Bilawal House clash

Clashes between Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and PPP workers before Bilawal House in Karachi were continuing for the second day at the time of writing these lines. Some workers, mostly PTI, were reportedly arrested by the police. The fracas began on Saturday when PTI leader and MNA for the constituency in which Bilawal House lies, Dr Arif Alvi, turned up with his workers and threatened to demolish the security wall around the residence that was erected while Asif Ali Zardari was president. In September this year, a challenge to the wall in the Sindh High Court against denying access to the road to the public was upheld, later endorsed by the Supreme Court. The PTI leaders and workers ‘suddenly’ decided it as their pubic duty to demolish the wall and recover the road for the general public. This inevitably aroused resistance from the PPP workers who vowed to protect their leaders. The clashes that ensued and continued on Sunday, when Dr Arif Alvi had threatened the wall would be demolished, resulted in one half of the road being opened by the police, which claimed the court decision required proper implementation while ensuring security for Bilawal House and its residents. The latter requirement entailed setting up security cameras and other equipment to monitor the road. Whatever the case, the question remains whether it is appropriate for a political party to take upon itself the mantle of vigilante implementer of legal decisions. The courts may have found in favour of public convenience, but even they would be aware of the continuing security threats to Asif Zardari and his family. In the first place, if the PTI felt aggrieved, it should have approached the court for speeding up implementation of the decision to clear the road. On the other hand, while in a democracy peaceful protest is the inherent right of everyone, it does not offer license to parties or individuals to take the law into their own hands. The clash therefore was entirely and predictably because of the PTI’s provocation before Bilalwal House. The conclusion is difficult to resist that the timing of the move was no coincidence. After all, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in his speech at Garhi Khuda Bukhsh on the sixth death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto took Imran Khan and the PTI to the cleaners. But whereas Bilalwal employed the weapon of language, the PTI workers in Karachi were only a step removed from employing the language of weapons or force, hardly in conformity with a law abiding, civilised and democratic stance.

The penchant of the PTI to resort to taking the law into its own hands (e.g. the NATO supply blockade) owes itself to some serious psychological problems from which the party appears to be suffering. First and foremost, most PTI leaders and workers appear full of righteous indignation, stemming from their exaggerated sense of entitlement to power and running the country, an ambition they had convinced themselves before the 2013 elections was within their grasp, but which was cruelly exposed by the results. The PTI’s inability to come out of that sense of entitlement and disappointment that its dream lay shattered except for the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has pushed the party into a confrontational mode with all and sundry. Thus Imran Khan has been at loggerheads with the judiciary (let off with a mild reprimand, unlike other political worthies who ran foul of the courts during the previous government), the Election Commission of Pakistan, the election tribunals before whom the PTI has challenged the results of four constituencies (which, even if the results are changed, would hardly constitute a tsunami), the PPP, PML-N (both of whom are constantly berated by Imran Khan for being in cahoots with each other for vested interests) and all and sundry manner of critics or people who question the PTI’s holy writ.

The merits of removing the wall and clearing the road for public access before Bilawal House should be settled between the administration, courts and security establishment to ensure access to the public does not compromise the security of its residents. Bilawal’s challenge to the terrorists in his Friday speech has pitched him centre-stage against the terrorists, and given the track record, retaliatory actions against him and his family cannot be ruled out. The PTI’s insistence on immediate implementation of the court’s orders smacks less of concern for the public and more of dangerous politicking over an issue that entails security threats to the Bhutto-Zardari family.