Dear Sir,

I am not a PTI supporter.

I am a son of the soil, who left our motherland, many years ago to pursue higher education abroad.

Over those years, I have had the opportunity to work as an economist at various institutions, including Goldman Sachs International, where I was part of the team which worked on the BRICs and Next-11 report.

In the current political scenario, I couldn't help but comment on the significance of the latter report and its findings on Pakistan economy.

The report scientifically projects the economic activity of some of the most populous countries in the world, including Pakistan. And as your government itself proudly observed, the report concludes that with the right policy framework and institutions, Pakistan could potentially count itself as one of the top 20 countries in the world by 2050.

Since 2006-07, when the report was published, Pakistan’s economic growth has averaged 3.9 per cent per annum, compared to 6.2 per cent for the overall emerging markets peer-group (source: IMF). Countries such as India, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri lanka, Nigeria and Bangladesh have fared much better when assessed on ability to generate sustained economic progress.

All in all, the reality for Pakistan, so far has been significantly worse than the dream.

Also read:IMF lifts growth forecast for Pakistan

Maintaining the right set of conditions for growth is a critical factor in any country’s search to deliver its potential. A key part of these growth generating conditions are; rule of law, incidence of corruption, infrastructure and education.

Using World Bank data to calibrate these growth-enabling dimensions (compiled by Goldman Sachs in a December 2013 report), the numbers for Pakistan make an abject reading.

For instance, it appears that Pakistan’s growth environment score has hardly moved since 1997, while countries noted above have registered sizeable gains.

Indeed, comparing Pakistan with relevant groups, scores are now closer to African countries such as Sudan, Rwanda and Swaziland rather than regional peers such as India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which appear to have broken new ground in terms of developing growth-enhancing conditions.

What the above statistics show is that Pakistan's sharp fall in economic fortunes (both in absolute and relative terms) has identifiable drivers, many of which relate to the policy framework and its appropriate execution.

For instance, Pakistan’s spending on education is one of the lowest in the world. While negative factors such as corruption are near the other side of the scale.

Mr Prime Minister, the consequences leading on from this abysmal economic performance are clear: high unemployment rates, severe social hardships and widespread uncertainty in general.

No wonder the sentiment of strong discontent is increasing exponentially, and being amplified across a highly interconnected/globalised world.

Indeed, the nation’s ambitions/dreams are being shaped by global dynamics as much as local. The glaring lack of opportunities to express our diverse talents is particularly distressing.

Take a look:Market nosedives on political deadlock

It's true, sir, that when your party took office in 2013, Pakistan faced an imminent balance-of-payment crisis, (which could have led to even sharper economic hardship). But the grievances now widely on display have deeper roots in the years of poor progress in a rapidly changing world.

At this juncture, the utter disconnect between the government and the nation is palpable.

If there was at least a vision, it sparks hope that the situation will turn around for the better, for the future generations if not ours.

But instead, the only vision here seems to be based on nepotism, rising inequality and instances of bad policy choices.

For example, the financial conduct of the PML-N government remains shrouded in mystery when it comes to large-scale investment projects, opening the government to allegations of corruption and misconduct. Day-to-day realities remain unchanged for many. This has led to even more disillusionment, when you notice how other countries are turning the corner in terms of public-sector transparency standards.

All that is not to say your government has not taken any positive steps at all towards changing the country’s course, since it came into power last year. The strong and visible support enjoyed by Shahbaz Sharif in Punjab is testament to the positive dynamic that the public knows how to reward progress.

In addition, I and many others understand and appreciate the tangible steps being taken by the government in re-building the power infrastructure, despite the opposition’s claims (which are feeding on the lack of transparency).

Explore:‘From czar-like prime minister to deputy commissioner-type character’

However, sir, the young population of Pakistan has strong aspirations and ambitions. But the disastrous economic run and poor law and order have wreaked tremendous havoc besides creating a scared mindset, sucking away all our positivity.

We need a leader who is willing to go beyond the incremental steps and take a quantum leap, within a transparent democratic set-up where all voices are heard.

To me and to millions of others, Imran Khan is not that leader. But the question we have is: Are you?

DJ Butt is a famous Pakistani Disc Jockey, musician, political activist, environmentalist, stamp-collector, Twitter troll and amateur nuclear physicist.

Butt is also related to two of Pakistan’s leading musclemen and moustache enthusiasts, Gullu Butt and Pomi Butt, and two inner ring leaders of Deepak Chopra’s Smiling Dollar Cult, Mahesh Bhatt and Pojja Bhatt.

DJ Butt (real name DJ Butt) was born in Lahore in 1987 (even though he insists he was born in 1857). Butt koh dj-ing ka bachpan hi sey shouk tha and he built his first dj-ing equipment when he was just 3 years old.

Talking to the Readers Digest in 2013, Butt said:

"Mixing and dj-ing came naturally to me and one night when I was 3, I had a dream in which I saw Imran Khan coming in to bowl to an enemy batsman at Lahore’s Qaddafi Stadium and the whole stadium was filled with some 7.2 million people, all chanting, 'Go, Nawaz, Go! Go, Nawaz Go!' Mujey dj-ing ka bachpan hi sey shouk tha."

On DJ Butt's cousin:Gullu Butt: An Auto-smashing-biography

DJ Butt’s first music-mixing machine. It could also toast bread.

Butt went to the prestigious Aitchison School in Lahore, whereas his cousins, Gullu and Pomi, went to the cinemas to watch violent Punjabi flicks. They used to tease DJ Butt for being a sissy, but one day when DJ Butt was just 7 years old, he blew away both Gullu and Pomi with his mix of Nazia Hassan’s ‘Disco Dewane’.

It is believed that after being blown away by the mix, Gullu and Pomi smashed DJ Butt’s mixing machine with a club (danda) making DJ Butt very sad.

Talking to the National Geographic in 2012, DJ Butt said:

‘It was heart-breaking. Gullu and Pomi arrived at my house on their tri-cycles, armed with clubs and then proceeded to smash my first ever music mixing equipment that I had built with my own two tiny hands. I cried a lot and from that day onwards, I stopped eating porridge.’

A young Gullu Butt smashing a pumpkin in young DJ Butt’s garden.

After completing his O' levels at Aitchison, DJ Butt, who by then had already become famous as a dj at the discothèques in Lahore’s Anarkali and Mochi Gate areas, decided to go abroad to study music.

He had already become disillusioned by the country’s politics which, in those days, was being dominated by Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N and Benazir Bhutto’s PPP.

According to Pakistani pop star, politician, revolutionary, electrician and the guy who couldn’t reach Billo’s house — Abrarul Haq — it was DJ Butt who first advised Imran Khan to join politics.

DJ Butt confirmed this while talking to the Discovery Channel in 2010. He said:

"In March 1993, I was dj-ing at a Jirga party thrown by Imran Khan at his Zaman Park resident. During a break I walked up to Khan Saab who was deep in meditation and contemplating his future after his retirement from cricket in 1992.

"I politely introduced myself and he politely took off his dark shades and then not-so-politely smacked me across the face! I was shaken a bit but continued to ask him to listen to what I had to say. He replied, 'dekho, Butt, tum koh nahi pata, sab muj hi koh pata hai…'

"I said, I know that I know nothing and that you know everything, Khan Saab, but all I wanted to say was that you and you alone can save Pakistan from corrupt politicians and turn this country in becoming an Islamic Welfare State of Scandinavia. He seemed pleased and smiled and said, 'mujey politics ka bachpan hi sey shouk tha!'"

Initially Imran was not too enthusiastic when he was first approached by DJ Butt in 1993.

DJ Butt flew to the United States and joined the Harvard Business School to study music. He studied even more music at the Harvard Law College and afterwards he studied Law and Business at the famous Berklee College of Music in California.

In between, he also picked up a degree in anthropology from the Harvard Medical School and a degree in Chinese Medicine from a Chinese laundrette in China Town, New York City.

It was at the Columbia University that he met Zeenat (nickname Bubbly), a 20-year-old Pakistani student who was studying the history, sociology and politics of techno and trance music at the university. DJ Butt had been invited by the university’s Dean of Economics to deliver a lecture on acupuncture.

Talking to ESPN in 2009, DJ Butt said:

"It was Bubbly who advised me to return to Pakistan and join Imran Khan’s crusade against corruption and political coherence. I said, but I’m not a politician, to which Bubbly politely took off her dark shades and not-so-politely smacked me across the face.

Bubbly and DJ Butt at the Columbia University where Butt had been invited to deliver a lecture on acupuncture.

"She told me to use my talents as a dj to bring change, revolution, tabdeeli, inquilaab, azadi, freedom and men with blonde wigs stamping Pakistani passports and men with frowns beating up people with cricket bats! I was inspired and asked Bubbly to marry me. She smacked me across the face again and said no.

"The very next day I returned to Pakistan and joined Imran Khan’s movement. My last words to Bubbly were, ‘frankly, my Bubbly, I don’t give a damn!’"

Since Imran Khan’s party, the PTI, was initially being guided by the right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami, many of its early members were against allowing a dj to join it.

DJ Butt responded by blowing away his detractors with his mix of ‘The Final Countdown’ – a truly awful song originally recorded by that truly awful Swedish hair-metal band, Europe.

DJ Butt: The Hair Metal years.

Khan loved the mix and Butt was in. He became PTI’s official DJ. It was decided that he will play his mixes at PTI rallies after every third sentence that Imran Khan spoke, and that Shireen Mazari will smack him across the face if played the music before the third sentence or after the fifth.

Initially DJ Butt struggled a bit and was regularly punched and kicked by Mazari until he finally got the hang of it. His fame grew and he was also nominated for a Grammy but he refused to attend the ceremony as a protest against US drone strikes in Yemen.

In 2012 he was contacted by one of his estranged cousins, Gullu Butt (who had become a PML-N muscleman and Shahbaz Sharif’s masseur). Gullu offered him to join the PML-N and told him that Shahbaz Sharif will make sure his name becomes part of Gunnies Book of Lahore Records.

Talking to world famous TV anchor, revolutionary, activist, film director and real estate agent, Mubasher Lucman on ARY, DJ Butt said:

"At one point I was seriously contemplating joining PML-N because mujhey Guinness Book of World Records mein aney ka bachpan hi sey shouk tha. But just as I was in a deep meditation over joining PML-N, there was a knock on the door. I opened the door and saw Bubbly standing there. She smacked me across the face and said, no! The rest, as they say, is history."

Weary of the hypocrisy, corruption and incompetence of generations of politicians, we were praying for change and riddance from this unending cycle of betrayal and failure.

No one expected this from the traditional lot of dynastic politicians, which is almost entirely composed of feudal and tribal lords, mullahs, mill owners, hereditary peers and the nouveaux riches. The only policies these politicians followed, revolved around the interests of their own families, and biradaris of their respective parties.

Millions of people deemed Imran Khan to be a different leader — one who acquired his role the hard way.

For the downtrodden, it seemed Imran had that fire and dedication needed to materialise the dream of meaningful change. They trusted their celebrated captain and voted for him, hoping to see a wise and dauntless leader — a true representative of their hopes.

I was one of those people.

Also read:An open letter to PM Nawaz

On May 11, 2013, I voted for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf because among many other reasons, a movement for justice seemed so much more than the hollow, lofty chants of Roti! Kapra! Makan! and 'Asian Tiger'; or an election manifesto built around curbing obscenity and nudity.

I had thought then, that Imran may lack political acumen and cunning; and he may just be a novice; but his integrity at least, is beyond question.

I believed that Imran, having had significant international exposure, would be able to put Pakistan on the path of progress and modernity; his international standing bridging the gap between Pakistan and the rest of the world.

I hoped he would improve the education available to common Pakistanis (as opposed to children of the elite), getting rid of the elements which make them intolerant and conservative. I expected him to put his sportsman's spirit to good use in Pakistan's volatile and strife-stricken politics.

A worthy sportsman could become a worthy statesman, I thought.

Read on:What's wrong with our Kaptaans?

Like myself, thousands of PTI supporters were sure that the Imran Khan-led movement for justice will set a commendable example in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa; an example of good governance, planning, sensible decision-making and innovation.

But the events of last week are compelling some of us more sensitive PTI supporters to think that perhaps all expectations were premature, simplistic or just tragically wrong.

Pakistan's democratic system finds Imran Khan suddenly marching toward it on a collision course. In Khan, they now see a man making unreasonable demands while pursuing the just and reasonable cause of electoral transparency.

They question the indiscriminate blame-game initiated by our leader. People want to know why he has started to make a new demand every new day.

I personally feel that this attitude of his has raised serious questions about his motives and designs.

I'm asked, what is the difference between Imran Khan and any other power hungry politician?

In such an atmosphere of crises, and against the dwindling party position of PTI, I keep asking myself these puzzling questions:

1. If rigging was so widespread, why was the outcome of the elections accepted in the first place?

2. Why does PTI keep demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif - is he the sole culprit behind rigging?

3. Why doesn't PTI have a better partner in this regime-toppling game other than a 'revolutionary' goon?

4. Why does Imran think he can accuse anyone, any time, anywhere of rigging, without enough evidence?

5. Why is it so that PTI is accused of U-turns and new demands everyday?

6. And most of all, I want to know, why does Imran Khan's PTI have the clearly indefensible and hypocritical stance regarding resignations from assemblies? You are resigning from all assemblies but not from the KP assembly because you are in power there? How was the electoral process in KP different from the rest of the country?

