Maulana Hidayat-ur-Rehman has used several approaches for power. He had built the movement of Haq do. His movement began as a civil rights movement incorporating primary demands to abolish trawling and end enforced disappearances. However, enforced disappearances has slightly decreased from his narrative. But his continuous advocacy against trawling has strengthened. These days he and his workers are developing a Marxist narrative. In his initial days of parliament, he sounded like a true working class representative. Given his history, he truly was. But the power struggle may have been a transformation for him.

The nature of politics in Gwadar has been of bargaining and blackmailing. A continuous usage of rhetoric against the politically and economically powerful forces. Politically, it is to bargain for a power sharing formula or adjustments in any capacity. However, economically it has been to blackmail those forces and bargain for financial incentives. For instance, trawling has been the dominant discourse since 1990s but all the ruling groups failed to abolish it. In fact it strengthened  time to time. Indigenous fishermen then accused those political parties to be on payroll of trawler mafia. Trawling is an issue that nearly affected the entire fishing community of district Gwadar yet it remains unresolved. Now, Maulana again has provided hope to working class fishermen only to shatter those hopes. A recent example that links to this hypocrisy is that Maulana preached during the sit-in demonstrations to close the wine stores in Gwadar. For the time being, the administration did close those wine stores but reopened them again. Since then, closure of wine stores has vanished from his narrative.

He certainly has lost ground. Before election he advocated against mighty powerful. But today, he is along the same line with them. The votes that he got were for advocacy against trawling and enforced disappearances. More importantly, he had built a nationalist narrative and gained huge popularity. His narrative was exposed to public when he opted to vote for PPP’s candidate for Cheif Minister. His insecurities compel him to revisit his position among the masses.

Recently, he also announced that there would be a protest in Gwadar on Eid day against enforced disappearances. Whereas, BYC already had announced protests all over Balochistan against enforced disappearances on Eid day. The victim families had already been protesting on every Eid day in most of the areas of Balochistan including Gwadar. It had become a common practice to protest on Eid day, a strong symbolic message to the powerful that this inhuman practice provides no space for happiness and celebration of festivals. However, Maulana’s announcement of protest is to regain his public legitimacy. Ironically, in his assembly speech he did not shed any light on enforced disappearances. This also indicates that his usage of social problems is primarily a tool for his vote bank. He is not genuinely concerned about the public. His inability and ineffectiveness are all clear from his response to flood ridden Gwadar.

At one hand, Maulana is using a Marxist approach to develop an attractive narrative of the working- and lower-class people of Gwadar. His continuous usage of words that he belongs to fishermen community and a working class can understand the pain of alienation. On the other hand, he is rebuilding his old narrative to fight against trawling and enforced disappearances. However, trawling and enforced disappearances are acts of the mighty powerful. Whereas, it cannot be fought by being in side with them. Instead, it is vital to use the position of parliamentary member to advocate against these social ills. The rhetorical tools are not going to help regain his legitimacy. The common people today are certainly aware of the fact that, the social problems were politicized and used in political speeches to gain popularity and electoral gains. People have already experienced this during the last elections when BNP had used the issue of enforced disappearances but all in vain. Similarly, the trawling also has been politicized by previous office holders. Maulana is playing the old cards which may not work. Due to social media and information available, people have developed a slight consciousness.

*The writer is a resident of Gwadar and an M-Phil scholar in Political Science at Forman Christian College, Lahore.*