The audacity of Accountability

How dare you? Stay in your limits? This is none of your business? What is your problem? Who are you to ask? And so on and so forth. Outrage is the word that describes the reactions of politicians, analysts, counsels and intellectuals, etc, who are almost aghast at the audacity of the "institutions" to have the guts to ask politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen, civil society why their lifestyles and deeds are not in order and not in line with the rule of law. The politicians who are being "questioned" on their unaccounted for massive assets are screaming and spinning "third party" interventions. Analysts, depending on which lens they are wearing, are busy proving or disproving this spin. Business community, intellectuals, etc, who are apprehensive of the accountability becoming too close for comfort, are hanging on every little opportunity of micro dissecting the jurisdiction, the language, the words, the tones, the gestures, the pronunciation of the courts and NAB desperate to prove their spin of "how wrong the right is".
Outraged, this group of the "Save democracy" club is justifiably aghast. Never before in the history of Pakistan has the political elite ever been seriously questioned and punished on their source of income, their accumulation of assets, their misuse of public funds, their non-declarations and their misleading declarations. Their previous experience defines that files and cases exist on most politicians/ high profile people, and from time to time they are raised as a red herring but then "better sense prevails", "jurisdiction is clarified", "political maturity takes over" and "for the sake of democracy" files and cases are pushed under the table. This time however these files are not only on the table but spreading to other tables of bureaucrats, businessmen, media people. This has never happened before at this speed, thus this is being termed as "the biggest coup on the democracy of Pakistan".
However counterfeit democrats no matter how rehearsed and word perfect have slips of tongue. Some analysts implausibly argue that if somebody's assets are more than his sources of income what is others' problem? The problem is that it is our problem. The problem is that anybody especially the highest holder of a public office who has trillions of rupees of public funds at his disposal, is answerable in a real democracy for every penny that he uses.
It is a system of rent seeking CBNs (Corruption Beneficiary Networks). Direct beneficiaries include family and friends. Indirect beneficiaries include system operators like bureaucrats, heads of regulating institutions, civil society members of legal fraternity, media opinion leaders, businessmen etc. This system is so entrenched for over four decades that it has become a norm. That is why when this cozy network of corruption shareholders and corruption facilitators is being taken to task, the retaliation and protest of the affectees is inevitable. Decades of loan writes-off, billion rupee advertising revenue, exorbitant counsel fee, lucrative position of institutions, power rides to foreign trips, free bees in housing schemes, juicy contracts are all appearing to fall with the house of cards.
The problem with all this "protest" against accountability being a conspiracy against democracy is that Nawaz Sharif's family assets were enumerated in the Panama Leaks which was an international exposé and thus cannot be screamed off as a foreign conspiracy of destroying democracy in Pakistan. The existence of these assets has been admitted by the family. Their failure to produce a trail or proof of the billions stowed away cost them a disqualification and a NAB court reference. The objection by them and their narrative facilitators that if Panama was the original case why was he removed on an iqama is as ridiculous as saying that if the FIR was registered against a thief on stolen cash and stolen jewelry was found on him the thief should be let free as the FIR did not mention it. The iqama narrative itself shows the desperation of the narrators and CBN facilitators. The fact that they are also saying that just for a few thousand a prime minister is disqualified is a confession that for them corruption if not of earth shattering scale is normal and acceptable given the "fragility of democracy".
In a country where for decades the elite and the powerful have siphoned off trillions without batting an eyelid, it is understandable that the present accountability is looked at with suspicion or apprehension. The first reaction was "it is a weak judgement"; the second story was the army is ready to jump in; the latest is that the judicial martial law is the most likely result". With neither of these things happening and the accountability now expanding to cover other political parties and taboo people the only spin left for those afraid of letting go this convenient CBN is that there will be an engineered democracy. The only problem in this argument is that the accountability going on is not engineered. Just a minor example-56 companies in Punjab have been having a cruel picnic on public expense. The Saaf Pani Company has spent Rs 400 crores allegedly on obscene expenditures of the favoured few without delivery of a single drop of saaf pani to the very people who have been robbed off Rs 400 crores. Same is the case in education, health, environment etc. How can a real democracy allow this ruthless manipulation, deprivation and degradation of people's rights?
The real test of the audacity of this accountability is how wide, how deep and how "high" this drive to make all and sundry bend to the rule of law is? Will it spare the Robin Hood mighty Dons who buy and sell politicians? Will it spare the ex-rulers who robbed the country and ran off to safer havens? Will it overlook the professional opinion leaders who get professional payoffs to influence public opinion? Will it dare to touch those who hide behind religion to make themselves untouchable? And if it does all this or even half of this the manufacturers of "save democracy" will have to rethink their business model to come up with spin that is more saleable.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])