A NEW chapter is set to open in the politics of protests and sit-ins today and it may be the most confusing yet.

Tahirul Qadri’s quixotic quest for justice in the Model Town massacre of 2014 will bring him and his supporters onto the streets of Lahore today — barring a last-minute intervention by the superior judiciary in the name of protecting the citizenry from the massive disruptions that the Qadri-led protest are likely to create.

Indeed, Mr Qadri has already gone beyond his long-stated intention of seeking justice for the killing of his supporters in Model Town three and a half years ago and has explicitly called for the destruction of the PML-N as a political party in the country.

To the extent that Mr Qadri’s protests are confined to seeking justice for the Model Town killings, they are arguably justified; the right to assemble and protest against injustice is a right that all Pakistanis have enshrined in the law.

Yet, the explicitly political agenda of Mr Qadri demands that his protest adheres to political norms, which have been repeatedly violated in recent years.

The very location of the sit-in selected by Mr Qadri — The Mall in Lahore, a principal artery in the provincial capital where even partial closure is guaranteed to cause great public inconvenience — suggests that protesters are refining their tactics in the wake of the national debacle in Faizabad, Islamabad.

An appeal by the Punjab government to Mr Qadri to select a less-disruptive site for his protest is likely to be ignored, in part because of the utter lack of credibility of the Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif-led PML-N government. Select a non-disruptive site and the PML-N is likely to ignore even the justified demands of Mr Qadri; pick a site such as The Mall and it will attract media attention nationally and heap greater political pressure on the PML-N.

For all the shameful tactics of the PML-N in delaying and denying justice to the victims of the Model Town massacre, there are also democratic principles at stake.

There is no proof as yet of the involvement of anti-democratic forces in Mr Qadri’s protest. On the eve of the protest, it is still unclear if other mainstream political parties will throw their weight behind the protest, but their eventual involvement would be another significant blow to the democratic project in the country.

It is possible to interpret Mr Qadri’s protest as the opening round of a fierce campaign season in which there are no clear favourites and power may be contested more than at any other point in the modern history of Pakistan.

But that possibility also requires anti-democratic forces and mainstream political parties tempted to align themselves with Mr Qadri at the moment to remain peaceful and not threaten actions that could bring the democratic edifice crashing down.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2018