Dear Khan Sahab,

It was because of your advances that I left a well-paying job at a company that wanted me out in the first place. I had nothing to do with politics except my father being a close aide to former president General Yahya Khan and my brother, Zubair Omar, being in Nawaz Sharif’s party. All I had to rely on in politics were my savings from my job with a mere salary of seven million rupees per month and a few millions more that I got in stock options from my employer. I took such a big risk because I knew it had to be me to rescue Pakistan. Who could better understand the plight of the poor than me?

I knew one day it would be up to me to follow in my father’s footsteps and lead Pakistan to more glory. Thank you Imran Khan for giving me that opportunity.

I knew you were the one when I first laid my eyes on you. I could see the pain you felt for the poor when I visited your humble abode in Bani Gala. Both of us shared the same taste for everything that comes from the West combined with our disdain for Western culture. We struck a perfect balance by taking our families to England and the United States for vacation and then coming back to Pakistan to bash the West for votes. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) is the enemy but the chicken McNuggets from McDonald’s are amazing. Colonel Sanders can drone my stomach anytime he wants.

In ‘Khan we trust’ I thought; in Khan we have found a man who will let me play out my economic fantasies on an entire nation with zero regard for the consequences. I got tired of playing SimCity and building economic models. I wanted to try out my theories in the real world and you made those dreams come true even if it meant thousands of people losing their livelihoods. I promise all the models worked perfectly on my computer-simulated programmes — I only forgot to factor in people in my calculations. Well, at least we tried, right? After all, all is fair in love, war and economics. In any case it was your fault that you trusted a marketing graduate with an entire country’s financial policies.

It was so much fun going on television every night with my statistics and figures, lambasting Ishaq Dar and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s failed policies. It was the greatest honour of my life to give the people of Pakistan hope and make them believe that I will rescue them from the quagmires of life and lead them to economic prosperity. It boosted my self-image to no end. Does it really matter if their hopes remain unrealised?

You have now chosen another man over me and left me with nothing but national recognition: a standing offer to head the ministry of energy, all the wealth I inherited from my father, all the wealth I accumulated myself and the distinction to have ‘ex finance minister’ on my CV. And also my position as the head of the National Assembly’s standing committee on finance.

As I stand on the edge of the Swat river amid these brokeback mountains posing for pictures to make the nation sympathise with me, I want to thank you, Imran, if I may call you by your first name, because while we promised tabdeeli to a nation and I got tabdeel in the process, the greatest tabdeeli has been within me. Think about it, Imran, who were we when we stood at D-chowk and made people promise that we would kill ourselves before going to the IMF? Maybe we should have burned the parliament down that day, riding into the sunset together rather than ever taking control of the government. Being in the opposition was so much more fun. Now Bilawal gets to have all the fun and we cannot even call him Sahiba and throw gender slurs at the opposition, questioning if they are mard kay bachay.

Maybe running Pakistan is not the same thing as running a company. Who would have known, right? If only I was in Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf for six years before eventually becoming the finance minister I would have had time to actually do my homework rather than trying everything out for the first time.

What does the IMF deal have to do with me now? What do I have to do with people being unable to afford food? If they can’t eat samosas and pakoras, let them eat cake instead.

It is time for me to go. Parting is such a sweet sorrow. You continue telling the media, and your heart, that there is a chance I will come back and we know I will, but not before we can blame Abdul Hafeez Shaikh for all the mess. I can ride back in like the white colonial saviours we worship. All I will need to do is go on a few television shows lambasting the economic regime, and people will love me again. You will love me again.

Till the day we meet again, I am tendering my resignation,which is pointless considering you have already removed me, but I need to save some face so I will pretend I resigned like I pretended I resigned from my company.

Thank you,

Asad Umar

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the Herald's June 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

As a diehard insaafian youth, I would have voted for Voldemort if he had been given a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ticket by our kaptaan Imran Khan. From the moment our great leader directed us, “banda mat dekho bus balla dekho” (don’t look at the candidate; look at the bat) all I have been doing is looking at the balla.

The PTI, single-handedly, crushed the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) duopoly and came to power with a government of technocrats and the most handsome PM ever in the history of the world. I compare Imran Khan to Narendra Modi and I thank Quaid-e-Azam for creating Pakistan. If Pakistan was not created we would have had an ugly chai wala for Prime Minister, instead we have a handsome leader. Modi’s yoga is no match for Khan Sahib’s push-ups. I prefer to drink Coke over chai anyway.

All I ever saw in every PTI leader was Imran Khan. Murad Saeed? A younger Imran Khan. Jahangir Tareen? Older Imran Khan. Asad Umar? Beaconhouse Imran Khan. Pervez Khattak? White walker Imran Khan. Shah Mehmood Qureshi? Imran Khan if he preferred Pepsi over Coke. Shireen Mazari? Hipster Imran Khan. Zartaj Gul? Instagram Imran Khan. Fawad Chaudhry? Taher Shah — even my Imran Khan tinted glasses have limitations.

PTI is not like PPP or PMLN — two parties who abandoned their principles, came into power off the back of a charismatic populous leader with overt deep state support. PTI is a party of principles. Look at how they have stood firm in the face of criticism. Imran Khan seldom backs down from his decisions.

This is why barely a year into his government Imran Khan has already changed half his cabinet. Even if the cabinet is almost identical to the PPP cabinet, trust me PTI is nothing like PPP because Imran Khan was not in the PPP. Even if Arif Alvi is removed and Zardari is made president that would not mean anything as long as Imran Khan is sitting there as the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

In any case, a captain is allowed to change his batting order. How different can leading the country be from deciding the batting order in a match of cricket? In both scenarios both crumble at the slightest pressure from international teams, both are not allowed to play at home and both can only perform after being provided a high security protocol by the armed forces.

I, for one, cannot wait for the personnel to take up their new positions in the cabinet, especially Fawad Chaudhry as the minister for science and technology. His first press conference in his new role will be epic. “Black hole? What do I know about black holes? All I know is Zardari and Nawaz Sharif’s stomachs are black holes that have taken all the money of this country. Technology? All these PPP and PMLN ministers have inbuilt 5G corrupt technology — they automatically steal anything that they see and upload it to the cloud they have in their Swiss bank accounts. Science? Imran Khan invented that when he won us the World Cup.”

PTI needs more loyal people like Fawad Chaudhry. Fawad Chaudhry has always been extremely honest and loyal to anyone who has been writing his cheques. He has been more loyal than Aamir Liaquat has been to his muses, or his Ramazan shows or PTI. I cannot wait till Fawad Chaudhry’s career in politics is over and he launches his own Ramazan entertainment show.

Whether it be Farhan Virk vs Asad Umar, Jahangir Tareen vs Shah Mehmood Qureshi, or logic vs a PTI supporter, we will not stand for miscreants looking to use the party for personal gains. Perhaps, only Sheikh Rasheed is allowed to do that.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi has gone too far by targeting Jahangir Tareen. Without Jahangir Tareen, the party bigwigs would have to travel commercial and sleep at airports like Arif Alvi. Without Jahangir Tareen, all independents would have had to get calls from elsewhere to join PTI.

So what if he is na ahl? Nawaz Sharif is also na ahl but he is being given basic healthcare. Why can’t Jahangir Tareen attend all PTI meetings? That would be like if I cannot eat food at my own wedding — trust me if I paid for the party then I am eating as much tikka boti as anyone else. Austerity? That is for all of you — with Tareen by our side, we are rolling high.

As always our brave and committed leader has stepped in to diffuse the tension by not doing anything and telling the two of them to sort it out. Imran Khan has more pressing issues at hand like how to rebrand PTI as the Pakistan People’s Insaaf Party/how to read IKEA instructions on building a new cabinet/how to finally come out of the cabinet/how to avoid Twitter in the time of a crisis.

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the May 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Hamza Shahbaz was seen as the future face of both the Sharif family and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) — that is, until recently. With his uncle Nawaz Sharif and his cousin Maryam Nawaz disqualified from holding public office, and his father Shehbaz Sharif embroiled in corruption cases, he, at one stage, seemed to be a natural candidate to lead the family and the party into the future. A leader who could possibly save his family’s – and PMLN’s – political fortunes from floundering. Given some recent events, he might need some saving himself.

Over the last few weeks Hamza has become yet another member of the Sharif clan to attract the attention of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) which has already made two unsuccessful efforts to arrest him. The first, on Friday April 5, was thwarted by his security guards who barred entry to his residence. The second, a day later, led to a clash between NAB officials and the Sharif family loyalists, causing injuries to two people.

While Hamza is on protective bail for the time being, he is not off the hook yet. He is facing three cases: one for owning assets beyond his known means of income (for which his arrest warrant was issued); a second case pertains to the Punjab Saaf Pani project in which he is alleged to have awarded contracts and made appointments outside his jurisdiction; and a third concerns Ramzan Sugar Mills – a Sharif family business – in which he is accused of building a drain for the factory using public funds during his father’s tenure as chief minister. As Hamza juggles with various judicial proceedings, his political future is beginning to look uncertain.

His rise to the top was predicated upon the fact that leadership in PMLN has always remained in the hands of the Sharif family — which, indeed, has led many senior politicians to leave the party in the past. Such departures became more frequent in the run-up to the 2018 election when many PMLN stalwarts jumped ship to Imran Khan’s camp. Since then the political situation has continued to become grimmer for the party as corruption cases against senior members of the Sharif family multiply and the medical conditions of both Nawaz and Shehbaz Sharif remain uncertain.

Difficult times are nothing new for the Sharif family though. Especially so for Hamza whose political journey began at the tender age of 19 when he spent six months in jail during Benazir Bhutto’s second tenure as prime minister from 1993 to 1996. At 25, he faced another test. He was left in Pakistan as the only member of the Sharif family to take care of its business and keep PMLN together while almost all his elders were exiled by the government of General Pervez Musharraf.

Over time, Hamza’s influence grew in Punjab’s political arena particularly because he kept the party going during a politically challenging period (2001-07). He got another fillip when he joined his father to oversee politics in the heartland of Punjab after 2008, creating personal ties with PMLN workers at the grass-roots level.

Then, suddenly, something changed and Nawaz Sharif started training Maryam as his political successor. This created a struggle between the cousins — and also some tensions.

Hamza is reported to have disagreed with decisions taken by Maryam during a bypoll campaign in 2017 for a National Assembly seat that became vacant after Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification. This eventually led to Maryam taking over the campaign completely. Their differences became more evident when, in a speech after winning the bypoll, Nawaz Sharif did not mention Hamza to which PMLN workers responded by chanting his name until Nawaz Sharif was forced to mention him.

Despite these problems, however, the Sharifs have always managed to keep their inner politics away from public scrutiny. This makes them stronger as a political dynasty but it weakens their party. As the older generation of the family is fading out of politics and the younger one is finding it difficult to stay away from the long arm of the law, PMLN seems to be facing a serious succession problem.

Recently, the crisis has become even more acute with Shehbaz Sharif’s rather unexpected resignation from the chairmanship of the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee — a post he fought five months to get. His stay in London having been extended beyond its original schedule, PMLN has been forced to carry out a restructuring of itself. Hamza’s lack of eminence in this may have already decided his political future.

This article was originally published in the Herald's May 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Almost one hundred years ago, in the early 20th century, American radio began to broadcast serialised scripted drama aimed at alleviating the boredom of the American housewife. Armed with her newly revamped upright vacuum cleaner, the Hoover, named after William Henry Hoover who upgraded a machine originally invented in 1908, the American housewife now had the leisure to move from room to carpeted room while listening to ever-lasting tales of romance, intrigue, betrayal and, God forbid, defiance.

Almost immediately after the Second World War, soap operas graduated from radio and began to be aired on television in 15-minute segments. The first such drama, Faraway Hill, was launched in 1946 and ran as an evening series until it was slotted as daytime television, viewed mostly by housewives, the unemployed, the feeble or the ill. The prime sponsors of such dramas were the manufacturers of: (guess what?) soap.

