But ask yourself whether this is why Imran Khan finds fault with the military. Obviously not! I cannot think of a single occasion where he has criticized the army’s business interests, land grabs, pursuance of enmities with our neighbors, or deplored the Taliban’s atrocities. Khan’s only gripe with the army is that after hoisting him into power it lost enthusiasm and turned “neutral”. Only animals are neutral, he famously said. We all know how earlier on he proudly would repeatedly declare that he and the army are – to quote his famous phrase – “on the same page”.

In a nutshell, Imran Khan will happily reconcile with the army as long as it will help return him to power. He hopes that they can be on the same page again. But that page is not one of democracy, more personal liberties, elimination of corruption, or economic equality through land reform. PTI’s protests are only about one thing – returning Khan to the throne which he believes rightly belongs to him. He has no manifesto for doing away with the systemic ills that have plagued Pakistan since its birth; in fact they are not even mentioned these days. Khan’s is a naked power grab. Democrats and progressives need to understand that.

Senior leaders leaving PTI – a case of coercion?

Meanwhile, senior PTI leader Shireen Mazari has announced she is quitting PTI and active politics after her release from jail. Many other leaders have left the party in the past few days. This is indeed a clear case of coercion. While Mazari and others have my sympathy – and I hope they do not get physically hurt – please note that these people didn’t stand for any principle and their stint in power was only to defend their boss and his policies. Never did they do anything to recover the thousands who went missing in Balochistan. Mazari has jumped parties countless times and was always very close to the army, but ultimately had to choose between that and her boss. Others like Fayyaz ul Hassan Chohan have also been forced to jump off the bandwagon. Those who had enjoyed power – which is all that they wanted in any case – are unwilling to bet on Imran Khan anymore.

A superior force is getting its way. May 9 has become a rallying cry for the army. Imran Khan badly miscalculated the consequences of taking the army head-on in this way. His party will now be broken up and whittled down to a bunch of die-hards. Is this resurgence of the military good for Pakistan? No, not at all.

Still, in the larger scheme of things, it does not matter whether or not the army, PTI, and PDM negotiate it out. It’s the economic collapse which is more serious. And still more serious is the drift towards extremism of a large, religiously intoxicated population which, in the blink of an eye, can be whipped up into a frenzy and which lynches anyone accused of blasphemy. In all essential matters the army, PTI, and PDM are very much on the same page. What Pakistan needs to do is turn the page.

Failure of project Imran – any lessons learned?

The military establishment has learned no lessons from the failure of Project Imran. The army is too powerful, too entrenched, and too deeply imbued with the notion that it is the only savior of Pakistan. The retreat we are presently seeing is purely temporary, and the offence posture is coming back. Yes, Project Imran crashed and therefore last November we had outgoing General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s famous mea culpa where he confessed that for seven decades the army had “unconstitutionally interfered in politics”.

May 9 has become a rallying cry for the army. Imran Khan badly miscalculated the consequences of taking the army head-on in this way. His party will now be broken up and whittled down to a bunch of die-hards. But this resurgence of the military is not good for Pakistan.

Even with Project Imran’s failure, the army’s thinking is much as before: those “bloody civilians” will make a mess of things if given too much latitude and so the army sees itself remaining the final guardian of Pakistan’s national interest. Of course this “interest” is that which the army perceives. It does not coincide with that of the ordinary Pakistani. While many emerging countries have also suffered periods of military dictatorship – Indonesia and Argentina being examples – there was enough learning there, and military rule did not recur. Pakistan is different.

As things stand, the oligarchy that rules Pakistan is largely Punjabi and largely military with just a smattering of civilians. It sees no way to preserve its extraordinary privileges except through a large military which justifies its size by invoking Kashmir. Fortunately for them, Kashmir has no foreseeable resolution. The army wants to keep the country in a state of mind just short of war; and so Kashmir gives sanction to the military’s permanent dominance over every other institution. Civilian leadership is not allowed to challenge this basic, written-in-stone rule. Where and when needed, fanatical religious groups – Deobandi earlier and Barelvi later – are to be cultivated and used as per the need of the moment.

Even with Project Imran’s failure, the army’s thinking is much as before: those “bloody civilians” will make a mess of things if given too much latitude, and so the army sees itself remaining the final guardian of Pakistan’s “national interest”.

What triggered attacks on military installations?