Take a look:PTI’s empty threats

I can only hope that the captain will review his confrontational policies, which are accelerating the country towards chaos and uncertainty.

I consider myself an insafian, which means I stand for progress, transparency and justice; not for politics of crisis and confrontation.

The supporters of Imran Khan have the right to ask him not to fail democracy, and Pakistan.

Azadi march and Inquilab march have hijacked the media, but not just.

They've also hijacked our peace of mind, and our very lives.

Ask the ladies at home of how painstakingly they struggle (in vain) to get hold of the TV remote, with their husbands hung up on catching every minute's news about the marching duo.

Unending analyses on the political deadlock has paralysed the nation; bodies unable to move away from the television. Entertainment has truly been reduced to this singular genus these days: breathing, eating and living political analyses plated out to us 24/7 from inside the magic box.

As a result, the masses seem to have become astoundingly sensitive to every minute political development. But, this awareness has come at a price.

Read more on the topic:Watching the 'revolution' on TV is hard work

And it's not just real forms of entertainment which have lost out; common sense, too, appears to have taken a walk. Electronic and social media right now are 'bandwagons of analyses', and if you want to jump on and stay on-board, be sure to leave your common sense far behind these topsy-turvy discussions.

Any news, to my understanding, does not stir up the Pakistani brain as much as the analysis of that news does.

Countless news stories get broken and passed by our ears every day, but until an analysis of the situation is presented, people keep ogling at the goggle-box vacantly, like waiting for some saviour of a TV anchor to descend into the box and lead them out of this intellectual crisis.

Then come the outrageous claims of having acquired the complete and only truth which exists, and cursing at anyone who may have acquired his truth from a different saviour.

Take Imran Khan's recent announcement of civil-disobedience.

Take a look:'Civil disobedience': Another nail in PTI's political coffin

Right after the announcement, most Pakistanis (whether for or against him) had no clue of the implications of this alien suggestion. But soon after most of our media gurus attacked the announcement, social media swarmed up with statuses of a million flabbergasted and disappointed people. Come a couple more hot-talking analysts and the tide went back down.

Just a few new logical standpoints in favor of ‘civil disobedience’ (most popular one being that Imran meant civil obedience not in a literal sense but only as a way to pressurise the government) brought the PTI chairman his lost online supporters back and soon social media was being updated on how people ignorantly misunderstood the importance of civil disobedience.

Such is the nature of political awareness amongst the masses: the state of intellect amongst couch-potatoes. One could probably divide the people inside one house into as many political groups as there are analysts going around.

Also read:Of wet shalwars and televised 'revolutions'

With each anchor comes a new school of thought that people are willing to enroll into, double quick. This is the phase of 'assimilation'.

After that comes 'application'. Application is a multifaceted step that accommodates our newly enlightened couch-scholar to fulfill a number of imperative tasks including:

1. Oral argumentation with a scholar from an opposing school of thought. This may require fluency in various ‘linguistic’ and ‘physical’ skills.

2. Online sermons to help the more politically ignorant souls, and in many cases, to simply boast your newly acquired knowledge.

3. 'Anti-biotic resistance'. This is the third and final stage in the journey of enlightenment. Opposing views are sought and battled at whatever forum is available. This step always involves ‘tests of patriotism’ wherein anyone resisting nationalism always flunks. So in a way, it also serves the purpose of separating the 'traitors' from the 'patriots'.

With this manual in hand, our nation is more than self-sufficient in not just attaining expertise in every political debate, but also in determining true Pakistanis from fake ones.

Can we complain, though, seeing as these people are whom we voted for?

It seems we really want the long marches and stubborn sit-ins and continuously meandering political positions of our leaders to be the new face of entertainment in the country.

There is cleric at the helm of one 'revolution', a cricketer at the head of another. Both are now sitting in and standing off.

At this stage, just watching the two marches on television is hard work.

First of all is the formidable challenge to keep the parallel plots and agendas straight.

This may be easy for the handful of Pakistanis (mostly television commentators) who have been paying attention to Tahir-ul-Qadri and Imran Khan all along. For the rest of us fickle sorts with memories easily erased (necessary for survival in a country of frequent revolutions) it takes some mental effort to remember the grievances of each; the fraudulent vote issue belongs to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and the massacre of innocent activists to Pakistan Awami Tehreek.

Follow:PTI, PAT protests: Political impasse continues

Both parties have some serious, substantive concerns; but march watching addiction has perpetuated other less discussed and more embarrassing scenarios.

It is rumoured that a significant swathe of Pakistanis have been forced to suspend their normal lives of working, texting and complaining about their bosses or their in-laws for a rapt, uninterrupted consumption of the televised revolution.

There they sit, their eyes glazed, their faces pallid from 10 days of total television watching, awaiting great change.

Also read:Azadi is here! But what does that mean?

At sudden, inexplicable moments and often to the shock and surprise of the wives or children, or husbands or mothers around them, they break into sudden song or inexplicable applause; such is the magnetism of jubilant crowds and rousing music of what is far and yet, so near.

A few have been known to rise up and sing the national anthem at similarly inopportune moments; in the middle of dinner, or during the call to prayer, or in that deep portion of the night when all others are asleep.

Unsurprisingly, as the impending prospect of sudden change enters its second week; relationships are suffering; husbands are angry at wives, children at parents, sisters at brothers and so on.

Then, there are the physical vagaries. The attendees of the march may be suffering from a lack of proper bathroom facilities, but the march watchers at home find themselves terrified of using the facilities that may be a few small steps from their march watching stations.

Also read:Who pays the bills?

The hesitation is understandable. No one knows when exactly the magnificent moment of complete transformation will take place; after all these days, all the hours and minutes, the calls missed and the emails left unanswered, it would be a terrible pity to miss the revolution all for an untimely call of nature.

Other lesser known spin-off conditions include the march diet, followed by a friend of mine who is using the addictive magnetic moment of march watching to shave off five pounds (or more); food it seems can be forgotten for radical change.

Another is planning a march fashion collection; durable enough to last the duration of the next dharna; with reversible scarves that would allow modification for the march colors of one party or another.

Television lends itself to trivialisation.

The content of the orators speeches; the nature of their grievances is serious; there is nothing funny about slain activists or fraudulent votes. The evocations of these grave issues, however solemn they may be, are interrupted with commercials for shampoo or mobile phones or whatever else; placing all of it in the context of the viewer’s consumptive needs, their “real” lives, the soap operas they will watch, the things they will buy when life returns to what it always was.

Photos:Protesters march towards Red Zone

As television channels and the now exhausted anchors flit between one march and another, boisterous nationalism in one second, religiously cast pathos in another, all of it casts a confused catatonia on the mute viewers on the other end.

Must life be suspended? Must it go on?

Is this truly a time for “celebration” as Imran Khan says?

Will corruption end in a few days as Tahir-ul-Qadri promises?

Millions of march watchers, listening, seeing, wondering, wallowing and suffering, have only questions.

Srinagar was in a state of lock down. The city had been under a virtual siege after Kashmiri rebels had struck an army installation in the old city. The old city was a refuge for guerrillas as it offered them ample space with lanes and alleys that were like a maze.

The rebels had escaped but the hunt was on.

The city looked tired and the roads were empty, the people preferring to shut themselves up in their homes. An enraged Indian soldier could shoot at will, so precarious the situation was. Newspapers ran what could only be described as headlined obituaries.

In the deep lanes of Safa Kadal a neighbourhood in the old city, the boys, meanwhile, were playing cricket, away from the crosshairs of the troops. It wasn't that they were oblivious to what was going on. Cricket, it seemed, provided momentary refuge from reality.

Two empty cans of cooking oil served as stumps. While the youngsters played, the elders were puffing cigarettes on the parapet of a half-shuttered shop. Khalid was going to bat after most of his teammates were out. You see he was in his early teens and as the unwritten rule goes, the young always get their time at the crease last.

It was his day. He batted with ease and drove the ball in gaps in what seemed to be a typical Aussie ring of fielders in the 'covers'. The neighbourhood team’s captain was in admiration of the youngster's skills. He offered him to play for the 'senior' team on Sunday at the Eid gah, which was a five minute walk from his home.

The Eid gah, a vast field, was the home of cricket for the people in the old city (it would also host football matches during the season). There would be scores of matches played at the same time, the field was so vast. But the space was slowly being taken over by the dead of Kashmir.

Martyrs, as they were known, were being buried into the graveyard on the left. The ages on their tombstones would read like a scorecard, a haunting reminder as the matches went on.

To the right of the graveyard, Khalid was asked to open the batting for the team. He had put his pads on and prepared to walk to the crease. It was an honour for youngsters to have their names on the 'Mohalla' cricket team board nailed to an electricity pole. Underneath the pole would usually be a memorial stone of the slain, sometimes attached with a water tap.

What's normal in Kashmir?

As soon as Khalid took guard, the military fired several shots in the air and slowly began moving towards the players. Khalid ran, faster than he ever had at the crease, with his pads still on. This was a typical scene when the Indian troops would suffer a casualty; they would go berserk and fire indiscriminately. Khalid had to postpone his debut to save his life. He took refuge in a house until the situation was ‘normal’.

-Photo by Reuters

Normal. A word that is often used by people in Kashmir. Is everything normal in Kashmir?

Is the situation normal? Are you normal? These questions have difficult answers. What is normal for Kashmiris is abnormal for the world. Normal in Kashmir is usually associated with the pause in death. Or, discussions on the terrible performance of the Pakistani cricket team but not the politics in Kashmir.

For me normal would be playing sports. Maybe.

It seemed that the overwhelming politics of the occupation were, somehow, suppressed for the duration of a match. Like when I played football for the district and state team, I would only think of how to win a tackle or create an opportunity for the striker to score.

The barbed wires across the fields or the military bunkers at the end of the field would be blurred out when my eyes were on the ball. There's no denying the power of sport on community welfare either. "Sport can create hope where once there was only despair," as the great Nelson Mandela said.

When the games finished, post match discussions would begin in the bus. Missed opportunities, dubious calls, the quality of the pitch and sometimes a little bit of the blame game all made the talk; that was the routine.

A checkpoint manned by Indian soldiers, who would ask for an identity card, usually snapped us back into reality. The conversation quickly changed into invectives against the occupation.

Our neighbourhood was not struck by crackdowns or raids by the Army very often. We lived on the outskirts of downtown Srinagar, which is the hub of the resistance movement in Kashmir. But our neighbourhood lacked a vast field like the Eid gah. There was a tiny field opposite our house called ‘Parade Bagh’, used by Indian forces to parade during the height of rebellion in the 90s. The neighbourhood boys would play cricket or football in the nettle infested field. But most of the times, it was used to play ‘Military-Mujahid’, a game where the Military had to find the hiding rebels and the rebels would have to tap the back of the military to score a point.

Naturally, most of the military team would play half-heartedly!

For the children of 90s, their lives were moulded by concertina wired bunkers and checkpoints. -Photo by AP

Tariq my best friend and I used to make caves in the firewood of the baker (his father) in the locality. We would test our hiding skills or make caves where we would eat stolen apples. Or hold bats on our shoulders and pretend they were our weapons. Strangely, after a school in Srinagar was bombed, we prayed for ours to be given a similar treatment. For holidays, of course.

I don’t know how politics had come in our lives and affected us. Maybe our childhood disappeared at the sighting of the dead body of a family member or a person we knew. For the children of 90s, their lives were moulded by concertina wired bunkers, checkpoints and an occasional crackdown where we would sit for hours in the burning sun.

Chasing goals, dodging bullets

It was only sports where we could forget the pain for a while.

Just for a moment, our lives had a goal to chase, and not a bullet to run from. Just for a while we could analyse the average runs to be scored, not the possibility of losing our lives attempting to buy milk during crackdowns.

In 2010, Kashmir rose to an uprising which basically served as the transition of the struggle to those who were born in the 1990s. We had an inter-district tournament in Srinagar. Our second match of the day was in the afternoon. The city was put under siege to curb spontaneous protests that were the order of the day. The burning sun and no wind to cool us down was a punishment, but we preferred it to the beating of a police man or an army soldier.

Our match was cancelled by the officials. The hotheads in our team broke into a scuffle with the officials. Nothing happened. Our team talk quickly changed into 'a-how-to-avoid-troops-while-going-home' strategy.

-Photo by AP

I reached home avoiding the troops in the streets by going into the lanes and alleys of Srinagar, all the while silently praying for my other teammates to not be sent off to martyrs' graveyards that had sprouted all over the valley by now. The troops had killed around 128 people that summer, many of them were youngsters; amateur cricketers and footballers included.

The quiet boys in the neighbourhood graduated into stone-pelting youths with their balaclava masks. The silence had broken and the storm had arrived.

Now, the goal was to hit back and show the resentment over the 20 years of massacres and memories of the dead we knew. In groups the stone-pelting youth would engage the soldiers in formations that would frustrate the new opponents.

Pacing along the streets, we 'bowled' the bricks at the formations of the soldiers who interestingly had knee pads and chest guards to save themselves from the hits. Each stone carried with it a memory.

