then had the police arrest them when they escaped.

And then laid into old Shortcut Aiziz.

But since all these incidents did not catch your eye while you remained busy ddressing posh gatherings in five-star hotels elucidating your vision of Pakistan’s future, I can only pray for Pakistan, my country.

The media reports that Shaukat Aziz became incensed at cheek of the officer and wrote ‘Get this man’ and sent it to the ‘head of a national security agency’.

Saad S. Khan was issued a dismissal notice, without the formality of holding an inquiry and giving him the opportunity of being heard, as required by law. Khan sought relief at the High Court. Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha of the Rawalpindi Bench of the Lahore High Court, hearing Khan’s constitutional petition, stayed the dismissal orders as an interim relief.

It is now reported that Shaukat Aziz saw to it that the judge was transferred from his post. And, the Rawalpindi Bench of the High Court temporarily ceased to exist with the transfer of the judge.

Is this how things were done in Citibank, New York? Not on your life!

Get an insecure desi ego daily boosted by hordes of durbari chumchas and what does one end up with?

A petty little Attila the Hun on steroids. So what else is new?

Pakistan

Shaukat+Aziz