Courtesy: "The Nation" (22 Sep 2012)
Source Link:
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/columns/22-Sep-2012/the-days-of-the-jackals
The days of the jackals!
An analysis on the leaders leaving PTI
By: Dr Haider Mehdi
A folktale in the villages of Punjab goes as follows: a jackal passing a village accidentally ran through a garment dyer’s workshop and got covered with blue dye. When the jackal reached the jungle, it looked all blue. Other animals had never seen anything like it and were curious to know what kind of animal it was and where it came from. The jackal realised the importance of his changed appearance and said its name was “Neel Kant”, and it was a rare and unique species of animal found only in remote jungles of a far-off place. Several days passed and the self-proclaimed “Neel Kant” jackal enjoyed its importance. Then one day it rained and “Neel Kant’s” blue colour washed away. The jackal’s real identity was exposed and the other animals realised that it was just one of the many jackals running around with the same common jackal mentality. So, “Neel Kant” was exposed and its myth was destroyed. The moral of this story is that changed appearances or manufactured identities only serve its purpose in a very limited sense. Falsehood is eventually unmasked and the result is loss of personal integrity, respect and self-esteem.
It occurred to me that the above tale and its moral serve as a perfect analogy to the political conduct of some of our traditional politicians. Those political actors, who are endlessly engaged in constructing their personal identities to conform to expedience and opportunism: they manipulate every possible chance for personal optimal advantages, irrespective of any ethical-moral or even commonly-accepted norms of political behaviour. Those politicians subscribe to no specific political ideology, doctrine or set of political principles - their driving force is to grab political power with the end result of personal gains, maintenance of the decade-old political status quo, and the preservation of the decadent political culture that has served their interests irrevocably.
Against this backdrop, the recent exodus of some of the politicians from Imran Khan’s PTI is a point of focus. In TheNation of September 12, a story, entitled Embarrassment for PTI, opined the following: “But now the PTI leadership is facing a new embarrassment. Those who had joined the party in the recent past have started going back. For example, Sardar Tufail has rejoined the PML-Q and been given ticket for himself and his son. The Bhinders of Gujranwala, who had left the PML-Q to join the PTI, have parted company with Imran and joined hands with the PML-N. These departures amount to a serious setback for the PTI.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
