There is a frenetic calm in the capital city.
It is a calm that comes with this city having witnessed too many governments come and go with rhythmic instability borne of yawn-inducing predictability. As the PTI government prepares to pack up its bags – yes the inevitable has sunk in – Islamabad reclines back to witness the cyclical process of our familiar ‘pass-the-power’ game.
Except, some things are different.
The stench emanating from power play is so much more noxious this time. If the convulsion is greater, so is the revulsion. The Red Zone is being subjected to a tumult that has a certain menace to it – a menace laced in malice that cuts through institutional and constitutional stability like acid burning through soft flesh. The scars will not heal easily.
As the clock ticks it way towards Sunday, and as time reinforces the mortality of those who sported delusions of perpetuity in power, gloves are coming of. So are the masks. Exposed from beneath is the hideousness of petty ambition, misplaced arrogance and feigned confidence. As the fall begins in agonizingly slow but painfully deliberate motion, the meltdown of those in power, and of those who danced around those in power, is a spectacle to see.
But it’s a sad spectacle. The desperation in their eyes, the panic on their faces and the fear – ah yes the fear that always accompanies a fall from grace – that fear, visible in every word that escapes their lips, all this resembles a Shakespearean tragedy being played out with modern-day characters. The tragedy though is not the inevitable self-destruction of yet another group of people who believed themselves to be the ultimate saviours; the tragedy is not even the ruination of yet another edifice of expectations fabricated so lovingly by naïve and gullible people – no ladies and gentlemen – the real tragedy is that this system continues to catapult men and women with feet of clay to positions of authority; positions that demand far more than they can deliver. The fall of Imran Khan has not auto-corrected this ingrained fault in the system.
Which is why today here inside the Red Zone you can sense a resigned feeling of inevitability that accompanies every change of a government. The cycle of win-lose-win-lose continues to spin. What awaits us beyond this Sunday is all-to-familiar. It is the end of the Imran Khan government, but it is the beginning of a process that will now churn out more stuff about the Imran Khan government - stuff that will not shed too favourable a light on the Imran Khan government. That is how it is done in this system.
The House, as they say, always wins.
Back then it was Nawaz Sharif’s turn to experience the wrong end of the stick. Today it is Imran Khan’s. Brace now for the stories to emerge. You didn’t know what was happening in Punjab these Usman Buzdar years? Now you will. You didn’t realise who was on the take and who was not? Now you will. You didn’t know which federal minister in Islamabad awarded which contracts to which friends in return for what incentives? Now you will. You didn’t know who had a recording of whom in the government and what that recording actually recorded? Now you will. And you didn’t know – you actually didn’t know – who really gained from the various scandals and in what way – well, get ready because now you will. And that too in Technicolor.
The gravy train ran thick and fast. Like it does in all governments. But the real flavour of this gravy comes out when the government is dragged down, kicked around and ‘un-governmental-ised’ by the new sheriff in town. Shutter down your windows and bolt up your doors – unless, of course, you would enjoy witnessing this beating.
Power gives you the Iron Man suit. The opposition is readying to suit up. Will there be vengeance? The verdict is split for now. Unlike the outgoing government, the incoming one has ‘been-there-done-that’. These men and women are accustomed to power and the levers that come along with it. They have been on the wrong side of it these last many years, and that has chastened them. Yet, some have blood in their eyes.
Turbulence is in the air. The stench of power play is nauseating. But the circle of life continues inside the Red Zone as Sunday approaches with peril and promise.
Brilliant as always.
What a great piece! Brilliant.