Parody country Pakistan is a gift which keeps on giving. These days it serves as a comic relief when the world struggles to tackle crisis like fire in the Amazon forest and global water crisis.
Pakistan lives in a parallel universe. Yesterday, Bilawal Bhutto, often pegged as Pakistan’s answer to our own Rahul Gandhi, addressed media where he took on Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. The 24-minute video is pure delight.
The video begins with Bhutto thanking the media and his party (Pakistan People’s Party) workers for being present there. He informs everyone how he has just returned from meeting his father, former Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in prison, where he is lodged in a money laundering case. He informs everyone how Zardari is arrested as a vendetta by Imran Khan government. “They have been adding accusations but there is no trial or conviction,” he adds.
Speaking in a peculiar accent which reminds one of the 1970s Bollywood movies where a token white man who played the role of a smuggler and struggled to speak in Hindi, Bilawal takes on Imran Khan. Speaking really slowly, perhaps to ensure the Pakistanis understand what he is saying, he says, “Khan Sahab has put his political adversaries in jail thinking this will shut them up. They will compromise and let people attack democracy. This is Imran’s mistake.” He even has a smile when he speaks of democracy being attack in Pakistan, like even he knows the joke.
He speaks on how Pakistan People’s Party has been a strong force to make other Pakistani leaders like Ayub Khan, Yayha Khan and Pervez Musharraf ‘run away’. Referring to Imran Khan as a ‘puppet’ Bilawal says how Imran Khan speaks on the ‘atrocities carried out by PM Modi in India’ but Khan himself is a bigger ‘Nazi’ and ‘fascist’. According to Bilawal, Khan is a puppet and a fascist both.
He then accuses Khan of not providing medical facilities to his father Asif Ali Zardari who is currently in prison in a bid to murder him. He also says that if anything happens to his father’s health, then Khan and others who stopped the timely medical assistance would be responsible.
Bilawal then accuses Khan of striking a deal with US President Donald Trump on Kashmir. “No Pakistani will let this man trade Kashmir. We will fight from all fronts on this. He has not fulfilled even a single promise,” he said. He even accused Khan of taking ‘u-turns’. Speaking of u-turns, do read when Pakistanis trended ‘#PakStandsWithKejriwal‘ on Twitter to support him over surgical strikes.
At around 12:50 in to the video, Bilawal is really angry that Khan administration slept while Modi government in India abrogated Article 370 and made Jammu and Kashmir an integral part of India without any riders attached. “Earlier what used to be our policy on Kashmir? Earlier Pakistan’s policy was how will we take Srinagar and make it part of Pakistan. Now, after Khan has come to power, because of his failure, what is Pakistan’s position? How will we now save Muzaffarabad?” Muzaffarabad in Jammu and Kashmir falls into the part of newly created union territory of Jammu and Kashmir which is illegally held by Pakistan (Pakistan occupied Kashmir).
In another satisfying portion of the video, at around 13:47, Bhutto says, “People are drowned in the tsunami of inflation, Kashmir has been snatched away from our hands, who should be blamed?” At 14:13 in the video, an exasperated Bilawal wonders, what exactly did Imran Khan have that he was selected as PM. “And if at all he is made the PM, at least make him work,” he says.
Amidst all this, his accent also changes to that of a stereotypical rich Arab Sheikh from the Bollywood movies of 1980s who is dealing in guns while watching a gypsy dancer thrusting her pelvis. In rest of the video he rants on how Imran Khan is the worst leader Pakistan has ever had. While one cannot argue with that, fact remians that Pakistan’s former President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq executed Bilawal’s maternal grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and sent his family in exile. Essentially, Pakistan is a joke of a nation that is yet to produce a Prime Minister who can turn the murderous, terrorist nation into one that can be taken seriously as a civilised country.
Bhutto is son of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari who served as Pakistani President from 2008-2013. His mother, Benazir was assassinated on 27 December, 2007.
