POLITICS is sometimes a theatre of the absurd, and never more so than in this part of the world where a native loquacity meets a hankering for the limelight. So it was outside the accountability court in Islamabad on Thursday where former president Asif Ali Zardari arrived to face five references against him, including a money laundering case, involving $60m. His longtime spiritual mentor, Pir Mohammed Ejaz, who was part of the entourage, enlightened the reporters present that it was due to his meditation that Mr Zardari in 2006 had been freed from “the bad spell he was under”, which enabled him to access the $60m allegedly stashed in a Swiss bank since almost two decades. The gentleman also revealed that he had been “protecting Mr Zardari from hardships since 2001”, thereby shedding some light at last on one of the biggest mysteries of our times; that is, our erstwhile head of state’s ability to successfully sidestep all manner of scurrilous attacks on his probity.

Mr Zardari is not alone among Pakistani politicians in his reliance on a spiritual guide. Former premiers Raja Pervez Ashraf and the late Benazir Bhutto are said to have also consulted their favoured pirs. Nor, it is rumoured, has the business-minded Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif eschewed the practice. However, while Pir Ejaz’s intercessions on behalf of Mr Zardari may have been a force for good for the latter, for many ordinary people, far from finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, such ‘guidance’ often goes hand-in-hand with them parting with their hard-earned money. On the supply side, there is no shortage of unscrupulous individuals willing to exploit religion for worldly gains. The media does not help either by promoting the practitioners of esoteric spiritual arts in the vulgar race for ratings. Perhaps the country as a whole would benefit if its leaders set an example of relying on logic to steer the ship of state.