One sweltering afternoon, I found myself in the corridors of a local amenities club in Lahore, where the air was thick not with heat but with ambition. The freshly plastered walls gleamed under harsh fluorescent lights, a fitting backdrop for the polished performances unfolding around me. Across from me stood the Member of the Punjab Assembly, in a crisp white cotton suit and a waistcoat just flashy enough to signal importance, a carefully curated image of a man of the people.

I asked him, almost gently, “Tell me, what does your party truly stand for?” He paused, as if rifling through an invisible script, then delivered the line with practised ease: “We’re here to fight injustice and serve the people.” Neat. Polished. And utterly hollow. When I pressed further, “What guiding principles shape that service?” he offered nothing but a practised smile before moving on, leaving me with a single thought: in a mature democracy, understanding one’s party ideology is as basic as knowing one’s own name. Here, it’s just another scripted line, repeated until it loses all meaning.

Across the world, parties spring from shared beliefs, ideas that bind members and guide policy. In Pakistan, however, slogans often matter more than substance. We cheer “Roti, Kapra, Makaan,” shout “Azadi!” or invoke “Naya Pakistan,” yet rarely pause to ask what these phrases mean in practice or whether the people who chant them could explain their significance beyond a rallying cry. The gap between rhetoric and reality is starkest in the very parties that once claimed deep ideological roots.

The Pakistan Peoples’ Party, born of socialist zeal for equity and land reform, once sent activists to preach class struggle in remote Sindhi villages. Today, it survives as a brand name led by a landed aristocracy that seldom breathes a word of its founding creed in parliament. PTI stormed the stage........

© The Friday Times