“Provincial Minister…Rana Sanaullah Khan has said the drama of Dr Tahirul Qadri…flopped…the masses had proved that there was no room for politicians with negative designs…if Dr Qadri wanted reformation of the system, he should have participated in the general elections.”

These remarks about Pakistan Awami Tehreek’s meeting on Sunday can be supported with examples from Dr Qadri’s past – but which do not take into account the rally that has just taken place and the people who have just spoken.

There has been no change in the original official explanation. The government cannot possibly accuse the participants of faking the issues. It has chosen to highlight the failures and the anti-system credentials of their leader.

Dr Qadri, the man who wants to derail the system, is deigned generally to be a parallel which exists at a distance and thus doesn’t have to be recognised post-haste. Fewer still are prepared to lend an ear to the people who make up a Pakistan Awami Tehreek rally.

This is a paradox indeed: Displays of popular sentiment that have no impact on those who are so pro-people that they must always swear by the truth of an election mandate and the finality of democracy.

Dr Qadri has pulled off two large rallies in his movement’s Lahore hometown and led marchers on Islamabad in January 2013. And, yet, amazingly, he can act no better than the target for those wanting to practise the old and since long hazardous art of making fun of a mullah.

He does, however, have the ability to mislead large throngs. The nucleus for the more popular and more ambitious Pakistan Awami Tehreek which is in its 25th year now, the Tehreek-i-Minhaj-ul-Quran has been active for more than three decades. Working from the two platforms, Prof Qadri has managed to maintain a visible presence in Lahore as well as other Pakistani cities.

There have been moments, like the period after his resignation as a member of the National Assembly formed after the 2002 general election, when it appeared if he was fading out. Each time he has been declared as a spent force, a selfish man whose antics couldn’t quite earn him the place he so unreasonably wanted for himself. Each time he has staged a comeback, accompanied by numbers which, even despite their leader’s image in the media, have to signify something.

There is another aspect to the story. For a man known for his fiery speeches in public meetings, for his political summersaults and for addressing the judges in anger, Dr Qadri has as followers people who offer a contrast to his style and to that of many others.

They are avowedly anti-system, yet are in a less agitated state in comparison to even workers of some of the pro-system parties. Surely, they are men and women deserving of a more patient hearing above the biases their leader so typically stokes in the commentators – both those in the government and among the ‘independent’ variety.

A young man employed at a shop in Model Town, Lahore that boasts Qadri posters, is at a loss to understand just how could the PAT’s demos against terrorism, corruption and equally pertinently against inflation be called disruptive. He was there at the “massive” rally on the Mall on Sunday, as well as the past PAT protests. He was there “out of love for” Dr Qadri” but equally importantly, he wonders how could anyone feign they were unaffected by the current wave of inflation.

If the young shop worker says he is unperturbed by negative publicity, PAT’s information secretary Qazi Faizullah is quick to link the negativity against Dr Qadri to the “disfigured system”. “We say no to Taliban and no to America,” he says, reflecting a none-too-uncommon desire to get the balance right according to the current Pakistani realities, before he goes on to discuss his party’s plan for ‘revolution’.

“We are working towards educating one crore (10 million) who can then come out in pursuance of peaceful change on Dr Qadri’s call. They will not rest until they have found their objective.”That’s a tall claim alright but important what response the listeners want to come up with to the plan.

They could laugh it off as if by habit. Or they could come up with evidence of measures under way that seeks to remove the reservations among Dr Qadri’s followers.