Salman Taseer: Greed, pimping, exploitation personified

By Ibn-e-Hallaj

In any civilized country he would have been serving a jail term for fraudulent business practices and inhumane exploitation of workers. In Pakistan he is the governor of Punjab, the most populated province of the country.

Salman Taseer, in essence, is a shameless slave driver. He calls himself "self-made" but his worldly success has been driven by greed, exploitation, unethical business practices bordering on violation of civil and criminal laws. Opportunist to the core, his sole loyalty is to money. That explains why he opted to become a minister in the cabinet of former despot Pervez Musharraf, the most ruthless dictator that Pakistan ever had. That also explains why he managed to become the governor in the so-called democratic dispensation after Feb 18 elections last year.

That also explains why he continues to remain the governor despite ordering the illegal removal of Shahbaz Sharif as the chief minister of Punjab- an act declared illegal by the apex court of the country.

Salman Taseer excels in pimping the aspirations of the people in the name of democracy and "personal sacrifices including arrest and detention" about which nobody, including media, knows nothing. The self-styled "champion of the people" is known to throw lavish dinner, luncheon and cocktail parties at the Governor House the cost of which is borne by a people who are becoming poorer and hungrier by each passing day evident from the wave of en masse suicides, selling or even murdering of self and children.

As is over 40 per cent of over 17 million of the country's population are living below the poverty line and the number and percentage of abject poor is increasing every day mainly because the ruling elite, of which Salman Taseer is an active member, has taxed the people to death. The same clique, which forms a negligible percentage of the population, shares all the riches of country but does not share a gram of its burdens. It lives on the fat of the land but passes every gram of its burdens to the people which it regards nothing more than specks of dust except at the time of election when its members need vote to deceive the world that Pakistan is a democratic country.

Salman Taseer's loyalty is limited to riches, power and fame and he never misses any opportunity to be loyal whenever it suits him. He runs a series of businesses where the workers are exploited to the fullest. The underlying current in all his businesses is fear- the fear of getting sacked unceremoniously for a reason and mostly without any reason at all.

For instance, the publishing arm of his business empire Media Times which publishes Daily Times newspaper decided to come up with Urdu daily "Aajkal". To fill the vacancies experienced reporters and editorial staff were lured from other organizations with promises of excellent financial and growth prospects. However, those who joined Daily Aajkal in third quarter 2007 were unceremoniously sacked in phases almost entirely by April this year at Karachi office alone. In all around 30 people were sacked only from the editorial and reporting side while many more were sacked from the IT, circulation, marketing and other departments. Most of the workers including peons were also sacked.

During the first phase early January this year around 10 editorial staff including 3 trainee female reporters were sacked. In the second phase nearly dozen and half workers, including reporters, were booted in early March this year. And about month and a half later the remaining editorial and other staff including news editor Qaiser Mahmood, city editor Imran Junior, chief reporter Agha Khalid were laid off. It is interesting to note that the Editor of the Karachi Edition of Daily Aajkal Fazil Jamili, who resigned during the last phase of these unceremonious lay offs, chose to remain conveniently silent throughout the gruesome ordeal of his staff. It is even more strange that Fazil Jamili managed to get elected to be an office bearer of Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) during the last phase of the lay-offs.

Much bigger layoffs at Daily Aajkal head office at Lahore also took place and workers were also sacked unceremoniously at the Rawalpindi office.   

And Salman Taseer the slave driver did not pay them the mandatory salary as prescribed under the law. It makes me laugh when Salman Taseer try to hail himself as champions of the people as governor Punjab when he owes salaries of over hundred of workers of Daily Aajkal for the last 10 months.  Salman Taseer is perhaps the only governor in the world who has defrauded his workers of their legal dues in the name of democracy and good governance.

If the Chief Justice of Pakistan Honorable Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary choses to take a suo moto action of this write-up he would see the court brimming with people done wrong by Salman Taseer the Slave Driver.