The first soap opera was sponsored by Procter and Gamble, the manufacturers of a detergent, and seeing how melodramatic the content was, soap operas came to be known as “washboard weepies”. While laundry machines, now fitted into the kitchen or a specially designed laundry room, did the dirty linen, a cast of hundreds washed the dirty linen of middle-class families in small towns, plagued by emotional and social conflict, but skirting around issues such as sexual abuse, rape, drugs and HIV. It was just not prudent to speak of social evils; instead, it was the done thing to contextualise the story within notions of sin, the climax of the individual plot endeavouring to resolve all acts of a sinful nature.

Reaching a frenzied pitch of high drama marked with overacting, fake tans, broad-chested men, narrow-waisted women and convoluted plot-lines, the soap opera was at its zenith in the United States in the 1980s when I was a student at a private women’s college south of Washington DC. While most students were in class during the daytime, some chose to sneak into the dormitory lounge to catch an episode of Dallas or The Young and the Restless or The Bold and the Beautiful. These were the girls no one took seriously, for the more serious-minded amongst us were loathe to cast even a glance at the cheesy scripts, full of clichés, cardboard cut-out characters, corny dialogue and predictable plots.

Therefore, it is all the more astounding that I should be viewing what is described as Soup Operas on the plethora of local channels in Pakistan, almost 40 years after I shuddered at the thought of planting myself in front of the idiot box for hour upon hour of what has been described in America as “drivel”, “drippiness”, “inane” and “moronic” television drama. That this should come to pass is perhaps a sad commentary on my self-destructive inability to say “no” to the good people who think I may need some distraction from my otherwise quite satisfying life. That I am trying to make the best of it is perhaps an indication that there may actually be some value in viewing the stuff that is churned out day after day, aired night after night, platitude after platitude, most of it a celebration of patriarchy, poor scripting, worse directing and absolutely awful acting.

Of course there are exceptions: rare, moving and sometimes even inspiring scripts, well-produced and brilliantly performed. But those are few and far between, and serve only to remind us how far we have regressed from the heyday of Pakistani drama popularised by the presence of the late Roohi Bano in her loveable, absent-minded avatars, the evergreen Uzma Gillani lighting up the screen with her hazel eyes and mesmerising us with her husky voice, the magnetic and lovely Shehnaz Sheikh with her mischievous twinkle and cheeky grin.

What happened to Pakistani drama in the years since Kiran Kahani and Ankahi and Waris? Why did we lose sight of the mark we were making in South Asian television entertainment? What happened to the audience which would stop breathing when Khuda Ki Basti aired, once a week, always a cliffhanger, always well-performed, a scintillating script with overtures of the Russian writer Maxim Gorky, inspired by the Progressive Writers’ Movement?

Based on the novel of the same name by writer Shaukat Siddiqui, the serial was produced originally in 1969, then again in 1974, at the behest of the then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. I was still a young child at that time, but I remember that nothing stirred, no one spoke, time stood still as this beautiful story unfolded about the struggle of the poor in a post-Partition neighborhood. There were other hard-hitting serials which spoke out against the oppression of the feudal order, the tyranny of human trafficking, the corruption of the powerful, the manipulation of the media, the submission of women, the exploitation of children. No more, alas, no more!

Suddenly, as if by some magical sleight of hand, all these pressing issues disappeared with the advent of private television channels and the most important story to emerge was the marriage of the perpetually unoccupied heroine, the dominance of an evil mother-in-law, the sacrificial slobbering of a magnanimous mother and the general uselessness of the hero, usually bearded.

Now we see on our screens girls with burgundy hair, blow-dried straight and to perfection, boys with beards approximating a mix between a moulvi-cut and designer stubble, mothers and mothers-in-law with several spare tyres hanging off their midriffs, absent or near-dead fathers and fathers-in-law, sometimes paralysed, other times blind, deaf, and definitely dumb. We see vacuous heroines twirling painfully straightened hair, pontificating about nothing, equally vacuous heroes with their thumbs tucked into the pockets of badly-fitted jeans, pontificating about nothing.

We see clownish side heroes engaging in antics that would put to shame a Rajastani puppet crafted out of the wood of a mango tree; we hear the screeching of shrill voices issuing forth from the bulbous mouths of hysterical neighbours alarmed that the girl next door is, in fact, nothing but a minx with loose morals, “lachhan”, to put it in the words of one overbearing mother-in-law who has engaged a certain Achhan to spy on the said Lachhan.

We see high drama unfold with the pace of a centiplegic centipede, painfully long scenes in which the best friend of the heroine constantly goads the said heroine to spill the beans on her love interest, maliciously intending to cook a vile chille con carne with said beans. We see the said love interest speeding along on a motorbike or passing his fingers through his well-nurtured coif while looking into the rear-view mirror of the said bike.

We see devoted mothers slaving over a hot stove, while fathers read newspapers or sit idle in courtyards where the said heroine wades through a heap of dirty linen piled up next to the tub where the washing will take place, preferably with the very detergent which has sponsored this long-winded, unending, brain-numbing, exercise in futility, rightfully earning its place in the genre of soap opera, pronounced Soup Oprah but not to be confused with Oprah Winfrey and preferably consumed hot and steaming (the Soup, not Winfrey).

After many, many hours of watching non-narratives unfold in bedrooms, courtyards, lounges, shopping malls, empty restaurants and on top of picturesque hilltops (Faraway Hill!), listening to catchy dialogue involving at least one angrezi word (Fresh ho jao, Tension mat lo, Enjoy kar lo, Ready ho jao, Rice kha lo), I have resigned myself to trying to see the upside of this project: could there be a purpose in deciphering the hidden messages so subtly concealed in the multilayered plot lines?

Or am I just kidding myself, and, as states the copy for the detergent that sponsors the saddest tale of all, Bechaari Nadia, all that I will actually be doing is looking for the Staining Moment of the Week? So, if, a few months into this exercise, you see me climbing a telephone pole and singing at full throttle the theme song of the said soap/soup, you must only look at me with pity, for, in the words of the said theme song: Ro raha hai yeh asmaan meri haalat pe.

Stay tuned for the next episode of: Straining Moments of the Weak! I will be back.

This article was published in the Herald's April 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Our political parties may disagree on whether women deserve protection in Pakistan or not; they may disagree if men should marry 12-year-old girls or not; they may disagree whether all Hindus should be converted to Islam or just the girls; they may disagree whether Aurat March organisers should be hanged or not; they might even disagree whether to build a 1,000-foot statue of Imran Khan in Islamabad or a 2000-foot one; but we must commend our lawmakers for setting aside their differences to resolve the most important issue facing the country — their own salaries.

It is so heartening to see lawmakers unite across party divides, taking some time out from calling each other blasphemers and wanting to drag each other through the streets.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members may hurl gender insults at Bilawal Bhutto and think of Nawaz Sharif as corrupt but they are ready for a mukmuka if it means more money for themselves. At least PTI is delivering on some of its promises — even if it is just the promise of money for lawmakers who jumped ship from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz to join PTI in 2018. There needs to be some special compensation for them for helping the party run the largest province in the country.

The only thing preventing Usman Buzdar from going full Chulbul Pandey of Dabang has been his salary. With more money he, too, could have a Salman Khan body and afford to plaster his face all over Punjab; maybe that way some Punjabis will recognise him and not think that Shahbaz Sharif is still the chief minister. Maybe with extra money Buzdar can finally buy Shahbaz Sharif’s old safari suits. Maybe some people will confuse him for Shahbaz Sharif and respect him a little this way. If all else fails, he can butcher some Jalib poetry on stage for effect.

What else is there left for PTI to do? It has accomplished everything in a year. Through the power of photoshop and Fawad Chaudhry’s silver tongue, PTI has delivered on everything it promised. Pakistan has raised a billion dollars for the dam fund; we have built a border wall on the Line of Control and helicopters have been made to offer local travel at 55 rupees per kilometre. We need to reward our lawmakers with increased salaries for all these accomplishments. Poor members of the Punjab Assembly like Pervaiz Elahi, Abdul Aleem Khan and 400 other Chaudhrys really deserve a pay hike from 83,000 rupees to 210,000 rupees.

With the rupee so devalued, the lawmakers have no options but to increase their own salaries. Their children study abroad so the exchange rate really hits them hard. They also need more money for their summer vacations to America. Asad Umar’s handling of the economy should not mean our poor lawmakers cannot take a summer vacation abroad — it should mean those below the poverty line should die.

Do people not realise how hard it is to spend 20,000,000 rupees a month while drawing a salary of 83,000 rupees? This way it will become slightly easier for them to claim they are Sadiq, Ameen and living well within their means.

Also, why should Faisal Vawda be the only one with a Lamborghini? I am happy if my tax dollars are used for buying Usman Buzdar a Lamborghini. It is worth the petrol price increase just for the memes that will come out with pictures of Usman Buzdar driving a Lamborghini.

Imran Khan would obviously not stand idly by as all this happened. The man who performed push-ups on stage to get into office responded with the strongest action available to him as Prime Minister and leader of PTI — he tweeted about it.

Imran Khan even summoned Usman Buzdar but, after looking at him, he decided Buzdar needs more money and went back to not knowing anything about Uighur Muslims. If we ignore the topic long enough, China will love us and give us a lot of money. Nobody will remember a few lakhs given to lawmakers here and there.

To combat any criticism of his own party colleagues increasing their salaries, Fawad Chaudhry has already released more pictures of Arif Alvi sleeping at the airport to show austerity. Alvi is hogging all the seats but nothing makes a Pakistani man more relatable than a picture of him taking more than he deserves.

If things get worse and people start realising the PTI government is no different from others, the party may just be forced to make Imran Khan sleep on a container for a few weeks to show the country how austere the government is.

Remember — treat yourself!

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the April 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Masood Azhar is a much sought after man. India seeks him in order to punish him for a number of militant attacks in Kashmir. The United States seeks to have him declared a global terrorist. China, too, is seeking to save him from being designated as a terrorist. And Pakistan seeks to defend him for all of the reasons above.

Azhar recently stoked anger in India after his militant outfit, Jaish-e-Mohammad, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed 40 Indian soldiers in Pulwama town of the occupied Kashmir. A video of a young Kashmiri, who was alleged to have carried out the attack, shows him claiming to be a Jaish member. This video cannot be treated as an incriminating evidence but New Delhi already has much against Azhar to take the attacker’s claim on its face value. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in particular, has an uncomfortable history with him.

In the 1990s, Azhar was the general secretary of the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), a militant group that, as per a claim by the United States Central Investigation Agency, “Pakistan supports in its proxy war against Indian forces in Kashmir”. He was later arrested from Srinagar while on a trip to pacify two warring HuA factions. A year later, a little known militant group kidnapped a few foreign tourists from Kashmir and demanded Azhar’s release for theirs.

When that was unsuccessful, his brother-in-law masterminded the hijacking of a plane en route to Delhi from Kathmandu. The plane was redirected to Kandahar which was then a part of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan. Under pressure, the BJP’s government in India decided to release Azhar in exchange for the plane’s passengers. To add insult to injury, he arrived in Pakistan and, addressing a public gathering in Karachi, said Muslims should not rest until Kashmir was liberated. Pakistan insisted he had not broken any laws of the land and, thus, could not be arrested.

Even though Azhar has still not broken any Pakistani laws, he and his organisation are now facing a crackdown. In a recent interview with the BBC, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the government has taken control of Jaish’s madrasa in Bahawalpur. State minister for interior Shehryar Afridi claimed that Azhar’s brother and son have been detained. India still does not believe these to be serious moves. Taking matters into its own hands, it sent fighter planes to strike at an alleged Jaish training camp near Balakot town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

That Azhar’s name gets mentioned with reference to almost every major militant attack in Kashmir is not entirely an exaggeration. The insurgency in the India-occupied state is now over 30 years old and militant leaders like him have been at the centre of it throughout this period. But many of this insurgency’s Kashmiri leaders, whom India calls separatists, were once willing to contest elections under the Indian constitution.

