Well, just when we expected some solution of the ongoing tussle between the Executive and Judiciary, we’ve had the Supreme Court serve up a notice to the Prime Minister for contempt. As everyone noticed (and I daresay, was meant to notice), it was the same slippery slope down which his predecessor had rolled, all the way out of Prime Minister’s House into a room at the Presidency.

While Raja Pervaiz is worried about being thrown out of office, the example set by the Syrian Prime Minister, Riaz Hijab, is worrying the President more. He is worried that Raja Pervaiz might take inspiration from him. It is probably no assurance to him that Raja Pervaiz is an old partyman, because Riaz started out in the Baath Party’s youth wing, which would make him about as near to a jiala as a Syrian can get.
Of course, Raja Pervaiz doesn’t have the same reasons as Riaz to defect. I mean, how do a few (well, plenty) blackouts compare with thousands killed. President Asif Zardari might not want any letters written to Switzerland, but he didn’t kill anyone to stay in office. In the old days, Raja Pervaiz could have defected to India, just as Riaz Hijab has defected to Jordan, but ever since the President made India such a friend, Raja Pervaiz probably can’t defect there. They would probably turn him back, which would be more of a shame for us than giving him asylum. He should go there, however, for India recently had a blackout, while Raja Pervaiz was the loadshedding minister originally. But if he is known as Raja Rental, it is not because of the Rental Power Plants, but because of his real estate business. I believe he became PM because he promised to rent out the Presidency for a vast sum. The President was impressed by his white shoes, but as PM, he hasn’t worn them, so the President is no longer so hopeful of having the Presidency put to more use than being an Old Home for ex-PMs.
But then, why would Raja Pervaiz want to desert to India? It did even worse than Pakistan in Olympic hockey, even though Pakistan crashed out because it lost 7-0 to Australia. Whether it’s declining hockey, or rising cricket, our nemesis is Australia. Of course, in hockey, we’re not as bad as India, but in cricket, we’re worse, as we saw in the last World Cup.
Still, India is home to the Sikhs, who are not just good at hockey, but who have also migrated to the USA, where the first killing of a Muslim after 9/11 was of a bearded, turbaned Sikh in Arizona. This time around, some American white used the liberal gun laws in the USA to off a slew of Sikhs in a gurdwara in Wisconsin. We in Pakistan know what it is to have an American with a gun and a human target. After all, we had Raymond Davis, known in some circles as ‘Davis the Diplomat’, in action here, in this very city. He was a CIA contractor. The gurdwara in Wisconsin was shot up by an ex-Armyman.
One should note that there is a law and order strand in all American killings. Like in the Arizona cinema firings, during a show of the latest Batman movie. That seems to put Arizona slightly ahead of Wisconsin, because not only do Sikhs get killed there, but even going to the movies is risky. Not the kind of place that any Prime Minister would risk defecting to.
Is it worse to be a Sikh in Wisconsin or a Hindu in Jacobabad? Dr Rehman Malik doesn’t know, but he would like to make sure that the Hindus in Jacobabad stay there, and don’t go to India, where they think they wouldn’t be kidnapped for ransom, and if any of their womenfolk ran off with a Muslim boy, wouldn’t convert to Islam. Well, Dr Malik would probably like to disclaim responsibility, though he is too busy fighting the War on Terror to do so, and would have said, if anyone had asked, that not only did he not kidnap anyone, let alone for ransom, he did nothing that would give any Hindu woman cause to convert. He also had nothing to do either with the gurdwara shootings or the cinema shootings, for while shootings, they hadn’t anything to do with the War on Terror. But why migrate to India when you can lose, and lose big, at hockey right in Jacobabad?
And while Dr Malik was busy not kidnapping any Hindus, Ramazan moved towards its end, with the prediction that it would be a 30-day month. And while saying this, the Met Office was careful to add that the definitive announcement would be made by the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee. It seems the Met Office didn’t want Ruet Chairman Mufti Muneebur Rehman reducing them to a cinder. But they avoided saying about what really mattered. Would it rain on Eid or not? It’s rained enough to make a flu go around, and now, and for some years to come, rain on the Eid prayer would be highly inconvenient, but not at all freakish.