A broader sense of frustration among the masses due to the economic crisis was surely part of the reason for the May 9 protests and ransacking of military installations. With a single naan costing 18+ Rs. and petrol hovering around 280 Rs. per liter, there would surely be anger at those at the top. But that’s not a good enough explanation for such extreme actions. There is also a strong sense of betrayal. Let’s remember that the vandalisation of the corps commander’s house happened in Lahore where every third street is named after some war hero. The PTI protesters were venting anger at the fact that the army had now turned against the greatest and most wonderful of their heroes, i.e. their party’s leader.

But this is still not the full explanation. Normally a sensible person does not go even near an army or ISI installation. One knows that their visible fortifications are supplemented with hidden surveillance cameras – and possibly snipers as well. So how did the rioters manage to pick up so much courage? Why was there no resistance? Could it be that there were people inside who had assured them of their cooperation? Many questions remain.

Drawing parallels with 1971

Imran Khan recently drew equivalence between the establishment’s treatment of PTI and atrocities committed against the people of East Pakistan in the lead up to the creation of Bangladesh. Following this, his supporters on social media have been pushing the narrative that PTI is being treated the way Awami League and its supporters were treated by the military in the 1970s. I wonder why it took Imran Khan 50 years to realize that East Pakistan had been wronged by West Pakistan. Never before had he made any such mention. Drawing parallels with 1971 couldn’t be more absurd. The Bengalis were not just against being ruled by the army but also by the entire political elite of West Pakistan. They were victims of ethnic prejudice by virtue of being shorter and darker. Their denigration started in 1948 with Mr. Jinnah seeking to impose Urdu upon Bengalis during his very first post-partition visit to Dacca. That went on with Bengalis becoming second-class citizens in their own land. Is Mr. Khan saying he and his supporters are being treated like Bengalis? There can’t be anything more absurd.

That Khan should attempt to equate the severity of the present repression with that of 1971 is even more nonsensical. Let’s remember that there were millions of Bengalis who fled to India, and that mass rape was used as a weapon of war. The infamous General Tikka Khan is on record of saying “hum in haramzadon ki nasl badl daengay” (We will alter the race of these bastards). And let’s not forget that the students of Dacca University were machine gunned while sleeping in their hostels. That’s not even remotely connected with the present.

Mobs as a form of political expression

There are basically only two ways by which any conflict can be handled. The first is by trying to outshout your opponent or, if that does not work, by using fists and then guns. The second is through exercise of reason, understanding your opponent’s position, and then seeking to either win him over or defeat him through the force of logic. Unfortunately the upbringing and education of Pakistanis is strongly anti-logic, so PTI and PDM are equally illogical. Our heroes are those who lived by the sword, not those who lived by the pen. Mohammed bin Qasim and Mahmood Ghazni are hugely admired but Al-Farabi and Ibn-e-Rushd are barely known. Imran Khan idolizes Ertugrul, remember?

That mobs have become an important form of political expression is proof of how faith overpowers reason within our culture. In the present case it is not religious craziness but, rather, it is faith in Imran Khan as the messiah who will deliver Pakistan from every evil.

Justice is the right of all humans, and PTI rioters should be tried as per rules of the criminal justice system. Trying civilians in a military court violates the basic principles of justice. Instead, they must be allowed to defend themselves in a fair, transparent trial with access to their legal counsels.

Pervez Hoodbhoy

The author is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer

The post Dismantling Of PTI And Lessons Unlearned appeared first on Dissent Today.

That being said, the Pakistan Army cannot redeem itself by merely stating that it committed unconstitutional activities and will avoid them in the future. If General (retd) Bajwa’s statement is actually a step towards course correction, Pakistan Army will have to prove that it is disengaging itself from politics. Apart from putting an end to the act of favouring and/or disfavouring political parties, this policy-shift (if there is one) should also include ending the practice of pressuring courts, manipulating media and threatening independent activists and journalists. The institution needs to show that it has begun respecting civl liberties.

Pakistan Army will be truly believed to have stopped going beyond its constitutionally-mandated role if the following steps are taken:

1) Release Ali Wazir

An elected member of the parliament, Ali Wazir, is in jail on fabricated charges since December 2020. The fact that even bails granted to him in the many sedition cases registered against him do not guarantee his release from prison means that it is the military’s decision to keep him behind bars. Sindh government and even Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari have expressed their inability to do something about the continued persecution of an elected parliamentarian. If the establishment no longer believes in meddling in politics, Ali Wazir should be released and mistreatment of ethnic minorities and their representatives must end.

