A Closed Book Is Better: Pakistan’s Party Symbols

Are you planning to establish a political party in Pakistan sometime soon? It’s a good time – national elections are due in 2018. If you are, do not forget that you should apply to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for a party symbol. Many symbols are still available. How about choosing a penguin, a flamingo, a duck, a harmonium, a mobile sim, a toothbrush, a papaya, ice cream, or a nail cutter?

As I wrote a piece on party symbols in India for The Diplomat back in November 2016, it may seem that I am just serving the same meal again. What I find interesting, however, are the differences and similarities between the lists of party symbols in India and Pakistan.

Both South Asian republics were once undivided and under British rule, thus they partially built their political systems along same or similar patterns. The election commissions of both countries function in ways which are not very different from each other, and in both cases one of the responsibilities of the institution is to allot party symbols. Moreover, as both nations are still grappling with illiteracy, the primary role of the party symbol is to be simple and easy to remember, so that an illiterate voter could easily associate the picture with a party or a candidate.

The selection of symbols offered by the ECP is nearly as secular as the one available in India, with a few exceptions. One could have expected a stronger presence of religion. While Pakistan keeps balancing between its secular and Islamic identities (and is often torn between them), it is a country statistically dominated by Muslims much more than India is by Hindus. Pakistan is also officially called the “Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” while the Republic of India is called a “secular” state in the preamble of its constitution. Yet, Islam is officially denied nearly any space within the range of available symbols. On the other hand, had religious symbols been open for choosing, some of the parties would have struggled bitterly to reserve these for themselves. Thus, it is probably better to avoid such symbols taking into account both the secular and the Islamic identity – but this does not mean that religious identity is not taken into consideration. Officially, just like in India, the party symbols cannot refer to any particular religion or caste. Thus we end mostly with a dull list of everyday items, animals, and plants, similar to the list of symbols suggested by the Election Commission of India.

But these general rules have their exceptions (not to say: breaches).

In 2017, a party called the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaniat was allotted the symbol of tasbbih (prayer beads), while earlier the Awami National Party (Wali) was allowed to carry the picture of a particular mosque (the enormous Faisal Masjid in Islamabad). At the same time using at least two national symbols – the flag and the Mazar-e-Quaid (the mausoleum of the father of Pakistan, M.A. Jinnah) – are out of bounds for political parties.

But even between the boring lists of household equipment, common flora and fauna, and the like, there are some interesting differences and nuances.

First, symbols of parties in India very rarely depict weapons, and if they do, they trend toward the traditional, such as a bow with an arrow. In comparison, the (literally) striking feature of the ECP’s list is a number of pictures of modern military technology: a tank (Istehkaam-e-Pakistan Movement), a missile (Tehreek Tahfuz-e-Pakistan), a “combat aircraft” (Gujar Quami Movement), a revolver (Muslim Movement Pakistan), and a gun (All Pakistan Peoples Quami Movement). (Here and later I am mostly using the symbols as allotted for the 2013 elections; this distribution may partially change in the coming election season)

Second, it perplexes me that warlike symbols were sometimes given out to parties that focus on strong regional identities or may even advocate forms of separatism. Pakistan already has its litany of problems trying to retain unity, so why risk giving an axe symbol to the Balochistan National Party (while many in Balochistan want to cut their region away from Pakistan anyway), a combat aircraft to the Gujar Quami Movement (a party representing the interests of the Gujar community) or a knife to Seraiki Sooba Movement Pakistan (which wants to carve a province of Seraiki-language speakers out of the province of Punjab)?

It would also seem that animals appear much more often as party symbols in Pakistan than in India. The wish of the recently formed Pak Sarzameen Party to have the flag of the country as its symbol was not granted, and thus the party settled for a dolphin. Among other animals already booked for the parties one finds a swallow, a sparrow, a butterfly, a crocodile, an elephant, a camel, a rabbit, a stag, a giraffe, a fish, a kangaroo, and an eagle. An obscure party with a strange name – Move On Pakistan – was allotted the ostrich symbol (do they know it hides its hand in the sand?), and an even more obscure party with an even stranger name – Menecracy Action Party of Pakistan – uses the parrot symbol (do they go about parroting?). I also wonder how the Hindu believers in India would react to the news that a party with a distinctively Islamic name, Allah-o-Akbar Tehreek (the “God is Great” Movement) has a cow as its symbol.

