Rallying shots
Nadeem F. Paracha | Opinion
Political rallies in Pakistan before the arrival of Z A Bhutto were pretty sedate affairs. Bhutto changed all that by being boisterous, witty and macho during his rallies, a man convincingly mimicking the antics of a reckless rabble rouser. This was one of the reasons why Bhutto managed to make his opponents appear seamless if not entirely limp; but by the late 1970s, many of them decided to gradually change the complexion of their rallies and oratory as well.
However, as Bhuttos main opponents at the time, such as the religious parties, pumped up the drama factor and volume of their respective and collective rallies (especially during the 1977 election campaign), it was quite apparent that they lacked the street-smart wit that Bhutto had mastered, though at times he did end up sounding just plain crude. Minus the wit, animated rallies and speeches of the religious parties during that era began to sound more like loudly laid out fatwas than anything even close to what Bhutto was up to in his rallies.
For example, as Bhutto sang and swung, huffed and puffed, smirked and chuckled his way to taunt and poke his opponents conservatism and religious exhibitionism, his opponents in their newly renovated style of speaking at rallies retaliated by thumping the dais and loudly denouncing Bhuttos un-Islamic ways, calling him a drunkard and a womaniser. Consequently, after 1977, though the rallies of Bhuttos PPP would remain authentic populist affairs, other parties too began to adopt the technique. From the 80s onwards it became a mainstay in the culture of political rallies in Pakistan.
Other persuasive exponents of the Bhutto style were his daughter, Benazir Bhutto, and MQM chief, Altaf Hussain. Whereas Benazir impressed (and at times shocked) by being a woman who convincingly echoed her fathers stirring passion (if not the wit) in her rallies,
Hussain gave the technique a twist by fusing urban middle-class mannerism with typically cocky Karachi college and street lingo, adding to this tongue-in-cheek allusions to the dialogue-baazi of famous Urdu and Punjabi film actors.
But as the idea of political rallies becoming a colourful mixture of flag-waving and drum-beating carnivals and devil-may-care speeches continued to capture the peoples attention, there was always the danger that politicians whose psychological disposition ran contrary to the nature of this phenomenon would stumble by turning rallies into something repulsive and devoid of wit. The earliest examples of this were the rallies in Punjab of the Nawaz Sharif and Jamat-i-Islami-led IJI just before the 1988 election.
To combat Benazirs populist antics and robust rallies, the IJI responded by first floating obscene leaflets containing crudely engineered pictures of the late Benazir and her mother in which their heads were pasted on to the bodies of semi-nude women. Then newspapers reported how during an IJI rally in Lahore, some IJI leaders and workers had not only used obscene language against the two women, but (as one established Urdu newspaper reported), some of these leaders also made crude, obscene gestures. In other words, the Bhutto technique when it crossed over and was adopted by the bourgeois rightists, it mutated into a jamboree of reactionary abuse and questionable language. This was perhaps due to the repulsion the rightists had felt watching populist politicians like Bhutto and parties like the PPP mocking middle and upper-middle-class mannerisms at rallies cheered along by the jahil awam (illiterate masses).
Today, even though the rallies of the PPP have largely retained their raving, witty and inebriated character, and MQM rallies continue to be constant roller-coaster rides of sudden fluctuations between sombre, angry roars, sharp lingo and populist, self-parodying Karachi wit, it is the concept of reaction-laden bourgeois populism in rallies that is making headlines.
Given currency by popular TV talk shows, this version has grown two-fold as exemplified by the recent PML-N and PTI rallies and Shah Mehmood Qureshis public meeting in Ghotki last week.
However, even parties like the PPP are now sometimes unable to rein in certain members wanting to venture into the inhibited ways of reactionary bourgeois buffoonery (Zulfikar Mirza). Nevertheless, the rightist (and mutated) adoption of the Bhutto technique remains the mainstay of PML-N rallies, now joined in by Imran Khans PTI.
Though Imran Khan does manage to infuse some humour in his usual Mao-meets-Maududi rhetoric and while chanting his tales of self-righteous middle-class morality,
it is stunning to note the utterly knee-jerk and foul-mouthed nonsense that so unapologetically rolls out from many of his young followers who are inspired by Khans bravado.
But whereas it is usually Khans bopper crowd with almost zero idea about politics or political history that loves to whip their detractors with rough words constructed from chilled cola and boiled bile, it is some of PML-Ns leadership (and now Shah Mehmood Qureshi), who have started uttering gibberish.
Qureshi called himself Mehmood Ghaznavi who was out to plunder the Somnath temple,
also suggesting that the president was a Yazid, whereas Shahbaz Sharif wanted to hang the president upside down in a street of Lahore.
It is amazing to note that it is not the awam that is getting all excited by such gabble. Rather, it is the so-called educated, urban middle-class youth that is applauding away this rough jabber.
Mind you (and rather ironically), this is the same section of society that otherwise finds people like Bhutto and Altaf Hussain uncouth.