The energy and criminal efforts to destroy and bury the PTI, expended by the army high command and its pimps thugs and whores, are too many, varied, and well known to be listed here.
However, the most significant event immediately preceding the PTI rally of Sep 8 deserves to be examined and scrutinized.
PTI had unrelentingly been trying to hold a political rally in various parts of the Punjab for more than two years.
In an exhibition of supreme bad faith, the government has been giving them an unending run around instead of giving them due permission for the same.
At long last, the PTI began to knock at the doors of the courts in a persistent effort to secure their right to organize political congregations. The courts invariably passed due orders to the administration to ensure this right to the petitioner. The administration always nodded its assent and gave the due permission to the PTI, each time it got such orders, but then overrode them with equal regularity at the last minute.
Eventually the administration, having used up every device from its bag of tricks, had no wriggle room left. It was compelled to obey the court and allow the PTI to hold a rally at Tarnol on Aug 22.
This time it was the high command’s turn to pull Mohsin Naqvi’s chestnuts out of the fire and have the rally postponed for reasons of “national security”. They fished out old Azam Swati and sent him post-haste to Adiala Jail to convince Imran Khan to issue instructions to his party’s leadership to postpone the rally.
Swati was told that because of the Pakistan vs Bangladesh cricket match, and the expectation of agitation by some religious parties in the capital, large crowds were expected to gather and that there was verified intelligence that some anti-state elements would use this occasion to cause bloodshed. The assurance given to Swati, to convey to Imran, was that in case the subject rally was postponed to Sep 8, an NOC would be issued for this and that non-interference in the conduct of the rally would be ensured.
So, the gates of Adiala Jail were swung open at seven in the morning, and Swati, this time with his pants on, strode through them for his meeting with Imran Khan.
Two things led Imran to postpone the rally, despite knowing that this would be highly unpopular with his supporters. One, he had consistently tried to avoid a situation in which there was any chance of his supporters clashing with any other group or with law enforcement agencies. This is why his repeated insistence to his supporters has been that all their rallies had to be peaceful. And second, he had always taken the position that he was open to talks with representatives of the high command, but they had consistently ignored this offer. Now, when it was the high command itself which had sent a request to him, the only conclusion he could draw was that the intelligence on which their request was based, needed to be taken seriously. So, to avoid any chance of events leading to mayhem, he had little difficulty acceding to this request even though this would not go down well with his supporters, many of whom had come from places as far afield as Karachi, Baluchistan, and Gilgit.
And how was his positive attitude paid back?
First, a bill was passed and enacted into law by “ten percent” Zardari a mere four days before the rally. This law was specific to the coming PTI rally and was meant to control it in multiple ways the government chose to. Then, the administration refused to give PTI the promised NOC to hold their rally. This was only given two days before the event when Swati threatened to hold a press conference and spill the beans collected during his interface with the representatives of the high command. Then, immediately as the NOC was given, the venue for the event was pushed back from Tarnol to Sangjani. And then, EVERY route to the allocated venue was blocked off. Lastly, when people in their hundreds of thousands nevertheless negotiated their way past all the obstacles erected to stop them, and gathered at the venue, the police began firing tear gas into the crowd!
How does it happen that the administration allocates a venue for an event which was to be attended by hundreds of thousands of people from every corner of Pakistan, and then the same administration blocks every entrance to that venue? This seems to have been a situation specifically created for blood to be shed. The poodle in the black robe failed to take suo moto notice of this. And Asim Munir, so keen that blood not be shed on Aug 22, was amenable enough for it to be shed on Sep 8, so that when the stage was set for it to flow, he preferred to look away! Did he want a re-enactment of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and for the same purpose, i.e. that he should be able to suppress public sentiment with a heavy hand to reassert his frayed majesty?
Or was this so arranged that people who had come from afar on Aug 22 would be so tired out and dispirited, that they would fail to turn up on Sep 8? If this was so, what a slap it must have been on the shamed faces of the authorities, that hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic Imran supporters found their way to Sangjani on the appointed day nevertheless!
That there was no bloodshed was due entirely to the immense discipline of the hundreds of harried thousands who came to the rally. Amazingly, they had it in them to repeat their performance of Feb 8 which, along with May 9, and Sep 8 are days condemned to live in infamy forever.
Blood may not have been shed on Sep 8, but this was entirely due to the people, who failed to be provoked by the brazen demonstration of bad faith by the government and the high command. And yet, the sad truth is that seeds for bloodshed have been sown. The actions of the authorities left them naked once more and bared their intentions. These were enough to provoke PTI leaders to speak out their disgust at their hypocrisy and dishonesty. These speeches will now be used to provide evidence to frame charges against them under the new laws promulgated just for this purpose!
One inspired moment of martial genius has shifted the centre of security gravity from Baluchistan to KP.
In 1971 a few substandard generals pushed Pakistan into a war against their own people and halved their country. But one could not imagine that a few third raters could so quickly push what was left of Pakistan to the brink, as the present high command has done. It took seventy-five years to allay the Pashtun-Punjabi suspicions. It took years of cross-Indus friendships carried over from a few boarding schools, kinships formed by marriage alliances, and serving long years together, especially in the army, which took us over the divide and welded us together. It took just a few months of ambition, stupidity, and cowardice of the high command which emerged from an act of supreme national betrayal, that has opened up the old wounds again, enough for the KP assembly to demand in a resolution, the court-martial of many in the high command. Potentially, this has brought KP and the army face to face. Nothing good can come of this, but a repeat of 1971. Without goodwill, the Attock Bridge is too tenuous a link to keep the country together.
The point to which they have brought us is enough to sum up the egregious performance of our high command. Promising us the moon, they only managed to turn Pakistan upside down, sending it reeling backwards into the abyss. Pakistanis are looking up today because, from the hole they have been pushed into, they have nowhere else to look but up.
Email: saeedakhtarmalik85@gmail.com