Once a dialogue took place between the Pakistani rulers and the Pakistani masses. It was telecast by the Shameless Television Network (STN).
There was no moderator. The devil was requested to act as a moderator. He declined the offer. His reply was: “Since there has never been such a thing as moderation in Pakistan, I hate to make a fool of myself. Pakistan is a land of baffling extremes. The rulers are extremely affluent. The masses are extremely indigent. Let the two fight it out between themselves.” The dialogue was telecast without a moderator. The moderatorless dialogue created a sensation. Here is the dialogue:
The Masses: “Why are we so miserable?”
The Rulers: “Because Pakistan is a poor country.”
The Masses: “But why are you so affluent, if Pakistan is a poor country?”
The Rulers: “Our affluence has got nothing to do with Pakistan. It is God’s will.”
The Masses: “When did God tell you that your prosperity was His will?”
The Rulers: “On August 14, 1947.”
The Masses: “Did he tell you something about us?”
The Rulers: “That is a State secret.”
The Masses: “It means that the birth of Pakistan was the birth of two fundamentally contradictory realities: Your prosperity and our misery. But why should we be so miserable?”
The Rulers: “You are being horribly greedy. Wasn’t it enough that you were given an independent motherland? You ought to be contented with it. But your greed has debauched you. You want economic prosperity on top of your political emancipation. This is the blackest of all greeds.”
The Masses: “But you too were slaves like ourselves. Why has your political emancipation been followed by a fabulous economic prosperity for you?”
The Rulers: “Your memory is as miserable as your economic plight. You have already been told it was God’s will.”
The Masses: “Some analysts tell us that our misery is the inevitable result of your phenomenally extravagant spending. You burn more national money than the country can afford for your bonfires.”
The Rulers: “The analysts are nursing anti-Pakistan designs. They are satanic instigators. They are maliciously instigating you against us. They are yearning to see Pakistan reduced to ashes by a conflagration - the conflagration of a civil war between the rulers and the masses.”
The Masses: “What should we do in such circumstances?”
The Rulers: “It is the imperative duty of the masses to be sacrificed at the altar of patriotism and it is equally the imperative duty of the rulers to roast the sacrificial meat for their dining tables.”
The Masses: “But we are rickety and emaciated creatures. Our flesh must be extremely unhygienic. Its consumption must endanger your health.”
The Rulers: “Our food habits are our own private affairs. You lack manners.”
The Masses: “Empty stomachs are eternally mannerless. Your ignorance of this fact is understandable because your stomachs have eternally been over flooded with ambrosia.”
The Rulers: “You are damn ungrateful. The entire Pakistan belongs to you.”
The Masses: “The entire Pakistan belongs to us. But everything in the country belongs to you. The whisky is all yours. Only the empty bottle is all ours.”
The Rulers: “You are horribly stupid. Had you not been stupid, you would not have been what you have always been. You must know that an empty bottle is better than no bottle at all. Make the most of the empty bottle.”
The Masses: “The Quaid is in heaven and everything is wrong with Pakistan.”
The Rulers: “It is pure blasphemy.”
The Masses: “You are right. There is no blasphemy like the misery of the masses and no piety like the affluence of the rulers.”
The Rulers: “You are born to serve Pakistan. Pakistan is not born to serve you. Go on serving till the serving becomes an absolute physical impossibility for you and you drop dead. When you are dead and thus completely unserviceable to Pakistan, the wages of all the years of your service shall be paid to you in the form of your burial.”
The writer retired as professor of the Department of English, Government College University, Lahore.