Prisoners of politics

When the PTI announced its ‘Jail Bharo Tehreek’, it must have counted on a lot of its enthusiastic supporters signing up for the movement – given the high the party has been on since April last year. However, the registration process for the movement to fill jails didn’t garner as much attention as was expected. And then on Wednesday, the actual movement ended up looking less ‘movement’ and more ‘effort’. The initiative started from Lahore on Wednesday and then Peshawar on Thursday but has not been able to generate crowds or charge people as Imran Khan and the PTI may have expected. In a history lesson that perhaps should have been read before launching the movement, the original Jail Bharo Tehreek by Gandhi was meant to cripple the state apparatus during the British Raj. To expect that to happen would require a lot more than pleas of registration. It would also require the main leader – in this case Imran Khan – to lead from the front and also walk into jail. None of that has happened.

The PTI’s attempt to fill the jails has resulted in some of its leaders behind bars. Strangely, almost immediately the party has been filing bail petitions for them. The chairman of the party, meanwhile, remains out of jail on protective bail, leaving most people to wonder what purpose the entire exercise was supposed to serve. Meanwhile, the government would be quite pleased with Wednesday and Thursday’s proceedings. For an administration that wanted to arrest PTI leaders, being handed this situation on a plate must feel quite a moment of luck. Not much can stop the government from taking full advantage of the situation now. If the PTI leaders thought it would be a picnic for them to go to jails and there would be crowds of supporters with them, which would lead to a logjam for the government, the past two days must have come as a surprise. At the end of the day, what the PTI really wants is early elections. And all the rallies, and all the attempts at sit-ins, and this Jail Bharo Tehreek as well, have been an attempt to move the government into holding early general elections. That is the one thing however that this admittedly flailing government has managed to avoid till now. The rather lacklustre response of PTI workers could also be an indication of protest fatigue within the party. The PDM and its allied parties should not however take that as a sign of waning popularity; PTI workers may not come out on the streets but on election day could still be a potent force. Just not in jail though.

What is important regardless of the dramatics on all sides is that the government should not delay elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. For this to happen, the PTI and government need to sit down and resolve the issue instead of the courts deciding everything on their behalf, leading to even more controversies. This is the domain of the politician and should ideally be resolved in such manner as well. However, if our squabbling political parties continue with their erring ways, we will soon see every part of governance and politics being dragged into court – wasting time and resources. Eventually, the only prisoners here are the people of Pakistan, held hostage by petty politics.