Letter From Lahore - November 22, 2002

It was the redoubtable Lucy Van Pelt, of Peanuts‚ who first made the demand. The year 1964 was coming to an end, and she wanted to know who was responsible for this outrage. They said it wasn't anybody's fault, it was just the year ending, and Lucy wasn't appeased. You can't have a whole year ending with no one to blame, "Find a scapegoat!" she yelled.

The press in Lahore must have heard her loud and clear because they are all out looking for a scapegoat, And how! It is a full month since the E-lections, see, and there is nary a government in sight, and Parliament has not had its first session; which is a good thing because the petty intrigue and skulduggery which is going on in private parties will then move to the august House. The trouble is that the elected Parliament is split three ways. The Muslim League (Q), which disowned Nawaz Sharif, has 75 seats; the People's Party, still under the distant Benazir thumb, has 65; and the MMA, a coterie of six parties which ordinarily wouldn't talk to each other, has 45.

It doesn't take mathematical genius to work out that no single party can form a government, but any two who can get together, can. Worse still, any one party, which can get the other two to kill each other, can become queen! That is a frightful temptation. So the current wisdom is: not to burn any boats, pretend to be the coveted carrot while stepping on all the toes, and spread rumours of secret understandings with everyone, but play it close to the chest. That is not fertile ground for forming an actual coalition. It is a mess for pundits to comment on and seers to analyse. For the press it is a nightmare.

So every front page has at least three contradictory news items and four totally outlandish predictions. The favourite sport these days is guessing which of the three parties the administration is secretly‚ and clandestinely backing. A front page in the most prestigious daily has insider news, and irrefutable proof of secret understandings‚ with each of the three. If there's a deal with all three parties, and everyone knows about it, it must be one hell of a secret!
But there's more. Hidden among them was a fourth item initiating the rumour that actually the administration has been wooing, and has won over, the 40 or so independent and splinter members elected, and is going to use them to bait whichever party is gullible enough. The need to unearth some scoop, and find a scapegoat, has become quite overwhelming, and it makes the morning papers a pleasure.

The president found some rare free time to take his family out for Sunday brunch at this sweet little place ensconced in the Islamabad hills. The leader of the People's Party, Amin Faheem, had the same idea and the two met and said hello. They were still stirring their coffee when every newspaper in the country had polished off editorials saying how it was all a put-on act, and was all an orchestrated show for the two to meet for a secret‚ political understanding.

I met one editor and asked why they'd shammed a 'secret' meeting in a public restaurant, with families looking on and kids squalling in the background, and hanging on to plates piled with halwa-puree‚ into the bargain. He smiled at me knowingly, and enigmatically. Then he went home to polish off another editorial scoffing how the dumb intelligentsia, meaning me, was oblivious to all the underhand political manoeuvring going on around us.

Just in time a friend has come to my rescue by fishing out what is an old Punjabi saying which I hadn't heard before. It goes, Jay aqal ne hovay, tay maujaan he maujaan! Like all telling Punjabi sayings it cannot be translated, but roughly what it says is, "If you haven't got any sense, man, you have got it made!"