Yasin Malik once campaigned for a Muslim United Front candidate, Mohammad Yusuf Shah, in the legislative assembly elections of 1987. Both were later arrested and Shah went on to become the commander-in-chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen, a collective of militant groups operating in Kashmir, calling himself Syed Salahuddin.

That Malik and Salahuddin became the face of Kashmir’s struggle for freedom proves why the alienation in the Indian-held territory is homegrown. Pakistan, on its part, might have used this alienation to project the struggle as a fight between Muslim Kashmir and Hindu India, encouraging Islamic militant groups and pan-Islamist organisations such as Jaish to stoke the fires of militancy there. Pakistan might have also turned a blind eye to the infiltration of fighters from its side of the border into Kashmir.

But India must realise that the uprising in Kashmir is a reaction to its own blatant violation of human rights there and that it is these human rights violations which are forcing many Kashmiri young men to join groups such as Jaish.

Pakistan, too, has much to prove even though its release of the captured Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman has won it international plaudits. Every time it has faced international pressure post-2000, it has detained militant leaders and padlocked their offices and madrasas — only to take back these steps later. Many breakaway members of these organisations, meanwhile, have also turned against the Pakistani state and launched attacks on Pakistani land and against its people. For too many times have these chickens come home to roost. A serious and tangible action against

Azhar may reverse this deadly trend.

This article was published in the Herald's April 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

As I lay here in the dark waiting for the electricity to come back after putting my two hungry children to sleep because there was no gas, all I can think about is how inspiring Imran Khan is.

People will stop trending #ThankYouObama if they see everything that Imran Khan has promised he will do for Pakistan. We do not need gas, electricity and fundamental human rights when we have hope, and Imran Khan gives me hope. It will be different this time. I had the same feeling when I fell in love with my husband six years ago. He left me for his secretary two years ago. If you are reading this Amjad, I don’t need you, we all have Imran Khan now.

If I wanted a prime minister who understood the financial system and economic policy I would have voted for Atif Mian. A prime minister is not a financial expert; this is why the constitution would not have allowed Atif Mian to be prime minister. A prime minister is a feeling and Imran Khan makes everyone feel good.

One more video of him doing push-ups and I will vote for him in every election ever. I will pick him over my daughter for class president at her school. I will vote him as the best ice cream flavour at Chaman. Also, #ThankYouImran for increasing the dollar prices. All these pseudo-liberal-fahashists working on the American agenda will now suffer by paying more for their New York vacations. Have fun having your Venti latte from Starbucks when it costs you hazaar rupay you kafirs.

I have no dollars so clearly the exchange rate does not bother me. I have never imported anything in my life so I do not care if imports become more expensive. And due to inflation and the lack of jobs, I have no money left so I do not care if taxes increase. All that matters to me is how much more gorgeous our prime minister is than Nawaz Sharif.

Once the Saudi prince gives him 700 billion dollars, he will distribute it amongst us all. Every Pakistani will get 3,500 dollars, we can just devalue the currency even more then and every dollar will be worth 1,500 rupees. Overnight every Pakistani will have 5.3 million rupees.

I, for one, will give half of that money to the dam fund. The middle class does not need five million rupees to survive in Pakistan. Namal College is Pakistan’s education policy, Shaukat Khanum is our health policy and videos of the 1992 World Cup are our sports policy. I will send my children to Namal, get treated at Shaukat Khanum and watch from the stands as Sarfaraz Ahmed wins us our next world cup and gets elected president in 2023. Presidential speeches will never be more than five minutes long — even if they have 50,000 words.

We do not need laptops or an income support scheme. We need austerity. We can live our dreams of being rich vicariously through Faisal Vawda playing Counter Strike on the streets of Karachi and driving yellow supercars.

The rest of us can pay our taxes, build dams and stay fit because we have no money to eat. #ThankYouImranKhan for this tabdeeli. You have single-handedly prevented the problems of gas leakages. When there is no gas there will be no leakage. There will also be no electricity theft.

I can safely sleep in the dark knowing nobody will come to my house and steal my belongings because I have no belongings left to be stolen.

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the March 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Fawad Hussain Chaudhry lives in the present. The past does not concern him and the future isn’t here yet. Last month he went after the two political parties he once belonged to. During a visit to Karachi, Chaudhry made a thinly veiled threat of dislodging the Sindh government with the help of allies of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the provincial legislature and also called for Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah’s resignation. That he served as an unelected special assistant to the prime minister in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government in 2012-13 does not bother him when he lashes out against his former boss Asif Ali Zardari.

Neither did his past affiliation with the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PMLQ) weigh him down when he claimed a forward bloc was emerging in it even though the party is the PTI’s coalition partner in Punjab. His statement angered the PMLQ leadership so much that a provincial minister belonging to it resigned citing interference in his ministry and the party has decided to take up its grievances directly with Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The information minister, indeed, thrives on confrontation. In his short tenure, he has managed to rile up politicians, journalists, judges and bureaucrats. He has tendered apologies and offended again soon after. He has also been barred from attending a Senate session for using non-parliamentary language. But Chaudhry appears to be immune to the onslaught. In many ways, he is echoing Sheikh Rashid’s role during the 1990s when, as a close confidant of Nawaz Sharif, he spared no opportunity to discredit political opponents with personal attacks. Rashid still sometimes seems to aspire to have Chaudhry’s job.

Even the media – of which Chaudhry himself has been a part as a talk-show host – fails to faze him. He talks of the need to regulate television channels and newspapers even when he once used them to deride politicians. His government has also proposed a highly controversial new media regulatory authority. But when confronted by a journalist about newspapers facing financial and censorship pressures, Chaudhry nonchalantly (and inaccurately) cited this very magazine’s closure as proof of the irrelevance of traditional media. Relevance, in fact, is a concern for his own ministry.

With every province and every federal ministry having its own spokesperson, the press information department, which comes under the federal information ministry, has become fairly redundant. Other appointments – such as the recent induction of Nadeem Afzal Chan as the prime minister’s spokesperson — also belie the need to have one authoritative disseminator of the government information. It, however, is another argument as to who Chaudhry is actually speaking for.

Born in a politically active family in Jhelum, he first dabbled in electoral politics when he contested the 2002 elections from a Punjab Assembly constituency and managed to secure only 161 votes. He then joined Pervez Musharraf’s All Pakistan Muslim League (APML) as its media coordinator and remained affiliated with it till 2012 when differences between him and Musharraf over the latter’s decision to return to Pakistan led him to quit the APML and join the PPP. Just before the 2013 general elections, he jumped ship once again and contested the polls for the National Assembly on a PMLQ ticket, albeit unsuccessfully.

Three years later, Chaudhry was ready to make a move again. In June 2016, he joined the PTI, a party he had chided on many talk shows including one he hosted himself. He was rewarded with a ticket to contest a National Assembly by-election in Jhelum but lost. It was finally in the 2018 general elections that he won both National Assembly and Punjab Assembly seats in his native district but decided to retain the former and was inducted in the federal cabinet. It is to his credit that he manages to secure box seats in whichever political theatre he decides to walk into — with or without electoral victory. So, for now, Chaudhry’s faith in the PTI and Imran Khan seems unshakable. In any case, he embodies Khan’s propensity for and belief in U-turns. But who knows what the future holds and who Chaudhry will be speaking for come tomorrow.

This article was published in the Herald's February 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Ever since I saw Cynthia D Ritchie riding a bicycle on the streets of Peshawar urging women in Pakistan to cycle towards their freedom, I just knew that I too had to come to Pakistan and do the same.

I am a basic white girl from a small hick town in the States nobody has ever heard of. There is very little hope for me making it big. But I feel Pakistan is a place where I will matter, where people will listen to me, give me opportunities and lavish me with love just because I am there.

It will not matter that I have no skills or credibility to speak about complex local issues. I will declare my love for Pakistan and people will love me back. Jeremy McLellan and Eva zu Beck have taught me that Pakistan is a country where even the most average basic white person can make it big.

No longer do girls in my suburb dream the American dream, we dream the Pakistani dream. To me the country sounds like if La La Land was real and Ryan Gosling was brown.

I just joined Twitter to ask people about Pakistan and I got showered with so much love. People sent me their home addresses asking me to stay with them when I visit, some men even trusted me enough to share their most private and intimate pictures with me, and the who’s who of the country DMed me to invite me to private parties.

I think when Cynthia asks when will the US do more, she actually means when will the US do more to send more white people to Pakistan. They are the most loving and forgiving people in the world. White people colonised them for a century but they still welcome us with open arms.

Also, there is no racism in Pakistan. Whereas in the US it took years for people of different skin colours to marry, I have received at least 20 marriage proposals in a day from Pakistan.

CNN and Fox News never show this positive side of Pakistan. They focus on the terrorism. But all my friends who have visited Pakistan, have stayed at embassies and travelled with heavy security, tell me Pakistan is very safe.

I, for one, have decided that I will be visiting Pakistan. I will go to Peshawar and teach women how to ride bicycles. Recently, a group of women did not get to hold a cycling march in Peshawar whereas Cynthia cycled on the same streets barely weeks before. These women need to know how privileged they are to be able to freely ride bicycles in Pakistan and have their countrymen support them. By these women, I meant white women brought to Pakistan to show the world how safe Pakistan is for white women.

When I look into the eyes of poor Pakistanis, I hear them crying out to me, “Oh! Save me white saviour!” and it makes me feel useful. So what if I did not get that internship or never went to college? If I can go to Pakistan and change the lives of women and children all over the country by posting four selfies of myself travelling the country, then like Jesus, I will die for their sins.

Let me show you Pakistan through a different lens. Even though I have never visited, let me tell Pakistanis how they should see their own country. Pakistan is not just burqas and guns, it is also gutkas and buns; it is not just poverty and famine, it is also party and brunches; it is not just violence and crime, it is also violins and mime.

I have met people from DHA who have not been to Gulshan-e-Iqbal, people from Malir who have not been to Seaview, people from PECHS block two who have not seen PECHS block six because they are afraid and brainwashed by propaganda. Also because Karachi does not have an effective public transportation system, but mainly because of the propaganda.

The prime minister of Pakistan tweeted a video of the Markhor. The people of Pakistan are also like a Markhor. We make videos of them to entice the world to come to Pakistan but we also allow some people to come and shoot them. Internally, none of the policies are ever made with the Markhor in mind and honestly politicians could hardly care for the animal. Like I said, the people of Pakistan are exactly like the Markhor.

Thank you Pakistan for all the opportunites you have for a white girl. It is no surprise that Pakistani girls spend this much on fairness creams — maybe if they were as fair as me, they would have some rights in Pakistan too.

Disclaimer: I made a fake account on Twitter pretending to be a white girl coming to Pakistan. It was the best I have ever been treated by other Pakistanis. I dream of a day that I could also be a white girl. Sorry to break the hearts of everybody offering me their home — Samantha A. Gerry is not real but if you wish upon a star and believe, she will also be real to you.

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the February 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

In a joint meeting between the government, the judiciary and the military, a vote was held to determine the best country in the universe. In an almost unanimous decision, Pakistan was voted as the best. Even though Pakistan was the only option on the ballot, certain PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) ministers still wrote ‘Go Nawaz Go’ on it and checked that box instead.

After the voting, Prime Minister Imran Khan asked for a re-election; members of the press present assumed it was simply out of habit but Khan insisted that the result should accurately encapsulate the sentiment of the people by stating that Naya Pakistan is the best country in the universe. Fawad Chaudhry managed to placate the premier by adding a proviso to the result clarifying that Pakistan became the best country in the universe after July 2018.