But prominent among these is, of course, the tiger of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Carrying a strong, dangerous, daring, and famous animal on its banners is a symbolic boon to the party, and it also works well with a title given to the party’s leader, Nawaz Sharif, by his staunch followers: sher-e-Pakistan, the tiger of Pakistan. The PML-N also took care to have the commission ban the symbol of the common cat, so that no voter would confuse the two animals. Sometimes the party makes sure that rally-goers remember the symbol and the rally itself by bringing in real tigers or lions. One party supporter would often bring a white tiger to rallies, but the animal died in 2013.

These techniques of political branding are quite similar to the cases of Indian party symbols I mentioned in the earlier text, such as that of the Indian candidate bringing chickens to the rally as he had the animal as his electoral symbol (not a single chicken survived though). In a perhaps similar and more recent case in Pakistan, Mohammad Yaqub Sheikh, an independent candidate supported by the Milli Muslim League (a party connected to the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba) was allotted the thermos symbol. Accordingly, a photograph of him with a real thermos was shared on social media (“Make tea great again” was one of the comments on Twitter).

And, very much like in India, a seemingly neutral and common symbol – even an item of everyday use – can be interpreted in a way which will evoke identity sentiments. A careful game of many meanings may be played to keep the symbol in accordance with the official, secular rules of the election commission and at the same time to reinterpret it in a more identity-related and concrete way for the electorate. A symbol can have many meanings.

Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MA), a coalition of religious parties, had in the past used the symbol of a book. As with most of the commission symbols, the picture of the book was simple, devoid of any letters, and presented the volume closed rather than open. It was therefore left for one’s imagination to guess which book it could have been. The religious alliance used this opportunity to tell the voters that the book was the Quran: the association worked and struck the right identity chords.

When MMA became moribund, two of its former constituents struggled to retain the symbol and eventually it was the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl) that booked the book. Yet, the ECP changed the shape of the symbol by presenting it as an open volume with letters in Latin script visible. The party complained about it and called for allotting the symbol in the old form. A closed book is better; a vague symbol, more symbolic.

Moreover, now the long defunct MMA coalition may be staging a comeback and is already claiming that it will contest using the book symbol (which is unsure as long as the commission allots it prior to the elections). This may mean one more fight for the book among the People of the Book.

Scales are another common item that can convey an important message as a symbol of justice. In 2012, the election commission had to weigh in on the issue of the scales symbol as two parties – Jamaat-e-Islami and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) – wished to have it. PTI may be on its way to becoming the third most important party in Pakistan. It claims that it will change the establishment and cleanse the system of corruption and even has justice (insaaf) included in its name. Thus, PTI would have been very happy to have the scales but the battle for the symbol (though not a symbolic battle) was won by Jamaat-e-Islami.

Yet, PTI eventually got an even better deal: the symbol of a bat (the tool, not the animal). As PTI’s leader is Imran Khan, a former cricketer, the party symbol naturally reminded the electorate of the profession for which he was best known before entering politics. Thus, the most important goal – being allotted a symbol which the voters can easily associate with the party – has been fulfilled.

This is not the only case when the party symbol can be associated with the former profession of its famous leader. The Tehreek Tahfuz-e-Pakistan used the missile symbol, while its founder, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been a nuclear scientist.

It would be also interesting to look at the banned symbols and the reasons they were crossed out from the commission’s list. The flag, the Mazar-e-Quaid, and the cat have already been mentioned. The list of banned symbols also includes an almirah (cupboard), for reasons unknown to me (the symbol is available in India). The symbol of lota, a vessel used to carry water, has also been made unavailable. Nowadays plastic lotas in both India and Pakistan are used to help clean oneself in the toilet after one’s job there is done. But this is not the reason the lota was banned. A simple plastic lota is a bit shaky and can be easily tipped. Thus, a lota, an object which can be easily moved, has become a synonym for a political turncoat, both in India and in Pakistan. While the Election Commission of Pakistan had allotted this symbol in the past it had eventually banned it – and who would like to use it anyway? Moreover, the symbols of a banana, carrot, okra and radish have been also banned by the commission. “Those names were just comical,” the spokesman of the ECP explained.