n April 9, 2022, Imran Khan lost his government through a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly. It was a first in the country’s chequered parliamentary history. The development was shocking for many political pundits and quotidian commentators. Not for those though who had worked round the clock for it for months. Refusing to acknowledge the political gamesmanship of political adversaries, Khan and his comrades opened a new front against those who had underpinned administration for almost four years. His latest salvos were aimed at Rawalpindi and the men at the bridge there.

He called the former army chief all sorts of names. In a tirade that continued for months, Khan and his supports described their erstwhile supporters Mir Jafar, Mir Sadiq, ‘neutral’, janwar (animals).

Like almost all Pakistani politicians, Imran Khan had always feigned conviction that his rise to premiership was organic and through transparent means. His opponents, of course, had cried foul from the moment results started pouring in in 2018. They had blamed ‘aliens’ for stealing an electoral victory from them. Most prominent among them was Nawaz Sharif, who complained that he had been removed from government thrice – every time through foul play. For this he blamed the men who had been in charge of the same force but not the institution. Some of the commentators on the working of the Pakistani state have an interesting take on the role of non-political forces, suggesting that the outcome was inevitable.

The process, they say, had started within the first few years of the creation of the country but the matters came to a head in 1958 when Ayub Khan forced his benefactor, Iskandar Mirza to impose a martial law. Ayub Khan openly asserted that Pakistan was not yet ready for parliamentary democracy. It was implied that it probably needed handholding by British-trained military men who had also won the American backing. He abrogated the 1956 constitution and began his reign like a Roman emperor – his word was law. He came up with the idea of “basic democracy” within a year of usurping power. The BD elections were held in 1959 to elect 40,000 local representatives each from East and West Pakistan. The idea was to construct a network of local self-governing bodies to provide a link between the people and the government. These 80,000 individuals were then sculpted into a political class at the grassroots level to enthrone Ayub Khan as the head of state. The parliamentary system of government was abandoned in favour of a presidential form of government.

Ayub’s attempt to refashion the state and its political system was challenged by Fatima Jinnah, the much-loved sister of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the politicians from the erstwhile East Pakistan. Both failed. Possibly because many politicians from the Punjab, North West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Sindh and Balochistan were opposed to the idea of Pakistan anyway. They saw an opportunity in the machinations of the martial regime and played along. Some politicians in the East Pakistan also played along in the beginning. The elected BD members accepted the status of an advisory council rather than a legislature; 75,283 of the 80,000 authorised Ayub Khan to promulgate a new ‘constitution’. That he did two years later. National politics never recovered from the damage.

While the ‘basic democrats’ remained focused on nurturing their careers, the general got busy raising Pakistan’s international profile. His trips to the United States, China and Soviet Union and the visits of US presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson and Chinese premier Zhou Enlai to Pakistan bolstered the military’s role in politics. Many soldiers were inducted into civilian administration. The war with India in 1965, however, changed his destiny. He not only lost face but also grassroots support. Two political parties benefitted from this weakening of the dictator – the Awami League and the Pakistan Peoples Party.

The story of Pakistan’s break-up and the loss of East Pakistan does not need repeating. The soldiery’s confidence appeared to have nosedived after the 1971 defeat but the political chaos handed the initiative back to the military. So much so that an elected prime minister was overthrown and hanged after a ‘sham trial’. A new crop of politicians was nurtured by the third dictator, Gen Zia ul Haq.

The fourth military takeover came in 1999. It was led by Gen Pervez Musharraf. A survey of what happened during the Zia and the Musharraf decades, throws up many similarities with Ayub Khan’s decade. It is impossible to deny the symbiotic relationship between the military regimes and the successive crops of politicians. Ideally, pro-democracy politicians should stay clear of dictatorial regimes. A pragmatic argument, however, goes like this: why should an aspirant to political career wait for up to a decade for a dictator to lose power before he or she enters the arena?

Over the last six decades, Pakistan’s political parties have repeatedly failed to become cohesive or inclusive political organisations. Most can, at best, be described as clubs or cults led by some individuals or families. Unlike the military, they have failed to attract or create a large pool of educated people successfully transitioning from poor and lower-middle class to respectable middle-class strata. While politicians have repeatedly shown a tendency to abandon their leaders and parties, the non-political forces have acted as one, particularly when confronted or challenged by political parties.

As they say, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; mistakes are made when people and organisations don’t rise up to the challenges they face. The challenges of political management today are not entirely like the ones during the 1980s, 1990s; even early 2000s. With one set of politicians asking the soldiers to stay away from the political arena while another bunch cussing them for abandoning them in the melee, Pakistan is hurtling towards choppier waters.

The writer works for the Jang/ Geo Group. He tweets @aamirghauri