THIS is the scenario. Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari must come and knock frequently until, hopefully for him and his party, he finds an opening that promises him a sneak-in. At the moment, there is hardly a crevice in the closed door to Lahore that he is confronted with.

The city’s history is replete with how it has obliged fortune-seekers. Some bad name has also come its way over the centuries for the manner in which it capitulated or delivered to the demands of those who besieged it. But why are these images of past sieges rekindled by young and ambitious Bilawal, in an expansionist mode, and who was recently encamped on the outskirts of the city?

There is a very basic similarity between the current PPP leader and those who had come before him for a grab at the trophy that Lahore is. Most if not all of them wanted to grip the city from the outside and might have had little support on the inside. Right now, Bilawal may have fewer supporters here as compared to some of the invaders who came looking for territory and tribute. He is an outsider seeking to revive an old family trade link but he is not too sure what merchandise to carry to the inhabitants here.

To make it worse, even amongst the backers he might still have few find the air conducive to openly declare a liking for a party that has been damaged so greatly by its leadership in recent years. They prefer to stay unrecognised and uncounted at this stage rather risk the taunts of siding with the dirty.

Bilawal has no choice but to try and rediscover the old contrary tone that his father has compromised over the years.

There are few signs — as yet — that the young substitute of a deeply tainted predecessor has won over or back too many with his latest address — which was followed by him jumping from the stage and mingling with the party workers. If this was to signify a plunge into the popular the ripple didn’t quite last long enough to raise any immediate hopes.

Bilawal was absolutely right in much of what he said in what was, by party estimates here the most encouraging speech of his career so far. He was at least looking for ideas, success and failure apart. He was working on a few strands and hoping to get to strike a chord with people somewhere — something he needs to go on doing during his future, ideally longer and more elaborate, expeditions of Lahore until he finds a foothold here.

He hit out against the Sharif brothers for their style of governance which is “all about obliging relatives and friends”. There was a mention about the energy crisis, a reference to the unfinished judicial inquiry into the murder of his grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and finally, and according to some in the gallery, a very significant point about the agriculture and farmers who had recently been seen spilling their potatoes and piling their complaints in front of the Punjab Assembly.

The city was least pushed about the farmers. It was least interested in wooing the growers on the way to negotiations and resolution of their grievances. The problem was the blockades on the roads the farmers were responsible for, on the testimony of the inhabitants of the Punjab capital during the farmers’ protest. This was a batch of unwelcome traders from the village out to hoodwink the simple urbanites in times when the prices of commodities — the city dwellers were reassuringly told — were falling worldwide.

That made two of them. Just as the protesting farmers are frowned upon here — despite the PML-N relief package and all — the city of Lahore remains out of bounds for the PPP. Could the party try and restore the old balance between the rural and the urban? More urgently, could Bilawal try and recapture some of the influence that his party had enjoyed during the days of the so-called divide between the cities and the villages? Could the party gather a potent enough force to make itself heard effectively in urban-dominated Punjab and beyond in Pakistan?

In those days, the PPP had come to be recognised as the voice of rural Punjab, thus allowing PML-N to maintain its iron-hold on big cities. Since that is a more recent equation as compared to the old situation where the PPP had a good permanent presence in big urban centres, the image of the PPP somehow returning to villages is relatively easier to conjure up.

The speech by the young man must have reassured all those who feel that if the PPP has any chance of reinventing itself, the rural areas must provide the seed for this revival. The farmers’ convention organised by the PTI in Hafizabad and the relief package announced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif the other day shows how great a challenge the PPP is faced with in re-cultivating what it has conceded so easily to the PML-N and PTI.

Bilawal, however, has no choice but to try and rediscover the old contrary tone that his father has compromised over the years. He must do what he has to without thinking too much about the response at the box office. He had people listening even if some in the audience pointed out the futility of it all. Will this change and when will it change are considerations someone in his place cannot afford to be bothered by. He is left with not too much to lose. He has nothing to be possessive about in Punjab and there is nothing whatsoever to promise any early beckoning of Lahore. He might as well give it one shot after another.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2015

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