While browsing, I came across the following puff-piece about one of the most corrupt politicians, Awais Leghari, the Minister for IT and Telecom under Musharraf. Most curious thing is it was in Salman Taseer's Daily Times newspaper.
Politics: the next generation Awais Leghari: politician with a difference
HE is the son of a former president of Pakistan, he is the brother of an incumbent senator, he has served as a parliamentarian and a federal minister for more than a decade; notwithstanding all these credentials he is the antithesis of a typical Pakistani politician. Presently, he is unemployed as a parliamentarian having lost the previous election in the unfortunate yet predictable frenzy post-Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, enveloping the country in a huge anti-Musharraf rage, overthrowing the party in power. He divides his time between his home in Islamabad, where he lives, his wife and son, and his village in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan, where he is actively involved in the politics and development plans of the area.
An Aitchisonian, who grew tired of studying after completing his HSC, retreated to his village to decide what he wanted to do with his life before moving to the US for three years for a bachelor’s degree in economics from Rochester University, NY. An accidental politician who returned home refusing a cushy job offer in the UN after extracting a promise from his family he would not be asked to join politics. An avid agriculturist who spent so much time in his village interacting with people from his area that they put him on a pedestal and asked his father to advise him to run for the elections of 1997. An introspective young man with no political ambitions ended up becoming an MP, and the rest, as they say, is history. He is quietly modest about his first win in the electoral arena, saying he is clueless as to why people in his constituency liked him, and eventually, voted him into office. Without taking any credit for anything remarkable he might have done for them, he simply attributes his success to the day-to-day interaction he had with these people, and nothing else.
Awais does not seem to like being famous, and he does not seem to have any hankering for the benefits of being famous. During his father’s presidential tenure, he often felt claustrophobic in the President’s House in Islamabad, terming it ‘official and formal’, and whenever he could he would retreat to his house in Choti, tending to his lands, and attending to his constituents. He may have had a problem with the House, but he has tremendous affection and unguarded respect for his father, Farooq Leghari, president of Pakistan from 1993-1997. To him, he has always been a loving father, a highly principled politician, a man of great integrity, who never lost his moral compass to the lure of any monetary or official gain, and who stood his ground if he believed in its veracity, no matter how steep the price may have been. Hero-worshipping his father, Awais learnt the valuable lessons of a humane understanding of people who vote, to maintain a close proximity to them, and to have an unwavering faith in one’s principles.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is the one politician Leghari Jr admires in no uncertain terms. According to him, he is the only political personality who truly characterised, and ultimately enhanced the political climate of the country into a substantial reality. He interacted with the masses, gave them a sense of identity, and used his massive appeal to pave the way for his monumental role in the history of our political annals forever. How he used this may remain debatable for a long time but the fact that he was, and remains the only one to ever have that kind of power remains unarguably true. That to Awais is what makes Bhutto truly unique, and that to him is something which remains elusive to people in power who could achieve a great deal if they could only realise that the real power, in the strange game of politics, remains with that faceless, nameless, apparently insignificant entity: the ordinary man.
Interestingly, Awais admires the Communist Party in China for the way it has shaped China into the economic giant it is today. The dynamic way in which the socialist country made its gigantic transition from its pre-Cold War era to the post-Cold War one is quite remarkable to Awais, who says that if the Chinese economic policies are studied and analysed in detail, they are truly awe-inspiring. The system that has worked for more than a billion people can never be deemed as plainly unjust and unfair as the western media try to propagate it as, Awais muses.
The biggest thing Leghari Jr managed to do while serving as the minister of IT and Telecommunications was to bring into existence an environment conducive to means of modern communication. Overcoming the red-tape obstacles put forward by the omnipresent bureaucracy, Awais opened the world of wireless connectivity for the public through well-crafted policies of his ministry. The bureaucracy, according to him, had to step aside since none of his actions warranted any personal gains, and the larger good of the people had to be taken into consideration, no matter how unwillingly!
Looking back at his years as a minister in Mr Musharaf’s presidential tenure, Awais has had a hard time coming to terms with the instances where his good judgment eluded him and he proceeded against his better judgment. One was the dismissal of the judiciary, and the other was the imposition of the infamous NRO. Even though he marked his opposition to these unpopular decisions openly in parliament, he regrets that he did not show his absolute rejection of these presidential actions. “I should have been bold enough to resign,” Awais says simply, gracefully, and bravely.
Devising a plan to speak against the unprecedented power outages, Awais is all set to initiate a party-supported public protest. The PML(Q) is with the masses in this time of great discomfort and hardship, and he is a vocal participant of this forum. The step-brotherly treatment – in his opinion – of the areas in the south of Punjab is also a part of his vehement political fight in the coming days. For the better functioning of the federation, the big province of Punjab should be divided into two smaller ones. The Divisions of Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur should be merged to form a new province, thus putting an end to the persecution and ill-proportioned development of this region. Punjab, in his opinion, is too powerful and unwieldy to be governed in its entirety in a well-executed manner as compared to the other provinces.
Every government leaves a legacy of miscommunication, warnings ignored, and a series of larger questions about the notion of responsibility. Awais Leghari today seems to be living under the cloud of that unfortunate legacy, where he found himself swept up in a culture that rewards professional and material gains. He, fortunately, remained distant from that, he stresses. Remaining truthful to his principles, he managed to stay aloof from the transient trappings of success for most people, ie monetary gains. In the context of our times – the war on terror, economic hardship, the religious and linguistic divide, he has an idealised version of the truth pertaining to Pakistan. Considering individual self-interest anathema, he wants his political contribution to be consistently meaningful and relevant. And that simple principle is a huge part of this man’s charm. He is intelligent and well-behaved, and answers most questions calmly. His most memorable qualities define themselves by their absence, because so much of what you expect is not there. There is no self-centredness about him, which so many politicians exude like a noxious perfume. No attitude, no flagrant insecurity. Most striking of all is an absence of the intense laser-focused charm that politicians turn on and off as if flipping a switch; he seems to lack that reflexive need to make everyone love him. Attired simply in blue jeans and a white shirt, facing you, his green eyes solemn, and his serious face breaking into a rare smile, he is willing to sit, answer your questions; he is cordial and cooperative but you have the indistinct feeling he might actually be thinking about the weather, and perhaps he would just as soon be taking a quiet walk in his garden.