There is no victory in this, only death that one embraces.

The desperation of the youth in Kashmir would melt even the stones. One cannot help but wonder how far some of the talented cricketers and footballers would have gone if there youth had not been interrupted like this.

Khalid is an independence activist today, who speaks for the right to self-determination. My neighbourhood friends are internet activists and former teammates are working to create community development. Some are in the graveyards of the Eid gah.

Living under the occupation is a terrible place to grow up in. Politics cannot escape your minds. But sometimes it is a blessing as it teaches us to live for others.

Maybe our lives could be more peaceful. But life there is not a sport after all.

Haji Saheb spoke and assured the crowd that they will be rewarded here and in the hereafter for the efforts they were making to bring down a corrupt ruler.

Narazi Saheb spoke and told the crowd, for the 10th time, that the umpire was about to lift his finger, which finger he did not specify.

Happy that their daily doze of lectures, promises and slogan mongering was over, the audience split into two groups. Those who were going home; started walking out of the ground. Those who were spending the night outside the House of Hollow Speeches; scattered around.

Soon, the lights were turned off. Doors of the two leaders’ mobile homes were shut tight. Food stalls closed. Entertainers went home. Dancers too. Haji Saheb’s qawwals also had disappeared.

Automobiles came and took away some of the organisers. The guards, now relaxed that the leaders were inside the containers, withdrew to remote corners.

Both stages – one for Haji Saheb and the other for Narazi Saheb – looked deserted.

Also read:PTI, PAT followers renew allegiance

Dilpazeer, who has been watching this ‘tamasha’ for more than a week now, went to his friends and said: “Now our show begins.”

The friends smiled and took him to the center of D-Chowk where a large group was already waiting for Dilpazeer.

“So what are we going to hear tonight, Dilpazeer Saheb?” asked a young man, handing him a cup of steaming milk-tea.

“It rained heavily today, didn’t it?” asked Dilpazeer, while accepting the cup.

“Yes, it did,” some in the crowd, responded.

“And you guys are still here? I salute you,” said Dilpazeer.

“You know, we do not have a choice. He is our peer (saint), we have to obey him,” said a follower of Haji Saheb.

Also read:Of wet shalwars and televised 'revolutions'

“And you?” Dilpazeer turned to the followers of Narazi Saheb.

“We go home after the speeches. Most of us are from the Peace City,” said one of them. “We too will go home when you finish your story.”

“Yes, yes, story. Tell us the story. Don’t waste our time,” the crowd shouted.

“What are we going to hear tonight?” asked one of them. “Alf Laila, Amir Hamza or a fairy tale?”

“None of these,” said Dilpazeer, who had no interest in politics but loved storytelling. He came to D-Chowk almost every night since the show began because here he found a group of avid listeners.

On the first night, he came only to see the show and intended to return home early. But when his friends decided to stay overnight, he too stayed with them.

The sky was clear. The stars, bright. Shrouded in darkness, the nearby mountains looked mysterious. Thousands of people were lying around him. Some already asleep, other still talking.

Dilpazeer felt as if he was back in the days of Alf Laila, traveling from one city to another with a huge caravan. So when a friend, who knew that Dilpazeer loved reading and telling stories, asked him to tell one, he happily obliged.

As he spoke, those within hearing distance also joined the group and this is how the storytelling sessions began, every night after the speeches.

“So what are you going to tell us tonight?” asked someone from the small crowd that had gathered around Dilpazeer.

“Stories of Mullah Nasruddin,” said Dilpazeer.

“Great, we have heard them before. They are funny,” said another story lover. “Start the story, please, start,” someone else shouted.

Dilpazeer began:

Once a rich merchant invited Nasruddin to dinner. In the evening, Nasruddin went to his house and knocked on the door.

The merchant’s son answered the door and told Nasruddin that his father was not home.

Nasruddin, however, had already seen the host sitting inside, by a window. So he told his son: “Please tell your father not to forget his head by the window, next time he goes out.”

The crowd laughed and when they stopped, Dilpazeer asked if they had checked whether Haji Saheb and Narazi Saheb were still inside the containers or had they only left their heads by the windows.

And before the crowd could react, Dilpazeer began another story:

One day Mullah Nasruddin bought a donkey. Holding the donkey’s rope, Nasruddin started to walk towards home. Two thieves saw this and decided to trick Nasruddin.

One of them quietly came up behind the donkey, loosened the rope and put it around his own neck. The rogue took the donkey back to the market and sold it.

When Mullah Nasruddin reached home, he turned around and saw the boy in place of the donkey.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Oh, Sir, it is an amazing story. You may not believe me but it is true,” said the thief.

“I was a very naughty boy. I misbehaved all the time and made my mother miserable. One day, she got very upset and said: ‘I would have been better off with a donkey.’ Immediately, I turned into a donkey.”

“Distressed, she went to a wise man and sought his advice. He told her that this curse will only be lifted when a pious man buys the donkey. So the curse ended, when you bought me.”

Mullah Nasruddin knew he had been tricked and regretted not looking back while pulling home what he thought was a donkey.

“I will let you go, but never torment your mother again,” he said to the thief.

The next day Nasruddin went back to the market to buy another donkey. There, he saw the donkey he had bought the day before. Mullah went up to the animal and whispered in its ear: “Did you disobey your mother again?”

Dilpazeer finished the story and said to the crowd: “Have you checked if there’s a donkey at the end of the rope?” And started the third story before the crowd could respond:

Mullah Nasruddin was getting bald. He decided he would look better off with a shaved head, instead of a half-empty patch. So he went to a barber.

Unfortunately, the barber was out and had left behind an apprentice. A sharp razor in the trembling hands of the young apprentice was not reassuring. But the novice persuaded Mullah Nasruddin to let him do the job. Mullah agreed nervously.

While the apprentice was still sharpening the razor, Mullah Nasruddin heard a loud bellowing. Alarmed, he asked the young barber to go and checked. The barber returned and told him that a blacksmith was shoeing an ox.

“Thank God! I thought another apprentice barber was shaving a man,” said Mullah Nasruddin and left the shop.

“Now, whether your leaders stay or leave, or there is a donkey at the end of the rope or not, please never let a novice shave your head,” said Dilpazeer before he too went to sleep.

The Indian state has placed the blame for the recent fallout of Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries' meeting in New Delhi on the Pakistani diplomat's meeting with Kashmiri leaders — the Hurriyat.

Funny thing is, this is the same ‘separatist’ leadership that India has negotiated with before.

The latest development came as India recently shifted from the ‘ambit of the humanity’ policy toward a more hardened nationalist stance, and this could make the conflict more complex.

All of this is not helped by the fact that the nationalist rhetoric emerging in India asks why Pakistanis are talking to Kashmiris.

This line of rhetoric is rooted very clearly in the desire to disengage Kashmiri factors from the talks between India and Pakistan on the issue. Another line of thought prevailing in India says that Pakistan should not talk to Kashmiris or about Kashmir before dealing with other issues between New Delhi and Islamabad.

What needs to be made clear is that Kashmir is not solely a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, as the former likes to posit with reference to the Shimla agreement. Because the fact is that the Shimla agreement does not abrogate the right to self-determination of the people in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. In fact, it even calls for the ‘final settlement of Kashmir’ and fundamentally maintains the region’s disputed status.

What is even more baffling is that the very people whose land happens to be the issue, have been rejected by India as a non-party in the dispute.

In his last visit to the Kashmir region, the Indian prime minister was met with a complete shutdown on the call of the Hurriyat leadership, because a majority of Kashmiris support the Hurriyat in its demand to bring an end to Indian rule in Kashmir.

This is also the reason prominent Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has been under house arrest since 2010 and has even been prohibited from Friday prayers. Small wonder then that Kashmiri youngsters are being hounded too for demanding their right to self-determination.

What’s worse is that in this scenario, the Indian media has played a key role in perpetuating the state’s dismissal of Kashmiri sentiment.

I remember how in 2010 Indian journalist Barkha Dutt tried to balance the deaths of 128 youth in Kashmir with the 'pain' of the Indians. The mournful father of 17 year-old Tufail Matoo, whose skull was taken apart by a tear-gas shell, was treated as a counterweight to an Indian soldier’s grievance over his truck's bulletproof windscreen being damaged.

While local journalists in Srinagar had been reeling under a siege for days, there was no hurdle for reporters from elsewhere in India flying in to cover the conflict.

But while the Kashmiri sentiment has largely gone unheeded by Indian journalists, there still remain some dissenting voices there. Arundhati Roy in 2010 remarked at a civil society meet that it was a historical fact that Kashmir had never been a part of India.

The Booker Prize-winning author was bashed on Times Now and called anti-nationalist for stating a fact that is actually noted in Section 18 of Indian Penal Code; it denotes that India is a territory excluding the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Another notion that often floats on Indian media outlets is that the true representatives of the Kashmiri people are not the Hurriyat leadership but the so-called elected government led by pro-India parties. It is pertinent to mention that these parties have termed their elections as meant strictly for administrative purposes and not as an endorsement of Indian rule. Unlike India, which is fond of saying that Kashmiris have voted for ‘Indian democracy’, the people have repeatedly boycotted previous elections. And even after the so-called elections, the pro-India parties in Kashmir pursue their own agendas like autonomy and self rule which hardly ever gets discussed at length.

Many would also find this interesting to know that although there’s a UN resolution maintaining that elections in Kashmir cannot be a substitute for plebiscite, New Delhi sees boycotting these polls as unjustified defiance of Indian rule in Kashmir.

The 'foxification' of Indian media when it comes to Kashmir becomes very obvious when protesters in Kashmir are labelled as a mob and are blamed when they get killed. The double standards become even more apparent when Indian media outlets question the state’s use of force against unarmed civilians elsewhere in India. What then becomes clear is that New Delhi does not regard Kashmiris, as civilians, at least this is how the Indian media projects the scenario.

What the Indian media should, however, not ignore is that despite the UN's failure to resolve the dispute, the presence of a UNMOGIP office in Srinagar continues to signify the Kashmiri sentiment that it is not an Indian state but an internationally recognised disputed territory.

What is important at this point is the realisation that ignoring the plight of Kashmiris will not make it disappear — a plight whose resolution is imperative in stabilising the South Asian region.

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell

It was a really cold morning on January 21, 2014 in Motihari, Bihar. As the three of us — my father, brother and I — traveled down the road on a cycle rickshaw, a thick fog hung everywhere I looked.

I kept checking the map on my cellphone. I knew we had crossed Gyan Babu Chowk and the place I was looking for was not that far now. We decided to ask a pedestrian about the place.

"Bhayya, where is Gopal Sah High School?"

"See that path? Just go straight and you'll get there. It's a big building."

We got out of the rickshaw and began walking toward it.

The path passed through a shanty town. Chickens, goats and pigs roamed about. After a few minutes, we saw a building. We had found the school, it seemed. To know exactly where the building was, we asked a student. He had no idea, and appeared confused when I mentioned the name of George Orwell.

Also read:Jonas Salk — The hero we are unworhty of

He took us to a classroom where a teacher was busy lecturing his students. I asked the teacher and he told us to follow the straight path until we saw an old gate.

It only took a minute or two to finally arrive at an old, large gate. We were finally at George Orwell's birthplace.

It was only last year that I found out that Motihari is not just famous for its association with M.K Gandhi but also the celebrated writer Eric Arthur Blair, commonly known by his nom de plume George Orwell.

He was born in Motihari, Bihar, British India on June 25, 1903. His father Richard W. Blair served in the Indian Civil Service, in the Opium Department. Though there’s a dispute over the exact duration of Eric’s stay in Motihari, the more popular opinion is that he was taken to England with his mother Ida Mabel Blair around his first birthday.

There are two photographs of Eric which were taken during his time in Motihari: one with his mother, and the other with his aaya (nanny). Though Orwell spent very little time in Motihari, the place is significant for his connection with it.

Orwell is most famous for his works Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, but the rest of his oeuvre is also quite brilliant, even though it's overshadowed by these two. His vision was unmatched, and his insight in the nature of authority and totalitarians rules is still as relevant as it was in those days.

When I found out that Orwell was born in Motihari, a place I had visited three times before (my aunt lives there with her family), I was ecstatic and determined to make a visit.

Now, I was standing right next to the single-storey building where Orwell was born over a century ago.

Take a look:Gandhi’s exile

Members of the Lake Town Rotary Club of Motihari were there too, to commemorate Orwell’s death anniversary. I had met Mr Arshad Hashmi only the night before. Hashmi’s efforts for bringing recognition to the birthplace have been exemplary.

There was large memorial standing next to the gate of the building, and a bust of George Orwell inside the premises, which I could see from outside.

The house was a simple one, and currently inhabited by an Aditya Abhishek and his mother. His father served as an English teacher in the Gopal Sah High School and was allotted the quarter by the authorities. Though his father passed away in 2012, Aditya and his mother have continued living there and consider it an honour.

When he found out that I was from Pakistan, he was surprised and expressed his happiness by offering us morning jalebis, which we gleefully accepted.

He also brought out his journal in which he has the visitors write down their comments. Since I was a writer, he told me to write something in detail on a separate journal.