2) End persecution of activist Gulalai Ismail’s parents

Human rights activist Gulalai Ismail who had to flee Pakistan after continued death threats over her anti-establishment activism is often seeing sharing photos of her elderly parents outside anti-terrorism court where they have to appear regularly for hearings of terrorism and sedition cases registered against them. The elderly couple is being punished for their daughter’s fearless advocacy of the Pashtun community. Since the establishment can no longer harm Gulalai because she managed to leave the country unharmed, they resorted to persecuting her parents. The cases against the couple are malicious and must be withdrawn if the military is serious about restoring its image.

3) End all forms of surveillance

Surveillance by the establishment is considered a norm in Pakistan, and secret videos of politicians and public figures are recorded and later used to blackmail them. Apart from politicians, activists and journalists are also routinely followed and their phones tapped. This surveillance is sometimes used as a scare tactic, and threatening calls from untraceable numbers are made to journalists and activists. This practice of intimidating dissenting voices into silence is another habit that the establishment must overcome if it wants the public to believe the former army chief’s statement.

4) Start respecting the Constitution

Every few months, pro-military accounts and even some commentators on TV start floating the idea of Presidential system in Pakistan, saying that it is the only way to ‘save’ the country. Petitions demanding the same are filed in the courts by the usual suspects. If the military has truly disengaged itself from politics, such narrative-building to confuse the nation and undermine the democratic system in the country must also end. Under the Constitution, Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy and experiments of presidential system done in the past have failed and even led to the breakup of the country. The establishment should therefore stop its stooges in the media, who are often planted as ‘defence analysts,’ from undermining Pakistan’s Constitution.

News Desk

dissenttoday.net

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Even before the no-confidence saga, PTI had been accusing its critics of receiving foreign funding. Under the PTI, journalists who dared to challenge the regime were declared agents of CIA and RAW by government-funded troll armies on social media. Organised campaigns were launched to level such allegations not just against journalists critical of the then ruling party but also to target activists who highlighted the government’s failures. It is a bitter irony that a party whose leaders liberally used “foreign funding” allegations to malign its critics had itself been receiving illegal funding from abroad.

Imran Khan’s act of illegally hiding accounts and filing false declarations means he can be disqualified under Article 62/63 of the Constitution of Pakistan that requires one to be ‘sadiq’ and ‘ameen’ (honest and truthful). Although this provision of the Constitution is controversial and too vague to be fairly implemented, its selective application would strengthen the impression that Imran Khan is unduly favoured by the institutions.
Former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) supreme leader Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court in 2017 under the same part of the Constitution over undeclared iqama. Therefore, if Imran Khan does not face consequences for misleading the nation about the source of his party’s funding, it would mean that there is one law for him and another for other politicians.

Expecting that the ECP would expose the truth about his party, Imran Khan had recently sought the chief election commissioner’s resignation many times, following which PTI’s social media team had initiated smear campaigns against him.

Just a few days before the verdict, Imran Khan had called on his party’s workers to hold a demonstration outside the ECP office in Islamabad. Even after his surprising landslide victory in the recently held by-elections in Punjab, Imran continued attacking the ECP and accused it of bias. It is now clear that his criticism of the election watchdog was an attempt to discredit it ahead of the prohibited funding verdict against the party.

Meanwhile, PTI spokespersons are trying to justify their party’s misrepresentation of facts, with former minister Fawad Chaudhry saying that Imran Khan was unaware of the undeclared accounts. The PTI cannot put a reasonable defence, and is likely to further censure the ECP in hopes of threatening the institutions into submission.
Observers also indicate that the Supreme Court is likely to grant PTI relief if it hears the case, as the top court’s controversial three-member bench is known to issue evidently pro-PTI judgments — to the extent that the judges backtracked from their own earlier orders when it suited the party.

The Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government that has been discredited by the PTI through the party’s slogans against “treason” and “foreign conspiracy” now has an opportunity to counter Imran Khan’s hateful rhetoric by highlighting his hypocrisy in accepting and hiding prohibited foreign funding — all the while accusing them of being foreign agents.

The coalition government had been losing the war of narratives as Imran Khan’s populist rhetoric based on lies about a “foreign conspiracy” appeared to have been well-received among the public. PML-N and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) have been unprepared to fight on the narrative front as they had let Imran Khan’s dangerous narrative go unchallenged. The results of the Punjab by-election proved that populism works, especially when there is no one to challenge it.

With the ECP verdict, the PDM parties now have an opportunity to challenge the PTI’s narrative that had created an increased sense of polarisation in the country. The public needs to be told that a party that created an ‘us vs them’ environment, pitted the citizenry against each other and termed all its opponents “traitors” has itself been dishonest to the nation.

News Desk

dissenttoday.net

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