An account of March 15 and 16, 2009
I arrived at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Lahore office on the morning of March 15th, 2009 to witness a sense of disarray as around a dozen buses rented by PTI Lahore for the Long March had their tires deflated by the police during early morning hours. As it was, many of us had already been staying away from home to avoid arrest. So there was always the lingering thought that by meeting at PTI Lahore office, we were offering ourselves up for voluntary arrest. And we did not want this. After all, if in jail, we couldn’t proceed with the long march much less offer a dharna on Constitution Avenue.
There were police patrols that would pass by the Lahore office, observing the activities hoping to inspire fear among the activists. Nearly a dozen buses had their tires flattened in the early morning hours by the police using ice-picks. Ahmed Nasir, assistant to PTI Lahore President, used to be a boxing coach, and insisted I interview the main police officer posted outside the Lahore party office. The policeman was known as 'Mujahid Boxer' as the sport was the main reason he joined the police (so he claims). I told Mujahid that I am from the 'international media' and will send his interview abroad. He immediately started to bark at his subordinate to 'stand straight' and quitely complained to Ahmed Nasir that his English is rather poor. I told Mujahid to speak easy in Urdu.
The police had impounded a bus and parked it horizontally so that it blocked half the artery going toward the Canal. The idea was to force traffic to find an alternative route, but since the bus left a small opening between the rear of the vehicle and the footpath, cars would attempt to squeeze through. So Mujahid Boxer had to place several of his men to guard the small opening and force cars away. All the while, the bus driver whose bus was impounded, looked on in a desultory manner, disturbed by the uncertainty whether he should explode in anger or sit and watch.
Ahsan Mansoor called from Islamabad wondering where we were as no PTI activist could be seen on primetime TV honing in live on GPO Chowk. After finalizing the alternative arrangements to transport the workers, we left for GPO Chowk. Shabbir Sial declared that if we got arrested now, it’ll be better as they’ll throw us in a local jail in the city. However, if we got arrested somewhere near Kharian, who knows where they’ll throw us. Since I had not been to jail – and he had – I decided to trust his experience and preference for Lahori jails.
On arrival, we went and mixed in with the crowds of protesters outside the High Court. On many previous occasions of protests and rallies, I’d wondered if a suicide bomber would find such assemblies an inviting target. After all, it was not long ago that a bomber blew himself in the exact same spot just over a year ago. But today, in the backdrop of uncertainty over the future course of the protest, such thoughts found little room.
In the center of GPO Chowk, the activists assembled with the lawyers chanting slogans against the government and for the restoration of the Chief Justice along with the rest of the November 2nd 2007 judiciary. In only a matter of minutes, tear bomb shells began to drop and the activists were dispersed. While the other party activists and lawyers moved away from the GPO Chowk and toward the High Court building, the PTI activists moved to the other side (onto the road that takes you toward Laxmi Chowk).
This was a strategic mistake by us as the direction of the wind was toward us. Thus we were forced to move further and further away from the Chowk to avoid the tear gas, which kept following us. Therefore, we had to walk back a longer distance once the round of the shells had mostly faded away. Thus PTI did not get the limelight it should have in the national media as the lawyers and other political party activists did. The latter did not have to move away very far when the police threw the shells and so remained in view of the cameras or could quickly get back to the chowk (since the wind blew away the tear gas away from them). Secondly, hockey sticks would have helped in whacking the shells back toward the police.
Many such lessons on street politics were learned by the activists of PTI for the very first time. Carrying water bottles to wipe the face or taking in small amounts of salt all help reduce the effects of tear gas. What was most inspiring was that unlike the other party’s, PTI activists included many females who joined in the street protests and had to suffer like the males in face of police brutality. On March 15th, PTI Lahore not only learned to stand up in a battle, but showed that it is a platform representative of the various ‘classes’ in Lahore – the upper and lower – and both genders as well as the PTI Christian minority wing members pushing for reform that is in favor of all.
