Real Freedom dubbed as Haqeeqi Azadi resounded in the air of Lahore on the night of August 13. The National Hockey Stadium Lahore bore the brunt of the resonance. The stadium saw its astroturf removed in preparation for the jalsa (assembly) of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), in the hope that the pitch would be substituted with a new version. Nevertheless, to some critics, the removal of the hockey pitch was a prelude to political exclusions in the future.
On the occasion, the speech of Chairman PTI Imran Khan was full of rhetoric, touching this time nationalistic sentiments of the listeners. Not even a single word did he utter to underline virtues such as hard work, punctuality, and regularity, following which make a nation economically independent. Instead, Khan attempted to rely on recriminations and roarbacks. His speech was of a budding politician who had never been in the corridors of power. In his speech, nowhere did he show that he had been the prime minister. His speeches now are generally replete with excuses, emphasizing on apportioning blame for his botches. Mostly couched in various locutions, he accuses the Army for the underperformance of his government. He is deeply frustrated at the disassociation of the army from political affairs, though he still believes that the higher judiciary would support him. He is aggrieved at the collapse of the PTI-Judiciary-Army nexus.
Shabaz Gill made all efforts to see dreadful times that could beset his normalcy. Finally he became successful. He touched the inflection point. His words visited ignominy upon him. The Islamabad Police arrested him for inciting rebellion in the army. Sedition charges are bound to engage him. Nevertheless, he is also accused of hiding certain evidence of the offence and providing the police with false information to protect his collaborators. The police have to recover Gill’s mobile phone to see if there were more people involved.
Gill personifies the abuse deluging the political arena. He had been representing the prevalent thought in the PTI that the party’s followers were the opposite of deferential, out of bounds of culpability, and out of the lexicon of law. Gill was unabated and unscathed until he overestimated his worth or perhaps misjudged the time he was living in. Knowingly, he crossed the limit. He executed the job which he should have avoided. His words were like a red rag to a bull.
A loose cannon, he had shown respect to none. He tried his best to be as disrespectful to the PTI’s disparagers as he could be. He turned the gun on the khaki patrons of the PTI. Now, he is on the horns of a dilemma. If he regrets and withdraws his inciting words, his political journey is over. If he sticks to his words, he would be handed down a jail term. In either case, his sojourn in Pakistan would be over. Through his inflaming words uttered to a TV channel, he wreaked havoc on the PTI’s image and projected it as an unpatriotic, hooliganistic and obdurate party. None had conspired against him but he himself.
Even if shorn of all power, the PTI must not be divested of all common sense. The more its members commit mistakes, as Gill did, the more the political opponents will get a chance to overwhelm it in the political arena
In response to his arrest, the PTI was initially stunned finding no excuse to extend and inventing no reason to defend. Some PTI stalwarts such as Fawad Chaudhry even disowned the seditious statement of Gill, and thereby Gill. After about a week, the party strategized to condemn Gill in public but bolster him in private. On August 17, the speech of Senator Faisal Javed Khan in the Senate condemning Gill was a sequel to the party’s half-strategy. On the ground, the PTI’s lawyers and followers are in full swing to save Gill from the police investigation. Gill is feigning illness, respiratory infection. He pretends to be a sick febrile person, who needs urgent medical attention. He has to lie down on a stretcher and cough violently with a respiratory mask on his face to show the viewers that he was not the Jat who used to brag about his mettle sufficient enough to weather any crisis. Spending just a few days behind bars, under the rubric of whatever custody, has brought him to his senses. All ruses are attempts to buy time and escape the physical remand that the court granted to the police.
Gill’s mutinous statement and his subsequent arrest were both unexpected. They were an expression of a fall from grace. His statement was to express annoyance at the Army. The arrest was the confirmation that the Army had (apparently) dumped the party. The hybrid experiment had been concluded; it could not be revived. The PTI had to live with the fact that it was now on its own. The party had to carve out its path unaided.
As Gill made all efforts to see dreadful times, the PTI also had left no stone unturned to infuriate its masters, the scientists running the hybrid experiment. Now, the PTI has to rely on mere rhetoric and sloganeering because it performed little on the ground. Hardly is there a project of importance attributed to the PTI’s stint in power.
The PTI Chairman’s announcement he would contest elections from multiple constituencies for the National Assembly is bound to impinge upon his mind to stay wise politically. His decision indicates that he is running a one-man show even within his party. Apparently, he decided and announced without consulting his party fellows who could devise a better strategy to challenge political opponents. This happens when a politician refuses to learn and mature and keeps on resorting to knee-jerk reactions, without realizing that his political opponents are astute and mellowed with the task of politics, and also without realizing that the scientists are no more interested in continuing with the hybrid experiment.
Even if shorn of all power, the PTI must not be divested of all common sense. The more its members commit mistakes, as Gill did, the more the political opponents will get a chance to overwhelm it in the political arena.
In short, Haqeeqi Azadi (real freedom) comes with sacrifice and toil and not with mantras and gimmicks, contingent on heating up a stadium.
