The PTI government has raised the game of the demonisation of political opponents to another level. Last week, Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi tried to link the parliamentary opposition with the acts of violence committed during the TLP protests.
Afridi told the Senate that the leaders of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan had denied that the violent protesters belonged to the group. The minister conveniently shifted the blame to the activists of the mainstream political opposition parties, which had supported the government throughout the mayhem. The minister of state presented no evidence in support of his outlandish accusation.
The statement cannot be seen as an emotional political outburst as the minister was speaking on the floor of the upper house, representing the federal government. His statement has serious policy and political implications as it amounts to granting impunity to the TLP leadership. It also presents a dangerous escalation in the already poisonous political atmosphere in the country.
These statements and a number of other steps show that the PTI in government wants to continue with the tools and techniques it used as an opposition party, when it aimed to break the duopoly of the PML-N and the PPP – what Imran Khan termed as muk muka and rule by turns – through a no-holds-barred strategy.
Imran Khan has demonised his political opponents from the very beginning to create a space for himself in a political market place dominated by the duopoly of two powerful political parties. From the very beginning, he tried to tarnish the image of the whole political class, holding them responsible for all the ills in the country.
During the last year of the PML-N government, the PTI raised the tempo to a feverish level, linking the ruling party with everything bad that happened in the country – or even abroad. For example, the party joined Khadim Rizvi in implicating the then ruling party in blasphemy, and also declared former prime minister Nawaz Sharif as an agent of enemy states.
Unfortunately, these techniques are too familiar in today’s world where democracy is receding under the onslaught of the populist politics. This is how a report by the Amnesty International commented on the situation: “Today’s politics of demonisation shamelessly peddles a dangerous idea that some people are less human than others, stripping away the humanity of entire groups of people. This threatens to unleash the darkest aspects of human nature…Seismic political shifts (have) …exposed the potential of hateful rhetoric to unleash the dark side of human nature…The global trend of angrier and more divisive politics was exemplified by Donald Trump’s poisonous campaign rhetoric, but political leaders in various parts of the world also wagered their future power on narratives of fear, blame and division.”
Imran Khan is not the first to use fear, blame and division as political techniques. Nawaz Sharif did the same to break the monopoly of the PPP on politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was able to build a popular political party using similar resources and techniques.
Nawaz Sharif’’s success ushered in a two-party system in Pakistan, a kind of duopoly that did not leave much space for other political parties or new entrants. Imran Khan entered politics with the stated aim to break this duopoly and he finally succeeded in 2018. Whatever the reasons and conditions, the PTI is the largest political party in Pakistan today. So what can Imran Khan achieve by continuing with the same game?
This question can be explained along two lines. Saeed Shafqat had outlined two contradictory tendencies in Pakistan’s political system in his excellent book, ‘Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan: From Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to Benazir Bhutto’. According to Shafqat: “In the first, the primary objective was to curb participatory politics and to subordinate the political parties and other autonomous interest groups to military hegemony. ...In the second instance, the primary concern was to subordinate the military bureaucratic elites to civilianed (one) party dominance, and to build an alternative to military rule.”
Throughout the 1990s, the PML-N sought to establish single-party dominance in the country by taking a number of steps. It laid out an elaborate patronage network, never seen before in the country. This network turned agriculture-based and middle-class politicians into sugar barons and owners of textile mills. Civil services were systematically subordinated to the Sharif family, earning the services the name of Ittefaq Civil Services (ICS).
The opposition, led by Benazir’s PPP, took the brunt of a vilification campaign and dozens of trumped-up court cases. The sections of the media that could not be bought was constantly harassed and intimidated. Some of the most senior journalists had to face treason charges for speaking against the government. This phase ended in May 2006 when Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto signed the historic Charter of Democracy, vowing to transform Pakistan’s political culture.
In many ways, the PTI has taken us back to the politics of the 1990s and – still uncertain of its hold over power – wants to continue with the techniques that brought it to power. It has also tried to subjugate the civil services just as Nawaz Shairf had done in the 1990s. The PTI is also relying on the accountability mechanism to trap its political opponents in the way that reminds us of the 1990s. [The director general of NAB, Lahore, decided to go on the media with his guns blazing against opposition leaders, revealing details of investigations].
The second scenario is even more ominous. Imran Khan is simply doing what all authoritarian populists are doing around the world. He is on his way to becoming Pakistan Erdogan or Vladimir Putin. Ironically, both are seen in a positive light in Pakistan. Any move to authoritarianism in a plural society like Pakistan by a party that enjoys limited popularity is rife with risks of political instability and divide that may require more suppression and fuel further instability.
The PTI can do better than this. By focusing on implementing its promises, it can change the destiny of the nation and get popularity while entrenching a democratic culture in Pakistan. Most of these promises cannot be fulfilled without promoting political stability and creating a broad consensus among various political forces and social groups.
Imran Khan has been telling us constantly that he is a real liberal, of the Western type, while all Pakistan liberals are blood-thirsty types who do not understand the meaning of liberalism. The PTI cannot stake claim to any brand of liberalism by cowering in front forces like the TLP and attacking the political parties that represent a vote bank that is cumulatively much larger than the PTI’s. Haven’t we had enough of this game?
The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.
Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com
Twitter: @zaighamkhan
