A remarkable coincidence or spectacular levels of corruption: Tale of an Octet
As a person who was born in a household where at least one member of the previous generation, a remarkably incompetent Zia Mehmood Mirza, managed to establish matrimonial relationships with a woman from Multan, namely, Fazal Zia Mehmood, I have witnessed such startling levels of corruption firsthand and widespread failures of governance of immense proportions that whenever somebody shouts “Pakistan Zindabad,” it leaves me utterly baffled.
Fazal Zia Mehmood and Zia Mehmood Mirza, courtesy of his wife, have spectacularly close connections with the remarkably influential feudal families of Multan, and some ties with outstandingly influential feudal families of Sind. It is to Zia Mehmood Mirza’s credit that he was not able to pass his Masters exam in what is deemed the easiest subject of all of the subjects, namely Masters in English, in the first attempt. However, owing to his wife’s connections with feudal families of Multan, he, despite his astonishing levels of incompetence, became a member of the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s judge’s panel. That allowed him and his family to live a life of almost proper luxury. This account of a rather opulent lifestyle, which was being funded by the government of Pakistan, is based on my few visits to his government-provided house here in GOR, Lahore. As a teenager who visited the approximately 4 Kanal bungalow that he was occupying as a member of the Supreme Court’s panel, I was able to witness the sort of luxury he was enjoying despite being a person who failed to pass Master of English. The perks included an all expenses paid, where expenses included unlimited petrol and complete maintenance, brand new Honda Accord, which exceedingly few people had the resources to own when I first visited his house, at least a few servants, completely free maintenance of the house, and free luxury stays in major cities of Pakistan.
To make matters worse for the legitimately talented and perfectly qualified Pakistanis, now all of his children and their spouses — namely, Shams Zia Mehmood, Farah Zia, Irum Zia, Asad Jamal, Salman Akram Raja — are enjoying top-level positions in various high-ranking departments in Lahore. As I know the family quite well, therefore, I can say with 100% certainty that Shams Zia, Farah Zia, Irum Zia, and Irum Zia’s daughter Noorzadhay have spectacularly questionable academic records; a thorough examination of their complete academic and character records would, almost definitely, prove me correct. All of them have managed to snatch these positions from meritorious parties using their connections with the strikingly influential feudal families of Multan, for example, people like Yousuf Raza Gillani, ex-prime minister of Pakistan. In the cases of Shams Zia and Farah Zia, I can say with certainty that they have miserable academic records; the foregoing is context sensitive as they have been enjoying comfortable lifestyles in Lahore. Farah Zia, who has been the head of the Lahore chapter of HRCP (Human Rights Commission of Pakistan) and has been writing castigating critiques of the rest of the system, failed to perform well even in her journalism and political science masters. After that, she attempted to qualify for a government job by sitting the competition exam called the CSS examination, and once again, miserably failed to qualify for any government department. That is her level of incompetence, yet, having failed to perform even to above average levels at all of the stages of her educational career, she has eventually managed to grab high paying jobs in nongovernmental sectors here in Lahore thanks entirely to her mother and father’s connections with the puppet masters hailing from Multan.
Farah Zia, based on the average performance of the employees working in such departments who qualify through the CSS exam route, would prove to be so incompetent that she would only qualify for a spot at a remote location like Chakwal or some other similar smaller location. However, her mother and father have been instrumental in securing top spots for her and at least a few more publication contracts with various publications using their connections with the powerful political elite from Multan. For the last 20 years, this woman has been vociferously chanting the slogans of establishment of a meritorious society and eradication of nepotism all the while holding position for which she is wholly unqualified as much more qualified people live in Lahore.
Taking into account complete academic and character records of all six members belonging to remarkably incompetent Zia Mehmood Mirza’s family, it leaves me with one question and one question alone: what on earth are Pakistan’s and especially Lahore branches of the investigation bodies like FIA and NAB doing? 6 wholly unqualified individuals belonging to an extremely incompetent yet spectacularly connected family have been occupying wholly unearned positions and enjoying entirely undeserving salaries, perks, and status in the social circles. What sort of a political atmosphere do we have in Pakistan that all of these individuals with miserable track records show up at the functions attended by senior members of the establishment, yet not a single person has felt the moral compulsion and dilemma to report them to the authorities that they are snatching posts from qualified people of Pakistan?
