Behaviour of the party's gung-ho may tarnish PML-N image as moderate. — File Photo

When in 2007 Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan from political isolation and an embarrassing episode of exile, he seemed to be a changed man. His words carried the weight of the experience and wisdom that an open-minded democrat gathers when he is pushed into a lonely corner.

His welcoming reconciliation with one of his foremost foes, the late Benazir Bhutto, and his refusal to go along with political elements demanding that the February 18, 2008 elections be boycotted by his party were testimonials in suggesting that this most certainly wasn’t the Nawaz Sharif of the 1990s. His new-found love affair with democratic principles was once again in the limelight when he successfully challenged the obvious follies of President Zaradri’s handling of the lawyers’ movement.

But alas, though his party, the PML-N, has somewhat reinvented itself, it is badly floundering on a key issue; an issue whose political and social handling/mishandling can very well decide the fate of the state of Pakistan. That issue is Pakistan’s current struggle against the Taliban. No doubt Mian Sahib has publicly recognised the clear and present danger the Taliban pose to the state of Pakistan, but at the same time he has remained an ideological prisoner of certain high-strung PML-N firebrands who are still dishing out those worn-out spiels of ‘This is America’s war’ and ‘There is still room for dialogue with the Taliban’. Has he no control over his own party leaders?

These rabblerousing men, most of whom can be seen sweating it out across TV channels, should realise that their party, the PML-N, is second only in size and influence to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Their done-to-death narratives about the war against the Taliban and their populist tongue-flexing against Washington is similar to those coming from rightist media-constructs, political 12th men like Imran Khan and frozen-in-time parties like the Jamaat-i-Islami.

While the PML-N party leader has been demonstrating an impressive degree of maturity by willing to have regular meetings with Prime Minster Gilani and the many western diplomats who now come knocking on his door in Raiwind, I simply can’t figure out the antics of some so-called leading lights of the PML-N whose cheap populist posturing sometimes borders on the verge of utter reactionary hogwash.

For example, sometimes when I hear otherwise respected PML-N men like Chaudary Nisar, Saad Rafiq and a few others speak on the Taliban issue, I have to remind myself that the two men are part of PML-N and not, say, US-flag-burning protesters of the Islami Jamiat-i-Tuleba! The PML-N poses the only real democratic challenge to the federal-level electoral enormity of the PPP, and it won’t be an overstatement to suggest that Mian Nawaz Sharif can well be elected the next Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Thus, how is a pro-democracy, mainstream Pakistani to react when he sees a potential PM surrounded by politicians who sound like those irritating, hysterical cranks that we come across on TV screens, spouting out gibberish inspired by intellectual swindlers such as Turkish author and (pseudo)-scientist, Harun Yahya, and similar demagogic conspiracy mongers? These masters of doom negate all hope, and Pakistanis are known only to vote for hope, not doom.

Theirs is scary stuff, indeed. And even scarier are suggestions coming from some quarters in the congested corridors of Pakistani politics who claim that this is a well thought-out ‘balance’ conceived by the PML-N leadership. Meaning, the Sharif brothers will continue playing the moderate role and receiving western guests and the PM, whereas the second-tier leadership of the party will be allowed to continue playing the role of bludgeoning right-wing radicals. If this is the strategy, the PML-N will again end up alienating the smaller provinces, particularly Sindh and Balochistan, which are clearly not charmed by rightwing rhetoric.

I would not like to believe that the party’s strategy could be this myopic because it plans to reach out to all Pakistanis everywhere and not just the conservative trading classes of central Punjab. But the fire that is exhaled by certain PML-N leaders implies that maybe the party is still not sure about going along with the otherwise obvious consensus among the people of Pakistan who seem to agree on the eradication of the threat posed by the Taliban.

The party should realise that the Pakistani public at large has just about had it with the empty jingoism and rhetoric of all the Imran Khans, the Jamaat-i-Islamis, and the ‘security analysts’ – especially in the face of the logical collapse of the so-called peace deal that the government struck with the Taliban under duress. Just why some PML-N leaders are behaving and sounding more like the creaking nuts and bolts of a bankrupt and isolated fringe party is beyond my comprehension.

It should be understood by such gung-ho, ‘anti-imperialist’ conservatives that it is their behaviour that might end up tarnishing their leader’s and the party’s image of being moderate and concerned democrats.

Before thinking of reversing the government and the army’s action in Swat, they should remind themselves of the aggressive action Mian Sahib’s second government took against sectarian outfits in Punjab to facilitate the visit of the former Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. That positive peace initiative on the part of Mian Sahib should serve as a reminder that the PML-N, after all, is a mainstream party and not a renegade band of misfiring, rightist orators.