Dharna politics.

Byline: Dr Niaz Murtaza

THE JUI-F's dharna and warning to the prime minister to quit have divided opinions about the motives, tactics and utility even among liberals. Some think it may strengthen civilian supremacy. Others like me oppose it given the use of the faith card and possibly strong-armed tactics even though the PTI too used similar tactics earlier.

One can better analyse this dharna by distilling lessons from past dharnas (street protests) globally. Dharnas where huge crowds choke main cities for weeks have replaced armed revolutions as the main tool for ending autocratic regimes in recent decades. They are often called revolutions too. But major armed revolutions didn't just topple regimes. Crucially, they changed regime types/systems too, eg from monarchy to one-party rule or democracy and/or from capitalism to communism.

Equally crucially, they also upended the old-order security apparatus propping up autocracy. But even then they couldn't quickly improve governance by much. Even after the French and US revolutions led to democracy, governance improved slowly over decades, even centuries, via social movements. Elsewhere, armed victors even set up long, brutal and inept regimes (eg China and Russia).

Short dharnas recently have toppled many infirm autocratic regimes sans prolonged armed struggle given the growing power of media, decreasing global tolerance of autocracy and global economic links. But autocratic regimes whose economic might and security apparatus remain intact, eg China, can still suppress them, even armed revolts.

Distilling lessons from past protests is important.

Even successful dharnas have a mixed record in producing fundamental systems change. Earlier protests, like the 1979 Iran and 1989 East Europe ones, did do so. In Eastern Europe, there was a one-time governance gain too. But sans the rise of strong social movements later, governance hasn't reached Western Europe levels.

Elsewhere, the gains were even more limited. Dharnas in Egypt toppled Hosni Mubarak to establish democracy, but not the underlying security apparatus, which then upended democracy. Other dharnas replaced one weak civilian regime with another, with few delivery or human rights gains, eg Ukraine. In Lebanon, recent protests ended Saad Hariri's government. But there is talk now of it being replaced by a Hariri-led technocratic regime.

The organisational traits of leading dharna groups influence their success levels. The best hope is when...