Islamabad is once again in the grips of sleazy rumours and stories. This is nothing new in Pakistan’s federal capital—also known as the rumour and scandal capital of the country. This time, however, the target of these sleazy stories is a gentleman who happens to be a member of Imran Khan’s federal cabinet and who is considered a ‘blue-eyed boy’ of Prime Minister Imran Khan. He was declared the minister of the year whose ministry’s performance in the eyes of the Prime Minister is the best among all the ministries. One fine evening a female newscaster asked her guests why they thought this particular gentleman was declared top performer among the ministers. The question was answered with sleazy insinuations which were perceived by the ruling party as an attempt to demean the minister.
Up till this point, this drama was nothing new in the sleazy culture of the Pakistani capital. There are always rumour mills working around the clock to bring the power wielders and power holders into disrepute and give a sleazy twist to their capital lives. I have been a journalist in Islamabad for the past 30 years and I have seen governments come and go—weak and powerful, smart and dumb, ruthless and soft—and never a tenure passed without the overworked rumours mills producing their due share of sleazy stories about each government and its top members. What was unusual this time was the reaction of the ruling party, which launched its own counter-campaign of sleazy comments against the female news-anchor. After PEMRA, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, issued a show-cause notice to the television channel, a battery of ministers struck an attack on whatever targets they deemed fit.
Sometimes one hears a rumour or a story from a man on the street in Islamabad plausible enough to make your scratch your head as to how they know such insider stories.
Islamabad’s drawing rooms—their own political gossip mills—will keep churning out stories to suit the obscene tastes of the city’s elite and commoners alike. Most of the time, I have seen governments ignoring rumours and sleazy stories about their members. The strong or well entrenched governments never react to the rumours and sleazy stories about them or their members. It is usually weak governments which react to rumours. In the past 30 years, I have seen the weak governments try to make a spectacle of the rumours in an attempt to garner sympathy from the common people.
The most likely source of many of these rumours are the side-lined members of the government or disgruntled power players with physical access to the corridors of power. Sometimes junior members of the bureaucracy, security officials who physically protect power corridors, or even clerical staff with their own deep-rooted grievances become the source of these rumours. These sleazy stories travel outwards from power corridors into Islamabad’s drawing rooms and onward to the city’s political, social, diplomatic, and media circles. Sometimes one hears a rumour or a story from a man on the street in Islamabad plausible enough to make your scratch your head as to how they know such insider stories.
General (r) Musharraf and members of his close cabinet were the targets of several sleazy stories while he presided over the government. I remember one of our colleagues started using the nickname “General Rasputin.” Nawaz Sharif couldn’t escape the imaginative eyes, ears and fertile minds of rumour mongers in Islamabad, either. Some of these rumours even found their way into foreign publications, especially the magazine India Today that wrote about a certain Indian lady who was provided a helicopter by the government to travel to Pakistan‘s northern areas. None of the prime ministers or rulers post-Zia have escaped becoming a character in these sleazy stories.
However, there have been unusually heroic characters in our history who have faced these rumours mills and sleazy stories with unmatched moral courage. Two women: the late Benazir Bhutto and Maryam Nawaz Sharif. Both of these ladies have faced state sponsored and religiously motivated character assassination by well entrenched groups in our society. There are perverts in our midst who have even tried to discern paternity by counting the days, weeks and months of their pregnancies. This despite the fact that our society at large usually attaches much sacrosanct value to women who are in a family way. These two brave ladies faced character assassination attempts when they were at their peak, challenging the powers that be.
My piece of advice to those presently occupying Islamabad’s power corridors is this: don’t lose sleep over these stupid jokes if you have nothing to hide. They will disappear the moment you lose your title. The more you react, the more these rumours have the potential to turn into full-fledged scandals.
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