Shahbaz Sharif has been appointed as Prime Minister of Pakistan but under extremely dubious circumstances.
Author: Arif Hasan Okhunzoda
Shahbaz Sharif, who was yesterday elected by the Pakistani National Parliament as the 23rd Prime Minister of this country – is an interesting man. Now aged 70 years, he is very interested in women and has married several times. Many of his wives and affairs are secret. He is also interested in wearing clothes and costumes of a type which are not usually seen or appreciated in the climate and culture of the society to which he belongs. These include European style long coats, expensive fur hats and military style safari suits and tunics. He is known as a workaholic too, and is regarded as one of the few Pakistani leaders who possess an appreciable degree of intelligence and the ability to get work done.
Mia Shahbaz Sharif (this is his full name) is the son of Mia Muhammad Sharif who was the owner of a small iron foundry which manufactured agricultural machines and implements in the Pakistani city of Lahore. In Pakistani and Indian society, people are known by their ethnic caste, which in turn is usually associated with some kind of profession. Mia Muhammad Sharif was from the caste of Punjabi Kashmiri blacksmiths, which is well known in the Punjab region divided between India and Pakistan. Kashmiris are of two types: some people have retained their original Dardic culture and language, but the Kashmiris who live in the Punjab region have adopted the Punjabi language and culture as the Sharif family has done.
Mia Muhammad Sharif was the proprietor of his small business which brought him and his many sons a satisfactory income. But in 1983 a stroke of luck occurred which would change the fortunes of this family forever. Someone introduced the eldest son, Mia Nawaz Sharif, to the ruling Pakistani military dictator, General Ziaulhaq. The general decided to make the young man his protégé and appointed him as a provincial minister in Punjab Province. Mia Nawaz Sharif was soon to become head of one of Pakistan’s two major political parties, due to which he became three times the Pakistani Prime Minister. Because of this also, his younger brother Shahbaz also joined politics to assist him. As a result, Shahbaz Sharif ended up serving as the Chief Minister of Punjab Province for three long terms also – in 1997, 2008 and 2013.
Pakistani politics has always been infamous for its corruption, but its loot and plunder has attained legendary levels from the time of the 1980s when the American CIA orchestrated the counterrevolutionary “Jihad” in Afghanistan to defeat the Soviet Union, and destroy the 1978 Saur Revolution. That was when American intelligence poured billions of Dollars into Pakistan for this nefarious purpose, and handed it over to the Pakistani state to arrange sabotage operations inside Afghanistan. Mia Muhammad Sharif’s two sons entered politics precisely when this trend had just begun, and they have benefitted immensely as a result – since then, they have stolen billions from the state treasury, foreign aid funds and written-off loans. They have acquired countless properties of different kinds in Pakistan and abroad in Dubai and the Western World. With that stolen money, they have set up sugar, flour and steel mills, and own “offshore” accounts in various tax havens of the world. Their governments (and those of their rivals, the Pakistan People's Party) have been removed several times on charges of corruption, and bankrupting the state – but they have always managed to stage a return to politics. Whenever they faced adversity in Pakistan, they have always been provided refuge from prosecution by Western governments, and those of the Gulf Arab countries.
In the latest instance, Shahbaz Sharif has been appointed as Prime Minister of Pakistan, but under extremely dubious circumstances. He is part of an unscrupulous, Western funded opposition political campaign to unseat the popular and anti-American Prime Minister Imran Khan, which succeeded a few days ago. Although he is now Prime Minister, and is supported by the commanders of the Army (which has also now lost its popularity) – his political future and continuity are now doubtful and highly uncertain. He is supposed to remain Prime Minister within the tenure of the present assembly till 20 August 2023, but the country and its system are already severely damaged and failing. In the western Pashto speaking province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which borders Afghanistan, a fresh insurgency by the Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) is rapidly gaining force. In Balochistan Province, there is already a separatist insurgency underway. The country’s bureaucracy malfunctions, and there are severe electricity shortages due to mismanagement and pilfering.
In the days leading upto his appointment as Prime Minister, there seem to be strong rumours afoot in both Afghanistan and Tajikistan that Shahbaz Sharif is an ethnic Tajik. That is not so. Although his name is Persian, as I have pointed out above – he is a Punjabi from the Kashmiri Blacksmith caste. It should be pointed out here, that Kashmir and its cultural and religious legacy owes a lot to Tajiks: a branch of my Swati Tajik ancestors, called the dynasty of Shahmiri Sultans ruled Kashmir for over 300 years. They introduced Islam and Persian culture into Kashmir. So when one mentions Kashmir, its Tajik historic basis and racial associations naturally come to mind. It is perhaps because of misunderstanding that history that some people are inclined to think that Shahbaz Sharif is a Tajik.