I also saw the room where Orwell was born, and lived during his time in Motihari. It was such a strange feeling, to be at a place where such a visionary intellectual was born. I saw the ruins of the opium warehouse where Orwell’s father had worked, and around it was opium vegetation: untouched and of no use, apparently.

They had an anniversary celebration at M.S College. It also included the premiere of the documentary Orwell! But Why?, directed by Mr Bishwajeet Mookherjee. The documentary was a commendable effort and highlighted the neglect that the birthplace has suffered, primarily. I met Bishwajeet later on and he was really happy that a Pakistani had attended the event.

I visited the birthplace again after a week or so. There was something very overwhelming about the place; a surreal feeling felt only when traveling through time.

One thing that broke my heart was the neglect this place was going through. But I've heard recently that the provincial government has finally decided to start restoration of the birthplace, and intends to build a museum dedicated to the great writer alongside.

Without doubt, this experience was one of the most fascinating ones of my life.

--Photos by author.

In May 2013, I, along with many other Pakistanis weary of a system steeped in corruption, bribery and dynastic politics supported Imran Khan’s bid to power through the general elections.

I was deeply critical of his stance on the Taliban, the War on Terror and absence of a clear political ideology but nevertheless felt that his financial incorruptibility and integrity would be a welcome change from the clientelist politics of the PPP and PML-N.

I wasn’t naïve enough to think that Imran would win by a clear majority, because his appeal was largely restricted to upwardly mobile urban middle and upper classes, as evidenced by a report by Gallup Pakistan.

It was also highly unlikely that the PPP’s and PML-N’s historic stronghold over Sindh and Punjab respectively, would be destroyed in the course of a single election. This view was confirmed by opinion polls and surveys prior to the elections.

Also read:Open letter to Imran Khan, from a PTI voter

Nevertheless, I hoped that Imran would emerge strong enough to form part of a national coalition.

That didn’t happen.

I was disappointed but not entirely surprised and after making a series of embarrassingly elitist comments regarding the ‘illiterate masses’ I moved on.

That is how democracy works.

In a system of one person one vote, all opinions count equally – even if some of them are loud enough to dominate the public space through dharnas, while others quietly follow old political affiliations. In a democracy we have to be open to the possibility that the politicians we think are ill-suited for leadership may get elected, and we must respect the mandate of the people if democracy is to flourish.

It is the latter aspect of democracy that is, I believe, apparently difficult for many PTI followers to digest, with most translating any critique of Imran Khan’s tactics as support for corrupt veteran politicians.

The situation deteriorated with the PMl-N’s refusal to implement timely electoral reforms, address electoral irregularities, not to mention, the horrifying Model Town massacre that gave an undemocratic opportunist like Tahirul Qadri a place on the negotiation table.

But the Azaadi March and PTI’s single-minded pursuit of Nawaz Sharif’s resignation has lost many people with its convoluted ‘logic’.

The claim that PML-N’s victory was engineered through massive rigging has not been corroborated by independent sources like the Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen), the EU Elections Observer Mission and the National Democratic Institute.

Undoubtedly, there were irregularities and causes for concern. But electoral law violations do not automatically translate to rigging at the scale needed to manufacture a landslide victory.

There is no ground for demanding a resignation in the absence of any judicial opinions or evidence from non-partisan experts. The PTI is trying to set a dangerous precedent by insisting that elected governments can be declared illegitimate and toppled on the basis of street power.

Another issue that is repeatedly and irrelevantly raised is that of Nawaz Sharif’s political corruption.

Let us be clear that the issue of Nawaz using his political power for illegitimate private gain is separate and distinct from that of alleged electoral rigging.

PTI needs to decide why it wants Sharif to resign

Is it because he does not have the mandate of the people or because he is financially corrupt?

Both allegations should be deliberated and decided by the judiciary and independent sources. Twenty thousand people (or even 500,000 people as claimed by PTI) gathered on the street cannot be the judge, jury and executioner.

Editorial:PTI’s bizarre proposals

A common counter argument to this is the claim that the judiciary, and in fact the entire system, is corrupt and cannot be fixed as long as the old timers are in power. Fine. There might even be some logic behind this argument.

But then you need to stop thumping your chest about democracy.

A more intellectually honest argument would perhaps state that: democracy is ill-suited for a country like Pakistan with its massive illiteracy and systemic corruption and nepotism. Under a democratic system, people will continue to elect seasoned politicians who have no stake in fixing the system. We need an honest leader like Imran Khan to weed out the rampant corruption and build a utopian ‘Naya’ Pakistan.

Ironically, this PTI cult worship centred on a larger-than-life hero expects the latter to act outside the system to repair it, while at the same time preserve democracy.

It is rather like a military dictator dismissing an elected government on charges of corruption with promises to restore democracy when conditions are more ‘suitable’. Aren’t we all familiar with that line of thinking?

You may even support this view and claim that a benevolent dictator is better than a corrupt elected leader. But you have to be honest enough to acknowledge that such a stance cannot be packaged as democracy.

It needs to be decided if the ends, that of having an incorruptible leader, justify the means, that is derailing the democratic process.

And the long term consequences of the Azaadi March need to be considered; the pressure tactics have already set the civilian-military relations back by at least 20 years.

For the first time since ZA Bhutto, the civilian leadership had managed to gain some control over foreign policy. The Azaadi March has effectively wrecked that and put the military back in control.

Even if Imran Khan gets his much desired resignation, a mid-term election and by some incredible stretch of imagination, a clear electoral victory, these pressure tactics will have done irreparable damage to democratic institutions with their in-built mechanism for rooting out corrupt and unpopular leaders in a sustainable and institutionalised manner.

Our problems are too deep rooted to be magically solved by one lone saviour.

Also read:The mask of anarchy

And thanks to the PTI’s recent manoeuvres which have set a dangerous precedent of successfully using street power for political gain, elected leaders for some time to come (including Imran Khan) will be left looking over their shoulders, while remaining deeply subservient to the military establishment.

For many people, that is too high a price to pay.

It is time we acknowledge that while we may admire Imran Khan’s integrity and desire his leadership, but the latter is not possible at the moment through democratic means.

In case you somehow missed it, Pyaray Afzal was quite the television phenomenon recently. Against the usual montage of formulaic TV drama series, this one certainly deserves our attention.

(If you are still planning to see the show, I should warn you of some spoilers ahead.)

Some shortcomings

As a professional screenwriter myself, I know fully well that we cannot hold the writer wholly accountable when things go wrong. There are inescapable constraints and compromises in our industry, which I believe must have factored into the final draft. There are some scenes where you can tell that the director and writer were thinking along very different lines. In the bigger picture, the plot took some unexpected, and some unnecessary turns.

The characters, though deep, are generic in ethnicity and region — they could be from Hyderabad, Bahawalpur, Lahore, Peshawar or maybe even Taiwan without any bearing on the dialogue. That is writing faux pas.

There are a few characters whose absence would have not made the slightest difference to the overall plot. There are some dialogues that just about any character could have delivered without impacting the story. Certain conversations keep being repeated between different characters in the same episode.

Read more:TV entertainment — Why doth thou sink so low?

On a personal note, I would like to meet with the writer Khalilur Rehman Qamar and discuss his incessant need to end his shows on the death of a character. To cite just one glaring problem in the script's dramatic finale: why would Afzal not ask for an ambulance — he clearly has the ability to pick up the phone and talk.

Another issue I’d like to raise in detail at another time: why is a Pakistani show starting with an Indian song? We have a vast library of excellent songs in our very own country. Overall, the sound design in Pyaray Afzal is rather poorly done; the music is louder than dialogue at times; humour is cued through campy sound effects almost exclusively.

Moments of brilliance

Now, let us focus on what made this show great.

The dialogue is intelligent and natural, even in the hands of less experienced actors, it is everything between witty, relatable, powerful and even epic at moments.

Maulvi Subhanallah, played by Firdous Jamal, is an acting class; the delivery is spot on, the character is a fully realised three-dimensional human being with all the strengths and weaknesses one expects from such a person.

His wife, played by the iconic Saba Hameed, portrays a woman torn between her husband and son so accurately that you feel it might be happening to you.

Firdous Jamal (Molvi Subhanallah) with Sohai (Yasmeen) -Photo from Pyaray Afzal Facebook page.

One of my favourite aspects of the show is the sparing use of crying. It is a sign of physical and emotional collapse, and the series treats it as just that, with characters tearing up only when they have really had more than they can cope with. This is unlike other Pakistani serials where characters literally start crying if the lights get too bright. In Pyaray Afzal you can feel the sorrow.

Screen time was adequately spread over characters and no one could be said to have hogged the camera. Every scene began with a disconnected conversation before going into the crux of the story, much like everyday conversations usually do.

The best part is the honest portrayal of women.

TV has come to a point where there's an inherent sense of despair whenever it comes to women. They are either crying, or about to cry over something in every episode.

In contrast, Sohai Ali Abro’s 'Yasmeen' is a strong character who instead of becoming a victim, takes control of her situation and ends it on her own terms. She delivers without any shouting or hamming too, which is a bonus.

It's not just Yasmeen though; the entire plot revolves around strong female leads, each unique in her own right. Both Afzal and Farah’s younger sisters, and Farah herself (portrayed by Aiza Khan) all have their place, holding the story together.

Hamza Ali Abbasi is of course, brilliant. He can turn a full page of dialogue into a powerful monologue, and you will be riveted throughout.

Hamza Abbasi with Aiza Khan

But I still feel Hamza was not allowed to express his full potential in Pyaray Afzal. There were sequences where I felt that he could have brought something completely unique to the show, but was held back. But he was brilliant nevertheless — just watch him read the letter Farah writes to him.

If you have not seen the show yet, you really should. I doubt you can binge-watch the entire 38-episode run, but you certainly can enjoy the experience in its original weekly episodic format.

I personally feel it should have received higher accolades than Humsafar or Zindagi Gulzar Hai.

If it weren’t for the Godfather diversion, I might even wish cult status upon it.

The big lesson we need to learn here is that this industry should be a writer-driven medium. The show broke cliches, overacting was curbed, pacing was fair, dialogues were poignant.

That’s what we need to keep doing.

The ongoing political crisis has invited much political analysis from people of all ages, genders, statuses and backgrounds. But people refuse to see the situation for what it really is. They would much rather argue whether or not Nawaz is corrupt and should be removed or if Imran Khan is or isn't the leader Pakistan actually needs.

But all of that is completely irrelevant.

The question is not whether one supports Imran or if one is siding with Nawaz but whether a man, along with his supporters, has the right to demand the resignation of a prime minister and the dissolution of all assemblies by basing his calls on unproven claims of rigging in a few of the constituencies.

Look through:Dharnas vs democracy

Also, would it be right for a prime minister to resign over unverified claims of rigging or any other claims for that matter? Would it be right to dissolve all assemblies that contain members from other political parties as well?

The question at heart is bigger than who out of Imran Khan or Nawaz Sharif is better. It is: What gives a certain group the right to impose its opinion on the other?

It is Imran's demand that because certain constituencies were allegedly rigged, all assemblies be dissolved, the prime minister resign, and elections be held again. And although this demand came after Imran brought the issue to the government's attention on a number of occasions in the past, there are many who disagree with his approach.

What has also become clear in the past several days is that there is no other political party in any of the assemblies that agrees with Imran's demands. And it wouldn't be wrong to say that there are countless ordinary civilians, including PTI supporters, who disagree with this approach.

The main argument of those who support Imran's demands are that they have tried all means of justice; they say they have gone to all the courts and have taken every measure possible and no other option is left anymore. But if Imran has tried all possible routes and has failed, the smart thing to do would be to put pressure on the right points, such as calling for the setting up of an impartial investigating agency to look into the matter and holding re-elections in constituencies where rigging is proven.

Another argument used by Imran's supporters is that as long as Nawaz is in power, it's impossible to conduct a fair and independent investigation. This line of thinking is also baseless because if Nawaz can rig the elections without being in government, why should being out of office stop him from influencing an investigation?

One can now only wonder what the next PTI demand will be and if the party will put some faith in the country's institutions because I do believe that with the pressure of civil society and the national media, an investigation into rigging can be conducted fairly.

More on the topic:The tamasha in Islamabad

What has also been viewed is the lament by Imran and his supporters that the law is only invoked when the PTI chairman tries to do the right thing and not when the other parties are allegedly getting away with their corruption.

However, is Imran following the law by asking for Nawaz’s resignation? Especially because that means denial of my right to live under my elected government.

Also read:Derailment of democracy may threaten federation: PPP

Coming back to the people of Pakistan, here is my plea to you: forget which political party you support and critically think about the following questions:

Is it right to demand the dissolution of assemblies over unverified claims of rigging on a few seats? Is it right to want to deny others their rights because one doesn’t agree with the outcome of an election?

Imran may have the right intentions but it’s hard to tell where he’s headed, and given the kind of havoc that can result from this approach even as unintended consequence, one cannot help but see that the ends here cannot justify the means.

It is now two weeks into the protests in Islamabad and the battle of nerves still appears to be on. The only thing that stands clear is that neither the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), nor the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) have gained on the public perception index.

The plot is only thickening further. The sudden appearance of former additional secretary ECP Afzal Khan hurling accusations against a range of officials with a role in the 2013 elections’ process is still baffling if not downright suspect.

