Lahore hasn’t had this kind of variety for a long time. It has been boringly two-sided for most of the last quarter-century. There would be the PML faction led by Nawaz Sharif and there would be its ever squandering, progressively compromised challenger in the PPP. It made for such predictable fare, especially after it became clear that the PML-N was running away with the show.

Over and over again, the same sequence was played between 1988 and 2002, when a PML group under the leadership of Gen Pervez Musharraf and comprising House-of-Sharif renegades sought to provide the third dimension to the politics of the city which then defined the politics in vast areas across Punjab.

The election in 2008 threatened to restore the old equation, if briefly, before Mr Asif Zardari intervened with his reconciliatory politics to reduce his party to a spectator. The past few days bring yet another confirmation just how absent from — or worse still, irrelevant to — the proceedings the PPP is.

The run-up to the long march pulled parties of all kinds and sizes to the Punjab capital

The PPP made a last-ditch effort to make its existence felt in Lahore on the evening before the scheduled marches on Islamabad. And guess who was leading the party’s quest for regaining a dignified presence in the city of its birth? Rehman Malik, ex-FIA and the PPP’s nominee for a role in the battle that some had been saying involved a few renowned spymasters.

Rehman Malik’s talk to the media on Wednesday evening was demonstrative of how once prominent faces fade away from public memory. He was surrounded by some top PPP names in Punjab. There was Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, a former president of the PPP’s provincial chapter, barely recognisable in the crowd of half-familiar faces. And there were others who had held prominent offices in the Zardari set-up who one now strained to recognise. They are the outsiders of today, having had little role to play since the departure of their government last year, and they have existed merely in shadows.

Even in these moments, when the PPP had committed itself to standing firmly by the PML-N, its relevance to the politics out in the streets here was in severe doubt. And even when the PPP-PML-N alliance at the centre stage of Pakistani politics was being hailed as both a victory and guarantee for the continuation of democracy, in the public space the PPP was more shunned than welcomed.

Maybe some of us would want to analyse it in the context of the Pakistani drift towards the ‘right’. Maybe some would blame it on inept PPP policies and the party’s tarnished public image; the PPP hardly appeared relevant to the scene out there in the mela consisting of political stalls of all shades.

By comparison, even a lone ranger named Jamshed Dasti appeared to create a stir when he arrived at Zaman Park to volunteer his support for an Imran Khan who has been at best indifferent to his friendly overtures.

The run-up to the long march pulled parties of all kinds and sizes to the Punjab capital — all of them looking to use the situation for leaving an impression on the city that matters.

According to the ongoing discussions here, the least expected were the catering services the Muttahida Qaumi Movement provided to the besieged Pakistan Awami Tehreek workers around the Minhajul Quran complex in Model Town. The blocking of food brought for thousands of PAT protesters got the MQM ‘unprecedented’ coverage from the media in Lahore, even when the barricades that Rashid Godil and company ran against was a metaphor of how tough for the party it was to get the message across away from home in this alien land.

As relevance and impact and success go, Jamaat-i-Islami’s Sirajul Haq stood head and shoulders above them all. He was more prominent among the mediating politicians and it was he who ultimately managed to win the licence for acting as a messenger between the opposing camps. He didn’t quite have the effect of a Qazi Hussain Ahmed on the Jamaat admirer Imran Khan, but still his efforts to defuse tensions did no harm to his reputation as a pragmatic Jamaat emir.

He did not just have a sense of purpose about him but also some political weight, and earned his party capital which it can now build upon for dividends in the long run. Without doubt, Sirajul Haq’s constant well-meaning shuttle during this long march episode has done much more to introducing him as a national player than all his rallies since his election as the Jamaat emir put together.

This was in contrast to the effect some others, including those who had chosen to ally themselves with the marchers, had on the onlooker. The Chaudhries of Gujrat, the allies of PAT, maintained visibility in the build-up to the inqilab march with their daily political pilgrimage to Dr Tahirul Qadri’s house. But then, as the prolonged live concert at Model Town reached its crescendo, the demons long haunting them returned and they were eclipsed by others. They were there and taken for granted.

The Chaudhries were reduced to a mention in the footnotes when Dr Qadri spoke on Aug 10 and declared his intention to march in a parallel column to Imran Khan’s azadi advance on Independence Day. By contrast, the speech at many instances acknowledged the presence in the camp of Sheikh Rashid, a man alternately dubbed as a forced appendage of the revolutionary doctor.

Long after the marchers are done and gone, this August gathering in Lahore will continue to be used for gauging actions and the responses they generate on the public scale. The variety that the past week put on show may not please everyone but that is the choice before us, short of a dramatic recovery from the old players. Even in revolutionary times there are always a few things that need to be resurrected.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2014