I had half made up my mind to tweet about my impressions of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf's (PTI's) Karachi rally today (yes, I did go despite the lack of Christmas pudding on hand) but seeing as how each tweet usually seems to end up needing two or three more to clarify and how, inevitably, someone's who's missed them asks you why you did not say anything about such and such, I decided it might be better just to do a brief post on the whole thing.
So here goes:
1. It was a big, big crowd: Exactly how big? Who really knows? Nobody we knew had done the only acceptable way of enumeration, by counting the legs and dividing by two. But the general consensus among media hacks was that it was above 100,000 people. Could easily have been 150,000 also. No, it was not 500,000 as the PTI spinners on stage were insisting by the end. No, there weren't a huge number of people outside the main ground or inside the grounds of the Quaid's Mazaar (which was set across the road from the venue).
Let me do a bit of back of the envelope calculations to explain why these estimates are probably quite accurate. The front of the crowd was very packed and standing room only. But beyond about 50-60m from the stage there were chairs which obviously take up more room and the crowd also was less packed. In addition, the crowd was basically only directly in front of the stage in a rectangular space - some of the area to the right of the stage was sparsely populated since containers on which the media were cloistered blocked views of the stage behind them. Apparently the venue is a total of 58,000 sq. yards (this from a reporter who actually did the research). This includes about a quarter of the total area that was sparsely populated because of the reasons stated above. This means that roughly 75% of the total area or about 44,000 sq. yards was being utilized. Let us assume (generously) that half of this space was standing room only and that one person needs only about 2 sq ft to stand, while in the remaining half people had slightly more space or 4 sq. ft. These assumptions yield about 100,000 + 50,000 = 150,000 people. Give or take a couple of ten thousand.
What everyone was agreed on, however, was that it was a very impressive show and that the rally was one of the largest Karachi has seen in recent times.
2. It was not a rent-a-crowd: I walked through the crowd from the back to the front and generally I came away with the impression that this was not a crowd that was bused in under any duress. I know that we had earlier tweeted claims from some sources that e.g. the lower staff of armed forces personnel had been ordered to attend or that the MQM was going to help out with crowds but nothing I saw today raised any proverbial eyebrows at least for me. There were a lot of single young men but there were also a substantial number of women and families. It was quite a heterogeneous crowd, all of which seemed to be really enthused to be there and to see Imran Khan. Will they actually all turn up to vote come election time, especially when the choice before them will likely be Ikhtiar Baig vs Khushbakht Shujaat vs Naeemul Haq rather than Imran Khan vs anybody else, well that's PTI's million dollar challenge.
3. A lot of money had been spent on this jalsa: A PTI source claimed 200,000 flags had been brought for the rally. Even if there were only half that amount, and even if each flag cost them only Rs. 20 (including the stick, the cloth and the printing), that's still Rs. 20 lakhs right there. PTI had also contracted with an audiovisual company that was filming the jalsa (including on at least three cranes) and providing their visual feed to all the channels to supplement the channels' own coverage. Even the chairs were heavy metal ones, not the sort it would be easy for any lurking Kasurians to carry away. Add logistics, security, stage grids, furniture, generators, fuel, cables, lights, sound systems, construction costs, labour, food and refreshments for organizers and other payments and you can tell that the costs for this rally were easily above a crore at the minimum. Which fat cats pay for these expenses and why, is a question the media still needs to ask Imran Khan.
4. The music sucked: I think a lot of those attending were expecting more live music ala the Lahore jalsa. What they got instead were a lot more speeches, some sporadic pre-recorded music and Salman Ahmad (who, as @umairjav noted, strutted around the stage as if he was the shahbala and lip-synced to Ali Azmat's vocals). Come to think of it, at the time of the Lahore rally, PTI didn't have as many speakers to accommodate at the podium. With more 'heavyweights' joining, PTI youth may have to live with the fact that the music has died with the Lahore jalsa. Even Abrar-ul-Haq preferred giving a speech rather than singing.
