- By: Habibullah Khan
- @Huk06
Teefi Butt the gangster underworld Don of my Lahori youth, was killed in a police encounter. This is the only time he was arrested. All his life he fought all cases vs him and played the system with help and was never arrested.
Punjab is on its own the 11th largest country in the world. It’s bigger than Eithiopia, Japan and Philippines. It’s bigger than every European nation except Russia. It’s an incredibly complex province with a tangled, yet sophisticated set of rules codefied into a playbook by Shahbaz Sharif over two decades to get it to chug.
This playbook was backed by a hard working centralised bureaucracy which was barely kept in check by sheer physical effort of the CM via feedback loops and validation of choices by usually good advisors.
One of those rules is that the only badmaash is the state. Do they play my badmaash, your badmaash? Yes. But up to a degree. There are defined limits you don’t cross. You certainly don’t get to create anarchy & terror.
In the Buzdar era led by an indecisive, unintelligent Chief Minister the playbook went to hell. Everyone managed on their own. There was no method to the madness, and money became the means to acquire power instead of other way around. No matter what analysts observed in the short term good or bad, those who could view long term saw the machine breaking, not because a better machine was being built, but because the ones managing the machine stopped maintaining it.
Yes this was because it was amateur hour with people uninterested in progress. But even people with good intent and high capability would fail. You’re literally running a large complex country. You don’t just walk in and start from 100.
I’m not justifying police encounters although over 90% of people in Punjab are ok with them. I’m just saying to me this is a sign of the machine being maintained again. I don’t understand this machine. I think we could build a better more efficient one with digital at its core…. Build it in parallel and cannibalize the original machine for parts…. but until then my contacts in Lahore are telling me the time for everything goes is over.
Regarding Teefi Butt the part that dealt with the “other Punjab” is clearly now being addressed. Most cocaine parties are getting raided. Multiple Casinos built in large houses are getting closed down. Gang rivalries are being ended. Those who break rules are being dealt with.
It’s not exactly groundhogs day but it’s certainly a new day.