Why Is Imran Khan Playing the Blind Man’s Buff?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
There would hardly be a pundit disagreeing that Imran Khan’s three-month-old strident agitation against the Nawaz clique-in-power has entered a critical zone.
For the record, the ongoing movement to unseat Nawaz hasn’t reached its target—at least not yet. Despite Imran’s raucous—and at times bizarre—Dharna, Nawaz remains ensconced in his citadel of power; the darts and arrows may be whizzing past his ears but haven’t, yet, quite pierced his armour to make the ongoing tussle unbearable for him.
That said, pundits and Pakistan watchers would find it hard, if not impossible, to not infer that Imran’s relentless tirade against Nawaz has unhinged him beyond any reasonable doubt. The Nawaz regime is on the back-foot and in retreat. If nothing else, the inexorable assault by Imran’s brigade against the ramparts of power has shaken the status quo elite to their roots. In a nut-shell, the moral basis of the regime has been knocked out (clean bowled) by Kaptan Imran’s marauding barrage; the ruling elite is hanging in there—barely, at that—by the skin of their teeth.
That Nawaz is feeling the heat around him—and why shouldn’t he with Imran relentlessly breathing down his neck—is implicit in his grooming-in-power-daughter, Maryam Nawaz abruptly stepping down from her perch at the head of the Youth Program. That’s as good as succumbing under the pressure ratcheted up by Imran.
Had it been the case of a seasoned democracy under such obvious siege, it would’ve thrown the towel into the ring a long time ago. But Pakistan isn’t a seasoned democratic polity by a very long shot. Democracy’s roller-coaster ride in Pakistan hasn’t, quite, allowed it the luxury of developing a democratic culture. So, the essential democratic norm of a beleaguered regime, or power clique, resigning and calling fresh elections to reassert its moral basis has virtually no currency in Pakistan’s case. Here, our rulers and power-barons don’t have in their lexicon the word of ‘resignation-on-principle.’ In fact the only ‘principle’ our oligarchs are familiar with is not to waste their energies worrying or fretting about principles.
However, if Nawaz has decided to hang in there, tough, so has Kaptan left no one in any doubt that he’s equally determined to keep mounting on Nawaz whatever pressure he and his aficionados are capable of. As far as he and his PTI are concerned, there’s no turning back to the pavilion. The show must go on until Nawaz’ nerves are cracked.
The line in sand that Imran has drawn has strategic relevance to his avowed objective to get rid of Nawaz, and he’s going about it with methodical perseverance. But tactics keep changing and morphing into ways that may keep the Nawaz regime guessing about them, all the time. So dharna has almost run out its course but instead of yielding ground to the denizens of the status quo, it has morphed into public rallies across the country at all major urban centers. Imran has apparently decided to challenge the status quo gurus on their own turf. Imran’s guessing game not only has its target set at gradually un-nerving the rulers but, in the process, also throw up new and more taxing challenges at them.
Much as Nawaz’ tribunes may blow hot and cold to feign that Imran’s campaign has run out of steam, quite the opposite is true no matter what kind of finesse the regime’s spin-doctors may apply to it. Imran still has the upper hand in his war of nerves with Nawaz and gives no indication of relenting or relaxing his grip over the beleaguered regime.
But Imran is not without problems of his own, some quite critical to the success or failure of his campaign against Nawaz.
One is that Imran has taken it to such a feverish pitch that a cooling down of the temperature has no prospect. A maximalist position in politics is at best undesirable, if not lethal, and must arguably be avoided. Imran has left himself no room to back down or retreat—not an ideal situation at all. Like a trapeze artist, he finds himself—and let’s hope that he’s aware of his predicament—stranded on the highest perch but no safety net beneath. He’d need a lot of help—and tons of mistakes—from Nawaz to climb down without damage.
Another is Imran’s aggressive and abrasive style of speech at his public rallies. One wonders what kind of advice he has been receiving on this account. But he has lately been behaving like a loose cannon that only believes in blasting its way through the thicket of opposition.