After a good 3 hours, the police ran out of their second tranche of shells and gave up. Some of the police officers, perhaps realizing that the central government was bound to fail, resigned. Or perhaps they had heard that seeing the success at GPO Chowk, Nawaz Sharif had decided to come out of house arrest and join the protesters and lead them toward Islamabad. Continuing to resist would be futile, reckoned the policemen.
Our plan to head for Islamabad was certain now. We still didn’t know how far we’d be able to get, but having faced the worst from the police, we were tinged with euphoria and content with a sense of victory in what could be a long sequence of battles. As some celebrated and others rested for the journey ahead, I decided to submit some of the pictures of the day to www.insaf.pk with a short write up and more importantly charge the video camera batteries. So I headed over to Chengaiz’s place in the old city, inside the Taxali Gate. We had some biryani and tikka from Hafiz Hotel, Chengaiz made some lemon-grass tea (I hoped it would heal my bad case of cough severely exacerbated due to heavy intake of tear gas) and by 10 was back at GPO Chowk where large groups of people were leaving for Islamabad.
I drove with Irfan Hasan (former Youth Wing Secretary Lahore), Salman Awan (General Secretary Lahore), Zeeshan Haider (General Secretary of the former Aziz Bhatti Town), and Shabbir Sial (former Lahore President). Shabbir Sial moved out with Ejaz Chaudhary once we crossed the Ravi bridge and Imran Qureishi (VP Lahore PTI) joined us.
It took us nearly four hours just to get to Gujranwala. Thousands of supporters – most exclusively of the PML-N greeted the caravans along the roadsides. We wondered that were these people to join in the long march, it would be a humongous turnout in Islamabad. Those who had taken part in the previous Long March felt that the greeting crowds were larger than before. A common incident witnessed across the journey from Lahore was that members of the crowd had captured startled street dogs. The animals were chained and wore a necklace sign with the name of the country’s president inscribed on it. In sections of particularly charged crowds, being from the PTI (as we had PTI flags sticking out of the car), in order to proceed (as the PTI vehicles were surrounded), we had to shout a certain crude slogan declaring the president of the country akin to a canine. Salman Awan was quite willing to do the needful.
As the pace of the caravan was excruciatingly slow, we stopped at a roadside restaurant mostly visited by long haul truckers. It was infested with mosquitoes but we got a chance to rest up a bit. Despite the half hour stop, once we restarted the journey, we reached the tail of the caravan in no time and were once more driving at snail’s pace.
Just as we were proceeding into the outskirts of Gujranwala, rumors began to filter in that the Chief Justice had been restored. Phones SMS’s arrived indicating certainty. And then these messages turned into congratulatory calls from across the world. While we felt that change had occurred to some degree, we weren’t sure if the central demand – unconditional restoration of the November 2, 2007 judiciary – had been met or if the government was only restoring the Chief Justice in some form of compromise agreement with their main political rivals, PML-N. I eagerly turned to FM 103 at top of the hour for details. But we only heard that the Prime Minister was soon to announce the restoration. As we went through Gujranwala town (the bypass would have been quicker on normal days, but today the caravan had chosen to go around the city, so we zoomed through downtown Gujranwala’s empty streets), news filtered in that the Long March had been called off. I accessed the net from my mobile phone and both the lawyers’ leadership and Nawaz Sharif had agreed to call it off seeing that their demands had been met. Despite this good news, perhaps due to the continuously tense past 16 hours, we did not go into any celebratory mode. The occupants of my car voted and decided to continue rolling toward the destination. PTI Lahore President however, perhaps trying to save funds now that the objective was achieved, decided to send the busses carrying the PTI workers back to Lahore.
We wanted to see if Chairman Khan came out and addressed the potentially huge PTI workers rally and wanted to be part of the final stretch even if we were only a handful.
