Daily Times

Tahirul Qadri and Imran Khan must be terribly disappointed that their attack on parliament and the presidency did not deliver more dead bodies, thanks to the restraint of the police. I could not have imagined even a few days ago using those words to describe the police (any police) but, given the problem they were confronting, their behaviour for the majority of the night was more disciplined than expected. What confronted them is a question that has caused a massive split in public opinion. What emerges from the smoke and debris littering Constitution Avenue today is that, on the night of Saturday, August 30, 2014, the sequence of events was structured precisely to create this split, i.e. to create confusion in which a narrative of government brutality against ‘peaceful’ protestors could take root. However, an examination of that sequence does not show us a picture of riotous confusion as the organisers of this event want. Instead it shows us a carefully planned strategy of attack, with the ultimate goal being to shift public opinion away from the government.

This is the golden egg that the establishment and its abettors aim to steal from under the government’s nose, first by having Imran Khan speak the lie of rigged elections long enough that some people start believing it and by provoking a violent response from the government, or at least creating the perception of a violent response by the government, to paint it as tyrannical, out of touch with the people and, most importantly, unable to establish its writ even outside the houses of parliament. The first indication of this is the timing of the march and Imran Khan’s sudden decision to join Tahirul Qadri against the advice and consensus of his own party’s leadership. Some sources say that Imran changed his mind after receiving a secret message via Sheikh Rasheed. Irrespective of conspiracy theories, the timing is also notable in that both Imran and Qadri have preferred to make their moves at night, when it is dark and confusion is easier to create. This has become their modus operandi.

The attack on parliament began in several waves. The first wave was the unfortunate band of poor women, men and children from the Minhajul Quran. While initially heading towards the Prime Minister (PM) House, they were diverted and attacked the main gates of parliament and the presidency, forcing their way onto the premises while Qadri watched from behind in his car. They did not approach the gates with garlands in hand and singing songs of peace either. Would Qadri and Imran’s alleged aim of peacefully entering parliament grounds and staging a sit-in not be better served by approaching the gates during the day time? That is the usual path of peaceful protestors but this was scripted to make it seem like the natural frustration of a tired nation, rather than a deliberately instigated assault designed to provoke a response. In the dark it was impossible to tell men from women, old from young but, despite being faced with several thousand people, the police managed to disperse the protestors by using teargas with abandon. This was probably a shock to Qadri and Imran who hoped their first wave would generate panic.

It was tragic to see women, children and old men manipulated into putting themselves at risk in this manner while their so-called leader kept out of harm’s way. The second wave was then prepared as police cleared the grounds and people suffering from teargas inhalation were taken to hospitals (by government provided ambulances we should add). The preparations took over an hour, by which time more determined and violent protestors were brought to the fore and told to attack the grounds and the police, knocking down the fence around parliament with a truck. Some of the best and most accurate television coverage of the night also occurred during this period. Probing attacks by protestors ebbed and flowed, to which the police responded with teargas managing to create a perimetre. By the morning ‘reinforcements’ were brought in and, with Imran Khan exhorting them from atop his container, they were told to charge and charge again at the police barriers on Constitution Avenue.

Most of the action took place in the dead of night when half the nation was asleep and unable to see the extreme violence of the protestors as they burnt and rioted within a stone’s throw of parliament buildings. The reserve force was held for the morning to take advantage of a large media presence that obliged by ignoring the protestors’ obvious violence and focusing on the police that was doing everything in its power to keep the protestors at a distance so that a baton-charge would not become necessary. What people were able to see was the frustration of the police when, by around eight in the morning, with the sun up, they finally came to grips with the situation. The one-sided and at times untruthful coverage by the media at this stage was in itself a disappointing sign that it has a long way to go before it can be considered responsible. Several instances of police hitting journalists and protestors were caught on tape and are even now being used to portray the government as illegitimate. Just as Imran Khan has used anecdotal evidence of localised ballot stuffing to make a case for a mass, top-down directed rigging campaign, these instances ignore what occurred for most of the night.

For the establishment, the gains to be made here are clear. The campaign to de-legitimise the government has gained strength since the incident in Model Town on June 16, when several unarmed protestors were attacked and killed by the Lahore police. Public opinion and international opinion are arrayed against military coups or interventions, that is until the government seems so illegitimate and the chaos so widespread that no other option remains and the military must “restore order”. Whether this is its endgame or not, its recent expressions of support for the democratic system (not the government) provide the perfect level of plausible deniability, though in truth it should have intervened to stop the protests days ago when they began threatening vital institutions including the official residence of their ostensible commander-in-chief.

Having failed to gather a critical mass of people for the protest, Imran Khan’s job now is to sustain chaos for several weeks, so that the country is forced to throw its hands up in disgust and accept a military intervention. This was the script written in Kiev, Damascus and Tripoli as well. The implications of this are far reaching. First, they show the tentacles that the establishment has managed to spread into every part of society, including the media that is being used as a platform to promote the narrative of government illegitimacy. Second, they show precisely how fragile our hard won democratic and political rights are. So delicate in fact that people can be convinced to throw them away. While it would be impossible to tell the thugs being portrayed as protestors this fact, the people of Pakistan should recognise it.

The writer is an Assistant Editor at Daily Times