Politics of sit-ins

Prima-facie, the PTI-sponsored sit-ins to block the Nato supply route through KPK over the last couple of days have not achieved what these were supposed to. It is not that sit-ins were defied and the Nato container-trucks crashed through them; a few truckers did turn up but were forced to return by angry protestors. The fact, however, remains that neither the Nato countries nor the government of Pakistan made any noticeable move as a response to sit-ins. Will they do it in near future? That is anybody's guess. But what the sit-ins did bring into play was gross disarray and disorder that prevailed as the protestors tried to interdict by force the traffic along the route which is also used by the local and Afghan transit trade transporters. There were quite a few scuffles when drivers refused to produce relevant documents to protestors, insisting that they were not bound to be checked or examined by anyone other than authorised officials. How come a party in power in a province creates a situation which results in flagrant violation of laws it is supposed to implement. This is certainly a display of street power; an art successfully honed by the Jamaat-i-Islami, PTI's coalition partner, and should have been discouraged by the country's second most popular political party. That the local police have now registered cases against those who took law into their own hands is as melodramatic as the sit-ins. How can you be both a custodian and a breaker of the law of the land? Blocking the Nato supply route by force is not the issue; the issue is: Should this route be blocked? Should the government decide to do so, it would be possible even without a one-man sit-in. In late 2011, the government blocked the supply route in protest against the killing of 25 soldiers in a cross-border incident and kept it in force for more than a year - till the offenders apologised. There is just no parallelism between the two blockades as some PTI leaders would like us to treat. At that time, it was the government's well thought-out move. Blocking Nato supply route should be acknowledged as a government prerogative; the PTI and its allies in power are expected to expend their energies towards the betterment of the people of the province under their control. Have they done it? Of course, the Nato can sleep over this 'irritation' and wait the sit-ins out, but not the others who too are being scared away from using the said route. Not only has the Afghan government protested the disruption of its transit traffic through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, hundreds of local truckers also have gone off the route fearing violence by protestors. The leaders of the PTI and its coalition partners were offered tea by the US consulate official when they turned up to hand their protest memorandum - indeed a measure of the opacity Pakistan is confronted with on the issue of drone strikes. That the Hangu police can investigate the CIA or the US ambassador in Pakistan in connection with the drone strike that killed seven persons is a misperception that requires the PTI leader, who filed the FIR, to rethink his take. Is it that the PTI leadership honestly believes that the drones will stop coming because of these sit-ins or the FIR filed by it with the Hangu police station. Who is this party trying to befool? The crisis Pakistan is presently confronted with is too grave and lethal to be tackled on the streets. Yes we are a sovereign state, like 190-plus others, but in this interdependent world absolute sovereignty is a myth. The bitter truth is that Pakistan not only invited drone strikes, but even joined them for reasons thought cogent and in national interest as defined by the government of the day. And, this is also a hard fact that the government of today is not prepared to take the risk by shooting down drones or blocking the Nato supply route. The PTI leadership would do well by putting across its position on drones to the federal government with strong enough argument with a view to winning over its acquiescence. And even before that it should seek to win
over the confidence and support of its political opposition in the province. Sit-ins do work, but when at stake is the question that is as fundamental as Pakistan's multifaceted bilateralism with the Unit ed States and the Nato countries then that cannot be decided on the highway.