The counter-wave

Published January 6, 2017
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

WEDNESDAY, Jan 4 in Lahore marked a new phase in the life of a particular religious group said to be an offshoot of the majority Sunni mainstream. The day could also define the Punjab government’s response to dealing with a particular brand of action with deep religious hues.

It is a date when a small group of people based in Lahore have been coming out to remember Salmaan Taseer, the slain provincial governor killed by his guard on Jan 4, 2011. By and large left alone to defend themselves on the street against the right-wing elements, the group was attacked a couple of anniversaries back. What was different was that the state showed the spine to arrest the attackers and, surprisingly, to try them.

This must have been a sign of alarm for those who were angered by the sight of a handful of people — less — holding a vigil for an official who, in their opinion, deserved to be murdered. The group is, in a derogatory manner, called the mombatti wallahs or those who light candles at vigils.

Police in Lahore must have followed a series of recent pointers to see what was possibly coming. They must have sensed that these mombatti wallahs, ‘men’ and ‘aunties’ as some of them are called in a further sullying of their image, were in danger of another, bigger swoop by those who were appalled by their annual street rituals.


Jan 4, 2017, appeared different from all previous incidents relating to public demonstrations in Lahore.


The result was a locking up of the city on Jan 4, something rare. The security cordon thrown around was unprecedented for the area, Gulberg and its surroundings, where the small anniversary vigil had originally been planned.

At the outset, even as the organisers long insisted on holding their demonstration at the Liberty roundabout, the police ordered them to take their small show to a more obscure part of the city. The police also refused formal permission to the religious group Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (PBUH) to hold a rally at the spot where the anniversary vigil was originally supposed to take place.

The scene was quite unusual for the Gulberg main boulevard and the areas around it. The boulevard has had its share of demonstrations. The Liberty roundabout itself has been the venue for many peace and political meetings including the more robust ones organised by the PTI.

Slogans inspired by faith have been raised loud and clear on the boulevard before. Not least representatives of the times were the chants heard when the traders of the famous Hafeez Centre shopping plaza came out to protest the arrest of some of their colleagues. These colleagues had been held for displaying at their shops messages which forbid entertaining Ahmadis.

Jan 4, 2017, appeared different from all previous incidents relating to public demonstrations. For one, the scale on which the police launched its preventive operation was huge. It signified the size of the challenge the police were dealing with. The force must have been working on some intelligence given the scale of its preparations to deal with ‘any eventuality’.

It may be that the police have finally recognised the merits of a policy that urges them to be prepared for the worst or risk being sorry at the end of it. In any case, here the force seemed to have been fearing an onslaught of some kind by the religious group which was — deliberately? — lacking in any kind of visible organisational structure made up of office bearers.

The infamous containers were out in large numbers, and since they do not discriminate between the protesters and others they were a cause of much inconvenience to people in general. Life was paralysed in this part of the city, which, despite having played host to protesters occasionally, believes that dealing with unruly mobs and angry demonstrators was a job exclusively reserved for the areas around the Punjab Assembly on The Mall.

Actually it was the Punjab Assembly that the men of the religious group eventually set off for. However, they had already made their objectives abundantly clear by spreading their display to large areas of Lahore shaking them from their acquired apathy and bringing them face to face with realities they might have been a little too shy to confront.

There was inevitably talk of how life for the PML-N had also undergone a change. Gone are the days when it was deemed possible for the Shahbaz Sharif government to talk to an angry group to shelve or delay plans of holding a rally. There are definite pointers of how things have changed and how drastically.

For one, the trial of those who attacked a Salmaan Taseer rally must have been proof to everyone of the changing times and attitudes. Additionally, it came at a time when the civilian-military leadership has been vowing to clamp down on extremism. This must have given particular types of religious elements all the more reason to confront those who did not agree with them, including the state and the occasional Liberty vigil holders.

There have been a series of instances in recent days, all related to Punjab which indicates that tension between certain religious groups and the Punjab government may have reached critical levels.

The urge to add greater vigour to their campaign is manifest in successive incidents where well-known politicians and other prominent figures have been implicated in possible blasphemy cases in the province. On the other hand, the Punjab government is thought to have toughened its stance on the subject.

The pressure on the government is set to increase. It will be at its most intense as the general election scheduled for the next year draws closer. There will be concessions made but these have to be ensured by a resort to street power. The arrest of a couple of hundred religious group activists who tried to force their way to holding their Islam Bachao rally on Wednesday is not an insignificant occurrence at all.

The clerics can sense an opening before the polls.

The fringe fears losing whatever protection it has belatedly been provided. The Shahbaz Sharif government is on trial.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2017

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