‘WHERE is the government?’ This is the cry that is reverberating throughout the country these days. At many places the shouting is a mixture of despair and anger and is accompanied by, or results in, violence.

In most cases, the call to the government is born out of the ordinary citizens’ incontrovertible plight while the government dismisses it as the work of professional malcontents or political rivals. There certainly are elements in the opposition ready to seize any opportunity to embarrass and weaken the present set-up. But they can succeed in stirring trouble only if public grievance has a basis in fact.

Of course, the question is not based on ignorance of the existence of the nine-month old government headed by a unanimously elected prime minister. It only reflects public anguish and frustration at this government’s failure to do what is expected of it. So far the people have not blamed the government for not doing something that is admittedly beyond its capacity and resources. It is the lack of effort to accomplish what is possible that is hurting ordinary Pakistanis.

The visual media is concentrating on the hardships of urban traders, workers and housewives hit by electricity/gas load-shedding or automobile-owners’ difficulties in meeting their oil/gas needs. But it is the large population of Fata and a greater part of the Frontier province that is the worst affected by the absence of firm and benevolent hands that good governance in its eyes means.

The Pakhtuns feel abandoned because they are caught in a high-cost civil war they do not expect to be over soon. They are mortally afraid of the militants who are apparently enjoying unhindered freedom to decide who will be allowed to live and on what terms and who will be exterminated and in what manner. The thousands of girls who cannot go to school because many educational institutions have been burnt down and the display of school bags in public has become hazardous, and the large number of people forced to abandon their homes want to know what has happened to the government that is charged with protecting their life and liberty.

These people are not unmindful of what the security forces are doing in their fight against terrorists/militants. Many are conscious of the constraints under which they are operating and sympathise with them over their casualties that are believed to be higher in number than officially admitted figures. But they are extremely unhappy at finding that more innocent people are dying than militants and that the people are under heavier restrictions on freedom of movement and vocation than the armed brigands. A large segment of the population finds itself trapped in the crossfire.

The situation in the northern parts is dangerously straining the patriotism of the people, gravely undermining the morale and solidarity of the security forces, and indeed posing a serious threat to the integrity of the state. A vast majority of the population is not convinced that everything that needs to be done is actually being attempted.

The public was aggrieved by the legislators’ lack of due interest in the joint parliamentary session. The resolution it adopted was full of platitudes with only a few operative sentences and even these remain unimplemented. Nobody expects a quick end to the militancy that Pakistan itself had, in its infinite foolishness, nourished but the harried Pakhtuns do have a right to demand the beginning of a process that offers reasonable guarantees of a peaceful future for them and the rest of Pakistan’s population.

Then the country’s entire population is howling in pain and anger at the cuts in energy/fuel supplies. For a long time the authorities merely trotted out figures of shortfall in electricity generation. Now they say the situation has improved because some payments have been made to the IPPs and oil has been supplied to power-generation units. The scandal of non-payment of the independent power producers’ dues was known to everybody from the very beginning. Why was this question not addressed earlier? Why was oil not supplied to power-generating units earlier? Shortage of funds? The extravagance of the satraps has not been affected by any shortage of funds.

No explanation has been offered for the scarcity of petrol and CNG nor any idea of relief to the multitude deprived of the daily wage.

The end of what is described as unannounced load-shedding is attributed to President Zardari’s personal intervention and he has asked the people not to lose patience as he is personally watching the situation. If everything is to be done by the hard-pressed head of the state, who should normally let everything be done by the ever-expanding legion of overpaid functionaries, then the entire government paraphernalia stands condemned as a horde of parasites.

The people are sick of being told of chief ministers’ and police chiefs’ orders to law and order personnel to arrest killers and thieves as if without their intervention nobody would do his duty. Headlines based on X meeting Y to review the situation or to discuss matters of mutual interest are beginning to offend common sense and good taste. This is not governance, it is only a simulation of the real thing and that too rather poorly done.

Despite all that has been done in Pakistan to downgrade and trivialise the art of governance a majority of the people expect the government to be a benign agency capable of safeguarding their interests, promoting the welfare of the weak and the voiceless, and extending them succour at the first sign of distress. It is also expected to ensure justice for all citizens and between them. Thus, the cry ‘where is the government’ goes up not only when authority is found absent or unable to get its writ honoured but also when its abuse of power is so blatant that even unlettered villagers cannot condone it.

One hopes that the present regime is aware of the consequences of the manipulation of the judiciary (through acts of commission and omission), questionable appointments and a disgusting scramble for spoils, or such unmitigated follies as the incarceration of harmless politicians. The state is no longer healthy enough to survive the obliteration of the fine line separating representative government from autocracy. All people of goodwill, and they still constitute a majority, earnestly want the democratic system to endure, but they need strong enough reason to sustain their hopes and aspirations.

(Curtsey Daily Dawn)