To make matters even worse for an individual who loathes the way our departments have been working so far, even the next generation of the Zia Mehmood’s family have started to get jobs and assignments that they almost definitely do not deserve. For example, Irum Zia Raja’s daughter Noorzaday has started to represent Pakistan on matters related to oppression against women. This oppression-related subject matter itself needs further exploration as these rights activists are grossly misrepresenting the reality in Pakistan. Circumstances permitting, I plan to publish a post detailing the extent of freedoms afforded to women in Pakistan. Pithy digression aside, what exactly are the chances or odds that another person belonging to a family whose almost entire previous generation has acquired jobs using their connections with feudals got selected after thorough evaluation and on merit? What are the chances of that happening?
For generations now, the city of Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab, has enjoyed a reputation as the educational hub in the whole of Punjab. It has long attracted competent individuals in large numbers from almost all cities in the province of Punjab. Consequently, Lahore has no dearth of perfectly qualified people in all categories who at least in their respective fields have excellent to very good academic records. Contrastingly, members of the Zia Mehmood Mirza’s family have spectacularly questionable academic records. Although I do not know the precise numbers, however, as they are my father’s first cousins and belong to the most influential household in my father’s larger family, hence, when I was a teenager, they were frequently the subject of discussion in our household. According to all of the reports and based on their final choices in the educational system, I can say with a remarkably high degree of confidence that they lack the credentials to hold these positions meritoriously. Almost all of them have acquired their jobs using their mother and father’s previously declared connections. Therefore, I have strong reasons to believe that even Irum Zia Raja’s daughter has not gotten her contracts meritoriously. This whole situation involving members of the Zia Mehmood’s family feels like a remarkable coincidence that almost all of the members with abysmal to spectacularly questionable academic records have been amassing wealth in a city that has been attracting talent from all over the Punjab for over 80–100 years now. Some of the oldest educational institutions of higher learning in the province of Punjab are all located in Lahore, yet these posts are getting awarded to the family members of a person in whose case I know with certainty that he was one of the most incompetent and spectacularly corrupt members of the supreme court’s bench of judges.
This is the level of corruption that just one former member of the judiciary has managed to perpetrate in the city of Lahore where FIA and NAB both have extremely large presences. What exactly are the officers of these agencies doing in Lahore? How do they spend their time? Reading magazines?
On top of the level of corruption that I have seen, Pakistan has managed to earn a much-deserved reputation as a failure in almost all of the conceivable fields. We have probably never sent any competitors to the International Mathematical Olympiad and other similar high-ranking scientific competitions. Barring hockey, we have never won a gold medal in any other competition in the International Olympics; not a single Pakistani author has ever managed to win a Man Booker Prize, Hugo Award, or Pulitzer Prize. We have been consistently underperforming in almost every conceivable field and our politicians have never put forward a concrete plan to rectify this situation. Despite the dismal performances in almost all of the fields, some of the Pakistanis whose financial well-being depends on chanting the slogan “Pakistan Zindabad” keep chanting this slogan unabashedly. This includes one or two Pakistani enterprise owners with degrees from MIT, as well. Despite the startling levels of corruption taking place in two of the biggest cities of Punjab, namely Lahore and Islamabad, if all of our crime investigation agencies, FIA and NAB, plan to remain inactive and maintain their silence and no other party plans to take up these matters, would we ever improve in any field? The way our successive governments have managed the affairs of the country so far, I see an extremely bleak future for Pakistan in all of the categories as usually only the incompetent members of the society are succeeding in securing the spots using their connections. These incompetent individuals belonging to spectacularly corrupt families have zero interest in fixing the system and changing the current status quo as it works perfectly fine for their larger families and incompetent siblings, cousins, and then children. Employments in some organizations have probably become a family affair using connections with feudal families hailing from Multan and Sind.
If just one person with somewhat intimate knowledge of the corruption perpetrated by one judge has been able to bring forward the names of at least 6 almost certainly wholly undeserving parties, just imagine if some decent members belonging to all remarkably powerful families were to start sharing the details of corruption perpetrated by their influential family figureheads. Based on whatsoever I have seen so far, my calculated guess or ballpark figue is that almost 35–50% employees of non-governmental and some governmental organizations working in Lahore and Rawalpindid would prove to be meritless employments or promotions secured using connections with one spectacularly corrupt party or another. These individuals almost always tend to be members of the judiciary with spectacularly close connections with feudal families or generals of the armed forces. Does anybody in Pakistan have any problem with the promotion of meritless individuals and the resulting abuses of the rights of the meritorious individuals who have to vacate those spots for these unworthy for the posts individuals with remarkably close connections with sensationally influential groups in Pakistan? If we have such concerned people around, then what have they done so far about this situation? When will our institutions like FIA and NAB start to produce tangible results to eliminate the prevalent culture of nepotism, meritless employments and award of contracts, and promotions of unworthy individuals?
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