Scientific advancement.

Byline: Asha'ar Rehman

IT is difficult to say if Fawad Chaudhry was always fond of these games in which he cast himself as a deceptively fatalistic politician willing to bluntly discuss everything. Memory says it is more an acquired skill from the days he found himself in the Musharraf camp, probably because the liberal general offered his family the best hope to protect their long cultivated interests in the tough Jhelum terrain against the local custodians of the mighty Sharif dynasty. Perhaps the commentators are right and it is 'we' the press who have lent him his final cutting edge. His competitive, provocative nature could well have been honed during his stint as a television host some time ago.

Far from falling for any pseudo neutrality that a television host may be flaunting, the experience has left him more open to discussing his vision and ambitions. His opposition to parties, especially the PPP, for which he had inherited a soft spot due to old associations, has been more direct, lest someone doubted his commitment to the kaptaan who he finally managed to get a hold of.

There is a science to it. Quite in the fashion of how they do politics today in other countries, Fawad Chaudhry is apparently always very candid about discussing the affairs of his party, the PTI, which is precious since it has done what others had struggled to do: giving his family a clear shot at dominating politics in Jhelum after so long.

As per the formula, the gentleman doesn't pick just any opponent. His selections are always brilliant as they give him room to agitate with calculated risk.

It appears that Fawad Chaudhry also chooses his targets within his party with utmost care.

He is not naive to take on just any maulana or allama in his pursuit of the supremacy of science. He is careful to have as his rival a mufti sahib who enjoys a certain reputation because of the annual public expose of his vision and who is not known to double as a violent jihadi against those who he cannot convince with words.

It appears that Chaudhry also chooses his targets within the party with utmost care. It all depends on just how intense he wants his argument to be at a particular time. If he is discussing big guns such as Jahangir Tareen, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and the great Asad Umar in the same vein as having adversely affected the PTI, he must have a solid reason for doing so.

But remember one important thing: even in the supposedly heated moment when this politician, with...