What’s notable though is that Afzal's admission of not having evidence to support the allegations has gone largely ignored in the national narrative – or at least the one pumped through a significant chunk of our (unsurprisingly) willing airwaves.

Read on:Ends may not justify means

Followed by Afzal’s so-called disclosure (that rings perfectly with the PTI’s rigging allegations) came the shroud-threatening, 48-hour deadline from Dr Tahirul Qadri who will, in his own words, stop at nothing short of the Sharif brothers' hanging.

For someone who is not known for following up on his deadline notices, the dynamics that have developed after Qadri’s recent harangue are particularly worrying when seen in the context of other political developments.

A panicked statement from MQM chief Altaf Hussain, the subsequent sudden shuttling of Punjab governor and Nawaz’s trusted lieutenant Chaudhry Sarwar to Karachi and what is increasingly beginning to seem like a not-so-innocent-day-to-day meeting between Nawaz and Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif have hardly helped to silence the alarms going off in many a head.

Also read:Dangerous trends

The presence of a lingering crowd at Constitution Avenue – although meaningless compared to the real threat which is beginning to rear its head – keeps the uncertainty at fever pitch, becoming a source of strength to the real powers who are after Nawaz.

What has also become apparent in recent days is the precision with which the prime minister has been pushed into a corner, an anarchic dispensation where the elected representative have been shaped into fair game for just about anyone to take potshots at.

And the scenarios that are being painted on what the future holds and how the crisis will unravel are unsettling to say the least:

• Will Nawaz resign? Would that be the end of his political career?

• Will Nawaz go down a fighter? Would the PML-N win fresh elections?

• Has Musharraf’s treason trial been Nawaz's undoing?

• Will the final stone be cast by the slaughter that transpired at Model Town?

But what if Nawaz doesn’t resign? Despite all the calls for a ‘sacrifice’, Nawaz after all came to power as a result of a landslide victory and none of his detractors, including the skipper’s admiring rabble, have been able to change that.

So what if he decides to stay put like Iftikhar Chaudhry did in 2007? And if he does, will Nawaz be pushed out and humiliated more than what the current fanfare has subjected him to?

With ideas of a national government carefully being accommodated in the current discourse, what will such an experiment mean for the gains made in the past several years and the attempts at strengthening the country’s democratic dispensation?

And the most disquieting question that has been on many a minds: What’s brewing in Pindi? With its recent, intrusive political statements, is the military establishment in fact preparing to do what it shouldn’t?

Or are we all just out of sorts, what with judgments impaired by dangerously contagious revolutionary zeal; by a past that doesn't seem to let us go.

For those of you who're not aware of it, Burnes Road in Karachi is named after James Burnes, a doctor who also worked as a spy for the British Raj in the subcontinent, back in the 18th century.

In Sindh ke Darbar, a book based on the memoirs of James Burnes, the former secretary of Sindhi Literary Board, Aijaz Mangi preludes with the following passage on Burnes:

Dr Burnes was the member of a nation which planned to take over Sindh and systematically make it part of the British Raj. As such, he deemed the native population there to be inferior and despicable. But one must admit that the observations of Dr Burnes are an invaluable and accurate insight into how things were back at that time; very informative and highly interesting.

Following Partition, the road named after Dr Burnes was renamed to 'Shahrah-e-Liaquat', but if you ask around for directions with that name, I doubt a single soul would be able to help you.

Ask for 'Burns Road' and just about anyone will be able to point you to the street of Mazaydar Haleem, biryani, dahi baray, quorma, gola kabab, halwa puri, mithai and what not.

Explore:The truth behind Karachi's Freemasons

Burnes has some fascinating things to say about the ruling family of Sindh at that time, the Talpur Mirs. On page 35 of Sindh ke Darbar it says:

It was part of Baloch tradition that before a doctor could administer medicine to his students, he would have to take the medicine himself. [My patient] Mir Murad Ali wasn't ready to take the medicine without me having taken it first. But I had had enough of its bitter doses already.

So eventually, it came down to a poor, ill-fated servant who was forced to take the medicine for a long time, despite having zero need for it. It must have created a really bad impression of British medicines on his mind.

I tried hard but in vain to find out more about the medical qualifications of Dr Burnes and where he'd gotten his education from. His memoirs do detail how Burnes was able to cure Mir Murad Ali:

The simple reason why Mir Murad recovered was that I stopped him from taking any heavy medication. But the Mirs thought it was my extraordinary skills as a physician. Then a series of fortunate coincidences completely established their faith in my healing powers.

So what was that drug which never failed to cure Mir Murad? Burnes explains:

I used 'Konain', something which the people of Sindh are yet to learn about. For the native population, it is the best cure for the seasonal cold. I would even predict the effects of the medicine in advance, to the surprise of many patients.

But once Mir Murad discovered that Konain was the secret behind his health, he took my bottle of Konain without my permission and locked it up in his cupboard. This one time, I fell ill and he wouldn't even return it to me! When it was time for me to go, I asked him for the empty bottle, but he still refused. Mir Murad seemed to think that the bottle was a vital part of this miracle drug.

Also read:The real Father of Karachi

The Mirs were just as spoilt as the other rulers of Hindustan. Keeping slave-girls was common and acceptable everywhere, but the treatment these Mirs meted out to kids borne of these girls was horrific. Burnes writes:

Mir Mohammad Khan does not have any children. Keep in mind that in the court of Sindh, it's a custom to kill any children borne by slave-girls...I've learned through credible sources that a certain member of the Mir clan has killed as many as 27 babies.

The Mirs ruled differently than other rulers in Hindustan at the time. At other places, the real power always lay with the person sitting on the throne. His brothers and relatives would not be of any importance, and would often even be killed, if the need arose.

But the Mir brothers weren't like that. All three used to rule together and would never let any one of them be left alone in the capital at any given moment. Burnes says:

The Mirs are one peculiar lot. They don't trust each other one bit. Like I mentioned before, when Mir Murad fell sick, all the brothers confined themselves to the Hyderabad Fort for several months. If they went out to hunt, they'd take care to leave an agent behind so as not to leave affairs unguarded...It wasn't easy to rule in an atmosphere of such uncertainty and lack of trust. Mir Murad Ali had once opened up to me saying: 'Rulers bear an immense burden on their chests; only a ruler can understand that burden.'"

Look through:The unwashed Bandar Road

A study of history reveals that the British conquest of Sindh had little to do with clever stratagems and much more with the mistrust between the ruling Talpur brothers, and their differing views on the native population (many of whom were Hindus). Burnes writes on pages 51-52:

When I set out of Sindh, the Mir brothers handed me two of their watches for repair. At that time, one of their servants said that there was an expert watch-repairer in Bhaj (an area in India). When the Mirs heard that, they refused to hand the watches over to me until I promised that I wouldn't trust an infidel with them.

They also gifted me a very expensive sword, bearing an inscription (by a courtier) that the Mirs were very proud of.

The memoirs of James Burnes are flooded with passages illuminating the Mir rule of Sindh. One has only got to initiate research. I hope the students of history will dig deeper into these resources and increase our knowledge of the past.

Translated by Talha Ahmed from the original in Urdu.

It’s not just about dams. Water scarcity poses an existential threat to Pakistan. It also endangers the welfare of Kashmiris in India.

With interests conflicting over water, Indian Kashmiris are objecting to the 54-year old Indus Water Treaty, which they believe is detrimental to their well-being.

The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, considers the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) “the biggest fraud with the people of Jammu and Kashmir”. Abdullah believes that rivers running through the State “are first for the people of the state. They are our right first.”

As Kashmiris struggle to assert their territorial and water rights against India and Pakistan, the right to use and abuse the water flowing in Indus and its tributaries could get mired in petty politics. Instead, it should be dealt with the aim to conserve and manage water, the scarcest resource in the subcontinent.

Read on:India accused of violating Indus Water Treaty

The Kashmiri leadership in India is concerned about the control exerted by the Indian National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) on developing new hydel projects in the State. In a letter to the Indian Prime Minister, the presidents of the three chambers of commerce in the Indian-held Kashmir recently criticised the decision to award large sums to NHPC to develop new hydro-electric projects.

In addition, Kashmiri leaders want the Indian government to revert control of functioning hydel projects to the State and to have the provision for all future projects be reverted to the State after being in operation for a specified time.

The Kashmiri leaders also want a greater share of the electricity generated in Jammu and Kashmir. They also seek compensation from the Indian government for the missed opportunities to develop water and hydro-electric projects because of the restrictions imposed by the IWT.

Meanwhile, a five-day meeting of the Indus Water Commissioners for India and Pakistan is being held in Lahore. Mirza Asif Baig, Pakistan’s Indus Water Commissioner, is meeting his Indian counterpart, K. Vohra.

The Pakistani side is reportedly objecting to additional hydro-electric projects being built upstream on the three western rivers: Jhelum, Chenab, and Indus, whose waters were primarily allotted to Pakistan under the Treaty.

Specifically, Pakistan has objected to the construction of the 850MW Ratle, 1,000MW Pakal Dul, 120MW Miyar and the 48MW Lower Kalnai hydropower projects on river Chenab. Pakistan has also expressed reservation on Kishanganga Dam being developed upstream on Neelam River.

“Pakistan had asked for changes in the design, especially with reference to the spillways and poundage, which affects the intake location. The intake of water should go up, spillways are low in elevation and these needed to be taken up," reported BBC.

Signed in September 1960, the IWT is almost 54-years old.

Despite the routine disagreements over the IWT, the Treaty has served the people of India and Pakistan well. Its greatest achievement is the fact that while India and Pakistan have fought traditional and untraditional wars since 1960 over other disputes, they have avoided an armed conflict over water.

Take a look:Water row with India may be taken to ICJ

The Treaty created the necessary institutions for sustained conflict resolution, negotiations, monitoring, and exchange of data and information. Even when the Commissioners fail to agree, the Treaty provided mechanisms to escalate the matter to higher levels of the establishment. When all possible avenues for a bilateral resolution of the conflict are exhausted, the Treaty provides for the appointment of a neutral expert and even for a court of arbitration.

The piles of polarising discourse over the IWT does disservice to the Treaty that was signed in good faith by Prime Minister Nehru and President Ayub Khan in Karachi. It becomes obvious now that the interest and welfare of Kashmiris was overlooked in the process. That explains the recent rise in Kashmiri misgivings for the IWT.

Also lacking in the public discourse is an appreciation of the understanding reached on the use of waters. It does not help when India starts new hydel projects in secret upstream on rivers, whose waters are available to India for restricted use only, or when Pakistan cries foul every time before asserting the facts over what is actually transpiring.

The Pakistani media and those involved in negotiations have created the false impression that India has no right over the waters of the three western rivers – Chenab, Jhelum, and Indus – and their tributaries.

Such assertion is false.

The treaty explicitly made provisions for India to use these water under specific restrictions. The Pakistani media and experts will be well served to review the Treaty in detail, especially Annexure C, Annexure D, and Annexure E, which stipulate the provisions for India to use the waters from the three western rivers for agriculture use, generation of hydro-electric power, and storage.

The devil, however, is in details.

Pakistan has challenged the Indian plans with limited success in the past. For instance, Professor Raymond Lafitte, a Swiss engineer, was appointed as the neutral expert to study Pakistan’s objections over the construction of Baglihar Dam. After reviewing the evidence, the Swiss engineer asked for only minor modifications to the Indian construction plans.

Even more interesting is the December 2013 verdict of the Court of Arbitration, headed by Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, which deliberated over the Kishenganga hydel project (KHEP). The Court recognised India’s right to develop the Kishenganga hydel project. I will review the details of the Court’s arbitration in a later post. However, a couple of important observations are in order.

Find out more:Kishanganga dam to affect ecosystem: official

First, the Court reviewed all evidence brought forth by the two parties and unanimously decided that India would ensure a minimum flow of 9 cubic meter per second (cumecs) downstream of KHEP at all times. The December 2013 verdict was a follow-up to the February 2013 verdict that recognised India’s right to develop the KHEP as a run-of-river plant, provided for in the IWT.

Pakistan should not blame India for its own inaction.

The power and water crisis in Pakistan is a direct result of Pakistan’s failure to manage its water resources over the past five decades. The construction of earlier large hydel projects in Pakistan were a gift of the IWT that made millions available to Pakistan in aid and loans from the World Bank and $170 million in compensation from India.

While India has also lagged in harnessing and conserving water resources, Pakistan’s inability to conserve water resources and generate power is a colossal failure in public policy and governance.

Equally lacking is the human capital in Pakistan to deal with the water and power crisis. Engineering universities in Pakistan have yet to recognise the existential threats faced by the nation. Instead of focusing on water, they are obsessed with computer engineering. Water resource engineering, dam construction, and related topics are only partially covered in the undergraduate engineering curriculum. Hardly any notable doctoral dissertations have been produced in Pakistan on hydel projects.

In 1991-92, I researched the structural damage at Warsak Hydel Project caused by Alkali-Aggregate reactivity in the submerged concreate in the power station. For one year, I travelled to Warsak from Peshawar to study the rehabilitation worked being conducted by Canadian engineers. I was appalled to learn about the state-of-affairs at the Dam.

