Chandni Chowk pips
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NATIONS, like people, are known by the company they keep. We currently find ourselves just behind Burkina Faso in terms of incidents of terrorism according to the Global Terrorism Index. This landlocked West African country, which has a population of approximately 24 million, is led by Ibrahim Traoré, 36. Burkina Faso has recently formed the Alliance of Sahel States, a confederation under a defence pact with Mali and Niger. In reverse order, the countries are led by military strongmen, a general, a colonel, and a captain. All three came to power through coup d’états against elected governments. We have a hybrid of elected and unelected centres of power; the ‘captain’ is in prison.
Unlike us, though, Burkina Faso has its priorities straight. Recently, the country saw jubilation on the streets and boisterous exhibition of support for the government when 1,000 tractors rolled through the country to the farmlands to kick-start food security in this highly vulnerable country.
There is value, and then there is nuisance value. An IS-K commander’s arrest near the border with Afghanistan and a quick handover to the US recently got us an ‘honourable mention’ during Donald Trump’s first speech to Congress in his second stint. We may take it with a fistful of salt, though, as he may soon browbeat us into accepting indefinitely the thousands of Afghans waiting to transit to the US. This will neither be good for the Afghans nor us. The two sides have developed a mutual distrust, and for good reasons.
Remember how Musharraf used to assert that Pakistan was not isolated, citing our importance in the global war against drugs and terrorism? He conveniently forgot to mention our ‘value addition’ to nuclear proliferation. While arresting terrorists and getting rid of them as fast as possible is good, we need to concentrate more on arresting the regressive narratives and mindsets that have earned Karachi, arguably the most progressive city in the country, the dubious honour of the highest number of polio vaccination refusals. Some 41,800 polio vaccination refusals were recorded in the metropolis in the first two months of this year. This is 97 per cent of all refusals throughout the province.
Unlike us, Burkina Faso has its priorities straight.
In the heart of Islamabad, the Lal Masjid cleric and his seminary students are at it again; in broad daylight, amid the full glare of the cameras, the cleric waved an automatic weapon at law-enforcement personnel, daring them to enter the mosque premises. Something is terribly wrong.
Saner voices have reminded us that we have run out of the old BBB formula, ie, beg, borrow, and blackmail. The IFIs keeping Pakistan’s economy afloat are experiencing their own paroxysms in the face of the Trump administration’s aid cuts and redefining US foreign policy. At the World Bank, regional vice-presidents have been given marching orders to relocate to regional hubs with their acolytes in tow from their plush HQs in Washington, D.C.
Those pinning their hopes on the Chinese have another thing coming. Why would the Middle Kingdom stand in for the US at the Bretton Woods institutions when it could fill that void by strengthening forums like the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and bilateral arrangements through the Belt and Road Initiative?
No more chequebook diplomacy for the US, no more carrot and stick. Uncle Sam seems to have decided to use brute military force and trade tariffs to squeeze a few more decades of world leadership. The carrot, if any, is reserved for Israel and Russia. The latest American dream is to turn Gaza into a Monaco-like luxury tourism destination and have real estate deals with the Kremlin.
As if we don’t have enough chaos already, the PTI threatens to launch a countrywide protest after Eid in cahoots with Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI-F. In his video messages, MQM’s Altaf Hussain is raining flying kisses peppered with warnings of a surprise after Ramazan. In smaller African countries, governments have been toppled, and martial laws imposed by sergeants and captains. We are quite the snobs in this regard; even a failed attempt at replacing Musharraf as army chief while on an errand abroad with Ziauddin Butt in 1999 called for a promotion. This was done so hastily that the pips were said to have been bought from Rawalpindi’s Chandni Chowk.
The perpetrators of May 9 were led to believe that a youthful coup was afoot, and many captains were waiting to carry ‘Kaptaan’ on their shoulders to glory. Our power politics used to shuttle between GHQ and the PM House, occasionally detouring through the presidency. In the latest oscillation between tragedy and farce, our fate’s route may twist and turn through ‘Chandni Chowk to China’.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2025
