It may now be hoped, indeed expected, that this entire sorry episode will begin to fade away and life will return to normal. To say that this has not been the government’s finest hour is a considerable understatement, and virtually all commentators have agreed that the PML-N government handling of events has been nothing short of disastrous. As many as six and possibly more lives have been lost, over 300 injured, untold damage to property across the country, millions of lives disturbed and upended and livelihoods hijacked by an extremist minority that few had heard of six months ago. And it need never have happened.
Had the authorities and law-enforcement agencies in Islamabad and Punjab done their jobs as soon as the relatively small group of TLYRAP supporters moved towards the capital, they should have been diverted, willingly or unwillingly, to the Parade Ground in Islamabad that is the officially designated area for rallies and protests. For whatever reason — and we will probably never know who it was that allowed the Faizabad occupation to establish itself — the protesters proceeded and proceeded to hamstring the government after immediately they were established. Once in place and implacable in their demands the outcome was as played out. It is likely that there was a political sub-narrative that will feed into the forthcoming election campaign and there is a population that is far more dynamic in terms of who it votes for than in the past. The PML-N government has taken a hit that is below the waterline from a torpedo that it fired itself. It remains to be seen whether the damage can be patched up before polling day.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 28th, 2017.
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