The idiom that’s becoming Imran’s hallmark—or rather, trade mark—is objectionable, to say the very least. Political discourse ought to have some decency, some civility. But that is only too conspicuous by its absence in Imran’s speeches at his largely attended, though poorly organised, public rallies and jalsas. He has virtually been calling names to his opponents, which is not warranted, nor is it desirable given the current acrid ambience of Pakistani politics. For a politician, as much as for any practitioner of the art of popular discourse, words are a commodity to be used carefully and in measured sentences. Imran, at the very least, has been spendthrift in the use of this precious resource and must check his libertarian tendencies.
Imran ought to be given some advice by those close to him to pull back from this disastrous course of saying, ‘pox on your house,’ while addressing his opponents and rivals. You’ve every right to oppose a person but not abuse him. Imran gives one the sense of a speeding train with no brakes hurtling down the tracks; disaster is never too far from such a runaway train.
It’s not only that he has been whacking his political opponents with his bat but others too—in the news media, the judiciary and bureaucracy—are being roped in with impunity and without any concern for the fallout of his blind man’s buff.
No one should expect Imran to like those legions of black sheep in Pakistan’s teeming news media. Some of them are truly obnoxious and deservedly insufferable. However, none has mandated it for Imran to make a public show of how he feels about the curmudgeons of the media and invite their wrath. Again, it raises questions about the kind of advice he may be receiving from his cohorts and minions on how to handle the media. One shouldn’t be blamed for concluding that it’s either a case of bad advice or of Imran’s poor judgment brushing aside the advice given to him. In either case, Kaptan is stepping on too many toes—unwarranted—and adding on to the burgeoning list of his enemies and detractors.
It defies common sense that in this day and age of media’s crucial role in the molding of public opinion that Imran should choose to have a large segment of it in Pakistan arrayed firmly against him just because he’s too un-caring, or arrogant, to tend to their sensibilities.
Why is he doing it—making enemies of people who could easily be in his corner if handled deftly—is a million dollar question.
It raises questions (besides eyebrows) about Imran’s suitability to fit into the jigsaw puzzle of the Pakistani politics.
This scribe has had his doubts from the moment Imran stepped into the breach that Pakistani politics is. Politics, anywhere, in any milieu, is the art of the possible and not of the desirable. Imran seems to have little patience for the first but enormous appetite for the latter. He doesn’t believe in bending down when the wind is inhospitable and unaccommodating. And one needn’t recall an apt old saying about the trees that wouldn’t bow to the winds; they break and perish.
At this stage when all interest is riveted on what Imran’s latest call for his party faithful and followers to assemble in Islamabad on November 30 may lead to, it’s highly relevant to ask what a clairvoyant may see in his crystal ball by way of Imran’s political future.
Only a die-hard Nawaz aficionado would venture to suggest that Imran’s brimstone and often pungent rhetoric focused on tightening the screws on Nawaz is just an empty threat of no consequence.
Imran means business and the grit and steely resolve anointing his campaign isn’t a fool’s venture. But it’s also true that despite having energised Pakistan’s youths—who have a majority stake in its future—Imran would still need help from the ‘establishment’ to puncture Nawaz’ balloon and bring it crashing down to earth.
The establishment’s critical role in the ongoing battle of nerves—which is also implicitly Imran’s best bet in the prevailing scenario—can’t be over-emphasised. Power in Pakistan—as Mao Tse Tung said so pithily—flows from the barrel of a gun when the chips are down, as much as it does in China or anywhere else. The tactician in Imran knows that maxim well enough and should be betting on its efficacy in the Pakistani context, too.
That day would be the last of Nawaz’ depleted glory when the military brass—which has thus far hedged its bets—finally concludes that the tipping point in the mass campaign to see the back of him has arrived. Imran’s biggest challenge, as well as opportunity, is to accelerate the dawn of that day. Is it still far or within the reach we’d know soon after November 30. Keep your fingers crossed, everyone. In the words of the founder of Pakistan, M.A. Jinnah, hope for the best but also be prepared for the worst. There’s, for sure, a lot of action still ahead of all of us.
- K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
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