IT is finally the women who have united people who had long been busy identifying the factors that separated them from one another. The so-called religious political parties have given the government until March 27 to remedy a women’s protection law in Punjab. Some of the protesters, who have in their turn shamelessly been used to crack poor misogynist jokes, warn of a PNA-like agitation — a reference to the campaign that led to the downfall of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977.

It is still a long shot. Most probably the government would be hoping for locating a few among the angry group to have placating or appeasing negotiations with. It is indeed the possibility of the government agreeing to some modifications in the bill that is drawing uneasy reactions from civil society organisations including the media. The mention of the successful 1977 agitation does, however, on its own prompt a quick look at the right wing that has now come together against the women’s bill, its strengths and weaknesses.

It has time and again been pointed out that the proliferation of the religious-political parties has led to the emergence of small satellites all over the country. These groups are able to generate their own resources and are bound by their own little ideologies and beholden to their own leaders. They will resist being placed for prolonged periods under the umbrella that the likes of Sirajul Haq and Maulana Fazlur Rehman might want to bring them under from time to time.

The warning to the government over the women’s law caps one of the various trends that surfaced in the aftermath of the PTI dharna.

This is one aspect of intra-right politics that is often not given too much attention. The focus generally is on the political conflicts between the religio-political brand against the so-called secular parties or on the fights between one big religious party and another. The factions are very much there in discussions of militancy perpetuated by religious-minded groups but strangely absent from the discourse about politics by religious parties.

The warning to the government over the women’s law caps one of the various trends that surfaced in the aftermath of the PTI dharna in the second half of 2014. Another one is notably represented by the PPP whose chairman has just called for a joint thrust by his party, the PML-N and PTI. Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari may find support for his call of unity to take Pakistan forward. For many of the PPP’s old backers it will sound just like another declaration.

It was Imran Khan’s failure to force the PML-N out on the strength of his powers to stage a long sit-in that changed the attitudes and positioning of the politicians and parties. The Sharif government had demonstrated that it was well equipped for the long haul. This impression was boosted as the government quickly displayed just how easily and willingly it could share power with those it ought to be shared with. In time, this sent other politicians on regular rounds looking for reasons and causes to make themselves relevant. Between the end of 2014 when the dharna was wound up and now, so many of them have tried to revitalise their outfits by capitalising on one perceived impetus or another. None seem to have succeeded as yet.

Among them, much of the focus has been hogged by Asif Ali Zardari and Sirajul Haq, heads of two political parties who had for long defined whatever ideological material shaped Pakistani politics.

Even in times of uncertainty, it has to be said that, personally, Mr Zardari’s line has remained more or less the same. The message conveyed during a recent television interview of his reaffirms this. Barring an aberration, an emotional outburst that had him groping for material to throw at someone, he has been like this for many years.

His theory of coexistence has been consistent right from his days in jail in the 1990s. He had apparently thought that his party would never be allowed a long enough stay in power unless it was ready to live only with an illusion of it, with the shots being called by someone upstairs. That is about all he can stand for now, hoping that others will at some stage find it impossible to deliver the kind of package that only he can.

The real changes Mr Zardari’s party has been long crying for are left for his son Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to occasionally talk about. The latest the young man has been heard casually and almost inaudibly remark on is the need to revive the party in Punjab, beginning, as some well-wishers had been suggesting, with the deceptively infertile fields in southern Punjab.

However, the drive, for whatever it promises to be, may be delayed. The PPP, the great champion of progressive causes, may again be required to side with the PML-N over the growing threat presented by the impending coming together of the right wing. The problem is that the alliance may give the PPP some more reason to do nothing to uplift its image.

On the other hand, hailed as the natural moderator during the dharna days, the Jamaat-i-Islami’s Sirajul Haq has come round to considering a campaign against the government.

The untiring Jamaat emir seems to have come to a conclusion which matches the one some of his junior, more ambitious party colleagues had been advocating for long. The party must find reason to build up a passionate campaign or face further erosion of popular support.

The JI must move. It cannot just be content with having one of its most well-known men putting up a token, in the recent context, typically innocuous fight in a Karachi by-election swept by rival MQM. It cannot just sit in a trance in the name of order as its student wing is faced with newer challenges, such as the incident where it was recently taken on by a bunch of outsiders — students from Balochistan — at the Punjab University.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2016