To my surprise, even the original construction completion report was missing at the Dam. I travelled to Lahore to locate the report that was buried in a small office located on the Ferozpur Road. I made two copies of the voluminous report. I deposited one copy with the Warsak Dam’s then chief engineer, Mahabat Khan, and kept the second for my own records.

Also read:$588m accord with WB for financing of Dasu project

Not much has changed since then on engineering excellence in Pakistan.

Review the list of experts brought to testify before the Court of Arbitration for KHEP. Pakistan couldn’t find indigenous civil engineering experts to make its case and relied on foreigners and non-engineers. Review page 11 of the final award, where experts representing Pakistan are hairsplitting on the use of regression models, revealing their limited understanding of the subject matter as it relates to the use of seasonal factors in the statistical models to capture seasonality in the water flow. Such ignorance on matters that pose existential threat to Pakistan is unforgiveable.

Whereas India conveniently serves as the bogeyman for Pakistan’s domestic water disputes, it has delayed the much-needed arbitration on water resources within Pakistan.

While provinces continue to protect their turf on water and power, the nation continues to lose its potential and is jeopardising the welfare of its future generations.

This feature is part of Dawn.com's ongoing Pakistan Cricket History series:

• Pakistan cricket: A class, ethnic & sectarian history
  
• Reverse sweeps: Pakistan’s crazy cricket controversies
  
• Great Pakistan Captains (and then some)
  
• Pakistani balls!

Richie Benaud: One of the most respected voices in cricket since 1964. (Picture courtesy: Daily Telegraph).

Famous Australian cricket commentator, Richie Benaud, will turn 84 this October. Not only is he one of the most famous and respected voices in world cricket, he has been designated as an ‘Australian treasure’ by the government of Australia.

Benaud had had a successful Test career (as player and then captain of the Australian cricket side) prior to becoming one of the first former cricketers to take up commentary.

He retired as a cricketer in 1964 and almost immediately joined BBC Radio as a cricket commentator. He also happens to be the only cricket commentator to have survived and thrived across the many trends and changes that swept across international cricket — and along with it, the dynamics of cricket commentary — in the last 40 years.

For example, he began his career as a commentator in an era when commentators were largely cricket enthusiasts (mostly journalists and non-cricketing professionals) with little or no experience as Test or even first-class players.

Though most of them were highly articulate and knowledgeable about the game and many became almost as famous as the players, it was Benaud who (from the early 1970s onwards) began to add a new dimension to the art of cricket commentary by not only commentating on what was going on the field during a game, but also what was (possibly) going on in the players’ heads.

Richie Benaud pioneers new style

Being a former player, Benaud began to comment on the strategic and technical aspects of teams, players and individual matches. This was immediately picked up by the batch of Australian commentators who joined the profession from the late 1970s and were all former cricketers.

Former Australian captains, Ian Chappell, Keith Stackpole and Bill Lawry further upped the bar set by Benaud.

But even by the early 1990s, when cricket commentators were almost always former Test stars discussing the strategies and technical dimensions of bowling, batting and fielding; Benaud kept pace with the evolving ways of cricket commentary and till this day remains to be one of the most popular and respected commentators.

It's interesting to note that though Benaud has survived the many changes and tides that have swept across the vocation of professional cricket commentary, many of his contemporaries who were equally famous at one time or the other, have largely faded away.

The changes witnessed in how one commentated on a cricket game (for TV and radio) were most detrimental to commentators who (unlike Benaud) had not been professional cricketers.

Many famous voices in this respect eventually faded away once (by the late 1980s) cricket commentary started to become the sole domain of former cricket stars.

One of the most famous voices was that of England’s John Arllot (whose career as a commentator began in 1946 and lasted till 1981). He exited the arena in the early 1980s, around the time when former Test stars had begun entering this profession.

The only non-player commentators who have successfully survived the trend are the veteran West Indian, Tony Cosier (who’s been commentating since 1958), and India’s Harsha Bhogle (who arrived in the early 1990s).

English was and remains to be the universal language of cricket commentary, even though from the late 1970s onwards, it had begun to be provided in local languages in India (Hindi), Pakistan (Urdu), Bangladesh (Bangla), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese) and South Africa (Afrikaan).

The early years of Omar Kureishi and Jamsheed Markear

Cricket commentary in Pakistan has evolved the same way as it has in other cricket-playing nations. Two of the earliest well known commentators in the country were Omar Kureishi and Jamsheed Markear (a Pakistani Zoroastrian).

Both began commentating in Pakistan’s Test and first-class matches in Pakistan for Radio Pakistan in the early 1950s and both of them soon became mentors and friends of a number of leading Pakistani players of the era.

A young Jamsheed Markear playing club cricket in Lahore in 1940s (Picture Credit: The Citizens Archives).

Kureishi and Markear were close friends and came from impressive educational backgrounds in a country where a majority of people were still illiterate.

Kureishi was also a friend and former college and university classmate of then Pakistani foreign minister and future prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

By the mid-1950s, the Pakistan cricket team’s first (and one of the most influential) captains, AH Kardar, was often seen sharing drinks with Kureishi and Markear in various posh clubs of Lahore and Karachi.

Kardar would often take Kureishi’s advice on various cricketing matters and later when Kardar retired and wanted to enter politics, it was through Kureishi that he got to meet ZA Bhutto when the latter formed his own party — the populist left-liberal, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in 1967. Kardar joined the party in 1970.

Though both Kureishi and Markear were already engaged in more well-paying professions and treated commentary as a hobby, Markear finally bowed out when he decided to become a full-time diplomat in 1965. In the following decades he would go on to represent Pakistan as an ambassador in various countries.

Markear’s departure left Kureishi to become the sole known cricket commentator in Pakistan. He was partnered by a few other aspirants very of whom lasted as long as he did.

Omar Kureishi in his office in 1974 (Picture courtesy: The Pakistan Cricketer - February 1974 issue).

However there was one who was first introduced by Radio Pakistan in 1968 who did last. He was a 23-year-old bespectacled Cambridge graduate from Karachi, Chishti Muhajid.

By 1970, when Pakistan’s then sole (state-owned) television channel, PTV, began to telecast Test matches live (in Pakistan), Mujahid became one of the country’s first cricket commentators on TV along with, of course, Kureishi.

Kureishi soon took Mujahid under his wings because by the early 1970s Kureishi’s influence on cricketing affairs had grown even more when his friend, ZA Bhutto, became the country’s prime minister and another friend, AH Kardar, was selected (by Bhutto) to head the Pakistan cricket board.

Consequently in 1974 Kureishi was made the manager of the Pakistan team that toured England that year. Meanwhile back home another commentator had emerged. Also from Karachi and as articulate and refined as Kureishi and Mujahid, Iftikhar Ahmed too became a Kureishi disciple.

By 1975 all three were commenting in tandem for PTV and Radio Pakistan, but during Pakistan’s home series against West Indies (1975) and New Zealand (1976), it was Kuresihi’s voice that remained prominent and he now became a close confidant of Pakistan’s new captain, Mushtaq Mohammad.

Kureishi also became famous for throwing lavish parties for the Pakistan team and for other teams visiting Pakistan. Mushtaq, Sadiq Mohammad and the team’s two flamboyant youngsters — Imran Khan and Wasim Raja — and the hot-headed fast bowler, Sarfraz Nawaz, would often visit Kureishi’s bungalow in Karachi.

Sarfarz Nawaz at a party held at Omar Kureishi’s house in 1979. Kureishi can be seen sitting on a sofa.

When (in 1977) five Pakistani players were banned by the government for joining the ‘rebel cricket league’ of Australian media tycoon, Kerry Packer, Kureishi intervened to get the bans lifted.

Despite the fact that Bhutto was toppled in July 1977 in a reactionary military coup by General Ziaul Haq and Kardar resigned as chief of the cricket board, Kureishi’s influence remained strong enough to make the new government and the new head of the cricket board consider recalling the banned players (Imran, Mushtaq, Majid Khan, Zaheer Abbas and Asif Iqbal).

According to Mushtaq’s autobiography, after the banned players had missed the first two Tests of Pakistan’s home series against England (December 1977), the government agreed to recall the players for the third and last Test.

Mushtaq adds that they (the recalled players) did not know what transpired between the government and the England team while they were on their way from Australia to Karachi, but when they reached Karachi, they were ignored after being asked to join the rest of the team for practice sessions at Karachi’s National Stadium.

Mushtaq soon approached Kureishi and asked him what was going on. According to Mushtaq, Kureishi told him, ‘I have a few chilled bottles of beer in my fridge. Why don’t we go to our place and talk this over.’

The five banned players accompanied Kureishi to his house where they finally realised that Kureishi’s attempts to get them reinstated had been sabotaged by the English team who refused to play the last Test if the banned players were selected by Pakistan. The English side too had banned a number of their stars for joining Packer, as had the West Indies and Australia.

Even a one-on-one meeting between Zia and Mushtaq could not resolve the issue and the banned players flew back to Australia.

However, they were finally reinstated for the home series against India in late 1978. Mushtaq was once again made captain and Pakistan won the series 2-0.

Chisty Mujahid in 1980.

It was during this series that Kureishi’s two apprentices managed to actually upstage their mentor. During the last two Tests in which Pakistan needed quick runs to win, Iftikhar Ahmed found himself commentating at the peak moments of Pakistan’s two run-chases.

Compared to the more measured commentating styles of Kureishi and Mujahid, Ahmed’s commentary usually featured fluctuating emotions and overtly excitable surges. These may have sounded irritating when Pakistan, but it eventually turned Iftikhar into a commentating sensation after he accompanied the team’s two thrilling victories with shouts and jumps in the commentary box.

The famous duo of Chishty Mujahid and Iftikhar Ahmed

Ahmed and Mujahid become the new Kureishi and Markear of cricket commentary. Ahmed would continue to hone his excitable style and Mujahid would compliment him with his dryer, calmer and wittier ways of commentating.

In 1978, journalist and publisher, Munir Hussain, introduced Urdu commentary. He became the first Pakistani Urdu cricket commentator when he was given short slots on PTV and Radio Pakistan in between the longer slots reserved for Kureishi, Ahmed and Mujahid during the series against India.

Also introduced during the said series as an Urdu commentator was former Pakistan seam bowler, captain and heartthrob, Fazal Mahmood. Kureishi was not happy with the proceedings and suggested that ‘English language lends itself to cricket commentary like no other language.’ His protest was overruled.

Just as Hindi cricket commentary had had some rather odd and funny teething problems in India, Urdu commentary too came out sounding rather odd at first, when the commentators actually tried to translate each and every cricketing term into Urdu.

Fazal during his short commentating stint in 1978 (Picture from DAWN Archives).

For example, during the second Test in the India series in Lahore, this is how Fazal explained a ball bowled by Imran Khan to Mohindar Amernath:

‘Imran bhaagtey hooay aye (Imran comes running in), gaind karaai (he bowls), tapa gaind (a bouncer), Mohinder nein bala chalaya (Mohinder hooks/swings the bat), khilari gaind kay peechey (fielder chasing the ball) par chaar ranzain… (but it’s four runs)!’ Runs were curiously called ‘ranzain.’

According to Peter Obroune’s book ‘Cornered Tiger,’ Munir Hussain even tried to translate the googly delivery as ‘dhokay-baz gaind’ (deceitful ball). Eventually, things smoothened out and Urdu commentators began to use more and more English terms.

But it was Ahmed and Mujahid who became stars in their own right and could now be seen signing autographs, whereas Munir was joined by Hassan Jaleel and Bashir Khan as Urdu commentary began being given more time on the air. Another English commentator who joined the ranks was Shahzad Humayun. But he faded away after a brief impact in the early 1980s.

Though Mujahid became as famous as Ahmed, he remained to be a very private person. Ahmed on the other hand, who was an extrovert, became the new Kureishi, socializing with the players and befriending them. He particularly became a very good friend and confidant of Imran Khan and often advised him on a number of cricketing matters. Muneer too befriended leading Pakistani players (especially Javed Miandad).

By the late 1970s Radio Pakistan was sending Kureishi, Mujahid, Ahmed and Munir to cover Pakistan’s foreign tours. And in 1981 Ahmed became the first Pakistani cricket commentator to appear on Australia’s Channel 9 (alongside Richie Benaud, Tony Grieg, Keith Stackpole, Tony Cozier and Bill Lawry) to do commentary during Pakistan’s 1981 tour of Australia.

In the mid-1980s Mujahid, Ahmed and Munir reached the peak of their fame when they began to do commentary during the various ODI tournaments in Sharjah. It was Iftikhar who was commentating when Miandad hit that famous winning six against India in Sharjah in 1986.

Munir Hussain (left) and Iftikhar Ahmed (right) with Imran Khan in the mid-1980s. (Picture courtesy: Akhbar-e-Watan).

Perhaps it was their stint during the 1987 World Cup (in India and Pakistan) that turned out to be these commentators’ last hurrah.

The voices fade away...

As the trend of former players becoming full-time commentators began to take hold, Kureishi all but retired from the field and new cricket fans began to increasingly compare Ahmed and Mujahid with men like Benaud, Grieg, Ian Chappell, Lawry, Henry Blofeld, Ray Illingworth and Tony Lewis; whose commentary was now available more widely due to the expanding TV coverage of cricket matches.

