Saga of missed opportunities.....



Pervez Musharraf has resigned. And with that comes to an end the saga of his nearly decade-long rule of missed opportunities. When he marched in, in 1999, he was received with open arms by a people fed up thoroughly with the corrupt misrules of the PML (N) and the PPP. And his seven-point agenda did give hope to a despondent public. Initially, he did work on it zealously, for which he drew popular applause. But then he surrendered to his vaulting power ambitions and gave this programme a boot, to the masses’ great consternation and to the utter grief to national solidarity, cohesion and unity. Still, had he had not constricted his counsels to a select coterie and had he had taken to all-inclusive consultative processes, which contrary to his assertions in his departing nationwide address he throughout rebuffed derisively, he would have avoided many a pitfall that hurt him so incurably, indeed becoming an albatross around his neck. To be fair to him, he did put enormous money in development, in fact so much as the PML (N) and PPP governments combined had not in all their terms. The national economy was certainly booming on his watch. But by keeping the political leaderships, even his own the PML (Q) caboodle, at bay from his counsels, he couldn’t realise any feelingly that his economic miracle was only enriching a corporate Pakistan, not the common man’s Pakistan, and that the nation’s wealth was getting concentrated into a few hundreds of privileged hands, leaving the huge mass of millions of people penurious, poorer, deprived and denied.When he took power,people welcomed him because of his liberal views,making pakistan an secular society,people liked him because majority of pakistanis don't beleive in religious fanaticism,but then like every former General of Pakistan he shook hand with some corrupt pakistani politicians which damaged his reputation.