Imran Khan then congratulated himself for turning the worst country in the world to the best country in the universe in less than 100 days. Upon Imran Khan’s mention of the worst country, a note was passed to him and the prime minister frantically asked for a different vote. Five minutes later India was voted the worst country in the world in an almost unanimous decision. Somehow Fayaz ul Hasan Chohan and Murad Saeed still managed to vote for ‘Go Nawaz Go’ in this voting too.

Both domestic and foreign policy were discussed in the meeting. Shah Mehmood Qureshi took a well-deserved nap while muttering in his sleep, “Foreign policy will be made in the foreign office” followed by chuckles and hearty laughs.

The press was asked to highlight all the grand achievements of the nation and the giant strides it has made in the past five months. Shaikh Rasheed congratulated Imran Khan for ensuring that for the first time ever 2019 happened in Pakistan before any other country. Rasheed got fired up and remarked, “Imran Khan has managed to bring Pakistan further in time than any other politician ever.” However, he was sharply rebuked by the state and then reminded of 1947. Fayaz ul Hasan Chohan also criticised Shaikh Rasheed for not urging Pakistan to go back 1,400 years.

Pakistan was also declared to be the safest country in the world for foreigners. Pictures of white people with cameras were used to make the point. These people, who were totally not paid to come to Pakistan and did so of their own accord, were used as shining examples of Pakistan’s achievements in tourism. Imran Khan again congratulated himself for once again being able to bring white female tourists to Pakistan.

Imran said, “Pakistan is so safe, a white girl can now cycle on the streets of Peshawar.” A reporter then asked Khan, “what if the girl was Pakistani ...” but before he could finish his sentence Fayaz ul Hasan Chohan threw a glass of water on his face and accused him of being an infidel. The reporter was then dragged out of the meeting.

Imran Khan then voted himself in as the Herald’s person of the year.

The remaining journalists were then shown pictures of their family members and briefed on the routes their children took on their way to school. After the briefing, all the journalists congratulated the government on its remarkable achievements in promoting freedom of speech and protecting the rights of journalists. Asad Umar’s interview on Hard Talk was then played on repeat five times.

All the newspapers reported that the whole nation is happy and nobody cares about the dollar rate because nobody has any dollars. We do not need to import anymore cheese. Looking at the amount of intolerance in Pakistan, nobody would be surprised to find we were lactose intolerant too. And if we are not, we can simply declare lactose to be non-Muslim and become intolerant of it.

The meeting ended with the government condemning the United States for its support of terrorists, India for its treatment of Muslims, Israel for its military operations against Muslim Palestinians, Netherlands for its hate speech towards Muslims, and irony for existing.

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the January 2019 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Dear Parliamentarian,

Welcome to the Parliament. It does not matter how you got here — now you are here and we welcome you as part of the family. The government hopes you can forget the time our party tried to attack the Parliament and burn it to the ground. We will also forget our promises of dragging you on the streets of Lahore and Larkana. Good times, am I right?

Please ensure you take your mandatory language training from Khadim Hussain Rizvi. We have kept him in a guest house so all of you get a chance to visit him and learn how to articulate your thoughts. Nothing can be ghayr parliamani if a parliamentarian says it — remember that. Never hold yourself back when you are in the Parliament; treat every session like a free period in school with a substitute teacher. If you cannot make paper planes and throw them at Fawad Chaudhry — what is the point of being elected to the assembly anyway? A pamphlet will be distributed later with all the suggestions for words you can shout at Fawad Chaudhry.

Please treat the speaker like background noise; he is the DJ Butt to this party — we tolerate him at best. The speaker of the house is no better than a PE teacher taking a social studies class anyway. If he had a penny for every time he says expunge in the assembly, he would have as much money as all you dakus.

We know parliamentary sessions can be boring. Most of us have only joined for the same reasons boys from Aitchison participate in MUN sessions at LGS; it is an opportunity to impress the girls but remember the reserved seats are not reserved for you.

We realise most of us are not used to listening to women speak but at least pretend you are interested in what they have to say — we can still ignore all their legitimate demands and legislate on protecting men’s rights in Pakistan instead. Mansplaining is encouraged.

The desks have been specifically designed to be banged. We will distribute the musical sheets of We will rock you; please try to keep a rhythm when you treat them like drums.

Sitting is not necessary — you can totally stand and shout while other speakers are talking. If you cannot disagree with their arguments with reason, you can always drown them out by shouting over them — do it especially if they are women. Who wants to hear about women’s rights when you would rather argue over how much stolen money the opposition has spent on mujras?

We can talk about child abductions, missing persons and fundamental rights after everybody has already walked out. None of us want to be here anyway so please say things that would give the rest of us the chance to walk out. Remember, attendance is not necessary — the person with the least attendance will be elected Prime Minister in the next election.

We would highly recommend watching legends of the Parliament like Sheikh Rasheed and Mushahidullah. The Parliament is the best place for the barely lucid thoughts of old senile Pakistani men. Why only listen to your dada talk about all the people he killed in 1947 in Punjab on Eid? The Parliament brings you that entertainment daily.

We hope you have a great time in the next five years and ensure that it is also entertaining for everybody watching. All news channels rely on us to keep their businesses running. Please ensure we abuse each other so much that nothing credible ever gets done. Even better if we manage to reverse something we did, like the 18th amendment.   Good luck!

Thank you,

The Government

PS. Invest in some good sound cancelling headphones.

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the December 2018 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Most politicians do well for themselves in opposition since to castigate is easier than to govern. Not quite so for Shehbaz Sharif. He makes for an awkward agitator. Microphones fall off the podium when the younger Sharif gets worked up. His oratory skills restlessly spiral into repetition or clichéd rhetoric.

In contrast, he is seen as an efficient administrator when in power — one under whose spell the drains in Lahore are reported to continue functioning even during heavy downpour; one who is said to be capable of lining up the entire police cadre or bureaucracy in rapt attention. But Lahore is not Pakistan. It is not even Punjab. And if it was Shehbaz Sharif’s fiefdom for the past decade, it is no longer that either. All the investments in infrastructure and claims of good governance have failed to keep him in power.

Shehbaz Sharif never really left the shadow of his elder brother Nawaz Sharif, a three-time prime minister. The former’s politics never went beyond Punjab. If he did voice his ambition to do so after the 2013 elections as was reported by some, he was not encouraged by the latter. And now that Nawaz Sharif is in Adiala Jail, Shehbaz Sharif is having a hard time establishing his authority over the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) as the party’s new president. The 2018 election campaign that he led was lacklustre and his attempt to lead a rally to welcome Nawaz Sharif on July 13 fell flat — Shehbaz Sharif and his supporters failed to reach the airport even in the absence of a significant resistance from the government.

There are reports of the party’s leaders taking cues from Adiala, many without Shehbaz Sharif’s knowledge. There is also speculation about the possibility of a forward bloc, reinforced by reports of some PMLN legislators in the Punjab Assembly voting for Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi in the speaker’s election. And then there are mistakes that are only his own.

Rather than sticking to the art of the possible, Shehbaz Sharif has preferred to bend the odds in his favour — sometimes by brute force. Take the Model Town fiasco of 2014. Around 14 Pakistan Awami Tehreek workers were killed in a clash with the police — a tragedy that could have been avoided had the police and the administration handled the situation tactfully. That the police resorted to such an extreme measure to quell the agitation speaks volumes about the impunity it enjoyed under Shehbaz Sharif as the chief executive of the province.

The notorious Abid Boxer, a former police inspector, claims to be one of those acting on Shehbaz Sharif’s orders while enacting dozens of fake encounters in Punjab in the 1990s. Another man in Lahore once famously accused Shehbaz Sharif of being behind the extrajudicial killing of his son along with four others in 1998 — a charge he was later acquitted of.

Even if accusations against Shehbaz Sharif of being directly involved in these encounters stand on shaky ground, the numbers are damning. According to a report published in daily Dawn, 850 suspected criminals were killed in police encounters in Punjab between 1997 and 1999 — a time when he was chief minister of the province. This continued during his later stints in the same office. The same news report adds that, according to the provincial police’s own figures, 66 alleged criminals were killed in 42 police encounters in Lahore alone in the year 2008.

Being in the opposition will require him to be much more answerable to the electorate than he ever was in the office. It also requries some magnanimity. Nominating himself as the prime ministerial candidate and his son Hamza for the Punjab chief minister post – even when victory was highly unlikely on both fronts – was a misstep. It alienated other opposition parties, in particular the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which abstained from voting in the prime ministerial election because of Shehbaz Sharif’s abusive speeches against its leaders in the past.

Now having lost that contest, he has installed himself and Hamza as leaders of the opposition in both Islamabad and Lahore. His maiden speech in the National Assembly was another lost opportunity. Delivered amid a ruckus on the floor, it got lost in his own rhetoric. His inability to bring opposition parties together for a consensus presidential candidate will further dent his political stature.

Shehbaz Sharif also seems unsure of adopting his brother’s stance against the military establishment though his softer position on the issue has not had the desired effect. There appears to be no indication that the military is more willing to put up with the younger Sharif, even if he is said to enjoy a better rapport in the GHQ than his elder brother. Party workers, on the other hand, may leave feeling betrayed. Or they may feel that Shehbaz Sharif does not have his brother’s back. This does not paint a particularly flattering image of PMLN’s once strongman in Punjab.

This article was published in the Herald's September 2018 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Geopolitical and geostrategic considerations forced the British to introduce a peculiar form of administrative structure in the tribal areas. The inhabitants of these areas were subjected to systematic exploitation and unfair treatment. The subordination of the populace was implemented through military operations, intimidation, bribery and the divide and rule policy. The British complemented the tribal administration with the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), a law that has been frequently called an “engine of oppression and subjugation”.

Ironically, the inhuman and uncivilised system introduced by the so-called civilised and gentlemanly government of British India in the tribal belt continued for decades after Independence. Due to the internal and external dynamics of the region, successive governments in Pakistan failed to introduce reforms or merge the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with their adjoining districts.

The historic constitutional and legislative changes that have brought about Fata’s merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are a first step in the right direction, but due to complexities, intricacies and numerous hurdles, it will be a gigantic task to implement them. Major problems and challenges of such implementation include modification and changes to the prevailing tribal administrative set-up and to the role and responsibilities of existing officials and various tribal forces such as the Levies Force and Khasadars. Similarly, it is yet to be seen what will be the modus operandi for setting up the various government structures in the tribal areas, such as the recruitment of the local judiciary and creation of police stations.

There are additional challenges concerning the rehabilitation, reorganisation and reconstruction of those areas that have been badly affected by militancy and military operations. The upheavals of the last few years have not only fragmented and shattered the tribal structures, they have also generated and ignited ill feelings and grievances among certain segments of the populace towards the state. How the new set-up will reconcile, neutralise and pacify this state of mind of the masses is an important question. How the merger will incorporate the centuries-old traditional conservative tribal structure into a modern set-up is another significant issue. The government should address these issues for the smooth sailing of the new administrative system. External dynamics and problems are yet another challenge for the government to address.

The disenchanted and despondent elements who worked as playthings in the hands of foreign elements would be once again manipulated and influenced to derail, disrupt and destabilise the merger plans. The negative reaction and response of the Afghan government to the merger is, therefore, a big question that Pakistan needs to consider and address.

If the challenges and difficulties mentioned above are handled with far-sightedness and maturity, they may offer some great prospects to Fata, rich in natural resources, that in turn need to be explored and exploited for the development and progress of these areas. The creation of industrial and economic zones and transit facilities for trade with Afghanistan and the development of tourism may accrue some other benefits for local inhabitants as well as for the state of Pakistan.

To achieve this, special grants in aid should be allocated for the coming 10 to 15 years under a proper monitoring mechanism to rebuild and renovate the basic communication and civic infrastructure in Fata. More say for the representatives of Fata in policymaking about the tribal areas should be given imminent and pivotal importance. In addition to all this, the promised reforms should be implemented phase-wise and in a transparent manner.

Salman Bangash is an assistant professor at the Department of History, University of Peshawar

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of the Herald. To read more, subscribe to the Herald in print.