It is interesting to note that whereas Mujahid and Ahmed had risen with a bang (in 1978) they departed from the field with a whimper. It is now hard to point out a particular year in which their once popular and loved voices suddenly vanished from TV and radio, but one won’t be too off the mark to suggest 1993 as the year when their popularity (if not careers) began to rapidly wither away.

When Pakistan toured the West Indies in 1993 (under Wasim Akram), Britain’s new TV network, SkyTV, and India’s equally new StarTV, were covering the series. The channels invited just one Pakistani commentator to join their panel of commentators, which was packed with former West Indian, Australian and English cricketers (except the veteran Tony Cozier).

The Pakistani who happened to be invited was not Ahmed or Mujahid, who had been dominating English commentary in Pakistan ever since the late 1970s and across 1980s; it was the former Pakistan fast bowler and captain, Imran Khan, who had retired from cricket in 1992.

Though Mujahid, Ahmed, Munir, Hassan Jaleel and a few other new (Urdu) commentators would continue to do commentating stints on radio, they were almost entirely overshadowed by international commentary panels formed and hired by various new private TV networks. These panels (that largely included former players), would travel to the countries where the networks were contracted to cover cricket series.

Very rarely were local commentators invited to join the panels and many (once famous commentators) faded away in countries like Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka.

In retirement: Iftikhar Ahmed and Omar Kureishi enjoying a cup of tea in 2003.

In the late 1990s, former Pakistan opening batsman, Ramiz Raja, was offered a stint on an international commentators’ panel that now required the commentators to go through rigorous training.

Ramiz has gone on to become perhaps the most well-known Pakistani commentator in international cricket. His example was soon followed by other players such as Wasim Akram, Aamir Sohail and Waqar Younis.

In 2011, almost a decade and a half after their presence and fame began to wither away, Ahmed and Mujahid were invited (by PTV) to do a post-match discussion show.

After that, Mujahid was somewhat successful in reviving his career as a commentator as he got hired by Tensports to commentate on Pakistan’s matches in the UAE. But Ahmed retired again after the short 2011 stint. He migrated to Canada where he still lives.

Kureishi, who had also made a name for himself as an author and a popular columnist (for DAWN), passed away in 2005. Munir Hussain passed away in 2013.

Hassan Jaleel still does commentary for radio and TV, mostly during Pakistan’s domestic cricket tournaments.

Funny bits...

• During Pakistan’s home series against India in 1978, PTV had invited former Indian captain, Lala Amarnath, to accompany Pakistani commentators as an expert. Lala, who was an old man by then, had a habit of going into non-stop, stream-of-conscience monologues when asked about his views on a particular aspect of the on-going match.

During the third day of the Test match in Karachi, Iftikhar Ahmed asked him a question during a drinks break. Lala kept on talking throughout the break and was still talking when play resumed. Iftikhar continued to politely interrupt: ‘okay, okay, thank you, okay, okay, thank you ..’

But when he realized that the former Indian skipper would just not stop, he cut him off and began to comment on the game. Lala reacted angrily and almost shouted: ‘Quiet, let me finish!’ After an awkward silence, he added: ‘What’s the hurry, no?’

• In the same series, when Mushtaq Mohammad (who was also a leg-break bowler) bowled a googly to an Indian batsman, Munir Hussain, in his first major stint as an Urdu commentator fished for an Urdu translation of the googly ball and came up with ‘dhokay-baaz gaind’ (treacherous ball). He said this with a completely straight face.

The enterprising Munir Hussain.

• Munir Hussain was also a successful publisher and owned a famous Urdu sport’s monthly, Akbar-e-Watan. He was in India as a commentator for Radio Pakistan during Pakistan’s disastrous tour of India in late 1979. His magazine would publish some fantastic and exclusive photos of Pakistani players visiting parties thrown by Bollywood actors and actresses.

But when Pakistan began to lose Test matches and Pakistani and Indian tabloids began to whisper about many of the Pakistani players’ romantic, sexual and alcohol-drenched escapades on the tour; Hussain, who was close to Pakistan captain Asif Iqbal, suddenly started to publish heart-felt bits about how nice the players actually were.

In a January 1980 issue of Akhbar-e-Jehan (after Pakistan were 1-down in the series), Munir sent a report on how Pakistan’s left-arm spinner, Iqbal Qasim, had ‘been like a mother’ to the squad’s other left-arm spinner, Abdul Raqueeb, during the latter’s brief illness ion the tour. The headline of the report read: ‘Qasim nein Raqueeb ki maan ka role ada keeya.’ Again, all done with a straight face.

• During the first Test in Pakistan’s home series against Australia in 1980, Omar Kureishi was commentating when he suddenly stopped after a crashing sound was heard in the background. The sound was soon followed by a burst of giggling.

According to Iftikhar Ahmed (many years later), a commentator (Ahmed didn’t take his name) was sitting and looking bored in a chair in the commentary box when the chair suddenly broke and the commentator landed hard on his backside. This triggered an uncontrollable fit of giggling among the other commentators. The funny commotion was heard live on TV by the audiences.

• In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Pakistani commentators had a strange habit of asking a guest (a cricketer or an expert) a question but then looking elsewhere, as if they were not interested at all in what the guest had to say.

Some players like Miandad would continue to answer without bothering to see whether the commentator was exhibiting any interest or not, while others would get a tad perplexed and stop mid-sentence only to be asked to continue by the commentator, who would again begin to look elsewhere, prompting the guest to stop again.

PTV’s famous satire show, Fifty-Fifty brilliantly parodied this habit in 1981. During a match in an ODI tournament in Sharjah in 1985, Iftikhar Ahmed asked former Pakistan captain, Asif Iqbal, a question. Just as Asif began to answer, Ahmed turned the other way and began to look towards a spectators’ stand. Asif stopped. He looked confused. Iftikhar turned his attention back towards Asif again, asking him to go on. As Asif began from the top again, Ahmed now almost got up to see the scene underneath the commentary box. This again confused Asif and he stopped. Iftikhar pulled himself back on his seat, looked at Asif and then told the viewers it was time for a break.

• An embarrassing episode took place live on PTV at the end of the second Test (in Hyderabad) during Pakistan’s home series against New Zealand.

New Zealand lost the match and its captain, Jeremy Coney, was invited by Iftikhar Ahmed for a post-match interview. Iftikhar began praising Pakistani bowling and asked Coney whether he thought Pakistan had the best spinners. Coney immediately flew off the handle and began to angrily crib about the umpiring.

Ahmed as usual had started to look elsewhere after asking the question, but suddenly became extremely interested and tried hard to change the subject. But Coney refused to stop badmouthing the umpires. He concluded by saying that his team was now thinking of abandoning the tour. Saying this, he got up and left. Ahmed turned to the camera and said: ‘Well … thank you, Coney, we wish you and your team best of luck.’

No, he wasn’t being sarcastic. Just shell-shocked.

• Iftikhar Ahmed was a much loved commentator. But sometimes his excitability used to get the better of him. As a result, he became famous for certain exaggerations. One of his most famous phrases were ‘It’s up in the aaaiirrr …!’

He used to shout that phrase every single time the ball was hit in the air and there was a chance for a catch. But it got quite funny when some shots that saw the ball whiz across a mere few inches above the ground would trigger the ‘it’s up in the aiirrrr …!’ chant from Ahmed. Viewers would be left baffled, thinking a player needed to be not more than two inches tall to catch that one.

Bashir Khan.

• Former Pakistan captain, AH Kardar, was invited by PTV to do commentary during Pakistan’s tour of India in 1987.

Kardar, who loved his drink, would often arrive in the commentary box all tipsy. But he did a pretty good job until the moment when Pakistan (under Imran Khan), won a nail-biting Test (and with it the series).

Kardar was partnering Urdu commentator, Bashir Ahmed, at the time, and when Pakistan took the last Indian wicket, Kardar erupted: ‘We have done it, Bashir! We have defeated the Hindus! We have defeated the Hindus!’

Kardar was a staunch nationalist and patriot but in no way was he ever a bigot or overtly religious. That’s why after Bashir Khan noticed that Kardar may have just tripped over himself, he quite diplomatically and quietly pushed the microphone away from Kardar, nervously commenting: 'Kardar sahib bohat khush haien. Khushi achi cheez hoti hai …' (Mr. Kardar is very happy. And it's good to be happy).

The only consensus seems to be that something is rotten in the state of Pakistan. The general diagnosis is that the problem lies in the nature of democracy here.

When Hamlet grappled with his existential crisis, it was Yorick's skull that reminded him of his mortality. Pakistan's democracy, even when not under the guillotine, is continually reminded of its mortality by the powers that be. What varies is the nature of the reminders.

Pianist Andre Tchaikowsky on his death donated his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company to be used as the skull of Yorick. But the Company preferred using a fake one on stage, stating,

The real power of theatre lies in the complicity of illusion between the actor and the audience. It would be inappropriate in the same way that we would not be using real blood.

So the pact between actors and audience is that to preserve illusions, a representation would replace the real thing.

In the same manner, we will not have troops jumping over PTV gates to organise a post-midnight speech. Instead, we have organised mobs of people to counter organised representatives of people, till representation itself requires mediation.

But to assume that the entire episode is 'scripted' is too simplistic.

This particular stage now allows spontaneity, like interactive theatre, where the play proceeds in tandem with audience reactions. Or to bring in social theory, where the representation stops being a copy of the real, the point of origin becomes irrelevant and it takes on a life of its own: simulacrum.

So while Imran Khan, Tahirul Qadri, militants and religio-political right wing parties may have originated as pet projects, that no longer suffices as the explicatory roadmap.

From the start, this standoff existed only because of the record of the army’s role in politics. It is either the perception that they crafted the dharnas, or alternately, that the dharnas would provide a gateway to their entry.

Also read:Enter the chief

It comes down to civil military dynamics and without this protective shadow, not many would care if Imran Khan parked himself in his container till the Baltoro melted.

Even if the prime minister did ask the army to negotiate this political crisis, it would be misplaced to identify this as the singular moment of civilian surrender.

Last year, he agreed to the formation of the National Security Council that institutionalised the role of the armed forces in civil decision-making, a demand he had been resisting since the Jehangir Karamat days.

Editorial:Dangerous trends

This is the first elected government to bring in the NSC, previously instituted by military dictators Ayub Khan, Zia-ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf.

Chaired by the Prime Minister, this now includes key ministers, as well as top military leadership, including all chiefs of staff and chairman joint chief of staff. Its ambit includes defence, foreign policy, internal and national security.

Nawaz also withdrew on the India trade policy and MFN front.

He additionally ensured passage of the Pakistan Protection Act the previous government had resisted, which has given sweeping powers to the security apparatus.

His hostility to Musharraf is personal. Assessments of his prior posturing against the establishment seem overstated.

What then is the message given to the government in this particular drama?

A reminder that it’s susceptible to arm-twisting even if the humerus isn't being popped out of the socket?

Also read:20 questions, 14 days into the crisis

Only the naive would have imagined this was not so in any case.

The army is entrenched within the political sphere, that’s not news. But this time the Prime Minister himself activated 245 and 111 and perhaps even asked for mediation.

Contrast this to the antagonistic statement issued after a corps commanders' meeting was called on the Kerry Lugar bill.

The perceived formal invitation to come inside, which the government is officially denying, is a symbolic defeat but the army’s always retained the keys to the house.

Or is the asymmetry worsened by the possible resignation of one of the Sharif brothers? The previous government also saw the exit of an elected prime minister but completed its term anyway.

On the other hand, the army has received clear signals if it was testing public waters for a possible coup. All mainstream political parties in the parliament and senate banded together on the bottom-line that a takeover will not be countenanced. Civil groups were equally emphatic with avowals from journalists' and lawyers’ associations and political and social activists. The courts have iterated that no unconstitutional steps will be tolerated and no PCOs would go through.

Even the dharna-ites had not been able to overtly implore the army, albeit the leaders sped off within 10 minutes of the beckoning.

An ouster that previously would take a few hours behind closed doors was not possible, despite two weeks and mass mobilisation. They had to resort to what is being referred to as a ‘constitutional coup’.

Meanwhile, the dependency flow between the two has grown less one-sided. The army needs the government to own Zarb-e-Azb and the IDP crisis. They may not be panicking about militants’ movements into Parachinar and throughout Balochistan, but they will not want an ISIS like situation either.

After four decades, it is now a fighting army, a pathologically different entity because cadres at the battlefront have had to bury fellow soldiers. Importantly, when the army's militarily active, it needs continual civilian cover and support. And then, they need cooperation on the Musharraf case.

Contextualise this with the civilian pushback over the past few years.

An elected government completed its term in office. 58 2B is gone. General Musharraf has been unable to leave the country. The previous ISI chief had to explain himself in parliament and there military budget is now presented there. An elected prime minister acknowledged the 'state within a state' and the need of civilian control over ISI. They have themselves pleaded incompetence in locating Osama Bin Laden in the heartland.

The dollar taps are drying up on the Afghanistan front and the remainder is tied to continued civilian supremacy. Rightly or wrongly, the ultimate taboo of publicly naming a serving ISI chief in a reprehensible act has been broken.

The army’s political imprint is criticised in the mainstream media and the social media is brimming with irreverence towards who were once the sole arbiters of power. Being called 'pro-establishment' is now a slur.

