Islamabad is bracing for the second assault of Imran Khan in two years. Living in the city, it is not hard to imagine how the people of Delhi must have felt when the invading army of Nadir Shah was marching towards the capital of the empire. While the Mughal monarch, Mohammad Shahd Rangeela, kept reassuring his subjects that the Persian king was still far from the city, Nadir Shah arrived and conquered Delhi without any resistance.
This is the scenario portrayed by the commander of the invading tigers’ army. The king of Pakistan is supposed to flee the capital soon after the invasion and justice will prevail ever after under the tricoloured flag of the PTI.
The government chose to break the suspense prematurely on October 27 when scores of PTI workers were arrested from a youth convention in Islamabad. Rather than waiting for the big bang, the government chose to trigger multiple controlled explosions. This was a risky move because it could have resulted in widespread disturbances. The PTI took the bait and Imran Khan called for countrywide protests on the next day. A huge protest rally was already planned in Rawalpindi in front of Sheikh Rashid’s residence.
Unfortunately, the PTI failed to make an impressive show; there were no serious countrywide protests; only a few hundred workers turned up at Bani Gali in the evening and no rally could take place in Rawalpindi though Sheikh Rashid’s escape on a motorcycle saved created quite a spectacle. However, that does not mean that the revolutionary train has lost the steam.
The PTI is all set for a revolution against the monarchy of Mian Nawaz Sharif. To quote Mao Zedong: “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence whereby one class overthrows another….proper limits have to be exceeded in order to right a wrong, or else wrong cannot be righted.”
Taking a leaf out of Mao’s book, Imran Khan has clearly hinted that his second assault may not be all that peaceful. Imran Khan’s statements have stirred the Islamabad High Court and also given the government a chance to flex its muscles. The IHC wants the government to recognise the PTI’s right to protest as well as people’s right to enjoy their rights without any disturbance. It wants the government to keep all roads open and also wants the PTI to confine its protest to a venue without disrupting life in the city. However, that hardly sounds like anyone’s idea of a revolution and the PTI immediately raised questions about the jurisdiction of the court and impartiality of the honourable judge. The government, on its part, has defined the ruling according to its own convenience, starting a crackdown on the party.
Peaceful, restrained protest confined to a venue does not suite the rhythm of the revolution and it cannot overthrow a government in a democratic dispensation. On February 15, 2003, Britain witnessed its largest demonstration when an estimated one million protesters took to the streets of London to oppose the looming war against Iraq. Large peaceful protests were also held all over the country and around the world. Up to 60,000 protesters gathered in Glasgow and up to 90,000 in Dublin, while Italy had the biggest protest, with an estimated two million peace campaigners on the streets of Rome. However, the elected governments in Europe refused to listen to the protesters and sent their armies to support the US in the Iraq war.
Peaceful protests can be very hard to handle for weak-kneed monarchies and dictatorships. In the late 20th century, a number of movements have been able to demonstrate that longstanding dictatorships can be overturned without bloodshed. Timothy Garton Ash, a British historian teaching at Oxford University, has argued that these movements have marked the birth of a new style of revolution qualitatively different from the French and Communist model of 1789 and 1917.
Although the change is not immediate, according to well-quoted research by a Erica Chenoweth, an American political scientists, “from 1900 to 2006, 35 percent to 40 percent of authoritarian regimes that faced major nonviolent uprisings had become democracies five years after the campaign ended, even if the campaigns failed to cause immediate regime change. For the nonviolent campaigns that succeeded, the figure increases to well over 50 percent.”
But there is a problem; the current government is not a dictatorship by any stretch of imagination. It is less powerful than a normal democratic government because the transition to democracy that started in 2008 is not yet over. It enjoys limited control over foreign policy and security institutions. Its only strength lies in its popular support. You may like it or not, but the PML-N is still the most popular political party in the country and Nawaz Sharif is the single most popular political leader. Survey after survey shows that a status quo remains in the realm of public opinion. The king of Raiwind remains far more popular than the Che Guevara of Bani Gala.
Well aware of this situation, the PTI regularly attacks the legitimacy of democracy, calling into questions the choices made by people. Rather than public support, Imran Khan has focused more and more on his own honesty and righteousness of his cause. He has come dangerously close to the argument of those ulema who assert that only religious jurists have the right to rule a Muslim country. No wonder, one of the models of revolution he never tires of citing is that of Iran which resulted in a semi-democratic theocracy.
The PTI tigers may not be aware but Pakistan is no stranger to peaceful revolutions. Perhaps, it is the only country in the world that threw out three military dictators in the post-world war era through peaceful uprisings. The reason for this unusual resilience lies in the strength of its political parties, which represent almost every segment of society and also unite different ethnic and religious groups through their countrywide appeal.
There have also been uprisings that turned out to be counter-revolutions and resulted in dictatorships. In 1977, the PNA movement popularly known as Tehreek-e-Nizam-e-Mustafa succeeded in overthrowing the elected prime minister only to bring in the dictatorship of Ziaul Haq. The hero of that movement was Air Marshal Asghar, who, according to Imran Khan, is his role model in politics.
The last revolution, which saw Pervez Musharraf fleeing the country, also created another kind of upset. It broke an established template by resulting in the return of a prime minister who was ousted by a dictator. Iskandar Mirza, ousted by Ayub, died in London in pathetic conditions and was denied burial in Pakistan. Bhutto was hanged and hurriedly buried in his ancestral village.
But the past is another country and the future is always pregnant with new possibilities. Perhaps, my next column will be a revolutionary anthem in praise of our new rightful ruler.
The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.
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