Revolution:A Distant Dream

 Pakistan is one of those countries where political environment remains highly charged. In almost ever five to ten years, someone arrives at the central stage, chants slogans of revolution and starts threatening the existing setup.

  In different eras, the country has witnessed different waves of uncertainty and turbulence in politics. In one of the major movements, a crismatic leader having leftists' ideology was leading the cause while in the majority of others, rightists were the central figures. But, no one could able to transform the culture.

 For the most recent decade, Pakistan-Tareek-Insaf (having mixed ideology: semi-liberal and semi-religious) has been trying to get traction of the masses in the name of revolution. Its main stance is to end corruption and challenge dynasties and dictatorship. In the recent event, it's supporters showed strong resistance against the establishment and government when their leader was detained by the anti-corruption watchdog, on  alleged corruption cases, tacitly, for criticizing the top brass of the military. 

  Since the event, many political pundits have been saying that Pakistani society is on the verge of a revolution. Captain led party will bring true democracy in Pakistan, eradicate corruption and establish strong and effective model of governance to change fate of an ordinary Pakistani. The leader will put fullstop on interference of  strong unseen powers in the politics etc because he has exposed their negative role and educated the masses. 

  But the matter of fact is that revolution is still a distant dream. The party is deprived of many key ingredients that play pivotal role in transforming a society.

  First of all, the party lacks the kind of personality suited to play the leader's role. The person on the central stage belongs to affluent class. He has  spent  most of his life in a luxurious way in posh societies,  the man himself admits the fact. History says that this kind of  leadership is not the right choice  for bringing a revolution as it has no idea of real  issues and challenges of ordinary people. Simply, no doubt, he was an excellent leader of the cricket team but leading the nation for this noble cause is another cup of tea.

  Even, if we suppose that the man has natural talent to lead the cause, he has not the right team to fulfill the dream. Most of the party leaders are either turncoats or business tycoons. A few of them are tribal leaders and feudal lords. Briefly, it is naive to believe that this  class will work for  prosperity and empowerment of the ordinary people at the cost of their own interests. They always remain prone to join hands with non-democratic forces. 

  Then, the supporters or masses are ill-equipped to work in the right direction for fulfillment of the dream. Firstly, they lack political acumen  because there are no student unions and real local governments  to nourish a well-informed and confident political worker.

  Meanwhile, political awareness of most of the supporters only consists of the narrative what their leaders feed to them through political debates, talkshows and speeches, which are primarily for enhancing the political capital. Therefore, in huge numbers, they are emotional and irrational . For instance, on 9th May, when the forces arrested their leader, the workers became extremely violent. They set public property on fire which had nothing to do with the detention and used slang to subdue their opponents' veiws. Consequently, the few are behind the bars and others are trying to justify their acts by presenting excuses. It also earned bad name for their party.

  Similarly, the majority of masses may have no time to think critically. They never raise questions like how Pakistan will  afford annoyance of the USA and west when its exports are enjoying preferential  status in the markets and the country  badly needs support of these key international actors on several issues. No one ponders over the fact that it is hard to say goodbye to IMF in immediate future as  the country has no significant means to generate revenue for running the state's affairs. They are just falling prey to popular rhetorics of their leaders. 

  In short, the die-hard fans are frustrated people. Due to inflation, unemployment, dictatorship and dynastic politics, they are  angry at the system but not fully prepared to dislodge it.

  Briefly, the current chaos at the political front is not a sign of  change. It only indicates frustration of people. If someone wants to use it for  bringing the upside down, he has to work very hard. One has to work at grassroots' level to equip common Pakistani with a balanced ideology and prepare a galaxy of comrades for leading the cause. Otherwise, , revolution is still very much a distant dream.

Written by Saqib Kiani

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