Pakistan Awami Tehrik chief Tahirul Qadri (whose impressive array of titles include ‘Professor’, ‘Dr’ and ‘Allama’) was to come back to Pakistan to lead a movement for the purification of politics, but the week before his return, the killing of eleven of his party’s workers changed the nature of his homecoming.
At the time of his return, the country was in the midst of Zarb-e-Azb, which has been widely portrayed as the ‘final operation’ against the militants in Waziristan. His last return, when he led the sit-in in Islamabad last January, had come before the last election, and had remained peaceful. Then too, there had been worries expressed that he had come as the herald of a martial law, (but it transpired that he did not). However, if he was to herald military rule, he had firmer support from the PML(Q) and the Tehrik-e- Insaf parties which had looked to the military regime for progress. The fall of the regime has become the avowed aim of Dr Qadri, following the deaths of his party workers in Lahore.
He made it clear, even before leaving Canada, that the fall of the Punjab Law Minister, and the Secretary to Chief Minister, would not satisfy him. They both have to appear before the judicial commission into the incident, but the precedent has been that if they have taken the fall for the incident, they will return, not necessarily to the same post, but equally close to the levers of power. It might be noted that one of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s Chief Secretaries, Javed Mehmood, was removed from office after the involvement of his daughter’s father-in-law in a fatal car accident, but is now Secretary to the PM, in some ways a more powerful post. However, though ministers resign, officials do not. Even now, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has resigned from the Cabinet, while the Secretary to CM remains in service, awaiting posting. Similarly, the policemen who were removed on the day of the incident lost only their posts, not their jobs. Their fresh postings depend on factors other than the killings.
That he would not serve an excuse for a military takeover does not mean that the attempt must not be made, or that the water must not be tested. Dr Qadri’s plane was diverted from Islamabad to Lahore without any military intervention, unlike the last time Mian Nawaz Sharif tried to divert a plane fifteen years ago, when that led to the imposition of military rule.
It may well be a coincidence, but even though the PAT shootings seem unconnected to Zarb-e-Azb, it seems that the consequences have favoured it. Though Deobandis have not been blamed, it must be noted that PAT is primarily a Barelvi party. Though there are many Deobandis supporting the government, it cannot escape notice that the militants are Deobandi. The Deobandi-Barelvi dichotomy within the Hanafi Sunnis of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh can be exaggerated, but the fact remains that it is there. The militants are all Deobandis, and thus Barelvis oppose them. The Army contains a representative cross-section of society, and thus contains a goodly proportion of Deobandis, but there has been no solidarity on this basis shown to the militants.
It is perhaps not without coincidence that Muslim militancy has been identified with Sunni Islam, and much is being made of the Sunni-Shia divide in both Iraq and Syria. In Pakistan too, the militants contain a strong anti-Shia element, as shown by the entry of the Sipah Sahaba and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi into the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan. It must be noted that the flagbearers for Sunni Islam are supposed to be the Ahle Hadith of Saudi Arabia and Qatar because of their interventions in the Middle East, with Syria being the latest, and Deobandis are considered closer to them.
It is not without significance that Dr Qadri belongs to Jhang, one of the centres of Shia-Sunni sectarianism in the Punjab. This is not just sectarian, but also reflects the division between Shia landlords and Sunni cultivators. It cannot be without significance that Qadri was brought out of his plane at Lahore Airport by the Punjab Governor, Ch Muhammad Sarwar, who, apart from the glory bestowed on him by his exalted office, belongs to neighbouring Faisalabad. The minister who took the rap for the workers’s killing, Rana Sanaullah, also belongs to Faisalabad, and is supported locally by the very militants against whom Zarb-e-Azb is being conducted.
Electoral reform seems to have disappeared off the map, and to have fallen off the table, which is now crowded by the PAT workers’ killing, as well as the plane diversion. Last year, when he arrived, it had been in the backdrop of the killing of Hazaras in Alamdar Town, a series of sectarian killings, but in far-off Quetta. Now, the deaths are about as close to home as they can be.
Dr Qadri might imagine that flying in now and then for a dramatic act might be enough for politics in Pakistan. If indeed it was enough to topple the government, or even to bring about change, it would be worthwhile. However, at the moment, it should be clear even to his backers that he is not doing enough. The government has many flaws, but the Mian brothers have been in politics long enough to know the value of holding one’s nerve longer than the other guy.

 The writer is a veteran journalist and founding member as well as executive editor of The Nation.

maniazi@nation.com.pk