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A Meltdown of Democratic Polity in Pakistan Isn’t Fictional!
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
Borrowing a leaf, perhaps, from President Donald Trump’s book, Imran Khan (IK), without doubt an icon of Pakistani politics, has also gone public as far as his agenda for the future of Pakistan is concerned.
In the last week of January, IK penned two letters: one to the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Yahya Afridi, and the other to the incumbent Army Chief, General Asim Munir.
In his letter to CJ Afridi, IK drew his attention to the breakdown of the judicial system in the country and requested his addressee for an early hearing of his PTI’s petition against the brazen theft of the people’s mandate in last February’s general elections. He reminded the CJ that he had also addressed a similar letter to his predecessor, Justice Faez Isa, in June 2024.
While writing his letter to CJ Afridi, IK must have known well in his heart, that his petition to the new custodian of Pakistan’s broken justice system would, most likely, remain as unattended as was the case under a palpably hostile and inimical Faez Isa. The 26 th Amendment to the country’s Constitution has, for all practical purposes, snuffed life out of Pakistani justice. Justice Afridi may be a more humane figure at the head of the judiciary but he, too, is as hidebound and as much a figurehead as was Isa.
It’s IK’s second letter—the one to the incumbent military chief Asim Munir—that has evoked the kind of interest such a letter should in any polity animated by its people.
It was Asim Munir’s diabolically scheming and intriguing predecessor, General Qamar Bajwa, who hatched the nefarious plot to topple IK’s democratic government from power. The Pakistani army—or, to be precise, its overly ambitious Bonapartist generals—has played a role in spoiling Pakistan’s democratic credentials, and stunting its growth into a democratic polity, from as far back as one can remember.
In total disregard and brazen violation of the edict of Pakistan’s founder, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, that the army should have nothing to do with politics or policy making in Pakistan, the military Bonapartes started poking their fingers in the political broth from the early 1950s—after they had conspired with the feudal actors whose past was anointed with hostility to the core concept of Pakistan, in physically eliminating the Quaid’s lieutenant, PM Liaquat Ali Khan.
To this day, starting with the daylight murder of Liaquat, the Pakistani Bonapartes haven’t relented, one bit, their chokehold over Pakistan’s politics or governance.
Qamar Bajwa sank to the lowest depths of depravity and moral decay in the way he conspired with known thieves of Pakistani politics to topple IK from his pedestal of popular mandate.
But Asim Munir, Bajwa’s anointed successor, isn’t any improvement over his precursor. It was on his watch that the people of Pakistan had their popular mandate, in overwhelming favor of IK and his PTI, brazenly stolen, last February 8. He has gone on to thrust a bunch of political rascals and charlatans as rulers , with no regard for the people’s fundamental rights and no freedoms of any kind. It’s, in a nutshell, a despotic state foisted on the hapless people of Pakistan.
This is the sad state of affairs that IK has drawn Asim Munir’s attention to in his detailed letter, which he unveiled on February 3 to the people of Pakistan and to the world beyond the boundaries of Pakistan.
The public relations wing of the army (ISPR), which otherwise can be counted upon to jump to its feet on anything related to politics or any political development in Pakistan, has kept an intriguing silence on IK’s letter to the military Chief. That could, easily, be indicative of the unease the contents of IK’s forthright and no-holds-barred letter must have stirred among the denizens of Pakistan’s “deep state.”
With his self-determination and innate spirit remaining untouched, or bruised in any way, by his 16-month-long, and yet unending incarceration and solitary confinement in a dark and dingy cell of Rawalpindi’s infamous Adiala Jail, IK has spoken freely and fairly
His letter, made public for the knowledge of all and sundry, highlights the tragedy of Pakistan under the military’s baptized rule by political court jesters and clowns. IK lays bare, in detail, what this incumbent, unelected, and unpopular, regime has foisted on the hapless people of Pakistan through draconian laws—the latest of which is an amendment to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) with the intent to gag free speech and put shackles on the freewheeling social media.
IK has listed, categorically, what ails Pakistan under its ongoing fascist dispensation. Starting with the stolen popular mandate of his party, last February 8, IK has gone on to mention the assault on the Constitution, through the heinous 26 th Amendment, which has led to virtual paralysis of the country’s judicial system and fostered lawlessness and rule of the jungle.
He isn’t shy in reminding the witch-hunt against his party members—thousands of whom have been thrown behind bars. He minces no words in drawing attention to his own incarceration on trumped-up cases and spurious charges that smack of a personal vendetta against him and his wife and family members.
But IK, in his candid expose of what colossal damage the authoritarian and despotic rule is doing to the concept of a democratic polity in Pakistan, doesn’t stop at listing his grievances only. He goes on to suggest remedies, too.
The foremost remedy on IK’s mind is a hark back to the primordial edict of the Founder of Pakistan: that soldiers belong only to their barracks and their primary obligation is to safeguard the physical boundaries of Pakistan. Their place isn’t in politics or in running the country from upfront or from behind the curtain, as now.
IK is determined—and he isn’t alone in this conviction—that they should call it a day. Their intrusive role in politics has only brought ruin to Pakistan. It not only truncated the Quaid’s dream Pakistan, back in 1971, but its continued ingress into the political domain has led to Pakistan becoming an international pauper and pariah.
Pakistan couldn’t be in worse shape than it is, today. Insurgency is mounting in both Baluchistan and KPK and the monster of terrorism has a free run. There’s no rule of law any longer in the country and the ongoing shenanigans to pack the Islamabad High Court with pliable and crony judges is a case in point illustrating the mess engendered by the hybrid system of governance—a bane for the country’s fortunes.
The economy is in a shambles because of political uncertainty and the absence of democratic stability. The European Union’s Commissioner of Human Rights—who was on a week-long visit to Pakistan—has minced no words in alerting the Bonapartes and their minions in the puppet regime that the facility of GSP-Plus, extended to Pakistan back in 2014, shouldn’t be taken for granted, given Pakistan’s current turmoil in the realm of absence of rule of law and a callous denial of people’s fundamental rights.
Will the EU’s public warning, coupled with IK’s sincere plea to the Bonapartes to revisit their paradigm for governance in Pakistan, touch sensitive nerves among the cabal of generals is anybody’s guess.
But IK has left his interlocutors in no doubt that he means business. He and his followers cherish a democratic Pakistan, where there’s respect for human rights and the rule of law. IK’s dream for Pakistan is no different from the dream of its founding fathers. - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
