Daily Times

PARTY PROFILE

‘Jab tak janta tang rahege, jang rahege, jang rahege Jab tak bhook aur nang rahege, jang rahege, jang rahege’

[Our struggle will continue as long as there is humger, depravity and injustice in the society]

A group of young activists of left-wing Awami Workers Party (AWP) chanting the slogan at the top of their lungs, from the cargo space of a worn out Suzuki van parked in Islamabad’s F-11 markaz, were stopped by a police team and asked to produce a No-Objection Certificate for use of the loudspeaker.

One of the officials said that the activists were violating the law by using the loudspeaker. The person holding the loudspeaker responded, “we’re using it for a lawful activity. Why don’t you ever stop members of banned outfits who openly solicit funds and hides using loudspeakers at their roadside camps.”

An argument ensued as both sides stuck to their positions. The back-and-forth continued for about 10 minutes before the police team gave up and left the scene. The AWP activists proceeded with canvassing for their two candidates Ammar Rashid in NA-53 and Ismat Shahjahan in NA 54.

The campaign team later set up camp in the parking space at the Markaz, and the mic was passed on to Alia Amir Ali, a member of AWP’s Punjab committee, to address the public.

“The AWP stands for a progressive Pakistan that is free of the curse of extremism and where the generals who abrogated our constitution are brought to justice. We want a country where every human being is treated fairly regardless of their religion, race, colour and class,” she said, and paused for a second that was enough for the other activists to take their cue for another round of sloganeering.

This time, one of the activists chanted, “Hum kia chahte hain?” (‘What do we want?’) And the rest responded with their fist raised in air, “azadi” (‘Freedom’). It continued with the person raising a slogan highlighting a specific grievance, and the rest of the group responding with the term, ‘azadi’.

The complete slogan that has been a permenant feature of the Sub-continent’s leftist political tradition was: ‘har zulm se leenge azadi, har jabr se leenge azadi, jo tum na dooge azadi, hum cheen ke leen ge azadi, parne likhne ki azadi, zinda rehne ki azadi, Izhar ki lainge azadi, bhooknang se leenge azadi’ (‘we will be free of all oppression and injustice, if you don’t let us be free, we will snatch our right to be free through our struggle, freedom to read and write, freedom to be alive, freedom to express ourselves, and freedom from hunger and deprivation’).

A campaign built on volunteers, donations

The AWP is no stranger to Islambad’s streets and markets. A small player in the national political scene, the party has been active in the federal capital ever since it was founded following a merger of six left leaning parties in 2013. The Islamabad chapter of the party first emerged on the national scene for standing shoulder to shoulder with the dwellers of a slum settlement in Sector I-11 during their resistence to a demolition drive undertaken by the Capital Development Authority (CDA). Subsequently, it fielded candidates in the local bodies election in Islamabad and secured three seats in the city’s council.

For this election, the party has fielded 22 candidates for (eight) national and (13) provincial assembly seats in the country – 13 from Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, four from Sindh, two from Punjab and two from Islamabad.

However, it is the panel fielded in Islamabad that has gained prominence, particularly on the social media where the who’s who of the country’s civil society have endorsed Ammar Rashid (NA-53) and Ismat Shahjahan’s (NA-54), despite the fact that the two activists are up against heavy weights of Pakistani politics. Rashid is contesting in a constituency where the major battle will be between Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Ismat’s constituency has PTI’s Asad Umar and PML-N’s Anjum Aqeel in the contest.

We are doing door-to-door visits and market rounds. Both our candidates have been on the road all day since the campaign started to make sure that they can themselves answer voters’ questions regarding our politics and manifesto

Tooba Syed, a party activist in Islamabad

Thanks to poorly implemented campaign finance rules and financiers from the economic elites, the mainstream parties can put exorbitantly high volumes of money into their campaigns. This puts smaller parties like the AWP at a disadvantage in electoral politics. To deal with these problems, the party’s Islamabad chapter has reached out to its supporters for donations using social media platforms. On the ground, the party is running a vibrant door-to-door campaign with the assistance of its network of ideologically driven young activists who have joined the campaign from across the country. “We are doing door-to-door visits and market rounds. Our campaign is based on the idea of reaching out to as many people as possible. Both our candidates have been on the road all day since the campaign started to make sure that they can themselves answer voters’ questions regarding our politics and manifesto,” explains Tooba Syed, a party activist in Islamabad.

She says that the campaign team has held events with the intention of reclaiming public spaces for art and creative expression. “Many people have reached out to us, especially young people, to join our campaign and to expand it their areas,” she says, adding, “It is a people’s campaign that runs on the work and labour of volunteers. We are up against big money in a country where there is a lot of cynicism when it comes to politics. We are basing our campaign around hope and the need and relevance of an alternative in today’s Pakistan.”

The party’s campaign has also faced what Shahjehan has referred to as intimidationn and harassment by the federal capital’s administration. Over the weekend, she posted on her Twitter account that a campaign van was impounded by the police who intercepted her campaign team thrice in the last week.

‘In for a long haul’

Speaking to Daily Times about her manifesto, Shahjahan said that the AWP was in politics for the long haul, to form a society free of exploitation based on gender, class, ethnic and religious grounds.

In the short-to-medium term, she said the party would prioritise reform of education curricula. “Our curriculum is based on lies and it has promoted resentment among different groups in the country. We need an education system that produces citizens who can feel empathy for one another. The curriculum needs to be revised also for promoting critical thinking,” she said.

Highlighting the military dictatorships’ role in retarding progress in society, Shahjehan said that the party would act against all those who abrogated the country’s constitution to make an example for the serving leaders of unelected institutions.

Regarding Islamabad, she said the party’s focus would be on marginalised segments of the society. “Our campaign has focused on unregulated settlements in the federal capital where the Pashtun migrants from areas affected by military operations and Christians migrants from across the country reside. The women from these settlements provide domestic help on extremely low rates in developed areas of the capital. Women from these areas also suffer sexual harassment instances that mostly go unreported. The AWP will stand with these groups and will guarantee their basic human rights.”

With additional reporting from the news desk

Published in Daily Times, July 10^th 2018.