On Wednesday, April 1, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf announced a protest demonstration in Lahore over the previous day’s incident in Azizabad, Karachi. The ‘hooliganism’ by the MQM faithful against PTI supporters, according to a PTI press statement, had necessitated a demonstration in Lahore, a crucial city Mr Imran Khan has been promising to use as the nucleus for his campaign from here onwards.

In time, the PTI expects the Punjab capital to find its own issues to be driven by. For the time being, however, troubles in Karachi were as good a cause to gain some capital in Punjab.

Separated by hundreds of miles and embroiled for long in its own politics and law and order equations, Karachi does influence political thinking here in no small measure. Just as fingers are pointed this way for the distance ‘Takht-Lahore’ must maintain from the ‘less privileged’ parts of Pakistan, the urge here is to keep away from all those factors that could create the feared ‘Karachi-like’ situation here.

One preferred way of conducting this constantly running exercise in pre-emption is where Lahoris are found blaming all kinds of criminal advances in their peaceful town on ‘elements’ from outside. If the old city has been the subject of accentuated commercial plunder in recent decades, the responsibility lies with a particular — ethnic — community that has descended on the simple plains with a viciousness matching the past regular invasions of Punjab and Hindustan.

Karachi is often the recipient of sympathies generated in Lahore in the name of fairness, democracy, development and progress.

The members of this community are projected — in routine conversations, sometimes in news stories — as petty criminals, and in moments where the need for security is greater, as facilitators of terrorist attacks. They represent a threat which must not be ignored if a growing Lahore is to maintain its poise, just as an eye has to be kept on settlers who arrive in Punjab from some other parts, particularly the big cities of Sindh, and especially from Karachi. It is not about being in any way less hospitable than Lahore would like to be known. It’s about security that must come first.

Safely ensconced behind this naturally evolved defence of its, Lahore has a heart that wishes everyone well. And quite regularly, it is Karachi which is the recipient of the sympathies that are generated here in the name of fairness and democracy and development and progress. While it is a source of much envy, Karachi generally to the Lahori eye is also a city that needs to be freed from those who are believed to have imprisoned it for so many decades. Something has to be done — by someone from somewhere — to save the commercial capital.

In recent weeks, there have been a few ‘someones’ that the well-meaning Punjab can credit with a campaign in Karachi with some pride. There is the army and there is Mian Nawaz Sharif who has expressed a deep desire to set the port city right. His association with the purge spearheaded by the Rangers has been much in focus, but no less salient to the mind of many here has been the PML-N’s decision of having its politicians from Karachi elected to the Senate on the strength of the party’s lawmakers in the Punjab Assembly.

The so-called restoration of the alliance between Mr Sharif and the army may have in a way enhanced the sense of security here; it has also created hope that the partnership can bring about some much-needed improvement in the situation in distant areas that people here feel so strongly about. The unique part is that Mian Nawaz Sharif’s effort is complemented by his chief adversary — but one who is very much a player from the same neigbourhood — Mr Imran Khan.

There would obviously be explanations too complicated to allow for the vision that hails Mr Sharif and Mr Khan, two main players in national politics since the election of 2013, working towards a single end. But as simple perceptions here go, just as they happen to be recognised as exceptional moderate politicians the militants were willing to permit in the election and the military is ready to work with now, the Sharif-Khan duo does raise a set of Lahori expectations of positive change in Karachi.

The PTI has the usual advantage of being a party in the opposition, a popular one at that, defying allegations of it being a tool in the hands of ‘the establishment’. It can be vociferous in its condemnation of the MQM, which is widely considered here as being part of the problem rather than of the solution. The PML-N, on the other hand, has to be discreet and it cannot just cut itself off from the emissaries Mr Altaf Husain sends from time to time. Mr Khan, on the other hand, is free to feed his image as a daring politician not shy of taking the fight to his opponent’s first and last bastion — taking it to Azizabad.

It is amazing how the follies, the compromises and signs of retreat on the part of a person enjoying the trust of a large number of people — and believed to be enjoying the backing of the right authorities — are forgotten as soon as he rediscovers his roar against an opponent so many in the crowd are wary of. Only until recently, the MQM was a problem that Mr Khan appeared constrained to not take up. He was occupied with other tasks, not least taxing and time-consuming of them his attempt at dislodging the government in Islamabad. Yet, no one seems to have issues with the timing of his return to his shrill anti-MQM refrain.

The presence of the PTI as a challenger to the MQM in Azizabad will most certainly aid Mr Khan’s reputation as a daring leader with nation-wide appeal. Many would grudge the PTI chief this distinction, pointing, once again, to his much-exposed secret backers. What matters in the end are the ratings in the bazaars and streets. The PTI now threatens a campaign from Lahore based on its original theme of rigging in the general election. The widening of its politics to Karachi will most likely lend an extra spring to its step.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2015

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