An ode to the political worker
PAKISTAN’S history is replete with the heroism of political workers who have repeatedly demonstrated that their commitment to democratic ideals is total and that they will risk life, limb, and liberty for their cause.
Whether you call them heroes or villains will depend on your point of reference. Ergo, many of you will see the political workers who reached D-Chowk in Islamabad on the call of their leadership as valiant heroes.
Valiant heroes because they defied all the odds and overcame every obstacle in their path to keep what they thought was a tryst with destiny. A rendezvous which, they believed, would result in their jailed leader being freed, vindicated and possibly en route to the corridors of power once again.
At the other hand was the state, with all the might at its disposal. It was prepared to thwart what it saw as a conspiracy to destabilise the country and the economy which, in its view, was now showing signs of a revival and was on the path of growth. So, the troublemakers, the ‘miscreants’ had to be stopped.
Unlike many of Pakistan’s chattering classes, political workers put their money where their mouth is.
There was never any doubt about the intent of either the political worker or the state; both were hell-bent on having their way a week ago today, and neither was prepared to give an inch. There was no way the state would allow the painstakingly crafted hybrid structure to crumble.
The political workers were no less adamant that they would snatch away the mandate stolen from them in February this year. In between these two extreme positions, what was missing? What was missing was the leadership on whose call the workers had reached the federal capital in droves.
What was missing was a strategy on how to force the government, and particularly the establishment, to accept the demands of those who had marched on the federal capital. With the top leader, their hero, in jail, what was missing was a credible second-tier leadership, which could have guided and steered the protest in a direction where the goals could have been attained.
Instead, what happened was that a large section of the protesters was encouraged to head to Islamabad’s politically significant venue D-Chowk, where they were to remain, along with their leaders, ‘till Imran Khan was freed and brought to the venue’.
This supercharged the worker. What happened next is public knowledge. As night fell, the protest leaders, who seemed unbending and unprepared to consider a sit-in at any venue other than D-Chowk, inexplicably drove away (they never got to D-Chowk anyway as they’d promised) from not just the protest but the capital itself.
And soon after, the law-enforcement personnel sprang into action. Whether 12 protesters were killed as some PTI leaders acknowledged or many more, including implausibly large numbers in their hundreds claimed by senior leaders including the KP chief minister, is not the issue. For me, and I am sure for you, the killing of one political worker is one too many.
Because the life and aspirations of every political worker represent hope. Yes, unlike many of Pakistan’s chattering classes whose members hold forth ad nauseam in their well-appointed drawing rooms and exclusive social media chat groups, political workers put their money where their mouth is.
They take to the streets in pursuit of their ideals, amid teargas, lathi charge, rubber bullets and even live fire and they dare to dream a dream and continue undeterred. One can be sure there are always those who break the law and display a propensity to violence.
But I remain convinced that the vast majority of the protesters wish to peacefully assert their rights. Yes, they may be committed to a leader or an ideology but don’t wish to press for their demands through violent means.
In fact, from my own recollection of the MRD movement of the 1980s, which I first witnessed as a student and then as a journalist, the story of the political worker is one of dreaming a dream and offering sacrifices, even their lives, as they pursue their dreams.
Just look at those who formed a protective cordon around Benazir Bhutto, despite knowing she was on the terrorists’ hit list as became clear from the mayhem in October 2007 in Karachi when her procession was bombed.
Even that bombing and mass murder did not dissuade the loyal workers who were guarding her with their own bodies and lives and not weapons when she was assassinated in Rawalpindi in December the same year. Dozens died protecting her, with no hesitation or greed. Just their dedication to a cause.
So, it isn’t ‘blaming the victim’ as some PTI critics on social media have been accused of doing by those sympathetic to the party. I ask where were the leaders who had pledged to the workers to keep a tryst with destiny in D-Chowk but did not even perfunctorily try to keep their end of the bargain? Yes, I know the state is brutal but they should not have left the worker alone.
And so alone that so far, I have seen just one leader of the PTI offering fateha at the grave of one of the party’s fallen workers. A party that controls so much of the narrative and has all the modern communications tools at its disposal has been very short in sharing images where the leaders are displaying sympathy with the affected families.
I do hope, and this goes for all political parties, that the workers, the cannon fodder, should not let their ideals become a weakness to be tapped into, even exploited, by compromised political leaders. And sadly, for democracy and Pakistan the number of such leaders is astounding whether it is PTI or PML-N or PPP.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2024