In the background, Imran Khan’s statements that he was ready for any sacrifice and he would go to any extent to serve his cause provided the backdrop of this drama. Imran Khan was addressing a larger audience: at stake was his image as a winner, an invincible larger than life persona, a political macho who, as far as his cause is concerned, is not ready to bow his head even before the most mighty, and the most powerful.
The imaginary constructed around his persona is aimed at portraying him as the most mighty, and the most powerful. Therefore, in such a situation, his charged core supporters found it acceptable, rather heroic, to use petrol bombs, slingshots and stones as projectiles to attack the police which had come to arrest him.
Imran Khan was not only harassing the police with his newly acquired street power, he, in fact, apparently made an attempt to bully part of the judiciary while using the space provided to him by another part of the judiciary. If media reports are to be believed, his militant supporters who accompanied him to the gates of Judicial Complex where the District and Session Judge of Islamabad was holding his court, heralded Imran Khan’s arrival by pelting stones on the heavily guarded Complex. So, all in all, Imran Khan was successful in retaining his macho and image of invincibility as the drama around Zaman Park concluded.
There was another drama that was being staged around Zaman Park, the objective of which was to portray Imran Khan as a violator of law and judicial institutions. The alternate objective of this drama was to break Imran Khan’s image as a winner, macho or invincible personality of Pakistani politics. Part of this objective was the subsidiary aim—in case the judiciary intervenes, as most often it does when it comes to the executive organ treating Imran Khan badly—to portray Imran Khan as the darling of a segment of the judiciary. This was in continuation of Imran Khan's image as the darling of the military and its intelligence agencies.
Imran Khan himself destroyed this image of his when he launched a frontal attack on the military and its affiliated institutions during the last year. There is no clarity as to who is the author of the script of this drama.
A heavy contingent of Lahore police was assembled at Zaman Park ostensibly to implement the arrest warrants issued by Islamabad court. Punjab is being presided over by a caretaker government, which is supposed to be neutral. Its Chief Minister, Mohsin Naqvi reportedly has connections with the incumbent Chief of the Army staff, General Asim Munir. Imran Khan, during the Zaman Park episode himself named General Asim Munir as behind all this drama. Imran Khan changed his position and tone as to the identity of the author of the Zaman Park drama after his non-bailable warrants were cancelled by a district judge. He started accusing Maryam Nawaz Sharif as a conspirator without taking the effort to name her specifically. In the imaginary of PTI supporters, this operation was the handiwork of Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah. This became clear when PTI leaders started vowing that they would not hand over Imran Khan to Rana Sanaullah, while Punjab Police was making the effort.
Can Mohsin Naqvi on his own launch such a ruthless operation? I doubt it. I even doubt that even Rana Sanaullah has the guts to carry out such an operation without receiving a go ahead from someone entrenched more permanently into the system. Perhaps, Imran Khan was aware of who that someone was when in the initial hours of the operation, he launched an accusation that “a single man” was responsible for what was happening around Zaman Park.
People from Pakistan’s political class are too alienated from the state to use its machinery against their respective opponents in a ruthless manner. So, whenever the state machinery displays ruthlessness there could be two possibilities, it is either a blunder of someone who is in charge on the spot, or violence is being orchestrated on the orders of someone more permanently entrenched into the system.
There are clearly indications that Imran Khan cannot make any independent political move without support from the judiciary. In other words, he is over reliant on the superior judiciary in whatever he is doing. Despite the fact that Pakistani history has a horrible track record of support of democracy and constitutional order in society, there have been judges in our history who protected the constitutional rights of those who fought against military governments in the past. Military governments' high-handed approach to crushing political dissent found strong opposition from judges like Dorab Petal and Fukhar-e-Din G Ibrahim.
But the way Imran Khan has been treated by our judiciary cannot be described as the tradition of Justice Petal and Justice Ibrahim. Imran Khan is clearly bullying judges into granting him the space that should not be available to someone who defies the law, judicial and constitutional order. So, the PML-N, no matter whether it is the author of the drama that has unfolded or not, has succeeded in pushing the narrative on a national scale that Imran Khan is someone who thinks he is above the law, and is emerging as a darling of the judiciary.
Both these messages go well with the overall narrative of the ruling party to show that the state machinery is tilted in favor of Imran Khan and has shown immense bias against Nawaz Sharif. During the past one month, Maryam Nawaz Sharif has accused former the Chief Justice and other members of the Panama bench to have sentenced Nawaz Sharif to jail on the coaxing of a spymaster. In fact, Imran Khan was fueling this narrative when he first defied the court order for his arrest, and then got bail from the high court. In such a situation, Maryam Nawaz Sharif hit the bull’s eye when she started to demand that the judiciary should level the playing field before the elections.
Many expert political scientists often describe general elections as a mini-political crisis—things become extremely fluid and disorderly in the period immediately preceding the elections. Every political system should have the capacity to accommodate and survive such mini-crises like parliamentary or provincial elections. But our present turmoil started in August 2014 with Imran Khan launching a Long March at the coaxing of the then military establishment and spymasters. There is no surety that this crisis will end with the holding of elections in the country.
The judiciary might emerge as the single most important casualty of this crisis. At least one political leader, Imran Khan, is completely dependent on the judiciary for his politics in a situation which is highly polarized and tense. How this will impact electoral politics will determine the fate of the judiciary.