The Pakistani rupee is under pressure, having depreciated 15 per cent against the dollar over the last seven months. Pakistan’s net international reserves are negative now while the country continues to run a very high current account deficit of over five per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The demand for dollars for imports, loan repayments and speculative capital flight continues to far exceed the country’s capacity to earn dollars through exports and remittances.

It is expected that Pakistan will have to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ­— yet again. The last time this happened was in July 2013, when then finance minister Ishaq Dar defended the IMF plan with the promise that “a better tomorrow dawns only when requisite pains are borne today”. Unfortunately, it looks like Pakistan must suffer a bit more before any new dawn breaks.

Why is Pakistan back in trouble with balance of payment? The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) government received a big break early in its tenure when the price of oil fell from around 100 US dollars a barrel to less than half that amount. Since almost a third of Pakistan’s imports are based on oil, the decline in oil prices provided the government some significant breathing room to plan for the future and put its financial house in order. Unfortunately, the opportunity was squandered as the PMLN government failed to take the steps necessary to put Pakistan’s balance of payment position in order.

There were three basic issues that needed to be addressed. First, the government should have taken advantage of low oil prices by building up foreign currency reserves to offset the impact of future increase in oil prices. A good example to follow is that of Chile, a country that actively saves foreign currency when copper prices (its main export) rise. Since this was not done, the subsequent rise in oil prices since July of last year has put predictable pressure on Pakistan’s balance of payment.

Second, Pakistan faces the chronic problem of a poorly regulated financial system that facilitates tax evasion and helps launder money out of Pakistan. This lack of financial supervision by the government creates the twin problem of fiscal and current account deficits that are directly responsible for the balance of payment crisis. Unfortunately, the previous government made little to no headway in improving its ability to monitor the financial system.

Third, and most importantly, Pakistan’s anemic performance in the export sector is directly responsible for its perpetual balance of payment concerns. For example, since 1980, exports from India and Bangladesh have grown at a rate that is more than five times that of the growth of Pakistan’s exports. Unfortunately, the PMLN government failed to make any improvement in export performance. In fact, Pakistan’s total exports actually decreased in real terms during the PMLN tenure.

One reason for Pakistan’s poor export performance was Dar’s strange infatuation with keeping the rupee at or below the rate of 100 per US dollar — something he openly acknowledged in December 2013. The rupee exchange rate, like any other price in the economy, is ultimately a function of demand and supply. Dar’s insistence on keeping an overvalued exchange rate disproportionately hurt exports.

To make matters worse, the government engaged in an import-led growth strategy by borrowing from abroad to finance large-scale infrastructure projects — the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being the most prominent example. It is well known that high net borrowing from abroad leads to real exchange rate appreciation which further restricts export growth. All of these elements have combined to generate the current balance of payment crisis. The new government that comes to power must address these issues in order to address the problem of rapid depreciation of the rupee.

The writer is a professor of economics, public policy and finance at Princeton University and Director of Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance at the Woodrow Wilson School.

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of the Herald. To read more, subscribe to the Herald in print.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) has been stripped off the N. We have gone from a *noon* to a *noon* *ghunah*, a letter with no sound. We feel it adequately represents the silence we seek to observe in the wake of recent Supreme Court judgments. Our leaders will need yogi-level patience to avoid any future contempt cases. Please bear in mind that this does not mean any of us are converting to Buddhism. We have prerecorded videos of all our leaders declaring their Islamic faith, just in case they are needed.

As such, our party needs a new voice and a new leader. We are a political party with the mandate but without a man or any dates. Me Lord, you are a man with many dates but no mandate or political party. We are a match made in heaven. We have met enough times recently for us to now talk about making our relationship official. The members of PMLexN would like to officially request the Chief Justice of Pakistan to be the next chairperson of the party.

We have had our issues in the past but no relationship is easy. You have kicked us out of the house and made us sleep with the dogs a few times but we are willing to let bygones be bygones. We cannot afford to pay anymore legal fees and you cannot pretend anymore that you do not love us. You love Nehal Hashmi so much you wanted to keep him for an entire month. We know we have said some unkind things but they were all born out of love. So many others have said much worse things about you but you only care about the things we say. It is true, you can only hurt the ones you love.

We have seen the new man you have been batting your eyelids at — when has that ever worked out for you? Would you rather be our only or somebody’s fourth wife? We have never even called you sharamnaak. Your naak is the prettiest naak in the world for us.

There may be leaders out there, who are prettier than us or have been in power but we know we have the one thing that you really want; the children, our children — we have the people of Pakistan. With our political support and your credibility, together we can rule the world, or at least parts of Pakistan that come under civilian rule, till we are overthrown. After which, we can retire in peace in our khaymah.

You keep kicking us out but the children keep coming back to us. We have heard what you tell your friends — you want the children as much as us. Let’s do it for the kids.

We’ll bring everybody you want: Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Talal Chaudhry, Rana Sanaullah, the stuffed tiger we use at rallies, one pound fish guy who sang a song for us, a lion from Lahore Zoo, you say it and we will make it happen. Everything we did was only to get your attention. We only spoke about you in Parliament because we wanted you to listen to us. It is our John Cusack-holding-a-boom-box-outside-your-window moment.

All we are saying is that we love you. Quit playing games with our inflated hearts and say you love us too. And if you do not, just tell us who you are sharing your bed with. We know it is not the man you were with for 10 years — you never call him in and even when we ask you to, you let him leave. Is there somebody else in his clothes that you love now?

We’ll wait at D-Chowk this Friday at 8 pm with the children. If you want, come and we can go from being PMLN to PMLSC or PMLCJ or PMLA or any other letter of the alphabet that you like, any except I. That may make us PML-Independent.

This satire was published in the Herald's March 2018 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Whichever way one looks at it, former senior superintendent police (SSP) Malir, Rao Anwar, appears to be a butcher. According to a police report submitted in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, he has been accused of killing 444 people in 192 encounters between July 25, 2011 and January 19, 2018 in the Karachi district under his charge. Let that number sink in. 444.

So when former president Asif Ali Zardari recently called him a “brave kid” on a private news channel, the backlash from people – already horrified at the brutal fashion in which a Waziristani youth had been killed allegedly by Anwar and his men – was anything but misplaced. Zardari later retracted his statement through his spokesperson, but the incident confirmed that Anwar has friends in high places. How else could a man responsible for killing nearly 500 people (or more), and declared an absconder by the country’s top court, still remain a fugitive — and be praised by a former president!

It is not just politicians who are said to have a soft spot for Anwar. Recruited in the 1980s as an assistant sub inspector, he became known for arresting and killing a number of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) activists during a long-running security operation in Karachi between 1992 and 1999. And when the MQM came into power after the 2002 general election, Anwar got himself posted to Balochistan only to return to Karachi when the Pakistan Peoples Party assumed power in 2008. By this time, he had become even more influential.

In April 2015, he made an explosive – but unsubstantiated – revelation in a fiery press conference against the MQM and its chief, Altaf Hussain, who, the police official said, was working on India’s behest to destroy Pakistan. The refrain sounded familiar. The army had made the same accusation back in the 1990s — when Hussain and his men were accused of carving out ‘Jinnahpur’, an autonomous state, out of Sindh. The Rangers, too, have been using the same allegations to cut the MQM’s street power down to size. Anwar has friends in very high places indeed.

But even powerful friends cannot justify young Naqeebullah Mehsud’s cold-blooded murder, allegedly at the hands of Anwar and his team of trigger-happy touts. They cannot explain how a man held responsible for killing 444 people can roam free, let alone be a policeman. They cannot explain how a policeman with a salary of less than 100,000 rupees a month can make 74 trips to Dubai since being appointed SSP (though holding the rank of an SP) and that too without completing the requisite paperwork.

A story published in the Herald in October 2015 narrates an anecdote: “On a March morning in 1994, a police inspector was having a nap on one of the back benches in court room number one on the second floor of the [Sindh High Court] — this is where the chief justice of the province, its highest judicial official, sits in the middle chair to adjudicate and dispense justice. Soon a court official called out the inspector’s name — Anwar Ahmed. Woken up from his slumber, he was told to present himself in front of a two-member bench of the court headed by then Sindh Chief Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid.”

That Anwar Ahmed is today’s reviled Rao Anwar. But he is not the one in need of being shaken from slumber. It is the courts, police and the state at large that need to wake up to the realisation that extrajudicial killings are not part of the solution. They are part of the problem. A problem that trigger happy police officials such as Rao Anwar, Abid Boxer and even Chaudhry Aslam could not solve by killing aspiring models, businessmen, Pakhtun labourers or, for that matter, those known to have links with extremist organisations. They all deserve a lawful treatment. No one should take the law into their own hands to inflict punishment on anyone. The ones responsible for upholding the law should be doing that – uphold the law – and not damage it for personal glory and the political and security imperatives of their friends in high places.

This article was published in the Herald's March 2018 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

‘Tis the season to be jolly, the bustards are coming. The small chicken-like birds migrate from Africa to Pakistan in the winter season to celebrate Christmas, and much like most African migrants in history, they are hunted for pleasure by rich people. Thankfully the birds are grey and brown, not white, so the world hardly cares about them.

Pakistan must be lauded for its strong stance against the hunting of these poor defenceless birds. Pakistanis have no need to go hunting for birds. They already have their favourite sport: to hunt other Pakistanis. No, instead the bustard hunting is exclusively reserved for bustard enthusiasts: the Arabs. It is racist that Pakistani newspapers are focusing so much on the Arab hunting trips whereas nobody cared when Raymond Davis came to hunt in Pakistan.

So what if the Arabs are allowed to hunt a few birds in Pakistan? What good are birds anyway? You cannot even park your car outside in Karachi because of all the pigeon poop. Once again, the Arabs are coming in to help Pakistan with its shit; no bustards means no bustard poop. It is a win-win for all of us.

Sure there are endangered species that the royal princes could hunt in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but why cause death and destruction in your own country when you have Pakistan as your royal playground? The Arab version of the TV show Westworld is basically called Al-Bakistanworld. Forget the birds, if they pay us enough we will let them hunt the Baloch near Shamsi airbase too. We let the Americans do it, so why not the Arabs?

The Americans have not housed our leaders. The Arabs were nice enough to keep the Sharif brothers for us while we figured out if we liked another military dictatorship or not. Even now, they are standing with open arms, much like Jaya Bachchan in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, waiting to take our bustard poop from us.

There are approximately 600,000 Pakistanis working in the UAE. They are given jobs, shawarmas and no fundamental human rights to remind them of back home. In return, all the Arabs ask for is the right to watch their falcons dismantle a few defenceless small birds — is that too much to ask? Letting other countries have wars in Pakistan for sport and watch with pleasure in return for money has basically been our foreign policy for the last 70 years.

There is an easy solution to stop all the anti-nationals looking to destabilise our relationship with our Arab brothers by asking for a ban on bustard hunting. We should declare all houbara bustards to be kaffir. Nobody would dare campaign against the right of our Arab Muslims brothers coming to Pakistan to hunt kaffirs. I know that because they have been doing that for years and nobody has ever campaigned against it.

If anything, Pakistanis and Arabs can come together and celebrate the killing of these kaffir birds every year. Pakistanis will just have to figure out how to jump over the fence to get into the areas reserved for the Arabs and get past all the security they bring with them. Sure, the Arabs may consider all the locals to be children of a lesser God but apart from them destroying chickpea crops without compensating the farmers, deporting Pakistanis from the UAE and using our land for sport, we are all basically brothers!

They just have to take the Sharif brothers back and we will let them hunt the snow leopards too. The population of Pakistan is growing and we have to make space. Like I said, win-win.

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the February 2018 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

It is 2018, the much-awaited year of elections in Pakistan. Political leaders are scampering to gain the public’s trust. Luckily for them, I am here to help them garner people’s support. As a self-proclaimed speech writer, I will teach them how to write the perfect political speech to ensure their party clean sweeps the election like Younis Khan on a dry Multan pitch.

