The current chaos created by protesters in Pakistan can be considered as new to the extent of the leaders or of demands or by political belongings of the protesters but the ways adopted to make the demands accepted by the government are not new. I am not going into the debate whether TLP demands are justifiable or not or the banning of the TLP is right or wrong rather than I will emphasize to get the answer to the following questions.
1. Why the political parties or the protesters having any cause always had only limited options to make their demands acceptable e.g. Blocking roads, damaging public or private properties, putting vehicles and motorbikes on fire, and playing the tug of war with the law enforcement agencies. From where these norms have been adopted even by the ordinary public gathering or protest?
2. Why this nation unanimously adopted this negative norm boldly. Is there any evident justification for this?
3. How and who can create or teach this nation the rights of civic life and a sense of nation-building?
4. Why always the action of the police remains questionable sometimes in the eyes of the government and sometimes in the eyes of the public?
Firstly, it has been rightly said that ‘Protest is the beauty of the Democracy’ and this beauty is also enjoying the umbrella of our constitution. This nation is well aware of the fact that the State is like mother but for this mother, crying is being considered a normal human act. This compels this nation to look forward to not an ordinary mother but the vigilant and caring mother who heeds the cries of his children. Therefore, the children adopted the mechanism of creating chaos which needs something more than crying only.
Secondly, the political parties of Pakistan remained failed to teach the children what type of they need to take for getting attention of the state/mother. One of the factors of this failure is that these parties always remain unaware of the fact that they are the institutions of political awareness for the nation. Unfortunately, our political parties mostly put their political interest above the national and state interests.
Thirdly, the major factor behind this duplicity or split personalities of the politicians is that the political parties while sitting in opposition remain unable to understand the importance of the state and to differentiate between state and government. The political opposition parties forget the rules and discipline or any positive political norms they go to every extent to blame the government and to make points for their next election. They use public for gathering forgetting the threat of Corona, they abet the public to remove hurdles by all means for blocking of roads or for sit-in (dharna) to fight with the law enforcement agencies, etc. And knowing that these acts not only will damage the government but the state too. When the fire breaks out the best time to control is the initial stage but the political parties before controlling the fire survey that whether this fire is in direction of favor of their own or not. One of the examples is recent dharna of TLP in 2017 at Faizabad.
These protests and strikes will make Pakistan state feebler and the state of Pakistan is very challenging. Here the practices build up the habits of the public that how to make your demands acceptable. The national and state interest must not be compromised at any cost by the political parties whether they belong to opposition benches or treasury benches, this practice will automatically be adopted by the public or nation. Our political parties never learned a lesson that as you sow shall you reap, and the result of this is loss of Pakistan not of governments or opposition. Political parties must keep in mind that never establish such an example while remaining in opposition which you can’t afford while sitting on the treasury benches.
Lastly, Police is at the mercy of politicians if they follow the orders the incident like Model Town took place and when they refuse to follow the orders, they awarded suspension order in hands like the Muhammad Ali Nekokara (SSP at that time) faced suspension in 2014 after IG Islamabad for asking written orders of superior to use force against PTI and PAT workers in Red Zone.
Moreover, not only the politicians are behind portraying the evil face of police, police itself is the major cause behind this. The behavior of the police with the common man is miserable the tune in which they talk with the public is something that lights the fire of hate in the heart of the public.
Force is not the option at all. Dialogue is the best and only solution in the democratic system. Leading political parties must learn to lead and never forget that the interest of the state and nation is above all. Their decision for the sake of nation and state must not affect by whether they are in opposition or government.
The writer is Attorney at District & Sessions Court, Islamabad