5. The speeches were Meh at best: Nothing spectacular, nothing concrete, nothing specific about Karachi, just a lot of feel-good vagueness, including Chairman Imran Khan's. After spending 18 years in the wilderness you would expect PTI stalwarts to be able to present something a bit more substantial in terms of policy than 'we'll bring in clean people, provide justice and make a stronger Pakistan through better policies' but it seems that's all there is to it at the moment. Maybe Khan sahib et al felt this was just not the time to go into details. However, two speeches really tested my patience. One was by new entrant Javed Hashmi who just would not stop singing his own praises as a 'rebel' for a really, really long time. The other was Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is just plain irritating. I don't think anybody there much understood what he was talking about either since he kept talking about "asymmetric power" and "credible minimal deterrence" in so many words. He also backtracked on his Ghotki speech and tried to spin his way out of embarrassment, by claiming that when he had raised alarm bells within the establishment by calling Pakistan's nuclear weapons as unsafe, he actually did not mean it physically but only in terms of policy.
6. There were a lot of Aafia Siddiqui placards in the crowd: Javed Hashmi was the only speaker to refer to Aafia Siddiqui from the stage and nobody even paid lip service to the placard of another young man which called for setting fire to America ("Amreeka ke aiwaanon ko aag laga do!"). But you know that, eventually, PTI will need to resolve the contradictions among its youthful idealistic supporters and the ideologically motivated ones.
7. Other thoughts I had: a) Shah Mahmood was the only speaker who, I think, did not mention Imran Khan even once in his speech, while other speakers fell over themselves to pay him tribute. Whether that's a good thing or ominous, I leave for you to judge. b) I wasn't the only one who thought that everytime the crowd chanted a response to 'Dalaer Aadmi' [Brave Man] it sounded like they were chanting 'Nawaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif' when they were actually chanting 'Hashmi, Hashmi.' It was just very funny. c) PTI really needs some more prominent women in its ranks. The stage sagged with male posteriors. And where was Dr Shireen Mazari? d) Listening to the slogans where Imran Khan was rhymed with everything from Pakistan, jaan [beloved] and insaan [human], I couldn't help feel sorry for Nawaz Sharif. I mean, the lack of possibility of rhyming anything with the PMLN leader's name must be a serious impediment to sloganeering. e) This 'revolution' will obviously be televised. And facebooked. And tweeted.
PTI Jalsa: late afternoon (Photo: via PTI website)
So here goes:
1. It was a big, big crowd: Exactly how big? Who really knows? Nobody we knew had done the only acceptable way of enumeration, by counting the legs and dividing by two. But the general consensus among media hacks was that it was above 100,000 people. Could easily have been 150,000 also. No, it was not 500,000 as the PTI spinners on stage were insisting by the end. No, there weren't a huge number of people outside the main ground or inside the grounds of the Quaid's Mazaar (which was set across the road from the venue).
PTI Jalsa: at nightfall (Photo: via PTI website)
Let me do a bit of back of the envelope calculations to explain why these estimates are probably quite accurate. The front of the crowd was very packed and standing room only. But beyond about 50-60m from the stage there were chairs which obviously take up more room and the crowd also was less packed. In addition, the crowd was basically only directly in front of the stage in a rectangular space - some of the area to the right of the stage was sparsely populated since containers on which the media were cloistered blocked views of the stage behind them. Apparently the venue is a total of 58,000 sq. yards (this from a reporter who actually did the research). This includes about a quarter of the total area that was sparsely populated because of the reasons stated above. This means that roughly 75% of the total area or about 44,000 sq. yards was being utilized. Let us assume (generously) that half of this space was standing room only and that one person needs only about 2 sq ft to stand, while in the remaining half people had slightly more space or 4 sq. ft. These assumptions yield about 100,000 + 50,000 = 150,000 people. Give or take a couple of ten thousand.
What everyone was agreed on, however, was that it was a very impressive show and that the rally was one of the largest Karachi has seen in recent times.
Enthusiastic PTI supporters (Photo via PTI website)
2. It was not a rent-a-crowd: I walked through the crowd from the back to the front and generally I came away with the impression that this was not a crowd that was bused in under any duress. I know that we had earlier tweeted claims from some sources that e.g. the lower staff of armed forces personnel had been ordered to attend or that the MQM was going to help out with crowds but nothing I saw today raised any proverbial eyebrows at least for me. There were a lot of single young men but there were also a substantial number of women and families. It was quite a heterogeneous crowd, all of which seemed to be really enthused to be there and to see Imran Khan. Will they actually all turn up to vote come election time, especially when the choice before them will likely be Ikhtiar Baig vs Khushbakht Shujaat vs Naeemul Haq rather than Imran Khan vs anybody else, well that's PTI's million dollar challenge.
