Today the scale of the polycrisis facing the country is unprecedented. The country’s rule of law, political institutions, social contract, and civil-military equilibrium is in jeopardy and economic default seems inevitable as the already slim chances of a bailout package from the IMF are now next to none.
Academic objectivity requires that we condemn the way the former Prime Minister was manhandled and arrested from the premises of the Islamabad High Court yesterday. Khan had gone to the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday to seek bail in two corruption cases, many of the dozens involving corruption, sedition, and terrorism that he is facing. The charges against Khan don’t hold much relative ground, considering the level of corruption the country’s ruling elite has been involved in and the impunity it has enjoyed despite their malfeasance and grift.
However, as the country faces mass discord and violence in the aftermath of Khan’s arrest, we need to understand that Imran Khan is not the victim here. Pakistani democracy is. This crisis is of the former Prime Minister’s own making. Those who butcher democracy with their own very hands cannot be regarded as revolutionaries wielding flags of change. The very profiteers of authoritarianism cannot be deemed the champions of democracy.
In 2013, Pakistan’s performance on the Global Democracy Index was an all-time high at 4.64, when the country saw the first civilian handover of power in the country. In the aftermath of Khan’s mobilization of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf in what The Economist deemed Operation Hybrid Government, Pakistan’s performance on the Democracy Indicator worsened and in 2021, Pakistan was ranked 104th among 167 countries on the Global Democracy Index.
After coming into power in 2018, Mr. Khan used the very tactics that are being employed against him today, to stifle the opposition and target media organizations that went against his political rhetoric. Imran has as much part to play in the weakening of the parliament, judiciary, and media as those who fight him today. During his rule, divisions were engineered, and society was demarcated into those who were on the right side of history – the supporters of Khan - and those who believed in anything else.
In 2022, before his ouster as Prime Minister, when the National Assembly proceeded to hold a Vote of No Confidence against him, Imran did everything in his power to stop that from happening and block the No Confidence Motion, even if that meant dissolving the National Assembly or blaming the United States for carrying out a regime change conspiracy. Today, as the showdown between the state and his supporters intensifies, one needs to understand that one can wield the flag of democratic supremacy and rule of law, and still be wary of the kind of politics Mr. Khan has practiced in the country, where opposing thought is not tolerated, where anyone and everyone with different partisan preferences and diversity of thought is accused of treason and asked to leave the country, where patriarchy is justified and extremist thought endorsed.
As the former Prime Minister is given special treatment from the Supreme Court, violent rioting from his supporters has erupted all over Pakistan, and the military has been called in most parts of the country to restore law and order. Section 144 has been imposed in the country’s capital, Islamabad, which prevents gatherings of more than five people, yet groups of protestors brandishing PTI flags were still seen occupying the major intersections of the Capital burning things, chanting slogans for Khan’s release. Internet services have been suspended in retaliation by the government in most parts of the country and innocent people have lost their lives. The government’s suppression of media freedom has been very unfortunate, as nothing helps mass hysteria and discord more than uncertainty and a sense of injustice. GHQ in Rawalpindi and the Corps Commander’s Residence in Lahore were stormed and thrashed; an Edhi ambulance was blazed, a political party’s office and a Pakistan Television Building were torched. A police vehicle was set on fire.
Is this how change is created? How revolutions happen? The current series of violence has similar undertones to those seen in Brazil after thousands of protestors stormed the country’s Congress, Presidential Palace and Supreme Court amid a refusal to accept Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat, echoing the unfortunate invasion of the United States Capitol two years ago when Trump’s supporters stormed the building and carried out a rampage on January 6th.
The level of frustration that the masses are living through is understandable - when the country’s inflation rate has been at a 36.4% high according to April estimates; stampedes in search of subsidized food have taken numerous lives and the economic and political crises have shown no signs of subsiding.
However, it is pivotal to understand that long-lasting change comes not through violence and bloodshed, but through the ultimate prevalence of democratic processes and respect for the rule of law. History has taught us time and again that violence gives way to more violence and benefits no one. The bloody revolution in Russia in 1917 in the name of the people led to a change in the type of government, yet people were still being persecuted and silenced in Soviet Russia.
One also needs to be wary of the way populist leaders paint issues and oversimplify issues. Latin American populist leaders like Hugo Chavez have taught us that such leaders presenting themselves as the pure outsider ‘Other’ fighting in the name of the people against a corrupt elite are in the business of amassing and consolidating power, not to create change. Once they gain electoral representation and become mainstream, long forgotten are the people in whose name they were elected to office and the change they aspired to created. Real change, on the other hand, comes via the ballot box and expressions of peaceful protest.
Mr. Khan will undoubtedly be a free man in the days to come, yet the way we handle this crisis will have implications for our country for years to come. Margaret Thatcher summed this aptly: “being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.”