PERHAPS the joint investigation team needed to route their report through old-school newspaper subs for a less voluminous and exclusively to the point book in crime investigation. But what’s done is done and we have got a seemingly damning document in good time — which is not too poor on statements that seek to highlight facts as well as bring to the fore a little bit of sentiment here and there. 

This could well be taken as an expression befitting the times, a complement to the torrents that had been flowing in the direction of the rulers, unhindered, threatening to sweep away and relay the soil for future. The system failed to anticipate the arrival of the new force and to provide the oncoming marchers some respite — any respite — and thus in a way contributed to the momentum of change.

The PML-N decided it was a conspiracy the likes of the civilian, elected rulers have been faced with all through this country’s history. The government chose to fight it on technical grounds, hoping that it will be able to find a way out of the legal net that was being cast around it. It still chooses to fight on, despite some advice to the contrary from all around from political pundits and journalists. However, sundry diehards still cannot help but believe that Mian Nawaz Sharif, the man from the Pakistani mainland, a Punjabi, a privileged Lahorite, is even now best equipped to fight this fight on the people’s behalf and genuinely hope to give the Pakistani democratic tradition something really solid to build upon. 

For some amongst us, however, no respite is ever in sight. Hoping to have crossed a river, they are confronted by another.

Immediately after the release of the JIT report, the most well-informed conversations in the Sharif hometown were yet not totally bereft of scenarios where Mian Nawaz Sharif was shown to survive the latest challenge to his rule and his career. However, the vows which forecast that he will still be in the saddle when the crucial next Senate elections are held in March have since undergone some readjustments. There is some change in tone as well as content that has been necessitated and inspired by tonal changes from the staunchest of Sharif allies.

Take Khawaja Saad Rafique. The story narrated by this most talkative and most determined-looking minister has just experienced a sharp twist. The PML-N stalwart from Lahore, who has been in recent times heard yelling defiantly at his loudest, reveals new information. He says that the ‘director’ of the ‘conspiracy’ which he said was being played against Nawaz Sharif actually sat abroad.

Without going into the details about who Khwaja Saad actually means to unmask through his latest insinuations, the reassuring information that he actually blames an ‘outsider’ for the conspiracy, the shift immediately places him in safer territory. According to many, he was earlier treading a path which was set to get him into trouble but now he at least shows that he is not totally disqualified to reform by a change in his version.

Khawaja Saad and others who appear to want to make changes in their stories are just too fast for some people here to keep pace with. They belong to an altogether different age from those who are at a stage where they are still trying to understand the conspiracy, as the PML-N has been claiming it to be, and the causes behind it. As common belief goes, if it is to be agreed upon that this is some kind of scheme to remove Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, it is not easy at all to point out the reasons and need for enacting any kind of soft coup against him.

As PML-N finds itself increasingly talking about popular jury, with the passage of time one popular verdict says there are few in this country at the moment who can match Mian Sahab’s ability and his elasticity to meet the demands of what we commonly address as the establishment. Then what would explain why he is considered by anyone as less trustworthy to the power establishment than he was thirty years ago? 

The most acceptable is the explanation which says that Mian Sahab cannot possibly be trusted wholeheartedly after his record of 1999. Another view that counters all these, shall we say, rather old-fashioned estimates of Mian Sahab’s value for the establishment holds that the equation is not at all about him these days. It is primarily about giving his rival, the harbinger of the promised change, that chance a large number of people have been clattering for. 

The Sharifs could have had better prospects of remaining in the contest, so goes the theory, if they had agreed on holding a snap election at the time of the PTI dharna. They stood adamant to be overtaken later by events in the wake of Panama papers, to the point where they are down to discussing replacing one Sharif with another as an escape option.

PTI obviously is mindful of this proposal. They are swiftly on to challenging the credentials of Shahbaz Sharif who, according to rumours, is under some pressure from within the party to step forward and lead. The sooner this question and all other related issues are settled the better it would be for the dazed PML-N cadres. Not all of them can readily reconcile with the various directions the party may right now appear to be heading in.                  

For some amongst us, however, no respite is ever in sight. Hoping to have crossed a river, they are confronted by another. They might have already carried Mian Nawaz Sharif to his logical conclusion but the next question for them is: Ab hamara kya banega — what becomes of us now? The prospects of a life without one or two Sharifs brings its own daunting challenges. It is the recurring thought about having to deal with their obvious replacements that raises serious concerns of its own.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2017