Imran’s perilous politics

“Fascism is a ‘lie’ told by ‘bullies’”. Ernest Hemingway could not have been more perspicuous. The entire politics of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf can be described in these two words. From one container to another with a brief transit in parliament, the scale and severity of its propaganda and persecution have only intensified.

After losing majority in the National Assembly and having been driven out of power through a constitutional exercise, the disgraced party has embarked on a desperate mission to discredit and defile the country’s institutions and denigrate the democratic process. The resultant death of truth, and reduction of politics to a Manichean conflict has put Pakistan on a perilous path. A course-correction is in order and must come sooner than later. To do so, we must first call a spade a spade.

The ruckus in the Punjab Assembly was the latest exhibition of hooliganism that has come to typify political discourse inside and outside legislatures with the emergence of the PTI on the electoral landscape. Chaos is a ladder for fascists and Imran Khan knows how to climb it to power. For three and half years as prime minister, he drew on this spectacle to divert attention from his regime’s negligence, repression and malfeasance and perpetuate his hold on power. The transformational change that he promised in 90 days did not even come about in 900 and the swamp he promised to drain got muddier with the corruption of his cronies.

The ‘star team’ that it took him 22 years to gather converted every directorate into a circus. Economics got static at chick-onomics and accountability became a pseudonym for a political witch-hunt that was subservient to the emperor’s dictates and stopped at his gate. The billions that were supposedly stashed abroad in the infamous Swiss banks never made it home but there were rumours of billions funneled out. Whatever existed as public health infrastructure was demolished. The leader could not be bought but everything else had a price tag including entire provincial governments and bureaucracies. This is beside the point that a commodity as necessary as bread became unaffordable for the vast majority of the poor and when they were crushed by hunger or accidents, the relevant ministers were awarded with a promotion.

Pakistan had the freest media in the world -- yet all dissenting voices were debarred. Rape was endemic -- but what could the PTI do? Men are not robots. The GDP plummeted so did standards of behaviour. Nobody knew the West better than Imran Khan and he was the leader of the Muslim Ummah; despite that, Islamabad faced international isolation without exception.

How does one justify this cleavage between rhetoric and reality? More importantly, how can one return to the electorate with such outstanding achievements? But what if there is no intention to return at all? Khan’s performance could be dismissed as dismal, but it belies something far sinister: his formulaic contortion of every pillar of the state to construct the fortress of his power on top, his usurpation of democratic powers to establish a one-party dictatorship and dismantling of rule of law to dismantle the opposition to his rule -- wherever it originates from. The chicanery is astounding: disparage politics to seize political power, collude with institutions’ functionaries to chip away at the integrity of the institutions and distort constitutional provisions to subvert the constitution itself. When plans turn into a fiasco, worry not. There is always a ‘Khanspiracy’ to fall back on.

Following his unceremonious exit from office after having broken records in misgovernment and despotism, the PTI chairman has sought refuge in patriotism and reinforced it with religion. The Goebbels-inspired agitprop depicts Imran Khan as a victim of ‘foreign-sponsored regime change’ because he stood up for Islam and against the powers that be; it also enjoins the people to rise against the ‘imported’ government that has supplanted him. A reversion to reality from the world of alternative reality may be instructive.; to begin with, a look into the composition of Khan’s cabinet and the sources of his party’s funds.

What is also baffling is: why would the enemies of Pakistan want to depose him when he has been the most potent weapon of the state’s economic and diplomatic destruction? What honour did he restore to the nation by plunging Pakistan’s passport to the fourth-worst in the world? An opposition leader’s reference to a proverb is injurious to public pride but did it not hemorrhage when his government borrowed at a rate unprecedented in the country’s history, spiraling external debt from 95 to 130 billion dollars in less than four years?

As usual, there is a pattern to this paradox: mislead the nation in the name of the nation, rally people around the flag and brandish a false narrative on national security to undermine the bastion of our national security. Finally, when facts blow up in your face, threaten to blow up the country.

The people of Pakistan must see through the PTI’s smokescreen because the man who is presented as a messiah to them is in actuality a false messiah. The lies, hate and violence he is spewing in the name of revolution will devour their children. Khan’s democratic rhetoric conceals his undemocratic intent and his anti-corruption campaign is just a shroud for his own corruption. More critically, his patriotism is a ruse to divide the public and conceal the devastation he has caused to Pakistan, his denunciation of critics, all and sundry as ‘foreign-sponsored’ a ploy to distract from the ‘foreign funding’ of his own party.

While it is incumbent on the new dispensation to muster all resources at its disposal to address the grievances of the people and steer the country towards stability and prosperity, it is equally obligatory for citizens to tackle the source of instability by doing their bit to rupture the PTI’s echo chamber of fiction, factionalism and fanaticism. Holding out against tyranny is a civic responsibility and we cannot afford to exonerate ourselves of it.

The writer is a graduate of law and international politics. She tweets @SariaBenazir