PML-N has already lost the plot…and the narrative

Islamabad diary
It is 10:30 in the morning (Monday) as I write this and different TV channels are reporting live on the deteriorating situation in Faisalabad. Whatever happens this much is clear: the situation is not in the control of the local administration, Rana Sanaullah’s bluster notwithstanding. And please bear in mind this is not Mianwali, Imran Khan’s hometown, but Faisalabad, long a stronghold of the Sharif brothers. If the tide can turn here imagine the currents racing elsewhere.
It would be unfair to call this a government. In no recognisable sense of the word is this any longer a government with a grip on events – first the dharnas, then the rallies across the country drawing mammoth, unprecedented crowds and now the schedule for blocking major cities, beginning with Faisalabad.
The government, its back to the wall and increasingly clueless, is merely reacting, that too erratically and feebly, to the challenge thrown up by Imran Khan. Whether Khan’s agenda is good or bad, positive or not, is beside the point. He is setting the agenda and dictating the narrative while the Sharif brothers are reduced to the pantomime of conferring with each other every Sunday in Raiwind.
Imran has repeatedly proved his critics wrong, first by conjuring up an agitation out of virtual thin air and then sustaining it for so long. His party meanwhile, in the throes of the current agitation, has shown an organisational capacity that few would have thought it possessed, arranging massive rallies at short notice. Not that they had to make any special effort to bring in the crowds because the crowds have come on their own, drawn by Khan’s message and responding to his call.
The call for blocking Faisalabad was given only a few days ago, at the November 30 rally in Islamabad and already – it’s 11 in the morning – tension in the city is running high and there have been sporadic clashes between Imran and Sharif supporters. If this continues, Imran will have made his point and government bonzes will be left pursing their lips, and waiting in trepidation for the next round in this drawn-out conflict which has sapped what there was of the government’s drive and energy.
An ad brought out in today’s papers by independent power producers warns the government of sovereign default failing the clearance of dues. It also warns of stopping power production and the impact this move would have on the investment climate in the country. And there are half-page ads brought out by the government highlighting its achievements. When beleaguered governments have recourse to devices like ads which no one takes seriously, more than anything else it is an exercise in surrealism, revealing the gap between illusion and reality.
(Someone from the PML-N brandishing a pistol has shot at PTI supporters. One PTI worker is reported dead.)
What else is needed to drive home the point that the Sharifs have lost it? …na haath baag per hai, na paa hai rakab mein. Where will this runaway horse come to rest? The Sharifs cannot make any meaningful gesture for talks because, one thing leading to another, it would mean the unravelling of their political kingdom. The risk is too great, which is why they are sitting tight, hoping this will pass.
Other storms they could have weathered but Imran has proven more than a match for them. And he is challenging them, and successfully at that, where it hurts the most: their powerhouse of Punjab where not long ago they reigned supreme. Now Punjab is the battlefield and they are not even running around in circles. They seem bereft of the power of both thought and action.
Their predicament becomes plainer when on defence and foreign affairs they already have no control, the army calling the shots and successfully waging the war in the north-west against the Taliban and other flag-bearers of militancy.
(If it had been left to the civilian government this operation would never have started. If Imran Khan had his way, this the most glaring chink in his armour, then too there would have been no call to arms along the frontier marches. The Taliban would have been breathing down our necks and politicians, except those of the ANP and the MQM, would have been preaching to the nation the virtues of negotiating with those cutting the throats of our soldiers. We have to thank our stars the army put an end to that nonsense…not that you would find much of the liberati acknowledging this.)
So while the army has won real laurels for itself – something which showed in the way Gen Raheel Sharif was received in the United States – the civilian government is against the ropes and it has no plan, no clue, how to get back on its feet.
There are two possibilities. Either the misery of the Sharifs is prolonged and they continue in this state…drip, drip, drip, enduring a form of Chinese torture, looking more vulnerable and stricken as Imran keeps stoking the fires of agitation, or someone, donning a cloak of reluctance (for show), puts an end to their misery.
The first would be the Zardari option…the tin-pot emperor not only left to twist in the wind but exposed so much that everyone recognizes that he is without his clothes. It was this full-blown exposure which ensured the PPP’s demolition in Punjab in the last elections. This is now a closed chapter, the PPP dead and gone in what was once its stronghold, Punjab, its rout so complete that there will not remain even a mazar (mausoleum) to remind the chance visitor of its days of pomp and glory.
The second is the El-Sisi option, as we have seen in Egypt, the Egyptian spring dissolving into another military-dominated transmutation. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Far better the Chinese or the Zardari option…until the Sharifs are seen to be what they increasingly look like: a holdover from the past, a Zia-associated past long buried, and no longer relevant to the Pakistan of today.
Six months ago this looked impossible, the Sharifs astride Pakistan like the Colossus of Rhodes and the political landscape without any sign of vigour or opposition. So much has changed since then, the colossus revealed to have feet of clay and Imran Khan – against the odds, against at least my expectations, for what those may have been worth – riding a storm of his own making and reducing the Sharifs to the diminished figures they have now become.
Of Ozymandias’ ambition (in the Shelley poem) only the wreck of his statue remained. Of Bhutto’s once-vibrant memory in Punjab little of present relevance survives, to remind the young of today of the whirlwind he once was. Of the long innings of the Sharifs – in Punjab they have been calling the shots forever – what will remain? One or two tasteless metro-bus services for sure…beyond that, what?
Bhutto’s rule ended in failure, if not in failure at least in a military coup which is very akin to failure. But his star shone in 1969-70, his person an answer to the dreams nurtured by the young of that tumultuous period in our history. What becomes of Imran Khan’s movement eventually, who can tell? But his star is in the ascendant today, and an entire generation of young women and men see in him the answer to their dreams. (Older than this generation, I am more cynical, having seen my share of false prophets and false dawns. But what is this cynicism worth when set against so much hope and idealism?)
So let’s see where this steed comes to rest, although this much looks increasingly certain: whether we have the Zardari option or the El-Sisi alternative, the goose of the present dispensation is pretty near being cooked…unless this is a premature obituary.
My previous email was hacked.The new one: bhagwal63@gmail. com