Illegitimate power brokers in Pakistan are more scared of Imran Khan and his supporters than the terrorists and violent groups that have been sponsored over time. I continue to find this a peculiar reality to accept. Most normal people, however privileged and living in a bubble, would fear those with violence on their mind. But in Pakistan, those who make decisions on the fate of this country continue to nurture a particular environment and mentality through public education systems, behavioral norms, and above all protection of radicalised violent social groups. The consequences are obvious: a country which is vulnerable to violent attacks on the streets, threatening citizens on one pretext or another; whether you are accused of blasphemy on the streets, shops, police stations or even in college campuses. Personal disputes convert into dangerous accusations which trigger violence without consequences.
Parliamentarians and the powerful remain silent as if these increasing threats to Pakistan’s social fabric don’t matter, or that they have no spillover effects. Increasingly those in government move in convoys of dozens of armed guards, bullet proof vehicles and cordoned off roads as if this is normal behavior. It is as if they believe that protecting themselves from the radicalised, unstable populace is a sustainable option.
Whether a 100 or 100,000 thousand gathered at the PTI jalsa, the nation knows who is popular in Pakistan and who are illegitimate and unpopular. Exactly who is fooling who?
Is this how a growing Pakistan of 250-300 million souls will continue to watch as a million or two entitled Pakistanis continue to live in this alternative universe, where they pay for nothing and live in a pristine protected bubble while the teaming millions live in a pressure cooker? We speak of a powder keg.
Many argue that, “no way will the Punjab rise, they never have done so, it is not in their DNA.” Aside from this being a historical truth, thus far, it is also an ethnocentric claim that an entire people can be beaten to nonexistence without any resistance.
I disagree with this analysis. Punjab has never risen because in their acquiescent and compliant histories, they were also provided for. There was a bargain, well fed slaves the pecking order gave them privileges. Today’s Pakistan has stripped the pecking order into a tiny coterie.
No doubt, from KP and Balochistan perspectives, Punjab continues to be privileged but the weight of the civil military judicial bureaucracies has now extended to the average Punjabi household as well. The crisis is national. The problem is nationwide. The fabric of the fragile federation is tearing and the sources of the problem are understood and politically rejected-nationwide.
As a result, the recent PTI jalsa planned in Lahore – which was actually in Kahna a satellite town outside of Lahore – resulted in the state closing off the M1 highway towards Peshawar and road blocks from Peshawar towards Lahore. The fear by the state was visible on the roadblocks. Why the need for clamping down on citizens who may or may not want to join the gathering in Kahna to show their disquiet against those who rule over this nation? What was the point to all these physical obstructions?.
Whether a 100 or 100,000 thousand gathered at the PTI jalsa, the nation knows who is popular in Pakistan and who are illegitimate and unpopular. Exactly who is fooling who?
In the age of social media, cell phone cameras and myriad informational platforms, all the slowing down of the internet and banning Twitter or Facebook hasn’t resulted in an altered opinion of the public. Not an iota. Perhaps it has increased the unpopularity of the ruling coterie. Blaming PTI social media for spreading disinformation is a now an evident figment of their twisted imagination.
It is becoming apparent that the coterie in the bubble is happy to dismantle any semblance of constitutional framework for the protection of Pakistani citizens. Every move by parliament is a demonstration of their anti-democratic mindset. The state managers are actively engaged in dismantling the federation’s glue.
There was a time when the Pashtuns were first accused of being anti-national and terrorists, then the Baloch. And yet today we see the PTM led by Manzoor Pashteen asking for an all-party gathering, to discuss how to move forward together to save the federation nonviolently. Here is a popular young Pakistani asking for all likeminded nonviolent Pakistanis to come together to move forward within the framework of Pakistan’s constitution to safeguard our fundamental rights.
Equally powerful, from Balochistan, Dr Mahrang Baloch, another victim of violence, and from a family of disappeared persons in Balochistan, is gathering a growing movement, demanding justice and transparency according to the constitution of Pakistan. Who are the anti-nationals now? This is what I ask.
It seems to me that many in Pakistan fail to see the irony in this. The areas of Pakistan which were considered pariahs and blackholes, outside of the concern and imagination of most Pakistanis, are in fact the only bastions of hope for the entire federation’s sane future. The baseless and moronic accusations against these movements as sponsored by outsiders have fallen on deaf ears, simply because they have risen organically from the ashes of generational conflict areas, their message stand resonates represents the sentiments of those who have lived and living through the pain of the people; they are not touts of the security establishment, or sound like the disingenuous fake politicians who can’t win a seat without assistance from anti-democratic forces.
A politician or a bureaucrat who fears their own people can never be leaders of those people: it is a simple truth.
For how long will the powerful continue to unleash violence in Pakistan with such impunity? There is a growing anger whether PTI-style or from the PTM and BYC. For how long can the ruling coterie survive without the monsters turning on their masters?