There is no need to mention any agenda; rock beats scissors and rhetoric beats agenda. It wouldn’t hurt to throw in an occasional ‘penn di siree’ or other ambivalent curses directed at your opponent’s sisters and mothers. Pakistan is our motherland after all — no one better to aim your insults at than the mother.

A leader must first be a jugatbaaz, in the fashion of Punjabi stage-show actors, then he must be charismatic and has to be sadiq and ameen — everything else is fluff. Shaikh Rasheed’s timely jugats are the only reason he still has a National Assembly seat. The reason Punjabis win the election is not their majority in the National Assembly but the power of their jugats.

Talking about any possible clothing is highly recommended including references to activities such as ‘pagri uchhalna’ and ‘shalwar utaarna’. Make sure to always augment your point by suggestively smiling throughout. Even better if you can manage to produce pictures of babies who look like other leaders and question them if they know the mother of the child. The Jerry Springer Show was highly rated for a reason.

If you are good for ratings, then television channels will love you. If television channels love you, then you will get maximum airtime. If you get maximum air time, you are basically the next Imran Khan. In which case you will need a fancy sidekick DJ buddy and a few slogans. That will make you better prepared for an election than the actual Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has ever been.

Do not worry about checking yourself. Fake News is the new news. As long as your supporters believe you, you might as well claim you invented nihari while trying to wrestle a cow in an oil field. Shakespeare said, if you can keep a straight face while you claim you are the chosen one then yours is the world and the prime ministership.

If television channels dare to show anything against you, threaten them with a few choice words. Even if the words you choose are a variation of penn di and siree. Curses and rumours in Pakistan are like fairies — if you say them enough times they become true.

Your opponents will be too embarrassed to mount a comeback. This is where you have the edge over old politicians. You should have left your adaabs back in Lucknow, old men — it is time for a new age and you have to speak to people in a language they understand.

If you tweet out “O penn di siree, my party is dabbing its way to the election without being extra. Snap me and DM me for mad retweets rad fam,” then you basically have the entire millennial vote locked. Everyone except Imaan Mazari will love you. However, you can give her a few lanats along with your traditional Malala bashing to gain brownie points with the rest of the electorate.

Do not even worry about making any promises. If you can ridicule the other party’s promises repeatedly then it will seem like you have an agenda. Better yet you can mask your political motives under a veneer of social causes. You are not burning down Islamabad to become the president, you are doing it to save Pakistan. Pakistan would have won every war ever if only there were more dharnas in Faizabad during 1965 and 1971.

This satire was published in the Herald's January 2018 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

This was originally published in the Herald's January 2018 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Captain Safdar has brought the nation’s focus back on the most pressing issue in the country: when poor people die from lack of food, water or proper healthcare, they die in peace knowing they expired in a country where Ahmadis have been declared infidels.

Ahmadis are so hell-bent on destroying Pakistan that they helped create it. It was an Ahmadi, Sir Zafarullah Khan, who drafted the Lahore Resolution. If there was no Pakistan, what would they even do? It’s not like Ahmadi groups run social welfare programmes or help improve the image of Muslims worldwide.

Pakistan was created to protect the religious rights of minorities. We are all making a concerted effort to extinguish all minorities so that we may return to having the right religious sect as the only minority again. It is a genius plan. When nobody is left to kill, we will finally have peace. This must have been India’s plan all along. This is why they paid the Ahmadis to support the Pakistan movement in 1947. It all makes sense now.

Clearly Captain Safdar is right and Ahmadis are all RAW agents hired to destroy Pakistan. We all know everyone in RAW is stupid. By turning Pakistanis against each other, they would stifle growth, wound national unity and threaten peace in the country. But we know RAW is stupid so instead they fund Ahmadis in Pakistan.

There are four million Ahmadis in Pakistan. All of them receive a pay cheque from RAW at the end of the month. Not only are they terrorists, but they are inept terrorists. Four million of them, yet all violence is perpetrated against them rather than by them. If they were smart, the four million of them would get together and cause civil strife, but we have well established by now that RAW is stupid and we are smart.

We are smart and we are firmly behind Captain Safdar. He is right to question the credentials of people like Nobel Prize winning physicist Abdus Salam and 1965 war hero Akhtar Hussain Malik. Safdar’s own impressive credentials include marrying Maryam Nawaz. His other great accomplishment: at the tender age of 54, he is the president of the PMLN youth wing.

We need a brave man like Captain Safdar as our next prime minister. Not a puppet like Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. When asked about this, the current prime minister simply said, “Hey man, I‘m just keeping the seat warm. I don’t want no trouble.” And then flew a Turkish military helicopter out of the interview before anyone could ask a follow-up question.

Mr Prime Minister, you can no longer hide behind Quaid-e-Azam, or in front of Quaid-e-Azam (depending on where his picture is placed). He was an Ismaili, what does he know about Pakistan? Once we get bored of the Ahmadi issue, Ismailis are next, followed by Pakistanis who hate biryani. We cannot tolerate these threats to the nation. Quaid-e-Azam only said that you are free to go to your mosques. He never specified which mosques would be allowed, or whether you’d return from them walking or dead.

Captain Safdar is our new Quaid. He left the National Assembly triumphantly chanting slogans in favour of Mumtaz Qadri, a man hanged for murder during his own party’s tenure. His recent arrest is simply more evidence of the Pro-Ahmadi Jewish hotel lobby. The JIT report against him was written by Sir Zafarullah Khan — he had a lot of time on his hands after he was made to resign as foreign minister in 1954 for being an Ahmadi.

Pakistan should get rid of the courts and hold a referendum on every decision. I am sure I would not be found by the people to have stolen pizza.

This article is part of the Herald's satire series titled 'Newsbite' originally published in the November 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The five-member bench of voices in my head finds Nawaz Sharif guilty; guilty of being the best prime minister ever. Not only has the saintly man never taken a dime out of the national treasury but he has also not collected a salary he was entitled to because he was so busy working for the people of Pakistan. Thank you, Nawaz Sharif for your service and the daig of biryani you sent to our house before I wrote this judgment.

A joint investigation team (JIT) was formed to find the sources of funds for a steel mill at the Gulf. It looked everywhere — the basement, the attic, and even under the bed but all they found was an old sock. In light of no evidence to the contrary, I have to think that whatever Nawaz Sharif and his family are saying is true. Female shoppers in Karachi would agree that no man has ever lied at Gulf.

The judges must also applaud Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz for being able to buy apartments on Mayfair at an age when kids cannot even build a house on Mayfair while playing Monopoly.

The probe team consulted a professional forensic laboratory in England and the results came back inconclusive. Trebor W Yeldar said, “What’s in a font? Would a document still be false if it was written by any other font?” The team decided that this was the last time they were asking a Shakespeare reading club to investigate documents.

Shehbaz Sharif told the team that he was not involved — he has always seemed like the person who would not get involved in things. The pictures submitted by the accusers of Shehbaz Sharif posing in safari suits in drowned out streets are rejected. No evidence of any underpass in Panama was found. There is, however, evidence to suggest Shehbaz Sharif was the person behind the Panama Leaks in an attempt to become prime minister by ousting his brother — the worst thing a brother has done to a sibling since Jaime Lannister’s deed with Cersei Lannister.

The JIT was formed to investigate how the money reached Qatar, Jeddah and London. We live in 2017, the money could have reached by car, plane or ship. I don’t even understand why there was any need to investigate this. If I were to guess, I would say the money flew first class.

Yet it has also been proven that Nawaz Sharif lied to the nation. We have known this man for almost four decades now; nobody stays in a relationship that long without lying a few hundred times. The judges in my head also find Maryam Nawaz to be fabricated — in that we mean that her fabrics are amazing. They are impressed by the floral designs of her clothes. The bench finds Maryam Nawaz guilty of having an amazing sense of dressing, design aesthetic and textile management. The court would not be surprised to find that the Sharifs also own textile mills in Agrabah.

The bench is content with the explanation of Despondent No 1 that his dog ate his tax returns. A further petition was filed which asserted that keeping a dog would disqualify Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from being Sadiq and Amin so the affidavit was edited to change ‘dog’ to ‘peacock’ to better reflect Nawaz Sharif’s religious disposition. The bench severely discourages any jokes made by social media dissenters about his peacock. A policeman was already suspended in 2014 when a cat ate the peacock, along with all tax documents.

The judges do not see any merit in the Qatari letters — if Saudi Arabia does not like Qatar then as loyal friends of Saudi Arabia we should also not concern ourselves with anything to do with Qatar. Unless Qatar Airways flights to anywhere are cheaper than all other competitors.

The court finds that we are in no position to judge Nawaz Sharif despite the fact that that is literally our job title. We hope the nation, or Mamnoon Hussain, can find it in their heart to pardon Nawaz Sharif. Like they say, the fourth time is a charm — I am sure Nawaz Sharif will complete 4.5 years at least the next time he is prime minister.

This article is part of the Herald's new satire series titled 'Newsbite', originally published in the August 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Nawaz Sharif’s trepidation has finally reaped awards for Pakistan as the prime minister has been included in the nominees for the upcoming Nobel Peace Prize for his role in avoiding a nuclear war between Saudia Arabia and Qatar. Upon hearing the news, former American president Barack Obama remarked, “If I can win a peace prize while bombing thousands each year then why not him?”

“Why not him?” — a question the electoral pool has asked itself for 30 years.

“Why not him?” — the same dreaded words Pakistani parents say before rushing their daughters into an arranged marriage.

My relationship with Sharif is much like my relationship with my wife: it was arranged for me by her Islamic father, we both had little choice in the matter.

He may not have mass popularity, or any popularity, but Sharif is the hero we got. He may not look the part, he may not even be the hero we need, but he is the hero we deserve. He is not a superhero by any stretch of the imagination. Superheroes are a rarity in Pakistan in any case. The one we have, we use to sell soaps to children.

Just by reading his name you’ll know Sharif is a man who revels in the path of forbearance, fear and abstinence. If he wins he is a warrior, and if he loses he is what we call anyone who dies in the public eye in Pakistan: a shaheed. The great irony of Pakistan is that everybody wants to be a shaheed but nobody wants to die for it.

A Sharif in hand is worth two Georges in the Bush. America has repeatedly shown the perils of a trigger-happy president, they have never learned from their mistakes but the world can do better. Pakistan has gone a step further by electing a trigger-averse prime minister. Not only does he not want Pakistan to go to war, but he does not want any country to go to war. In this global conflict, Sharif is the little kid holding a lollipop asking the other children bent upon fighting, “Why can’t we be friends?”

As a Pakistani, Nawaz Sharif knows exactly what he needed to do when his business-family-refuge-providing friends started a war with his letter-writing-money-giving friends; the answer is nothing.

Think about it, we would never have war if everybody does nothing. If you just wait long enough to be rescued then eventually the war will end and you will be saved. He may not have Rapunzel’s hair but Sharif has always been rescued from the tower when all hope seemed lost — usually by a Qatari prince, or a Saudi prince, or a chocolate prince biscuit; even a princess has to eat.

Much like a man considering two marriage proposals at once, Sharif was equally non-committal when Saudi King Salman messaged him saying, “You up?” In an interesting twist of fate, Sharif is not even responding to the letters written to him by the Qataris. He was going to respond to the letter but he stopped because he thought writing “Faqat aap ka dost” at the end would be taking a clear position.

Despite the hate, the Twitter insults and the barrage of memes, Sharif has showed that he has staying power and he might be on the verge of global recognition for his ability to look busy, do nothing. It remains to be seen whether Maryam Nawaz will write his Nobel acceptance speech in a series of 140 character tweets or Shahbaz Sharif will hide in the rostrum and act like a live teleprompter.