To stay awake, Salman, Irfan and I began to vociferously discuss our respective philosophies based on our ideological inclinations. Salman towards the right, myself more toward the left and Irfan to the far left. It got quite heated, but kept me awake and alert as I drove through the towns of Gujrat, Jhelum, Kharian, and Rawalpindi. Stopping outside Rawalpindi, I phoned one of the very active PTI members who had arrived in Islamabad from Canada, Salman Ghumman, specifically for the event to inquire PTI’s plans in the twin cities. Apparently Chairman Khan was no longer going to be addressing the crowds from Rawalpindi Kutchehry. The exact time he would come out to speak was also uncertain.
Irfan, Salman, Imran, Zeeshan and I decided to pay a visit to the Chief Justice’s house in any case. The others also wanted to stop over at Bani Gala and say hello to Chairman Khan. That idea however was unhelpful and the detour was only a waste of time. The leader wasn’t home. In any case, we proceeded to the CJ’s residence. There were small groups of individuals going back and forth into the Judge’s Colony. Outside the CJ’s residence, I met PTI Karachi’s Information Secretary, Ghulam Mustafa.
“Now he had the real long march, coming all the way from Karachi,” I thought. I asked him a few questions about the events of the past few days while recording the response on my video camera.
Mustafa recounted the struggles PTI members in Karachi faced, the police brutality, administration forcing those taking part in the Long March to not leave the city etc. When he arrived in Rawalpindi, he and his companions had to find a place to stay and the police would stop and harass them. His companions had to lie about why they were in the city to avoid arrest.
I asked him after all he’d been through, what he felt hearing the CJ and the November 2nd judiciary restored.
As he recounted the feeling of freedom that emerged when he heard at 12:55am that the CJ would be restored, it was the first time in the past 30 hours of tension, anxiety, and uncertainties that I realized the momentous event that had taken place. It hit me and my eyes welled up. All the past many hours of feverish activity gave way to a realization that this was not just another day and something had changed in the capital of the country we stood in.
I recalled the words of Faiz, their matter-of-fact tone and felt their weight, their unassuming arrogance…na un kee haar naee hai, na apnee jeet…(their loss was not unexpected, nor was our victory).
For how long would this dream-like realization last and would the step we had been fighting for pave the way for actions solidifying the independence of an institution? Would the stature of the other state institutions like the Parliament grow? Once the superior courts were established as independent, how quickly would courts in the districts and cities and towns of Pakistan become centers of efficient and effective justice? With these thoughts also lurked the threat that certain powers may not allow even the superior courts to maneuver very much. That the ‘certain powers’ who have traumatized the nation for much of its existence with their regular embrace of unconstitutional methods, may find a way to subvert the dreams unleashed by this victorious day. That these powers were merely buying time with this acquiescence to popular demands. And one day everything would be rolled back again.
Despite such dangers, the movement to restore the judiciary, being a good two years old, had now taught the people of Pakistan a lesson. It had taught them how to stand up for their rights. It has taught us the need to be persistent and steadfast. More importantly, in times when the nation has to deal with growing religious fascism who wish to subjugate and destroy foundations of the society to replace it with 7th century nonsense, this struggle has shown that change can be brought about without destroying schools and murdering fellow Pakistanis with different religious or ethnic backgrounds. It has taught us to withstand the forces thrown against us to make us buckle under pressure. It may not have made all of our convictions for a just and egalitarian Pakistan iron-hard. But after training us to consistently struggle, it has concluded in giving us, a younger generation, a taste of victory.
Attempts may be made to cage our unleashed dreams. But it’s a new Pakistan now. A country that has gone through both sustained struggle and reveled in success. It is a country with a media that has earned its freedom. A media that is willing to ‘push the envelope’. From now on end, the old guard will more likely have to resort to tactics so that our dreams are kept at manageable levels rather than be allowed to grow to proportions that threaten the entire status quo of the past 60 years.
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