Salman Rashid

Travel writer, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society

JIT
06 July 2017

One thing I fail to understand is how so many educated, smart, well-read persons having seen the world and having lived all their lives in Pakistan can yet be fooled by the staged tragi-comic farces thrown at us from time to time. And these shows are gratis, I may add, for if they who toss them in our direction were to demand money and extract it from us by the powers invested in them by the State, there would be little we could do.

The latest such drama, ongoing and promising to be entertaining us to tears even in the year 2022, is the Joint Investigation Team investigating the Sharif family. Although from the statements of the brats of the family it seems they are investigating the JIT and not vice versa. Without delving in the statements of the previous two brats, the outpourings of the female over the last two days are telling.

I believe the woman asked the JIT why the sharif (decent, upright, honest) family was being investigated. This and other gems she unloaded on reporters made one believe that she must have had the investigating team quivering in their knickers. But the underlying message of these statements is: ‘We are in power. We have the power to plunder this country and you have no fucking right or power to ask us why we are doing what we are doing.’

And so, we have pundits on the worst television channels ever anywhere in the world making tepees of their fingers and pontificating on what will happen. By the way, making a finger tepee is the only way these semi-educated, unread morons in their shiny suits and plastic ties can acquire the faintest semblance of gravitas. But let us get on with the matter in hand.

On Twitter I have been frivolously referring to the ongoing charade as noora kushti. Back in the 1980s when American wrestling was quite the craze with most men in Pakistan, some bright spark dubbed it noora kushti – fake wrestling. It was always evident that the matches were contrived. They were only for entertainment and never to be taken as true sporting events regardless of the tons of muscles on display.

Likewise the JIT ‘grilling’ the most sharif of all families in this land and beyond is nothing but a farce. Here is my analysis of how things will unfold in the next three or four years. I base this on what I hear will be the legal procedure to be followed.

After the JIT come to some conclusion they have to share the findings with some superior court. This will possibly take us to the end of the current year, that is, 2017. As the honourable court deliberates, the prime minister will order elections. Remember, we are having elections in 2018. You don’t win any prizes for smartness for guessing who will win those elections. And if you think it’s Imran Khan, you can go to the back of the class.

The sharif prime minister will be reinstalled in the prime minister’s house as the honourable court continues its deliberations. This might take us to the end of 2018. Then the aggrieved party, that is, the sharif family, and whoever caused the JIT to be instituted will be called in to argue their cases through their legal representatives. What with all the court vacations, Eid holidays, witnesses not turning up, judges going off for Hajj and Umra etc, this travesty will continue through 2019 and perhaps into 2020. When I say 2020, I’m not talking of vision which in our case is anyway blighted. I mean the year 2020, you dopes.

Mind, in all this time we will be stuck with the sharif prime minister. As he uncertainly sits in the hot seat, the judgement on the findings of the JIT will hang on the head of this man much like the proverbial sword of Damocles. This the establishment will keep in place to keep the man in place. Savvy?

No? Okay, in plain speak: to keep the man pliable and perhaps prevent him from embarking on another hare-brained adventure like the 15th Constitutional Amendment which would have made him king for life. Or, heaven forbid, from making peace with India.

In a word, all that is going on is well-orchestrated sophistry. It has the same substance as American wrestling.