Upon hearing of his nomination, Sharif sent a cheque to the Nobel committee to buy the prize. He followed it up by sending a letter to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia expressing the special place the country has in the hearts of Pakistanis and reaffirmed his strong commitment to the Kingdom. He changed “Saudi Arabia” to “Qatar” and then sent the same letter to Qatar. It is not plagiarism if you are copying yourself.

All Nawaz Sharif now needs to do is to avoid the five-member Qatar delegation that has come to Pakistan — his ministers have advised him to turn off all the lights at his house to make it seem like he’s not home. Frankly speaking, that has mainly been PMLN’s strategy for their entire tenure.

This is the first piece of the Herald's new satire series titled 'Newsbite' originally published in the July 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

My countrymen have nothing to fear but losing their chains. Or their lives, if they live in Tharparkar. My brother Che once said that a revolution is not an apple you wait for to fall. You must make it fall (and keep a slice for yourself — addendum by yours truly, Bolshevik Zardari).

We tried to make the government fall, to usher in the glorious revolution, and ordered dapper uniforms for ourselves after the salvo of a single tweet. But, the winds of change went from rejection to withdrawal like moi decamps to Dubai when the heat is on.

I am now a campaigner against corruption. We have pursued Panama in a way that little Khan could not manage. So distasteful that the nouveau riche whiten their money in that little canal state; if they had old money it would have been in Surrey. Black is beautiful.

You know this government has its roots in dictatorship, having flattered the dictators while parking themselves in their laps in the 1980s. But the future is now. This country deserves a PPP firmly cradled by the establishment. We need democracy to take hold outside of Sindh now; no longer should the rest of Pakistan lag behind.

I am sensing my new vision of revolution and anti-corruption is resonating across the country. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the people have told me that PTI has not delivered; in Punjab they cry out for the lack of delivery by PMLN. Everyone is unanimous they want the garbage-strewn streets we give to Sindh.

Not only am I committed to a revolution in this country, I am giving the reigns of power to the next generation. I have a young chief minister who is highly educated. And like one is supposed to do with the young, I don’t let him do anything without my permission. Empowerment is power with me written backwards after all.

My children are so difficult — not easy being a widower. What’s a guy got to do if he can’t even bring Irfanullah Marwat into the party? Or crack a little joke at yackity women in the assembly? I don’t want a dry party. A father’s job is never done. Why do my kids have to be such ardent feminists? One is grateful, though, that they aren’t Gülenists.

Bilawal is deeply impressed by my revolutionary fervour. He asked if my redemption politics against the imperialism of PMLN or PTI is based on the works of Voltaire or Marx. He is young this Bilawal, and hasn’t seen Mel Gibson’s Braveheart so doesn’t know where I get my intellectual roots yet. He said to me, “But Papa, surely the revolution is based on Marx?” Again, what does a father say to a child who has never heard the sublime musical stylings of Prince?

But forget my children. They will eventually see what the common man sees in me: a champion of the poor. The people cannot even afford a Mediterranean salad, forget about adding extra-virgin olive oil or Norwegian salmon shavings to it. We must eat cake. 

No, this can’t go on. The next PPP government will bring employment to every hungry household. A job for everyone in Pakistan Steel Mills and PIA. We will fly with strength. Viva la revolución.

Yours politically,

Asif Ali Zardari

This article was originally published in the Herald's June 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

I have been going house to house now for some time. Had I known this is what I would be doing with my time, I would have become a salesman instead of a primary school teacher. Believe me, getting information from these households is way harder than selling them detergent they don’t want.

The good thing is I have become mates with the soldier who accompanies me door to door. At least his house will be open to me after this exercise. We tell people we are here to count them, and it seems like everyone has learned the same joke: “So after you have counted us, will we count in this country?” Can’t they understand, we are enumerators, not Justice Cornelius.

And what’s with all the hostility? The suspicion? It almost makes me want to rob them blind and say ‘there you go’. Every time we are at the door faced with those questioning eyes I want to say, “Look, I promise, we don’t come bearing polio drops.”

The boss tells us every day we are doing important work to keep us motivated. He says after this exercise we will know exactly how many people we are failing. That we will know who to serve and how better to manage after this. Honestly, I don’t get it, do you need to know there are a million people before giving them basics like a health unit or sewerage?

So, what have we found out so far from the census? Well, that Pakistan is the only country in the world dangerous for statisticians.

You just don’t know how hard it can be asking some of these questions. Just try asking someone their sect when your name is Omar Farooq. Or getting at the fertility of some gruff man’s wife.

But it’s the comedians, oh the comedians. Comedy is the silent epidemic of this country. When you ask for their source of water and they say tap, you want to tap them out. When you ask them about their occupation in a basti and they say industrialist, following it up with an offer of a Qatari letter as proof. Ask them about language and they say they speak the language of money.

We have been told by the Bureau of Statistics that we cannot indulge in retaliatory comedy. If I had a rupee for every person I did not quip to ‘you can make a cricket team of your household members’, the money would be more than the bribe Imran Khan claims Nawaz offered him.

The Pakhtuns keep insisting to double-check whether we have undercounted them, the muhajirs keep asking if we can inflate them, the Punjabis insist we undercounted them last time and we don’t listen to anything the Baloch say. My friends in Lahore who are doing the same job say the government is okay with us making Lahore as big as Karachi, while friends in rural Sindh say they would like to make Karachi as small as Lahore.

Filling in forms day in and day out is cumbersome. Forget about the Panama Canal, I have Carpal Tunnel. Grading papers is so much easier, at least there is someone to take my frustrations out on. Aah, the joys of being in a classroom again, when will I see my decrepit school?

They say this is going to change the politics of the country. I get the feeling that happens more when you have consensus instead of a census. But who are we to say anything, we have been pushed into this by the Supreme Court. If only they would push others into birth control.

Yours statistically,

Census-taker

This article was originally published in the Herald's May 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Dear Diary ...

Working for the PMLN as their spokesperson is so incredibly rewarding, it’s as if I have found my dream job at Enron or Exxon. Do good and do it well, I always say.

Every day I wake up and eagerly start my day to serve the nation. Pakistan needs nothing more than strong institutions to develop. And there is no stronger institution than Mohtarma Maryam Nawaz Sharif.

My plate is so full. Chapli kebabs and naans take up most of the space. But yes, I have a lot to do as well. And who wouldn’t if you are non-stop developing Pakistan. We will leave no old tree unturned to get us into the future. We must raze down history to make way for a new history, created by Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Mian Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif.

We wake up in the morning and read the papers; by lunchtime we are using them as wrapping paper to keep the naans warm. We usually rush to the Supreme Court to get the latest gossip from the peons on where the Panama case will go. They know more than our lawyers. We also take this opportunity to sing paeans of the boss to the peons. Then we get to Maryam Nawaz's place so she can tell us how to do our jobs. We quickly alert the press that, no, the royal family is not escaping the country. By night-time we are on a news show, shouting down the other guy. And every minute of downtime is used in responding to whatever that sore loser fantasist has said on the day.

I have to keep the nation updated on all the flyovers we are building, and the bypasses we are getting. As one must when their supreme leader looks like Justin Trudeau, acts like Winston Churchill and thinks like Lee Kuan Yew.

Look, when we bought the flats in Mayfair, they weren’t as expensive as they are in Monopoly. You know, the woman who created the game Monopoly did so to teach young kids about the evils of capitalism and its heartlessness. But we weren’t convinced as children; it made us want to have those flats. Hey, it’s better than our main opposition leader getting one in Old Kent — standards, like I said earlier, standards. When they go low, we go high and get the B-Team to descend to the gutter against them.

And it’s just so tiring being the only adult in the country — the PTI has no adults, even though they use a lot of adult language. Plus our lawyers have told us not to stoop to their level when they grandstand.

They are always asking us about our properties and how the money went here and there. How would we know, we weren’t there. And neither does Maryam, the PM, his sons or the in-laws. We know nada, all was done by Dada.

On social media, we take our cues from Maryam Nawaz. We tried getting her father on Twitter, but he said it was beneath him to use a Tweezer in public. We then tried to convince him to use Facebook, but he disliked the thought of getting poked because he is so ticklish. He said he would have tried MS DOS, but she remarried recently.

Managing the media is our job. But it’s so difficult when the journalists are so unprofessional in this country — not all of them will accept plum jobs in government departments. It’s like they want to be servants of the Seth their whole lives.

After our novelisations in the National Assembly failed, we had to become lawyers as well. Spinning a good yarn was always our specialty, but this one is proving expensive. Where do we go? Telling the truth got us Dawn Leaks — and keeping shut is against our DNA. Any opportunity for a good jugat is our kryptonite.

Maryam's obediently,

PMLN Spokesperson

This was originally published in the Herald's April 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

I am in a bit of a spot and I don’t know how to fix it.

All you guys want us to do is win, win, win. How is that even remotely possible? I can ask some knowledgeable bookies to explain probabilities to you.

So sure, yes, we went down under in down under. Just won one measly match in the Test series and the ODIs. But we didn’t let it affect our morale because they are a nation of criminals. Especially Ian Chappell.

The sky seemed to fall when Bangladesh went a notch higher than us in the rankings. But I don’t see anyone agonising over Bangladesh beating us in the global human development index. Why is it so that only cricketers are supposed to perform?

And we are absolutely tired of you asking us to be more like Misbah. Ask us to be an Afridi. Now that’s cricket. Refusing to retire, going out swinging the bat no matter what the match requires, and doing shampoo commercials. Lots of shampoo commercials.

The only way to hold your head up high for the nation as a cricketer is without dandruff. The media has got the whole PSL betting scandal wrong. We have been demoralised, because the real scandal is getting only 4-5 lakhs to throw a match. “We have become the Suzuki Mehrans of the betting world.”

We are kinda happy we don’t have to play India anymore. If we lose again, people will just say we have put Radd-ul-Fasaad in jeopardy. Why does everyone worry about everyone else’s morale but ours? Plus we like our travel/daily allowance now that international cricket can only be played internationally.

Cricket is not the same as it once was. It’s been 10 years since a Miss India has been interested in a Pakistani cricketer. In the old days all we had to do was drink soda, now it’s the whole song and dance routine as well. We played cricket a couple times a year instead of the nine-to-five on the pitch we have to pull through now.

You hanker for the glory days of Imran, Miandad, Fazal Mahmood and others? So do we. Those were the days when the sport was the home of gentlemen, where the spirit of the game was paramount, every match an exercise in furthering Pakistan’s image abroad. When other sports were alive and well — hockey and squash competing for the affections of the Pakistani viewer. They were the good times.

Even Ian Chappell hadn’t started commentary then. Those days were that good.

But you know what else isn’t as good as the old days? The fans. Yeah, those fans didn’t burn effigies, surround houses, organise angry mobs to receive players at the airport, spew constant filth online and behave poorly at matches.

And you know what else isn’t as good as the old days? The TV journalists. Yeah, those journalists didn’t encourage fans to burn effigies, surround houses, give out details about our arrival times at the airport, spew constant filth against us in TV shows and interview us with contempt at matches.

Look, we are just your average kids from Pakistan. Cricket is not some profession to us that we chose. We give up everything to try and make it; more often than not it’s cricket that will give up on us. Just one in a thousand will get the chance to make it worthwhile.

And that’s enough for us; we are young, don’t get along well to play like a team, make self-sabotaging mistakes. Yet, we are wildly talented and full of promise. We are Pakistan, to the core. Loveable, frustrating, yet one with the nation, even if we don’t like each other sometimes. And when the times are tough, we unite against an enemy.

Especially if it’s Ian Chappell.

Yours defensively,

All-rounder

This article was originally published in the Herald's March 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Dear Diary ...

Imran Khan is like a discounted Birkin bag. A Birkin is never on discount, but if it is, you know there is something seriously wrong with it. That man is just so out of touch with the common man.

I just can’t believe that I had to resign my position as Chairperson of the Youth Loan Programme because of that frivolous case by the PTI alleging I was not qualified or experienced. Look, I may not have spent 45 years as a teenager like Imran has, but I have at least 15 years under my belt, which is more than enough to lead a youth organisation.

