History of Sit-ins (Dharna) and Long Marches and their comparison with present Sit-in. 1. late Benazir Bhutto on November 16 1992 and July 16 1993 respectively during Nawaz Sharif’s first stint in power after the Opposition dubbed the 1990 elections as ìrigged. 2. two more painstaking initiatives were also undertaken in the not-so-distant past with the objective of establishing an independent judiciary through the restoration of deposed judges including the incumbent Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. In all the above-mentioned cases, the culminating point of these exercises was Constitution Avenue, Islamabad. 3. The first one held by lawyers proved unsuccessful while the second step was taken by Nawaz Sharif very successfully on March 15 2009 against President Asif Zardari and Prime Miniter Yusuf Raza Gilani for the same cause. 4. The first major demonstration in the capital took place on July 4 and 5, 1980, when the Shia community marched on the capital to protest the enforcement of the Zakat and Ushr Ordinance by former president Ziaul Haq.The protesters, led by Shia leader Mufti Jaafar Hussain, laid siege to the federal secretariat, effectively paralysing the bureaucracy. It was then that the government gave in to the protesters’ demands and declared them exempt from paying Zakat to the state. 5. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Sunday night invoked Article 234 of the Constitution and announced the imposition of governor’s rule in Balochistan province after sacking the government of Sardar Aslam Raisani from 14th January as a result of successful sit-in by Hazara Community proteting against the indiscriminate killing of members of their community. 6. The last major sit-in witnessed in the capital was the demonstration by Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri, who marched from Lahore to Islamabad on January 14, 2013, and camped out at Jinnah Avenue near D-Chowk for over four days. That sit-in ended after successful negotiations between the government of the day and the protesters. However, things do not appear to be going the same way for Dr Qadri as they did last time. Most of these sit-ins and Long Marches resulted in successful change of governments at Federal or Provincial level and one resulted in so called restoration of Judiciary. Ironically none of these agitations, sit-ins and Long Marches have been declared undemocratic which resulted in change of government and one that ended in restoration of judiciary is also hailed as very democratic. Unlike all these sit-ins present sit-in which after one month have proved itself very much peaceful and is for the restoration of Democracy in its real form and sit-in leaders are promising for fair elections, accountability of all, rights for general people, basic democracy at lowest level, creation of more provinces and much more. One wonder, how come those commentators who always plead for democracy, and who always sided with sit-ins mentioned above are the biggest critics of present sit-in which in essence is successful will change the entire panorama of Pakistani politics and one can foresee a better Pakistan as a result of this phenomenal Sit-in. It looks all that was only a lip service and they don’t want a real change. In any case this sit-in is successful or otherwise wind of change has started blowing up One can believe that a change for better is future of Pakistan and it is not too far. NOTE: Some of the paragraph citing history of sit-in have been taken from different articles publish on internet and purpose of this is only to present history and result of those sit-ins.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 11:24:40 +0000
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