A Tale of Two Marches

The double-barrel sit-in at Islamabad’s D-square which had started as Freedom and Revolution marches from Lahore has completed six eventful weeks, but little progress has been seen in the realization of its objectives.

Imran Khan whose party Tehreek-e-Insaaf had received the second highest number of votes but relatively fewer seats in the last general election has a clear-cut agenda based on his grievance of election rigging by the ruling party PMLN of Nawaz Sharif in May, 2013 general elections. He had to come out on the streets after all his attempts to get justice from the election Commission and the Superior judiciary were thwarted.

One of the most serious allegations also witnessed by the whole nation is that while the votes were still being counted and election results being compiled, Mr. Nawaz Sharif appeared on Geo TV and claimed that the channel had convinced him that his party was winning the largest number of seats in the National assembly and was going to be the next prime minister. Surprisingly, he also expressed his desire to have an absolute majority and appealed to some undefined audience to give him the required number of seats. Since his party had been ruling the Punjab for the last 5 years as well as for decades earlier, most provincial employees involved in the electoral process were handpicked by the Nawaz family, so the hint was obvious and was likely to have influenced the results. As it happened, results in many constituencies defied the trends they were following before the ‘victory speech’.  Mr. Sharif’s action was highly objectionable and if the Election Commission had gall enough it should have disqualified him then and there. Unofficial reports indicate that if a genuine and proper audit of votes is carried out a number of sitting ministers in Mr. Sharif’s cabinet will be disqualified.

Prior to the march on 14^th August, 2014, Mr. Sharif had met Mr. Khan at the latter’s residence and offered him deputy-prime-minister’s unconventional position in return for abandoning the vote audit demand. It seems to have infuriated the Khan who now would not agree to anything less than Mr. Sharif’s resignation and more and more Pakistanis are agreeing with him as time passes.

The Revolution march of Allama Tahirul Qadri’s objectives seem rather vague except that he advocated a puritanical though modern Islamic system of government and wants the whole political system to be wrapped up and reorganized. Mr. Sharif and many other PMLN leaders were fervent followers of Mr. Qadri and his Barelvi sect prior to Mr. Sharif’s deportation to Saudi Arabia who now seem to have changed their allegiance to the Saudi supported Deobandi sect.

The recent movement started after a police invasion of his headquarters in Lahore in which some 14 people were shot dead and over 80 injured by gunshots at chest level. The government tried to cover up the issue as the incident report of the police did not mention any fatalities and the families of the dead were offered Rs. 3 million each in blood money and also handsome compensation to the injured. The victims’ families spurned the offers and demand due legal process including the registration of complaints as they saw it.

The unprecedented police brutality seems to have two possible motivations. It is possible that the Punjab administration had thought that the recently enacted Protection of Pakistan Ordinance which gives permission to police to shoot to kill without prior authorization when faced with armed terrorists could be twisted to justify any oppressive activity. The second is the possibility that the government of Punjab has made peace with the Punjabi Taliban by recruiting a few thousand of their unemployed youth in the police and the incident may have had a sectarian aspect. However the sectarian possibility has been sensibly ignored by everyone and although it should be kept at the back of the mind it should not be highlighted or exploited for political purposes. In any case, the incident reflects the utter failure of the Punjab provincial administration and the chief-minister should have resigned before being asked to do so.