The damage of demagoguery

Demagoguery is a manipulative approach that appeals to the worst nature of people. Demagoguery isn’t based on reason, issues, and doing the right thing; it is based on stirring up fear and hatred to control people. Demagoguery is one of the most negative aspects of politics, but it’s also one that’s all too common.

Following his ouster from power last month, former prime minister Imran Khan has practised a brand of agitational politics that comes closest to demagoguery. As a consequence, the country has been left deeply polarized, its society segmented and people disoriented. What’s more, it has made Pakistani politics look ugly, nasty and at its lowest depths.

The PTI’s refusal to admit that its political nemesis, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), has not only outsmarted it in a no-confidence move through a parliamentary vote but also brought them to power has became the main driver of its current political protests.

Instead of acknowledging its political defeat, the PTI has concocted a political narrative in which it has blamed a Washington-backed conspiracy for its fall from power. The party has alleged that this conspiracy was carried out through local agents, the PDM leaders, as early as last June, and was executed in April this year, leading to PM Imran Khan’s ouster from power.

Imran Khan has pedaled this manifestly false narrative in all his public rallies held in major cities of Pakistan. The PTI is threatening a million march toward Islamabad at the end of May to force the PDM to resign and extract from it the promise of immediate and early elections. The party hopes to ride its current wave of popularity and win a big majority in the next elections.

But the most worrisome aspect of this patently false narrative is its acceptance by major chunks of the youth of Pakistan who have been enamored of Imran Khan and are blindsided by his demagoguery and doublespeak. Imran Khan has used allegories selectively from the history of the Subcontinent – especially from Muslim history – to excoriate and discredit the current military leadership as guilty of “treachery” by behaving like “Mir Jaffers” and “Mir Sadiq” in the power-struggle between the PTI and PDM.

Not only that, he has also been fulminating against the honourable judges of the Supreme Court and has repeatedly accused them of being biased against the PTI. In fact, he has questioned the credibility of all those individuals and institutions that disagree with his twisted version of contemporary history.

The most unfortunate aspect of this political demagoguery is that there is no counter-attempt by the powers that be to present a real picture to the people of Pakistan. Left unanswered and unchallenged, the PTI’s ongoing vilification campaign against the current government, the military leadership, the superior judiciary, has more than a good chance to succeed.

Like all totalitarian regimes of the past, Imran Khan too is relying on propaganda, half-truths and at times total lies about himself to drive the point home that he lost power due to a Washington-based conspiracy. Per this narrative, as a hegemon, the US wanted to keep Pakistan enslaved and did not want the country to have an ‘independent foreign policy’.

Imran Khan has successfully used digital platforms and the power of social media to erroneously project him as a modern-day Messiah to create a just society a la ‘Madina ki Riasat’. He has been able to cast his ouster from power as a “grand conspiracy” hatched by external forces and internal ‘enemies of Pakistan’, aimed at the perpetual enslavement of the Pakistani people. Following his latest outburst in which Imran Khan drew an analogy regarding Mir Jaffer, there has been a severe reaction from the top army leadership.

An ISPR statement took an exception to such a blatantly false characterization and asked all political forces to refrain from attempts to forcibly drag the Pakistan military into their political feuds. A group of retired army officers has also condemned such attacks on the military’s high command and stated that those accusing Pakistan’s military’s top leadership as ‘traitors’ are actually themselves ‘traitors’.

One of the main reasons why Imran Khan has hurled such baseless allegations in his public rallies is that he fears the current government will expose the many wrongdoings of the fallen PTI regime, including the alleged many instances of cases of mega corruption involving Ms Farah Gogi, Malam Jabba, Ring Road and the alleged plethora of corrupt practices carried out in Punjab under Usman Buzdar’s tenure as chief minister.

The longer the present coalition set up stays, the greater are the chances of the PTI’s corrupt practices being brought to light – especially the party’s involvement in the foreign funding case.

To avoid being exposed for its share of corrupt practices, the former ruling party has adopted a very aggressive posture and has repeated its demand for early elections. But in so doing Imran Khan is treading a dangerous path. He mistakenly thinks that by getting the urban Pakistani youth on his side he can win the battle of narratives against the Pakistan state.

History is replete with examples where such attempts have ended up in smoke. False narratives per force have a limited life span and people cannot be fooled forever.

Imran Khan is a self-styled leader who uses religion for his personal political aggrandizement – but he cannot escape the judgment of history for too long. He may seem to be riding the crest wave of popularity but the truth will catch up with him soon. Till that time of true reckoning, he is at liberty to speak and spin the truth, as he likes. But his chicanery is pushing the country towards violent chaos, anarchy and enduring instability. As a result of his political demagoguery Pakistan has reached a dangerous tipping point of disequilibrium. It will take a long time to undo the damage.

The writer is a professor and HOD at the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, NUST.