Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur
The adage that 'Marriages are made in heavens and suffered on earth', is based on vast human experience and is generally accepted. What this axiom does not cover are the types of marriages that are not strictly marriages, because some marriages though marriages may not be marriages at all. In these types of marriages, the consequences are mostly suffered by those who have nothing to do with them.
These are the marriages of conveniences, although these tend to produce more inconveniences than conveniences. In fact, their only offspring is inconvenience. Such marriages sometime become a necessity for the aspirant of the third term prime minister and include wooing a tyrant, who is totally unacceptable to the people, with the sole purpose of adorning the corridors of power under the name of democracy and making use of the acquired power trappings for personal ends. This action is an outrage against all political, moral and legal norms and is as reprehensible as it is unacceptable.
Politicians endeavouring to bail out beleaguered tyrants for personal perks and privileges are guilty of abominable crimes against the people and their sovereign rights. Such marriages sound the death knell not only for democracy, but the country itself because the rights and aspirations of the people are sacrificed and violated for personal gains and self-aggrandisement.
I have been wondering how one should term the present moves by Benazir Bhutto to give a new lease of life and legitimacy to Musharraf, who is floundering and sinking in the morass that he has created for himself during the eight years of his arbitrary rule?
After much thought and deliberation I arrived at the conclusion that this marriage of convenience, which is bound to sorely inconvenience the entire people here, can safely be called a 'watta-satta' marriage. This in simpler terms means you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. In this 'watta satta' the rights of the people are to be exchanged for power and pelf and at stake are the rights of the people who desire and demand an immediate end to military rule cloaked by 'sham democracy'.
It in fact more closely resembles a 'Vani' or a 'swara' marriage because there is gross and disgraceful violation of principles, both political and moral, not to mention the legal and constitutional ones. Depredations both physical and spiritual have been in vogue in the political and matrimonial fields here and this is the most despicable example of political opportunism and deceit.
I would advice 'the daughter of West', yes West, to consult the expert and indisputable authority on marriages of convenience, Maulana Fazlur Rehman. If you notice that he in his marriage of convenience, which spawned the monster of the 17th Amendment, was the shy bride and has now transformed into the detested mother-in law who runs with the hares and hunts with the hounds with extreme agility in spite of his age and body weight. A feat only he can accomplish. He is still looking for a suitor and Chaudhry Shujaat is once again proposing him as an alternative to Benazir. The only hitch is the White House occupant.
The present 'watta-satta' is not the first time for either Benazir or for Musharraf. His first 'watta-satta' was with the PML (Q), when after accusing the entire breed of politicians here as incompetent, corrupt and unacceptable, he had brazenly gone ahead and glorified and accepted the inveterate turncoats and incorrigibly corrupt politicians as his mainstay and bulwark. He will soon see how these rats abandon the sinking ship and sink it will, in spite of the lifeline being thrown by BB.
Benazir's last 'watta-satta' was with Ghulam Ishaq Khan (GIK) when she had turned the tables on Nawaz Sharif. She had reneged on her supposedly inviolable principled differences with GIK for the pleasures of a second tenure in the Prime Minister House along with the polo ponies of Mr Zardari. So both are quite accomplished and gifted in this particular form of marriage.
As is always the case in soap opera marriages, there are conditions imposed from both sides. Benazir is demanding a repeal of Article 58 (2) (b), a share of one-third in the interim government, repeal of the clause barring her from third time as prime minister and withdrawal of corruption cases against her and her equally corrupt party members. Musharraf is demanding his re-election as president, his re-election as president and his re-election as president. He seems to be obsessed with the idea!
If this marriage is unfortunately consummated, they will be gifted with the power to deprive the people of the right of freedom of expression, the right to association, the right to elect representatives of their choice, the right to sovereignty, the right to good governance, the right to transparency in all government dealings, the right to hold the government accountable for its deeds, the right to clean water, the inalienable right to education and health and all those multifarious rights which citizens have the right to expect and demand of their governments, in return for fighting the 'war on terror' in the region.
This iniquitous arrangement will automatically give the contractors the authority to deny people their basic rights under their plea of 'war on terror', 'moderation', 'the writ of the state' and of course the ever present 'national interest'. They will have the complete backing of their best man, the US, to ride roughshod over the rights of the people as long as they obsequiously fight its war against al Qaeda. It is the people who will lose heavily and irreversibly.
You may have noticed that ostensibly the participants of this soap opera 'watta-satta' do not tire of claiming that this nuptial knot will benefit the people, while in fact there is absolute disregard for the wishes of the peoples. The main actors of the soap opera and consequently the main culprits of the envisaged heinous crime against people have, like any other cheap soap opera, threatened dire consequences if these love-birds are not allowed to have their way. The threats parcelled being that of emergency rule, of martial law and of takeover by the fundamentalists. All this duplicity and deceit is reprehensible.
The 'watta-satta' deal involves the fate and future of the people, but they have not been made privy to the underhand dealings. Even the party members of the contractors have been left high and dry, so the thought that what is about to be spawned this time around sends shivers down the spine.
In case there is a divorce after the marriage, as happened after the 17th Amendment, there will be clauses for the 'golden handshake'. It would be naïve to expect a shrewd dealer like Benazir, when it comes to her own interests, to be without a parachute when the plane stalls, but she may not be as lucky as Maulana Fazlur Rehman who is still enjoying the benefits in spite of a quick divorce because times have changed since March 9th and people have become more aware. As for Musharraf, his goose is cooked with or without the deal.
The adage at the beginning needs to be changed to 'Marriages are made in Washington and suffered by the people in Pakistan'. This marriage is a double whammy for the people here, a whammy which they may not survive because of the lethal ingredients, Mush and BB, it is made up of. There is not a single redeeming factor for the people in this entire soap opera.
There is also a strong possibility that like in old Indian movies, the hero will dramatically declare, "Yeh shaadi nahin hosakti". Though it is difficult to predict just yet who is destined to throw the spanner into the works, but this drop scene seems inevitable. It could be the Supreme Court, civil society and the lawyers, or a mass uprising of the people.
They fail to understand that they will stand discredited, disgraced and exposed in front of people either way. The love-birds have become so blinded by their self-interest and egoism that they have entirely lost their bearings and reason.
Sheikh Saadi says in Gulistan:
"Ai Aarabi Ba Ka'aba Nami Rassi,
Kay Ruhk Ba Turkistan Ast."
It means, "O' Bedouin you will never reach the Ka'aba,
Because you are travelling towards Turkistan."
They are never going to reach their cherished goal of remaining in power eternally, because they have failed to understand the writings on the wall and have in their misperception of reality started considering themselves infallible, indispensable and inevitable, which they are certainly not.
P.S. There is news of apparent hitches in this 'watta-satta', but keeping in view their predilection for power, their unimpeachable subservience to the US, and their coteries of assiduous sycophants, I would not yet rule out their clinching the deal.
Some columnists have been mentioning astrologers' predictions. I hope people are not swayed by these. A Sheikh Saadi Hikayat tells: A sage saw ruckus going on outside a house he was passing by, on enquiry he learnt that the owner was a 'kahin' (astrologer) who had unexpectedly returned to find his wife with her paramour. The sage said, "One who does not know what transpires in his house, how can he claim to see into the future?"
The writer has been associated with the Baloch national struggle |