The edifice of the panopticon is fractured. The prison design by Bentham allowed a watchman to observe the inmates without them knowing that they were observed, making them self-regulate, rendering bars and chains unnecessary for domination.

Being watched was the main deterrence but the occupants are now defiant.

The watcher has to either storm in and punish, or depute further guards or let it go. In either case, the invisible power to ensure conformity has ruptured.

Explore:No winner in the game

The strengthening of democracy is an incremental and frustrating process.

The 'other side' is not going to pack up, proclaim the error of its ways and exit. Rattled by the completion of the previous government’s term, sections of the army have spoken against the army chief who allowed it.

The current government suffered because of the absolute majority it came in with, making it less susceptible to manipulation that plague coalitions. The trajectory of civil-military ties will remain dialectical. It may be push and pull, two steps forward one step back, but it’s not back to square one.

We undermine ourselves by not acknowledging the unfolding.

Yet, as with all our other contradictory developments, political discourse has been harmed. All players are now rightwing, the opposing sides, as well as their allies, and they have been given the signal that mobs matter more than the parliamentary process.

The space for progressive politics is almost entirely eclipsed. And the next time a horde much bigger than this descends, such as the TNSM one that near-paralysed Malakand and got demands for Sharia implemented, who will go out and refuse?

But then again, who would have done so earlier?

‘The rest is silence’.

They are the underbellies of Britain; streets where the organisation and sterility and order of the Western world are suddenly suspended.

Here, people take chances with the rules; throw rubbish in the streets, double-park, let their toddlers roam wild, jump before cars.

Pakistan and Pakistanis live on in these British ghettos; where curries and conversations are reconstructed to be just like they were in the homeland, before a father, or a grandfather or even a great grandfather left to work in Britain.

They were the lucky ones, these chosen forbears, they got the chance to earn in pounds, even if the cost of doing so was far greater than they had imagined. Culture lost, morality dislocated and worse of all the disdain and indignity of serving those that were once your conquerors.

The story of the racism Pakistanis face in Britain has been oft told and much repeated. The ensuing generations, of original British migrants, are raised in stunted, suspicious communities. Theirs is the sentence of belonging nowhere; neither to Pakistan nor to Britian, neither present nor past.

Take a look:British PM backs Harry after racist remark

Extremist recruiters lurk in mosques, predatory to their confusions of culture, parasitic to their fervid desires for authenticity, real Islam, true Pakistan, hyphenated Britain.

Unwanted by mainstream British culture, whose encounter with racism and religious difference refuses to adulterate the "britishness" or include the brown-skinned or the mosque-worshiping; British Pakistani youth are the vulnerable progeny of the already marginalised.

It is no surprise then, that the worst, most egregious moral scourges dwell within this fetid environment of secrets and suspicion.

In a report released this week, the borough of Rotherham, which has a significant Pakistani British population, detailed how several men of Pakistani British descent have been involved in nearly 1400 cases of sexual exploitation of children between the years 1997-2013.

The report was shocking not simply for its crime stats, but also because the law enforcement officials and social service workers, who should have come to the aid of the exploited children failed to do so. Following the release of the report, several law enforcement and council officials who did not act in a timely manner, have offered their resignations.

In the aftermath, Muslim groups and Pakistani groups have all condemned the criminals; endorsing the consensus that concerns over racism should never have prevented local officials who could have spoken out from doing so.

That is all very well and commendable for its good intentions and meaningful outrage; but ineffective in exposing the genealogy of silence and subterfuge which allowed 1400 children to be brutalised and trafficked by ruthless criminals, belonging to their community for over a decade.

Explore:My stolen childhood

To truly address that, there must first be recognition of the fact that British Pakistanis lack a vocabulary for having any honest conversations about sexual exploitation within their families or their communities.

Shoved under tables by taboos, the issue gets condemned to silence and in the shame-based dynamics of a culture where visible piety is equated with actual goodness.

A man who rapes a child must be cursed and condemned by their community, but if the community itself cannot find the words to do so; to acknowledge the helplessness of the victim and the cruelty of the criminal; the crime does not exist. It is invisible.

With the obscurantist clouds of undeserved blame and castigation lingering so low and so dark, the reality of actual evil cannot be seen.

It is not just the silences of the immigrant culture which helped to sustain this criminal activity.

The other factor is the trend of stigmatisation and marginalisation in Britain, which encouraged their police to rather keep aloof of the criminals (and let them go about their business) than do the right thing and risk being labeled 'racists'.

This second silence — which shoves immigrants in ghettos, refuses to allow cultures to evolve and poses tradition as an argument for immigrant exclusion — is also to blame for the depth of the depravity, the sheer number of victims and just how untouched the perpetrators were for so long.

The crowd at the ‘Azadi Square’ seems to be growing each day over at the Red Zone in Islamabad.

Depending on what channel you are watching, various estimates will be given and dozens of experts will ponder over possible outcomes of these protests led by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Imran Khan and Pakistan Awami Tehreek’s Tahirul Qadri.

Only when the live telecasts and noisy talk shows break for the hourly news bulletin, will you perhaps hear about a bigger crowd lurking in Pakistan’s shadows – the one million internally displaced that everyone seems to have forgotten.

While the speeches, deadlines, concerts and rainstorms continue in Islamabad, operation Zarb-e-Azb continues in North Waziristan.

Also read:IDPs want time frame for their return

Every now and then, you hear about some top TTP commander killed in the military offensive but snippets of such news aren’t really what the media are interested in currently.

No, it’s totally okay to show Qadri’s Friday khutba live – no need to inform the country about the over 400,000 children that are on the move at the moment or are living in shelters with their families in terrible conditions.

But the broadcast media isn’t the only one at fault.

In their quest to banish Nawaz Sharif, Khan and Qadri, self-appointed saviours of the country, both seem to be ignoring the issue as well. Once, every now and then, they both pay tribute to the Army but I am yet to hear more than a few words about the IDPs and their condition.

The government seems to be failing at this too.

According to the Pakistan representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR only had the resources to provide tents and other non-food items for 500,000 people for six months. What exactly is the government providing then?

Currently over 1,209 schools in Bannu are being used as shelters – with summer vacations now coming to an end, where will these people go?

Know more:Schools being vacated of IDPs

The UNHCR has complained over and over again that government agencies in Bannu need to allow NGOs and relief workers to perform their services in the region so that before winter hits, better arrangements can be made for the displaced persons.

According to the latest government figures, 75 per cent of those who have fled from North Waziristan are women and children. If the UNHCR can’t work there and the government isn’t doing much either – who will help these families?

The show in Islamabad isn’t going to be wrapping up for a while it seems. Khan’s treadmill has arrived so that his exercise regime can continue while Qadri’s got his ‘kaffan’ ready, with graves being dug up for all his supporters ready to battle whatever comes their way.

The government will thus continue to focus on its survival and the military will go on trying to target militant hideouts up in the mountains.

Who will help these displaced people, who have fled their homes and may not be returning for months to come? Tents are not the only things one would need when abandoning their home.

Take a look:IDPs without CNIC being denied assistance

With the opposition in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa busy in trying to strengthen their no-confidence motion against Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, and him focusing on his party’s Azadi movement, it seems even the provincial leaders are paying very little attention to what is happening in Bannu.

A colossal crisis is setting in deeper each day, but power politics has gripped the province far more strongly.

For KP to become the ‘model province’ PTI had vouched for, attention needs to be given to the IDP crisis it is currently going through. But with all the leaders turned towards the capital, there is little hope it seems.

Usually, during military offensives and natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes, you see the softer side of Pakistan as volunteers unite to help the victims and donate heavily.

This time, while we are so busy watching the stopwatch on our televisions doing a countdown of Qadri’s daily deadlines, we are completely ignoring the one million people in need of our help.

So let me ask again, with the media keeping them off the airwaves; our leaders continuing to look the other way; and us staying glued to the Azadi show, who will help these people out?

This is a blog and writing one is perhaps inviting trouble these days.

Why? Because blogging means I am addressing the social media audience of Pakistan and it is very lonely out here if you're not a PTI supporter.

It gets worse if you also do not support PPP, MQM, PML-N or JI. So I am pretty much on my own, or at least without protection from a social media team which will support and defend my stance without even paying heed to the merits of my stance.

But just because I don't support a political party in Pakistan does not mean I am as irrelevant to the debate as “an animal”, in the wise words of the great Khan.

It just means that I haven't found a party which truly represents my political views; more a shortcoming of the parties than my own.

Also read:Cannot think of marriage before Naya Pakistan: Imran

For example, I feel strongly about having non-Muslim parliamentarians contest for the office of the Prime Minister along with their Muslim colleagues; for the second amendment to be repealed; for Hindus and Sikhs to have their personal marriage laws; for LGBT rights to be recognised.

But I cannot find a party which represents any or all of that. And for my rights and views, I contested elections as an independent candidate so I could at least vote for what I believed in, even if that meant voting for myself.

But most importantly, even when I didn’t find any representation amongst the defenders of ‘Purana Pakistan’ and the harbingers of ‘Naya Pakistan’, I did not choose to leave Pakistan, did not abandon the system or called for its derailment.

Instead, I chose to strengthen it by joining it, by becoming part of the process that would hopefully make this country more literate, more syncretic with new cultures and more accepting of change.

And so when I speak of the future I cannot help but think of ‘Naya’ Pakistan, not because I look forward to it but because it appears that regardless of what I may like, I am being ushered into it.

But what I find quite troubling is that though the founder of ‘Naya’ Pakistan calls it human nature to be political, I am not allowed to express my political views by his troops.

Read on:Imran flays PM Nawaz for 'defaming' military

A significant number of my followers on Facebook/Twitter are PTI supporters who it appears follow my posts only to keep a check on my comments in relation to their party, so they can respond to the same. I have seen acquaintances, friends and even close friends who support PTI express their discontent with my political views.

But it isn't disagreement which I have a problem with. When someone tells me I'm wrong, at least it comes with the presumption that they respect my opinions, if not my reasoning.

What I instead find obnoxious is that every time I have dared to question Imran Khan’s policy (not his integrity, mind you) the tabdeeli razakars have fired back asking how much I was paid for it.

I am still fairly new to politics and journalism. Accomplished and credible journalists of much better standing have faced similar questions on having dared to question any kind of ‘tabdeeli’.

And it is this erroneous notion that is scary — the idea that anyone who is not from the Khan fan club is corrupt.

The biggest loss here is that this fanaticism has isolated people on both sides of the divide. People do not want to comment, post or engage because they know they will not be participating in a dialogue but a tirade of allegations.

Imran Khan has preached this time and again in all his speeches. When he thought it wasn’t enough for him to do so, he invited a child on stage to do the same. That child, for all purposes may not even understand what's going on around him, but he is showcased criticising the prime minister of this country.

Khan's slogan is not “Go corruption Go”. It is “Go Nawaz Go” — an approach that has made it acceptable, if not popular, to attack people’s integrity as opposed to their policies.

I had the opportunity to interview Awab Alvi in his capacity as the Social Media head for PTI, for my show on Dawn News. The interview wasn't aired, but let me tell you that when I asked Awab why Imran had to stoop as low as commenting on Parliamentarians wetting their shalwars, he admitted that Imran was wrong to make that comment.

As a leader, he should know better than resorting to such language, and I'd like it very much for PTI's senior leadership to realise that, just as Awab did.

Explore:Of wet shalwars and televised 'revolutions'

The incident leads to the age-long question as to why can’t any politician in Pakistan — especially those who speak of change — educate his/her voters and supporters so the traditionally disgraceful political rhetoric can be uplifted to a degree where it is civil and cultured?

It's sad and ironic that Imran's supporters not only enjoy such attacks on the personal integrity of other politicians but also defend it, while all along criticising similar remarks from talking heads of opposing political parties — Talal Chaudhry, for instance.

Let me admit here that I'm not blind to the antics of other political parties. A PPP member claimed corruption was his right, an MQM parliamentarian once claimed mujras took place in every house in Punjab and the PML-N’s demeanour has already been highlighted above.

But, as I said that should have been ‘Purana Pakistan’ — the Pakistan I am disillusioned with. The question is, what is it that the ‘Naya Pakistan’ is offering me that is genuinely different from the old? How is it better, more refined or more accepting than the old? And not in the least, is it ready to self-reflect?

A genuine ‘Naya’ Pakistan would see its leader apologise to the nation for voting Maulana Fazlur Rehman for prime minister as an MNA in 2002 before he ridicules him on any diesel permits.

It would see its leader share his vision on women’s rights after having opposed the women rights bill in 2006. I would like to see its leader accept his mistake for supporting a dictator and partaking in the tainted elections of 2002.

Know more:Civil-military ties, not back to square one

Finally, I would have believed Khan’s Pakistan to be ‘Naya’ if instead of debating over who invited General Raheel Sharif to the party, he would have simply asked him to stay out of civilian matters.

Someone who has blamed the army and a certain dictator’s policies for the rise in militancy in Pakistan and has said time and again that a civilian government is best suited to deal with the crisis at hand shouldn't have entertained any interference from the army.

At the end of the day, it appears silly that the genuine democracy of ‘Naya Pakistan’ is being achieved because the old one may be threatened by a coup.