IT’S about time that everyone started preparing lists of those they are ready to spare for the bloodthirsty goddess of democracy. With or without the aid of the Panama Papers, the clamour is not going to die down unless a few souls are sacrificed. In contrast to a revolution that can accompany a lot of bloodletting, this is the maximum that a democracy demands, tied as its fortunes increasingly are to frequent bouts of anger against corruption.

The rulers have known it all along. Among them the PML-N has been particularly keen over the years to deliver to the masses examples the party has made of the corrupt. It has been very successful in finding the corrupt in the bureaucracy and administration, and publicly humiliating them to satisfy the urge for finding the villains of the system and summarily punishing them to the people’s satisfaction.

Respectable and all-commanding officials have been embarrassed with the cameras there to record the action. No drives to clean the stables where these officials had learnt their bad ways have ever followed. The rulers knew they needed to feed the corrupt-hungry goddess who must be delivered a package from time to time to prevent her from going berserk.

The fraudulent, greedy government servants alone would make the menu look dull and narrow. There needed to be others on the list apparently under scrutiny for their misdeeds. For long years, rival political parties which have taken turns at governing have been at each other’s throat, hoping that the theatrics that have seldom if ever been backed by court conviction in Pakistan would be sufficient fodder for the masses. They could well have continued with the same routine of persecuting but for the obvious boredom with which the people had lately come to greet this old, predictable script that did little more than keep the two rivals in politics — the PPP and PML-N — alive and relevant.