IT might be difficult for many to even imagine that, unlike today’s Pakistan, there were times when being in politics or being called a politician was not an abuse, and corruption and politics were not considered the closest of cousins. Public repartee between the politicians, in fact, was an intellectual delight for the populace at large.

The verbal violence we have to put up with today on various television channels and which is reproduced with due sincerity and vigour in the print media the next day, is the graceless and vulgar diatribe between warring foes. The vituperative, abominable and unsavoury language used against one another puts all social norms of decency in conversation to the lowest dungeons of rotten and dishonourable behaviour.

But let’s talk of what definitely were better times. Lady Astor, who was so full of vile against Winston Churchill, remarked on the floor of the House of Commons, once: “Winston, if you were my husband, I should flavour your coffee with poison.” Churchill shot back thus: “Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it.”

A teasing journalist once asked British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli about the difference between ‘catastrophe’ and ‘calamity’. Replied Disraeli: “If [William] Gladstone (his nemesis and diehard opponent, but an equally popular premier of that era) were to fall in River Thames, that would be catastrophe, but if anyone, God forbid, were to rescue him, that would be a calamity”.

Abraham Lincoln, one of the few great presidents of the United States, commenting on the remark of political adversary Stephan Douglas, said: “His argument is as thin as homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.”

Closer to home, Indira Gandhi was facing a grave political crisis in the 1960s. In an appeasement bid, she was meeting various political parties. One such meeting was with Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, who had been India’s last governor-general before the country became a republic. He was then heading the Swatantra Party. Emerging from the meeting, to the waiting hordes of media persons, he said: “I first met Indira when she was nine years old. After today’s meeting I can say with confidence she hasn’t changed much”. Wow! Invective, but decent. Vitriolic, but graceful.

Now compare these with what we hear today. “If anyone says a word against ABC, I will have their tongues pulled out”, or “We will crack your faces, should you talk against XYZ”, or “You slap us once, we will slap you back ten times”. Despicable. Distasteful. Uncouth. Detestable. One wonders to which political nursery these people roaming around as politicians went to; what education, if any, they received!

I conclude by quoting from a letter written on February 28, 1820, by a near neighbour named Thomas Liddell to a politician: “In times like the present, it is impossible to allow private feelings to take the place of a public sense of duty. I think your conduct is as dangerous in parliament as it is in your own county. Were you my own brother, therefore, I could not give you my support.”

Our politicians will do well to remember that ‘readers make leaders’. So, dear politicians, please spend some time reading so that you may entertain us with some quality rebuffs, repartees and venom against each other!

Sirajuddin Aziz
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2021