Maulana Fazlur Rehman has had some year. Temperamentally, he has always seemed a languid, lurking figure – always around but never quite center stage, and content in his ways.
But there was a point this year where the constant, looming threat of the Maulana and his bearded hordes materialized. After a lot of will-they-won’t-they, Maulana Fazlur Rehman took his seat atop a container on October 27, declaring he was not going to budge until the Prime Minister resigned.
Imran Khan will have felt some deja vu, of course. And it must have hurt that the Maulana managed to get decent crowds more consistently than the tsunami march did back in 2014.
While the Prime Minister did not end up resigning by the time the sit-in ended on November 14, the Maulana’s gambit managed to expose other important fissures. The first thing it tested was the PML-N’s willingness to be an anti-establishment party, and true to precedent, Mian Shehbaz gently put a toe in and out of the water, joining the first day of protests but not the sit-in.
The Azadi March also had the rumour mills working over time, and as extension fever took over, there was talk of a split in the King’s court and the march being little more than the Maulana saying ‘my turn.’ Whatever else it may or may not have been, it kept the Maulana in the limelight for 2019.
