By Marvi Sirmed
In one word the massive and charged crowd at the gathering can be described as diverse, and truly reflective of the Pakistani social fabric. There were children, youngsters, middle- and old-aged women and men from different religious and class backgrounds as well as a critical number of people with special physical needs.
Holding the gathering in the federal capital where all the coalescing units of the state of Pakistan converge amounted to a symbolic statement that the party was undergoing a revival. The location of the gathering also showed that the party aspired to regain its original status of the ‘party of the federation’, as opposed to the now commonly-held impression of the PPP as a battered party confined to the province of Sindh and limited to the Sindhi ethnic identity.
Rallies poured in from the twin cities, different areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, FATA, Punjab’s central districts as well as Siraiki belt, Sindh, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan. A small contingent also arrived from Balochistan.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto took to the roster amid loud cheers of ‘Chaaron Soobon ki Zanjeer hay Bilawal Bhutto’ and ‘Jiye Bhutto Benazir’. In what turned out to be a surprise act, Bilawal delivered a speech that was exceptionally light on the expected and the usual vitriol against political opponents. Bilawal managed to bring back ideology to his party’s political discourse.
The narration of Pakistan’s checkered political history and his party’s struggle for democracy alongside the mention of sacrifices of party leaders including his mother and grandfather and workers sounded different this time. He was not ‘selling the dead’ as his detractors have been criticizing him for. Instead, his speech was a sober reminder of what his party has stood for in the past. Another way of saying what the PPP would not stand with in days to come.
Bilawal’s taunts on uncles and aunties of politics were missing, thankfully, from the half-an-hour-long speech. The scorn and sneer for political opponents that has unfortunately become an essential part of political discourse – especially since 2011 – was replaced with the PPP chairman’s elegantly spelled out ideological and foundational differences that, in his view, differentiated the PPP from the rest of the parties. A departure, again, from his father’s half-baked and superficially conceived ‘politics of reconciliation’ that had cost PPP its distinguishing identity, at least for the workers passionately attached to the history of Bhuttos sacrifices.
Most importantly, Bilawal Bhutto went back to the PPP’s founding ideology of social democracy while shying away from naming it explicitly as he mentioned the basic postulates of PPP’s original vision, i.e., ‘Islam is our religion, socialism is our economy and democracy is our politics, while the people are the source of all power’. Bilawal replaced ‘socialism’ with ‘equality’ and added a fourth postulate: ‘martyrdom is our act’. While explaining the PPP’s future vision and priorities, he sounded more categorical in owning the revolutionary struggle against the exploitative forces and for class consciousness through social democratic ideology, while declaring the party’s vision of a society based on equality, just distribution of resources, separation of religion and politics, and democracy – social democracy – as the only option to take Pakistan forward.
Bilawal’s speech was that of a statesman determined to lead his people out of turmoil and anarchy while following a pro-people and progressive agenda. The subtext was not only the rejection of prevalent spiteful and acerbic discourse while embracing a more mature tone, but also signaling to party’s progressive, left-of-the-centre support base that he was in no mood to appease any power centre other than the people.
As far as the chairman’s speech goes, Tuesday’s gathering has ushered in the beginning of Pakistan People’s Party Version 3.0.
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