What Did The Establishment Get Out Of This Imran Khan Phenomenon?

Politically, Pakistan is one of those countries, where politics has by and large revolved around the most powerful institution of the country that is the Army. Army has been busy forging alliances, vilifying particular parties, defaming political leaders, elevating certain touts to the level of a leader, then using their resources to glorify him and when they succeed in all their vicious games, they finally are able to launch a coup over the country because all the actual political leaders are by then made to look like crooks with no integrity whatsoever. And because the political leaders are left with no utility in public’s eyes, the coup gets successful. The first time, Ayub and Sikander were able to do it in a great fashion in 1958. They kept putting up mindless creatures on the throne and in the end, when they knew nothing could be corrected, they put up Hussain Shaheed Suharwardi, a man of great skills and a lover of Quiad-e-Azam. However, it was just another political move as the duo knew that nothing could be improved now. They handed over the seat to Suharwardi, he couldn’t make it right, lost his integrity as well and so Ayub and Sikander were left with no obstacle in their way. They got rid of him and imposed Martial Law on the country. The smarter one, Ayub, hardly after a week, struck down Sikander as well, and thus the long tiring Army rule began which ended after 13 years and took away Bengal from us to make it Bangladesh.

 

Since then, the forces have mastered the art and have been successful in imposing three martial laws. One of them was by Zia in 1977 and the other two were imposed by General Musharraf on Oct 12, 1999 and Nov 3, 2007. All, but the one in 2007, were accepted by the public by and large without any serious resistance. But in 2007, the masses, the civil society, the media and everyone in their capacity resisted and most importantly the lawyers and the judges were up in arms against it. It is a delusion that the judiciary, the media or the civil society were able to resist it because these institutions have got stronger. This notion is false and rejected straight away by my brain as these institutions are still no stronger than an army of think-tanks and evil-geniuses who are sitting in that GHQ. The main reason why public was able to resist it was the credibility that Musharraf and his dark regime lacked. They did not have the guts to fight a judge and a few lawyers only because he did not have the credibility that could get him support from the masses. As a result, he had to get an election conducted in time and the two biggest political parties PPP and PML-N came to power. It’s a different story that People's Party wasn’t able to deal with the politicking of the army again and couldn’t fulfill its promises that it had made to go into an alliance with Muslim League.

Musharraf had to leave the Presidency and Asif Ali Zardari who had long been declared corrupt in the eyes of the masses, got himself ascended to the throne. Now, the lack of governance, corruption charges (right or wrong) and a complete disconnect from the public and its aspirations made the ruling party to lose its credibility in the eyes of the public. It is sad to observe that Pakistan People’s Party was unable to deliver and thus almost everyone knew that in the next elections, PPP would not be able to get any considerable success.

Normally in democracies, the opposition is considered to be the government in waiting. Same was the case with Pakistan. Almost everyone knew that Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) was going to win the elections whenever they were conducted and would lead the country afterwards. But, as the real masters of this country sitting in the GHQ are way more advanced in their thinking as compared to us, they are always loaded with surprising tricks that they unleash just at the right time. We, the “mango people” cannot even think what the masters are planning about our lives. Same happened this time. How? Let me explain.

We thought PML-N was the government in waiting. They knew it as well. Nothing has changed. PML-N will come to power and they also know it and they don’t have a problem with that. So, what wrong have they done? Why am I cursing them? Actually, they have masterfully cloned out a leader on the social and mainstream media naming Imran Khan. This poor chap is good for nothing and does not even know what a politician is, how politics is done and what are the qualities that a leader must possess. He has studied at Oxford, has read a few books and feels he knows a lot and as Adnan Rasool once put it in one of his tweets, “…to him what he knows is all there is to know”. So, poor guy kept longing for a break, like the extras in a film industry wait for their chance, but every time he got a chance, he failed to capitalize on it. This time, however, the masters felt that this guy can be used and if it works, they have a game at hand for sure. So, with all theri might they started to make a leader out of the crap.

The dead horse was given a third chance, a large number of media personnel were told to use the word “change” in their discussions, this word “change” was made a slogan of PTI and then it was beaten like a drum everywhere. Interesting thing to note is that they were not even able to make a term of their own and it was imported from Obama’s campaign in the US or his elections. PTI targeted the youth of the country, mainly because it is delineated from the politics of the country by and large and it was the only faction of the society that had no prior affiliations with parties. Youth, the poor youth, knows nothing about the politics and the political history of the country and thus are the most vulnerable to be politically exploited in the name of “change”. They do not even know what change actually is.

As a result, Imran became a popular face on the media, solo interviews were conducted with him and some of the shows like the one on Dunya TV interviewed him almost twice a week. He was given the most air-time on TV and thus was able to communicate his message to a large number of people. Then the October 30^th occurred and the mad guys like me kept standing in the Iqbal Park all day long to see their leader speak. He criticized everyone and also gave a few suggestions to improve the situation of the country that he considered were the only hurdles in the country's way towards glory. He was given a task by the masters to take on one political party only. Why? Here the game actually starts. I have already said that it is all about credibility. So Imran Khan kept putting a dent on PML-N’s credibility by questioning their assets. Now it is a vague sort of thing to ask someone to declare the assets and when one does, tell him to declare the actual ones. God knows how this thing could be sorted out but our poor youth who does not even have a hint of what they were up to, kept dancing on the same beat the masters wanted them to.

However, PTI started to take old faces in the party and with time, the actual PTI started to diminish. All of those who had been giving their best to the party for the last 15 years were sidelined and a new group of politicians took the charge. It is said that it was a necessity of Imran Khan to take them in the party but then I ask why? And how can we say that he was forced by the conditions to take them in? The fact is that he was always alleged by Musharraf that he left him because Musharraf was not willing to give him 100 seats by forging the elections. We refused to believe that dictator but it was proved this time that he was right. The point is that it was the first time that political stalwarts actually decided to join PTI and without even a hint of resistance Imran took them in. It is another story that no “wicket has fallen” ever since the departure of General Pasha. Last night, on the eve of August 13, 2012, Sheikh Rasheed was also taken into an alliance by PTI. It was a message clear enough for those who know that there is no reason now to believe that Imran Khan is not a GHQ’s man. It was a flop show and a very little number of people attended the gathering and even out of those few a large number of people were raising slogans in favor of Nawaz Sharif.

It was a clear indication that PTI is nowhere near winning an election, at least in Pindi where the former Senior Vice President of PML-N Javed Hashmi says, PTI will sweep from. A large number of workers have already left PTI and more are to follow the trend after last night’s flop show. It has also become clear that media and facebook cannot make someone a leader and it is only the people who decide who their leader would be. A recent Gallup survey has showed that PTI is just a balloon and in none of the provinces, it holds anything called sweeping majority of population behind it. In most areas it is the second best and even this survey was conducted 6 months back when PTI was at its peak.

So what did the GHQ get out of it? That is not too hard to get. PPP had already lost its credibility. PML-N was forced to go back to the traditional politics that is constituency based and in which strong candidate is the most important thing while the third option stands today as an establishment’s stooge. Next government will be made by PML-N but the dent that this Imran Khan phenomenon has put on their integrity will be quite hard to correct. The third option has already been labeled as a gimmick, which it actually is, and just like Ayub got to the throne after defaming all, there will be another General who will come forward as saying “My dear countrymen…..”.

A few of the readers may say media, judiciary or civil society and their role have not been discussed in this piece. Sorry folks!!! But I feel them to be irrelevant. It is only between political parties and the establishment. Rest are mere side ways that can be altered at will by the masters when the road needs to be constructed, just the way they did it last year to make a leader out of nothing.