PTI Jalsa stage: elaborate lighting rig (Photo via PTI website)
3. A lot of money had been spent on this jalsa: A PTI source claimed 200,000 flags had been brought for the rally. Even if there were only half that amount, and even if each flag cost them only Rs. 20 (including the stick, the cloth and the printing), that's still Rs. 20 lakhs right there. PTI had also contracted with an audiovisual company that was filming the jalsa (including on at least three cranes) and providing their visual feed to all the channels to supplement the channels' own coverage. Even the chairs were heavy metal ones, not the sort it would be easy for any lurking Kasurians to carry away. Add logistics, security, stage grids, furniture, generators, fuel, cables, lights, sound systems, construction costs, labour, food and refreshments for organizers and other payments and you can tell that the costs for this rally were easily above a crore at the minimum. Which fat cats pay for these expenses and why, is a question the media still needs to ask Imran Khan.
4. The music sucked: I think a lot of those attending were expecting more live music ala the Lahore jalsa. What they got instead were a lot more speeches, some sporadic pre-recorded music and Salman Ahmad (who, as @umairjav noted, strutted around the stage as if he was the shahbala and lip-synced to Ali Azmat's vocals). Come to think of it, at the time of the Lahore rally, PTI didn't have as many speakers to accommodate at the podium. With more 'heavyweights' joining, PTI youth may have to live with the fact that the music has died with the Lahore jalsa. Even Abrar-ul-Haq preferred giving a speech rather than singing.
5. The speeches were Meh at best: Nothing spectacular, nothing concrete, nothing specific about Karachi, just a lot of feel-good vagueness, including Chairman Imran Khan's. After spending 18 years in the wilderness you would expect PTI stalwarts to be able to present something a bit more substantial in terms of policy than 'we'll bring in clean people, provide justice and make a stronger Pakistan through better policies' but it seems that's all there is to it at the moment. Maybe Khan sahib et al felt this was just not the time to go into details. However, two speeches really tested my patience. One was by new entrant Javed Hashmi who just would not stop singing his own praises as a 'rebel' for a really, really long time. The other was Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is just plain irritating. I don't think anybody there much understood what he was talking about either since he kept talking about "asymmetric power" and "credible minimal deterrence" in so many words. He also backtracked on his Ghotki speech and tried to spin his way out of embarrassment, by claiming that when he had raised alarm bells within the establishment by calling Pakistan's nuclear weapons as unsafe, he actually did not mean it physically but only in terms of policy.
'Whoever brings Aafia back will be called a leader' (Photo via PTI website)
6. There were a lot of Aafia Siddiqui placards in the crowd: Javed Hashmi was the only speaker to refer to Aafia Siddiqui from the stage and nobody even paid lip service to the placard of another young man which called for setting fire to America ("Amreeka ke aiwaanon ko aag laga do!"). But you know that, eventually, PTI will need to resolve the contradictions among its youthful idealistic supporters and the ideologically motivated ones.
7. Other thoughts I had: a) Shah Mahmood was the only speaker who, I think, did not mention Imran Khan even once in his speech, while other speakers fell over themselves to pay him tribute. Whether that's a good thing or ominous, I leave for you to judge. b) I wasn't the only one who thought that everytime the crowd chanted a response to 'Dalaer Aadmi' [Brave Man] it sounded like they were chanting 'Nawaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif' when they were actually chanting 'Hashmi, Hashmi.' It was just very funny. c) PTI really needs some more prominent women in its ranks. The stage sagged with male posteriors. And where was Dr Shireen Mazari? d) Listening to the slogans where Imran Khan was rhymed with everything from Pakistan, jaan [beloved] and insaan [human], I couldn't help feel sorry for Nawaz Sharif. I mean, the lack of possibility of rhyming anything with the PMLN leader's name must be a serious impediment to sloganeering. e) This 'revolution' will obviously be televised. And facebooked. And tweeted.
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