The PTI chairperson’s decision to tie the second long march with the Supreme Court decision for assurance of safety to the marchers makes the drive for the change; not more than a planned religious congregation of any social group’s bid for street power. The vanguard party, claims to be leading a revolution; and so much dependence on the established order seems more like a joke. However a closer look suggests something more serious to consider; for the party well-wishers and voters.
Negotiations and talks pave the way for even armed movements to succeed. Pakistan of today seems a unique case of politics where the established order has to draw lines and circles for even the revolution. It is an immature political movement to say the least.
If the party stalwart’s belief is to be taken on its face value; it might be called a unique case of a political party willing to play by the rules of the established order; to the point that it is leaving no stone unturned to even afford a change of system on the back of the very established order.
True to the extent that the joining of the rebellion by the organs of the ancient regime is a prerequisite for the new rulers to take charge. The breakup of the old order takes place gradually and usually the old order resists its disintegration. The revolutionary leadership is never observed going religiously by the rules or seeking refuge with the help of the order it seeks to overthrow. Such scenarios involve last-minute negotiations as well as takeover of the system.
In 1971, when the Yahya government was discredited in the aftermath of the emergence of Bangladesh, the rebels who called for Bhutto to be brought back and handed over power did not file a petition with the Supreme Court for that purpose, nor had they requested the defeated president to allow them to rebel. Similarly, the takeovers in Russia in 1917, or in Iran in 1979, did not witness Lenin or Khomeini sending legal experts for control of the streets. In fact the Bolsheviks in Moscow and defiant crowds in Tehran both broke the law with confidence and heralded a new era.
Imran Khan’s sudden loss of confidence is very much evident in the way he is not willing to return to his own dwelling in Bani Gala as whatwell as in his refusal to take a confident decision about his political moves. His overall dependence upon what he thinks is the Supreme Court’s soft corner actually exposes him to the feeling that the last bid for the capital had many insights for the Khan; but not the insights; which he claimed in his utterances on the media.
To begin with, the voter and activist is fine with an end of the day rally with a bit of fun and adventure. These attendances do not take much time and everyone is happy, the government, the party and the participants. On the other hand, the Long March or a bid for revolution means taking a week out of the schedule, facige government crackdown, leaving one’s place for the other city and planning for finances if the stay has to be prolonged; as can be the case in Pakistan.
Did the party have any plans for these aspects of the March or revolution? I fear not. It was superficially presumed that the same crowd who happily came to the rally would be equally happy to toil through the exceptionally hot weather in Punjab, reach Islamabad and then sit on the scorngchi metalled roads of Islamabad. Here it seems that the down-to-earth attitude of the ruling coalition ministers in dealing with agitation was on a higher tactical plane during the first Dharna and the so-called tactical planning of the revolutionaries.
While the established order had the Intel and ruthlessness to unleash terror, the party for change was, it seems, not prepared to lead the willing revolutionaries. The party leadership was more interested in attendance-sheet presence in front of Khan than any willingness to confront the government in a street battle.
It seems that the assessment made in these paragraphs might have been precisely the going in Islamabad. The party; though unwilling to accept its weakness and measured defeat, has realized that it needs to have someone from the organs of the state to implement its revolution. Its first bid for revolution was shadowed by the supreme established order in 2018.
After being booted out in a vote of no-confidence, initially the party thought that it had graduated as a revolutionary vanguard when people thronged to its protest rallies. This regretfully was not the case. The general impression about the party seems to have strengthened, first in the turnaround in the first Dharna and the complete dependence upon judiciary for the second Dharna. Generally, the party distractors call it a Burger Party, which unfortunately is the case. Their parallels can be found in other countries too; the Iranian reform movement and the 2009 election candidate Mir Husain Mosavi, who despite his impressive credentials failed to dislodge the Iranian established order; precisely because his cadre could not visualize beyond a certain stage. They were happy to Tweet, but not comfortable to dig in.
Wednesday morning Iman Mazari-Hazir’s statement was carried in BBC Urdu, stating that she was not inciting rebellion in the army, rather what she said was in the fit of anger, shows that the party was not even ready to defend its own stances in the court of law.
While the Supreme Court response is awaited and if it consents to give the required tactical coverage to the party for holding a Dharna in Islamabad, it would look ridiculous for a party finding support within the system to dislodge that very system.
It is a matter of common sense that no system of government will itself invite its distractors. It can at most allow people to express their views. Electoral systems around the world are now recognized as the credible form of regime or system change. Protracted agitation and public pressure on its own feet is the other form of regime change. Armed rebellion is seldom entertained by the established orders. Taliban insurgency in Pakistan was fought tooth and nail, so was the quasi-Jihadist insurgency in Syria. Another way out is conspiratorial management; the way free officers of the 1950s and 1960s succeeded; in the case of North Africa, Syria and Iraq in the late 1960s; but that is out of fashion now.
Negotiations and talks pave the way for even armed movements to succeed. Pakistan of today seems a unique case of politics where the established order has to draw lines and circles for even the revolution. It is an immature political movement to say the least.
Invariably, instead of looking for quickset solutions; the party for change needs to dig in; flush out bad mouths from its cadre and make a case for itself in the society to love them; likes of Jamat in Pakistan, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the BJP in India pre-2014 and the Turkish pre-Erdogan Islamists or the Ikhwan in Arab societies, are test cases to learn from. There is a world beyond DJs, the party of change has to mature…
