LAHORE has been through many dark days in its history. To its most embarrassing moments has now been added the incident that took place on Sunday, May 1, 2016. The women participants at a PTI rally were attacked and the visuals of the occurrence that have been transmitted since are just too painful to allow the details to be repeated here.

Since then the story has moved in predictable directions. The PTI’s opponents have been trying — a bit more — to paint the party as the epitome of a horde that has yet to learn the norms of civilised movement. PTI men continue to be equated with savages whose hunger for power and control would make them perform the most despicable acts.

The counter argument, what else but casts the PML-N as the villain. According to this, the PML-N — in the old tradition of turning an opponent’s public meeting upside down — had sent over a gang of goons. And these goons, so the theory goes, targeted the area where it would really hurt the PTI.

The PTI’s organisation was already on the back foot after a similar incident of harassment of women supporters had taken place in Islamabad only a few days ago. Before that, too, there were reports which indicated that PTI rally venues were not the safest place on earth for women. As it turned out, the incident at Charing Cross in Lahore, according to the PTI’s explanation of events, proved to be one that necessitated some serious changes in the party’s plans for the immediate future.

The inclusiveness of PTI’s public meetings was the one positive element that even the staunchest critics of Imran Khan spoke in praise of.

Whereas ‘inside’ sources cite internal differences as being responsible for the change, officially the PTI maintains that the party’s May 9 rally in Faisalabad has been put off because of all these incidents of its women supporters being harassed at public meetings. That would help put things in perspective. This happens to be a country where it is plausible to think that a group or party can use something as shameful as harassment of women at its rally to conceal some conflict or disagreement within its ranks.

The PTI is of course hoping it can place the blame for Charing Cross at the PML-N’s doorstep. It is aided in this attempt by such great visionaries as PPP’s Aitzaz Ahsan who we now hear is going to play Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s mentor. Indeed, it may be possible for a group of men to walk into a meeting and disrupt it at the behest of their masters.

The burden of proof lies with the PTI and, going by the conversations here right now, not many are too sympathetic as yet to the version offered by Imran Khan’s lieutenants. The PTI members insist they have proof but that proof must then be quickly shared with the people. The footage on social media — of two or three youngsters acting as if they were on some kind of a binge and confessing they were PML-N members when they are actually wearing PTI colours — is odd. Without supporting details, it may fall short of qualifying as clinching evidence.

These are all points to ponder but for many in this city, the most worrying thing is the presence of such elements and thinking in our midst. The party affiliation of the harassers is not that important for them. What is alarming is that a small group could go to the extent that they did on Sunday evening in Lahore. The event shows how the onlookers — the spectators — have taken over from those who once had the inclination and sense to prevent an ugly incident.

The belief was that these sane people who helped avoid an ugly situation always outnumbered what we politely call miscreants. The PTI rallies, ever since the family affair at the Minar-i-Pakistan in October 2011, strengthened the impression of security for all. Families — men, women, young children riding on their fathers’ shoulders — were all present. There were, of course, sarcastic comments that linked the security at PTI public shows to the party’s support for the fundamentalist and the militant. Yet the colours, the inclusiveness of the PTI public meetings were the one positive element that even the staunchest critics of Imran Khan, including those who questioned his line on women, spoke in praise of.

The participation of women at these rallies had been a subject of vilification and taunts , not least by those in the government who now promise they will bring the attackers in Lahore last Sunday to book. They may draw some secret pleasure now that the song and dance party involving men and women that the PTI pioneered in Islamabad and Lahore has come into disrepute.

It may be a tough one to revive immediately, given the fears and reactions all round. Only the irredeemably naive would say that the loss is just PTI’s.

Tailpiece: It has been earlier written how Messrs Sharif and Sharif are keeping alive the tradition of peppering their chief ministerial and prime ministerial sermons with Urdu sayings. At one point during the previous PPP government, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was mildly reminded about the negative connotations of ‘sauteli maan jaisa sulook’, an idiom he frequently used to complain about the treatment he received from the Zardari set-up in Islamabad. But that and the raising of eyebrows on other occasions failed to deter the Sharif brothers who everyone knows work so hard on their speeches and who were so very keen to use the brilliant Urdu prose writers at their disposal.

One natural consequence of the trend is that the prime minister has recently been heard using the unthinkable and the once most unlikely “yeh moonh aur yeh masoor ki daal”. This was truly remarkable coming from a ruler in times when many of his subjects are shifting from daal to chicken for reasons of affordability.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2016