Former Pakistan prime minister (PM) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan’s supporters used to be disparagingly called “Burgers” by Pakistan’s older generation of political liberals. The word was used as a pejorative to describe young, rich, urban and rootless Pakistanis who seemed outwardly modern in how they dressed and spoke but were apolitical and deracinated. Otherwise disinterested in electoral politics, they found in Khan a mascot they could rally around.
In the early years of his life as an opposition politician, Khan told me he was intrigued by Arvind Kejriwal and his success at birthing a party from an anti-corruption agitation. He saw parallels between the PTI and the Aam Aadmi Party’s tapping into middle-class cynicism about the political system. Liberal narratives did not interest him. He took on the Americans for their war in Afghanistan, offered namaz on stage during public rallies and famously called liberals “the scum of Pakistan” in the same interview with me in 2012.
So, it’s deeply ironic that a decade later, the same Khan has emerged as an unlikely liberal hero, taking on Pakistan’s mighty military establishment. The ironies do not end there. In 2018, when Khan became PM, the opposition parties accused the Pakistan army of helping Khan rig the elections. Today, those same leaders — Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari — are in a coalition backed by the military, and if there were to be a fair and free election in Pakistan, Khan would sweep it easily.
So, while the images out of Pakistan are unprecedented — women rattling the gates of the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi, the homes of corps commanders being burnt, and citizens daring general sahebs to shoot them — a cursory step back into Pakistan’s history, will give you more a sense of deja vu than dramatic change.
For anyone tempted to declare that this is the beginning of the end of the Pakistan military’s stranglehold over civilian politics — and we have seen many such breathless proclamations — let’s pause and remember, the world has seen this moment before, and nothing changed structurally in how the deep State wields power.
Remember when the Americans took out Osama bin Laden from under the nose of the Pakistani military in 2011? The Pakistan army looked enfeebled and incompetent, and its civilian politicians seized the moment. Yousuf Raza Gilani, the then PM, called the Inter Services Intelligence “a State within a State” in a speech at the country’s national assembly. Husain Haqqani, a friend of India and then Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States (US), was drawn into a controversy called “memogate” on allegations of seeking US help in the event of a coup.
Pakistan has been through many cycles of civilian-military angst, with different political parties being weaponised by the army at different stages in its evolution. And each one of the country’s political protagonists has played both roles in this relentless drama — that of yes-man and rebel — depending on the circumstance and opportunity.
The inflammatory remarks by Bilawal Bhutto, for instance, on Indian soil, while in attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation foreign ministers’ summit, can be seen precisely in the context of him seeking approval from the Pakistani military. This approval, should it come, should be juxtaposed with his ambitions to become the PM of Pakistan, much like Khan had courted the military in 2018.
The bottomline? In Pakistan, nothing is as it seems.
While the country’s chief justice Umar Ata Bandial and army chief Asim Munir find themselves on the opposite ends of the Khan debate, is the Pakistan army all one side or has it also been split wide open by Khan?
Several viral videos suggest that citizens could not have attacked venerable military fortresses without sections of the military helping or looking the other way. Moreover, some homes of generals that were ransacked were reportedly vacated in advance, suggesting that these developments might have been scripted. There are those in Pakistan who argue that all of this is the deft and diabolical handiwork of the new army chief to contain and manage Khan’s rising popularity.
So, will there be a coup? Is Pakistan headed for martial law again?
As one friend in Pakistan remarked wryly — the army never steps in when there is no money to be made, referencing the broken economy of her country.
Also, who needs a coup d’etat when you can deliver a coup de grace from behind the scenes?
In the coup-lite version of Pakistani democracy, Imran Khan’s dramatic rebellion notwithstanding, there is no proof yet, that anything will change substantively.
Expect the same script with new actors.
Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author The views expressed are personal
