Daily Times

The discontentment of the masses may trigger an uprising but only when the dissatisfaction is genuine and not fictitious. An attempt to coerce Pakistan to experience its own kind of Arab Spring got frustrated last year. The decision of the Judicial Commission report, which endorsed the credibility of the 2013 elections, has sealed the fate of the uprising. With that, the repercussions of the attempted revolution have begun. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), the proponent of Pakistan’s Arab Spring, has surrendered to wear and tear, now called reforms. The Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), the sidekick of the PTI, has already mended its ways by donning the attire of a political party aspiring to take part in the next elections, though Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri feels exploited and chastened.
The Pakistani youth were not so discontented as to lay down their lives to topple the sitting elected government, as the Arab youth did in their respective countries, though the PTI cashed in on the credulous and emotional nature of the youth by mobilising them, primarily through the social media, under the impression that their electoral mandate had been stolen. However, the laptop scheme of the sitting government paid dividends by keeping the youth divided. The supply of the local force to PTI’s dharna (sit-in) in Islamabad came primarily from Islamabad’s slums, which are now being erased to rule out any future dharna by the PTI. Out of the crisis, the PTI could not emerge triumphant, except for revelling in the conclusion that more reforms should be introduced to the electoral system or basking in the thought that it has mastered the technique of dharna politics. Millions of rupees spent in the attempted revolution went into the dustbin, though the major beneficiary of the money was DJ Butt, the musician who kept up the sentimental spirit of the dharna participants. One thing is clear: the case of the stolen mandate touted by the PTI in the streets and from atop the container was feigned.
The theory is still credible that by mounting the agitation, the PTI actually served the purposes of the military establishment to save, amongst other issues, General (retired) Pervez Musharraf from the clutches of Article 6. The original plan was not to make both Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and COAS General Raheel Sharif grapple with each other so that the way for junior army generals to (get promoted) be cleared to impose a martial law, as projected by Najam Sethi the analyst. Instead, the leitmotif behind the plan was to seek a judicial martial law (i.e. a permission from the Supreme Court to impose a martial law that would function under the auspices of the Court). Similarly, the turning point was not the audio tape obtained by the government through the Intelligence Bureau and handed over to General Sharif to lay bare the conspiracy hatched by some army generals against the government, as claimed by Sethi. Instead, the turning point, which turned the tables on the PTI, was the press conference of Javed Hashmi, as the President of the PTI, outside the Parliament House on August 31, 2014 that frustrated the whole dharna scheme. It was Hashmi’s proclamation that created a public impression that mattered much to both the army and the Supreme Court. Since then, both of them have been trying to improve their pro-democracy and pro-parliament image in the public.
Instead of introducing transformation in the country, the PTI itself is now subject to the dynamics of transformation. The repercussions of the failure of the attempted revolution are demoralising for PTI’s workers, especially the youth, and are powerful enough to open up the otherwise papered over faultlines in PTI’s ranks. In fact, the slogan of change has boomeranged on the PTI, which is now bound to pass through a gnawing phase of change embodied by internal discontent and division. The PTI, which yearned for a change in the status quo, is now resisting the change and is hell bent upon maintaining the status quo within itself. Instead of making a new Pakistan, a new PTI is bound to emerge: the break-up of the PTI is highly likely.
The stance of Justice (retired) Wajeeh-ud-Din, articulated through a report issued by him earlier and the recent follow-up to the same given by Advocate Hamid Khan, is bound to act as a dividing force for the PTI. Because of that stance, the association of Sheikh Rasheed of the Awami Muslim League with the PTI is jeopardised and the political future of Rasheed is also closed. He is no more than a spent cartridge that, in turn, has spawned a chain of the same, obscuring the independent future of the PTI. Rasheed became successful in making the PTI an instrument in the hands of the military establishment. In essence, Hamid Khan is pleading the same point that Hashmi pleaded: do not play in the hands of the army or the intelligence agencies. Now, the situation has reached the point where the PTI has to choose between the principles of Justice Wajeeh and Hamid Khan and the wealth of Jehangir Tareen and Abdul Aleem Khan. Generally speaking, Hamid Khan’s fate (intertwined with the fate of Justice Wajeeh) may not be different from Hashmi’s. It was Hashmi’s pro-democracy principled stance that frustrated Pakistan’s Arab Spring.
The lessons learnt from the whole episode are these: firstly, for the near future, the scope of any kind of spring is now obliterated in Pakistan. Secondly, the youth and social media cannot bring about political change. Thirdly, fabricated revolutions are meant to fail. Fourthly, the chances of the judicial martial law are over. Fifthly, the PTI is learning politics the hard way. Sixthly, the way to save a military dictator goes through not introducing a martial law and not through introducing fake revolutions.

The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at qaisarrashid@yahoo.com