We indeed are living in interesting times and the PTI government keeps making them more interesting by relentlessly furnishing a long chain of “historic-firsts,” almost every other day. But the unprecedented locking of the Press Gallery, during the Presidential address to a joint sitting of parliament with the advent of fourth parliamentary year Monday, certainly looked like an audacious overkill by all standards.
A large group of media workers has surely been staying put in front of the Parliament House since Sunday afternoon. The picket essentially wanted to convey to the government that it should refrain from rushing to introduce and enforce a new law, visibly aimed at ensuring total government control over media business and practices. Throughout the said sit-in, things remained too orderly and smooth. And hardly a person seemed itching to incite any clash with law enforcing authorities. Yet media managers of the Imran Government completely succumbed to panic mode.
Without using their brains for cool assessment of the mood, really prevailing among the demonstrating journalists, the smart-Aleck types presumed on their own that after reaching the press gallery in full strength Monday, most parliamentary reporters would attempt to create embarrassing scenes for the government by disrupting the presidential address to joint parliamentary sitting. With zealous intent of firmly preventing the same, the horde of media-managers first thought of crowding the press gallery with journalists and YouTubers, they considered ‘ours’ and thus friendly. But to manage the desired show, they also required not letting a huge number of established parliamentary reporters enter the press gallery.
I have been covering parliamentary proceedings since 1985. Also feel proud for introducing the genre of Press Gallery to our English newspapers. Government after government since that year never considered me friendly. Often they rather felt extremely uncomfortable with my taunts and barbs. Yet no government ever denied me the right to sit in the press gallery and watch parliamentary proceedings. With a deeply hurt heart I feel forced to share the gloom for being denied the privilege of watching the President of Pakistan addressing the joint parliamentary sitting of Monday, while sitting in the press gallery.
Even in the worst of times, parliamentary reporters never attempted to express their collective anger or grievances while chanting slogans in the press gallery. Walking out of the press gallery to register protest remained the only method we ever employed to protest. Even the most junior among us strictly respect the sanctity of the press gallery.
Syed Fakhar-e-Imam is one of the senior most ministers of the Imran government. He also got elected to the Speaker’s office after restoration of parliament in 1985 and through a historic decision he had declared the press gallery as “the extension of parliament.” And we never let him down for passing the said remark.
Most media managers are not strangers to respected and influential seniors amongst parliamentary reporters. They should have approached them to ensure discipline, if they had found out that some parliamentary reporters were intending to create scenes during the presidential address. But instead of looking for saner options, they eventually decided to go for the overkill and locked all doors leading to the press gallery.
The attempt was set to backfire. After persistent cajoling, a large group of parliamentary reporters finally managed to get invitation cards to the occasion. After entering the parliament house, they decided to quietly sit in line, in front of the main entrance to the parliament building. All the VVIP invitees noticed their protests, including diplomats keenly observing the state of democracy in Pakistan these days. The scene they witnessed would surely not motivate these diplomats to send feel-good reports about us. And I prefer to stop myself here.
In spite of keeping the press gallery locked and empty, the government miserably failed to maintain sober and awe-generating calm throughout the presidential address. The opposition was present within the house in full strength and its vocal and energetic members continued heckling the president with spirited slogan chanting. But Arif Alvi also succeeded to assert his reputation of an absolute thick skin. Without fumbling for a moment, he stayed focused on the prompter placed before him to finish smooth reading of the script, prepared for him.
The speech he delivered sounded more like drumming the oft-repeated and oversold narrative of the Imran government. Almost audaciously, it promoted the story that Pakistan was constantly producing miracles since the day Imran Khan got elected to Prime Minister’s office three years ago. Instead of selling this story with crisp talking points, the speechwriters rather overburdened the text with a heavy dose of data that often drifted to trivial details.
The Presidential address also sounded like passionately attempting to win the hearts and minds of voters to ensure another term for the Imran government. Doing this, the President of Pakistan rather preferred to flaunt his loyalty to Imran Khan as a humble PTI worker. The attempt did not match the dignity and status of the office of a Head of the State.
We often feel overwhelmed with court-pleasing culture and in this context one could perhaps fathom the limits of Arif Alvi. But on Monday, he was not addressing the domestic audience only.
The last parts of the presidential address to joint parliamentary sittings are traditionally devoted to highlight salient features of Pakistan’s foreign policy. After reaching this stage, President Alvi needed to display utmost grace and diplomatic finesse. But talking of Afghanistan, he surely got carried away. With boastful pride, he could rather not stop himself from rudely telling the international community that it should start taking Imran Khan as the ultimate “guru and guide” for dealing with complex issues facing the world these days.
Passionately selling this idea, Alvi proudly recalled that from day one of the so-called war on terror in Afghanistan, Imran Khan remained the one and only who consistently kept insisting that only dialogue with Taliban could ensure peace in that country. But the US and its NATO allies were not willing even casually listening to such ideas.
Disregarding Imran Khan’s thoughts, they eventually wasted trillions of US dollars for waging a two-decade long war, which produced but a huge number of deaths, colossal destruction and human tragedies. But in the end the US and its allies felt forced to engage the Taliban for ensuring the safe exit of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
For President Arif Ali, this certainly is the time when the whole international community should start seeking guidance from Imran Khan to find solutions for the rest of global issues.