If I had stayed on as chairperson, I would have started a sterling national programme of youth training so the next generation can be empowered, independent lads and lasses, rising to their potential by looking inwards for strength — and then to their daddies.

When I went on my first trip to the White House with Daddy, I made sure that I would do something to raise the profile of education in the country. Without educating our youth how will we become a wealthy, First World country? If you need proof, just look at how rich Malala has become by concentrating on education. I want a million Malalas.

Education has always been a priority for me personally. I started off doing medicine, so I could eventually get into a good school to study literature. Know what you want and plan ahead is my motto. Daddy recently explained how he is looking forward to creating an inclusive Pakistan. I share that vision: I see a rainbow coalition of sectarian parties, centre-right, hard-right and democracy-loving traders, all united in voting for PMLN. I don’t see race, religion or creed; if you praise us, I will definitely RT you. Like, in an instant, without any prejudice.

But I must say I am so, so tired of people going on and on about Panama. Why is there so much fuss over the issue? How hard is it to understand that terminating business joint ventures can necessitate handing over in kind assets for the settlement of accounts in lieu of liquid capital, which was then put in a holding company to extract rents, while basing ownership elsewhere to rationalise tax, so income accrues to corporate entities benefiting from lower gains rates upon divestments? It’s like the people are thick or something. Our position is clear. Plus: we can’t show the money trail since we use credit cards, silly.

And why should anyone have a problem with my father gifting me properties? He can do anything he wants with his money, hard-earned from more than 35 years in politics.

PTI may think they are playing a great game, but The Great Gama’s grandchildren will win every time. And I am no princess. If you put a bottle of Perrier and Pellegrino in front of me, I will take the Perrier without blinking an eyelid. Each. And. Every. Time.

You know who the Chinese want to visit their country? Yours truly. Obviously, my jealous political opponents would think that it is because I am the Premier’s daughter, but my knowledge of China is unparalleled. Go ahead, I dare you, ask me anything about Noritake.

People are so biased against dynastic politics. Here I must give credit to my peer Bilawal; both of us are bringing down the patriarchy and sexist conventions. As a married woman, I have taken my father’s name, and he has taken his mother’s. These sacrifices we lend do us no benefit, but if we don’t lead and change mindsets, then who will?

Yours popularly,

Maryam Nawaz

This article was originally published in the Herald's February 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Dahlings…

I am the belle of the ball.

The minister of planning just announced that Finland offered four of its women in marriage and three baby brown bears to Pakistan in order to join me. Ahsan Iqbal, though, was unimpressed by the offer and asked for a dozen elk skins to be added to the bid if it was to be considered seriously. That’s good, for I will not go cheap.

India just has not been able to take my popularity. Once it was the coolest kid in school. Now, even its besties like Russia are drawn to me. India did her best to tell everyone I had the militant cooties and disinvited me from parties she hosted. But when the zeitgeist blows in your direction, you create your own rave.

With the overwhelming response to me so far, the government is considering allowing Bahria Town to auction further allotments to new members. You know you have made it in Pakistan when they treat you with the seriousness of a housing society. Modi claims some of the plots, but he has misplaced the file.

Nawaz Sharif’s plans of making a houbara bustard the foreign minister have been put on hold since I am improving Pakistan’s image abroad. He will, however, go ahead and give the bird the highest civilian medal of honour for the sacrifices it has made for this nation.

Pakistan is slowly facing a diplomatic crisis – though not the kind India hoped for – as it can no longer accommodate the sheer number of contenders to join this game changer, namely moi. With Iran and Russia already trying to force their way in, at the very least this threatens the existence of my catchy abbreviation. PRICEC just doesn’t convey the enormity of the project that CPEC does. M Bilal Hafeez confirmed that Denmark also wants to open a khokha of naswaar and cigarettes at the entrance of CPEC, such is the desperation.

Not since Agha Waqar’s water-kit has the international community displayed such envy. Spies have been dispatched to get details on my specifics but they have returned home empty-handed since most Pakistanis don’t know the details because of the federal government’s secrecy. A Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz spokesperson clarified that there would be a Western and an Eastern Route, but no canals would be connecting them, saying, “We have nothing to do with any canals, and we would like to clarify that under this project, offshore companies are coming to Pakistan.”

Military sources confirm that the project will bring peace to Balochistan, or at least to pieces of Balochistan, or definitely to the soon to be announced DHA in Balochistan. I just hope it will be too late before the Baloch nationalists realise that their share is only the migrating Chinese. How I look forward to the fusion cuisine — the Gong Bao Sajji will be divine.

I am just soooo tired of people asking me how they will pay for me. Dahlings, I am a millennial. We don’t plan ahead, we just live in the moment. And what a moment this is. Negotiating with the Chinese can be tough; they didn’t like it when I said, “If it has to be one belt and one road, make it a Gucci and an autobahn.”

2016 was my fabulous year and 2017 is going to be a brilliant year, but I am just not looking forward to the inevitable request for DNA testing as Nawaz, Zardari and Raheel have all claimed parentage. I must take pains to point out, I belong to the nation.

Yours smoothly,

CPEC

This article was originally published in the Herald's January 2017 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Dear Diary ...

This is the president-elect of the formerly United – now Divisive – States of America. I won. I’m full of winning, never get bored of it. The White House is white again! In addition to winning the Electoral College, I won the popular vote too if you discount the millions of people who voted for Hillary.

I’m going to come down hard on the world! I don’t want a foreign policy, what’s wrong with local policies? Why can’t we make policies that give millions of poor American workers jobs! The Apprentice: White House Edition will look for the best up-and-coming political aides from the rednecks who voted for me, I’ll give them jobs. I know jobs, I have the best jobs.

I didn’t even know there was a Pakistan, the only Stan I knew was in college who helped me grab women by their cats. But when will Pakistan apologise for Obama — I mean Osama.

We were bombing the wrong country for a decade and they didn’t bother mentioning it. Melania thinks maybe he was there for a vacation, you know, taking some time off from being assassinated. ‘Abbottabad, nice hills,’ she says. But I’m not buying it. I think we should declare that country a terrorist state and put their president in Guantanamo. Who is their president anyway, there’s some fat round man who looks too white to run a brown country.

It’s a yuge problem. Pakistan is manufacturing and exporting terrorists. I mean their capital is called Islambad. We should build a wall around Pakistan, a yuge wall, a trumendous wall! It will keep the world safe from terrorists and Pakistani doctors.

Muslims are dangerous. Look at how many wars they’ve started: the two world wars, the Cold War and Vietnam. We have to get tough on them! Obama was a Muslim, look where that got us. We should send them all back home: Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia, wherever they came from.

When I said I want to nuke ISIS, that was just guy talk, locker room talk, you know. What I really want to do is tax the hell out of China and their global warming conspiracy! They’re causing unemployment with their cheap knock-offs; I got my hair from China and it was a yuge mistake. I could have paid some guy in America to fleece an orangutan instead.

I have trumendous respect for the Japanese, but I want to tax them too, because they don’t look like us. They have those suspicious eyes. Russia can be a friend going forward, but I will stand by my principle of Putin America first.

India is the only good country in the world, the best country. They danced for me during my campaign. This Mo D guy is a big fan of my hair. But if he double crosses us there will be hell toupee.

I’m a self-made man, I put myself together from shed skin at a tanning salon. I’m very strong, very independent, I stand on my own feet. I tried standing on Melania’s feet once but she said it hurt a lot. When she plays Bridge, my wife always bids no trumps.

She might be a First Lady, but she wasn’t my first lady, if you know what I mean. I was a virile young man, now I’m a virile old man.

I’m an ontraprenor, or however you spell it. My net worth is equal to that of an average Third World country, and my default rate is higher. I have so much money they had to bankrupt me four times because they lost count of it. So what if I didn’t pay my taxes? Being a great leader is taxing enough.

I know a few blacks; I’m friends with a black. I don’t have time for political correctness, I’ll call a spade a black and a black a spade. Mexican immigrants bring drugs, and I ask you how much more drugs do we need. I went to an Ivy League college, I know drugs. I have the best drugs. We don’t need anymore from outside. We should make our own.

We wasted so many years trying to kill Fidel Castro, all we had to do was wait till 2016. Aging is the best CIA programme yet.

Yours presidentially,

Donald J Trump

This article was originally published in the Herald's December 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Dear Second-hand Diary ...

Because I can’t afford a new one, as today is the end of another month where I haven’t been paid. Sometimes my ex-wife asks me why I never got a proper job. All your friends are making a lot more money than you, she used to say, but you had to become a journalist. I told her I can’t help it — I have a passion for the truth, and the truth is I wasn’t qualified to do anything else. The job is demanding. My editor says I should listen to a lot of people without giving my own opinion, but as a Pakistani, that is impossible to do.

The job is dangerous too. I have to go to conflict areas, such as Lyari, Waziristan and the National Assembly. Covering the Parliament is not fun, unless I can cover it in tarpaulin.

Sometimes I have to go and ask people how it felt being trapped under debris or caught in a bomb blast. To my surprise, none of them say it was ‘kind of nice, actually’. Other times, I have to revisit sites of great tragedy and do live shots about dead people. Just today I was sent to a dark, desolate place with nicotine addicts sleeping on the floor because they don’t have homes or hope. I believe it was called a ‘press club’.

Newsrooms are the best. You get to work late, give up all pretences of a social life and make front-page news, or as most publications prefer it, make up front page news. I need to get regular vitamin shots because I haven’t seen the sun in a year. I get one day off in a week, and usually get called in for that when Imran Khan announces another dharna. I think I have a family, but I can’t remember their names. They only find out I’m alive when I file a story.

I regularly get arrested by cops, stopped at checkpoints and am refused entry into public offices — and that’s just on my way to work. I risk my life and reputation to publish stories so talk-show hosts can continue to make all the money.

Last year, I was shot at during a shutter-down protest, tear-gassed at a political rally and beaten up at a summer lawn sale. It’s much safer to cover sectarian leaders and militants. This year, I had my shirt torn and hair pulled at the national budget conference. On average, my cameraman’s equipment is broken twice a month — the biggest office expenditure is on gadgets.

Working for an English daily, my job description is to help white journalists understand conservative Pakistan. The dream is to be a correspondent for a foreign news agency one day, but my degree from Colombo University instead of Columbia means I might be a fixer for the rest of my life.

Today, I woke up to 100 messages on Twitter — 99 asking me how much RAW pays me for my articles. The ultimate challenge is to do a story on civil-military relations without people asking for your deportation. This week, I received only 10 death threats online; there must be exams in computer engineering colleges.

In Pakistan, we don’t just have credible journalists, we have incredible journalists.

One of our peers was recently put on the Exit Control List over a leaked story. Pakistan is the only country where punishment is not exile, but being forced to stay here. They’re still investigating it: one minister has lost his job and several others have been named in the terrible leak, which increasingly sounds like the government has a serious bladder problem.

But this story isn’t just a problem for the government, it’s also a problem for us. I used to think getting beaten up by cops or ending up in prison was how one became a renowned journalist; now I have to get on the Exit Control List for my badge of honour.

People say our stories aren’t reliably sourced, but sourcing is difficult in this country. If you ask a person the same thing twice, you’ll get three different answers. I can’t verify military sources; I can’t verify government sources; I can’t even verify the sources of my own income. Yes, sometimes I find a lifafa on my desk. Usually it’s just the new issue of Hilal magazine.

In Pakistan, everyone speaks on the condition of anonymity, wishing not to be named. If they really wished not to be named, they should have told their parents that. Just last week an official, on the condition of anonymity, told me to get lost.

The government now says journalism is the biggest threat to national security since the Taliban. There needs to be a new National Action Plan against media houses. There needs to be a Zarb-e-Azb in Karachi’s Saddar area. Somebody should investigate investigative journalism.

Yours anonymously,

Sohail Almedia

This article was originally published in the Herald's November 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.