Partygate lesson.

ONE of the charges against Boris Johnson and his Tories in the Partygate was that they showed 'a lack of respect' for the security and cleaning staff at parties held at 10 Downing Street and other government buildings. Other misdemeanours included a violation of Covid SOPs at a time when a lockdown was on.

While nobody in Pakistan - not even the worst and the most asinine enemy of a given politician - would approach a government/state institution for action for a violation of Covid SOPs, the British police took notice of these parties and issued what we in Pakistan would call challans to over 80 people, including the prime minister, his wife and the finance minister. All of them paid the fines. Many people, including the Downing Street press secretary, later resigned.

What lessons can we draw from Partygate? By our standards it was no 'gate' at all, and the scandal, if at all we can call it so, is now behind the British prime minister, who has won a vote of confidence to ensure his party leadership for at least a year.

As for this 'lack of respect' for the security and cleaning staff, for us in a South Asia steeped in the caste system this is no misdemeanour. Yes, the caste system isn't confined to Hindu society, and whatever Muslims may have learnt from Hindus over a thousand years of interaction, the willing embrace of the caste system was indeed part of it. This caste menace didn't come with us from the Middle East or Central Asia; we discovered it here in the subcontinent, and the ruling Turco-Persianate elite and the Muslim middle class found it useful. Today, for all practical purposes, Pakistani society is caste-ridden if you look at how you treat 'sweepers' at your home and workplace.

The economic crisis we are passing through is the result of moral bankruptcy.

What constitutes a scandal in Pakistan? Most certainly not Covid SOP violations and dinner parties where chicken biryani and sherbets of all sorts are served. For us, a scandal must mean money laundering worth millions of dollars, misappropriation of official funds, illegal appointments, allotment and occupation of government land by bending or bypassing the rules, constructing buildings that collapse while people live there, the recruitment of airline pilots officially declared to be in possession of fake degrees, election manipulation and constitutional frauds. Nothing of the sort happened in Britain; instead, the furore over Partygate underlines for us a shameful reality -...