Daily Times

The second major plank (the first was discussed in the article published yesterday) of Imran Khan’s politics is that the action against the militant Islamic groups by the military should be stopped immediately and peace talks should be initiated. Many analysts who have followed the jihadi organisations and the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan have explained that the terrorist activities by these outfits will not go away if the state would lay down arms, instead of the other way around. The whole issue is much more complex than Imran Khan tries to portray it.

His contention is that terrorism in Pakistan will end once the US and its allies leave Afghanistan. But what he forgets is that it has existed even before 2001 as various jihadi forces were nurtured by our establishment in Pakistan. Then there is the whole al Qaeda-inspired ideological basis of jihadi organisations, which aims at establishing an Islamic Caliphate on the pattern of the Taliban government that was overthrown in Afghanistan by the US and the anti-Taliban forces in 2001. A trailer of this was seen in Swat where when Islamists were given a chance, they wanted not only to establish a parallel system based on their brand of shariah but expand it to the rest of Pakistan. The people of Swat celebrated their liberation from these actors. The army still has to protect the people from Mullah Fazlullah who recently attacked a checkpost in Chitral to enter the now peaceful valley.

After the withdrawal of the US forces, Afghanistan is likely to drift into a worse turmoil — yes, worse than what it is facing at present. The success of the Taliban in Afghanistan would be dangerous for the Pakistani moderate society as it will give a boost to the jihadis. At the same time there is the danger of both Pakistan and India competing with each other in Afghanistan for influence. Imran’s policy of appeasing the Taliban is thus going to disappoint the urban youth and the pop-band lovers. It is also contradictory to his recent statement that he will not allow Pakistan’s land to be used by the terrorists against any neighbours.

There are a number of other factors that are ignored in Imran’s narrative. Most probably it is the influence of the ex-Jamaat leaders and political workers who joined him when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was launched. That was before the middle class, politically-uneducated urban youth and so-called political heavyweights started pinning their hopes on him.

Imran Khan has been soft-peddling against the real rulers of Pakistan — the military establishment. Many commentators have alleged that he is being presented as an alternate to Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML). It is heartbreaking for the establishment to have a Punjabi leader, Nawaz Sharif, challenging its control on realpolitik. Whether the PTI’s rise is supported by the establishment or not, the Lahore performance of the party shows that it would be an ‘MQM’ to the PML-N in urban Punjab as the MQM is to the PPP in Sindh. When the MQM was rising in the mid-1980s, the establishment wanted to use it to neutralise the PPP and Sindhi nationalists. But the MQM developed a mind of its own as it got power in urban Sindh. This is so typical of all such forces that are initially nurtured by the establishment. Jihadi outfits that have challenged the army are a case in point.

Now I would like to share three anecdotes in their chronological order for the benefit of some friends who ask if Imran Khan will bring a change. When asked whether they would be willing to support Imran’s Islamist stance as people who believe in liberal secular politics, generally their reply was that they would be able to bring him closer to their thinking. This reminded me that when Bhutto took over the PPP’s leadership from J A Rahim and Mubashir Hasan, who were in the initial stages of making a left-of-centre party, some leading landlords of Sindh and Punjab started joining him. A leading leftist student leader of Karachi told us that Bhutto is a good man and the leftists should support him to marginalise the feudal lords. But at the end of the day we saw that Bhutto marginalised the leftist founding members like J A Rahim, Mubashir Hasan and Meraj Muhammad Khan. By 1977, Bhutto had all the big landlords with him and he was out to appease the religious parties. He declared the Ahmedis a minority, Friday as the weekly holiday, and banned liquor. Religious slogans were splashed at the Nishtar Park election meeting, replacing the leftist slogans of the 1970 rally. And by 1977 he became a hostage in the hands of the defeated and humiliated army, which was resurrected by him and unleashed against his political opponents in Balochistan.

Cut and fast-forward to the Musharraf period before the 2002 elections. A banker friend asked me to join him for lunch at PC Karachi to meet Imran Khan. Elated Imran narrated in detail his exclusive lunch with President General Musharraf. He said that Musharraf has told him: “You and I can work together.” Imran had no reservations about Musharraf bringing a coup against an elected government, his Kargil adventure that humiliated the country, and his pro-US policies. But Musharraf said the same thing to Chaudhry Shujaat and this time meant business.

Next a Sindhi ex-PPP leader, who is a nationalist at heart, invited me to meet Imran at his house where he had some Sindhi politicians also. This was a larger crowd. After listening to Imran’s views, the Sindhi leaders, who are provincial assembly members also, asked a simple power politics question: will the establishment support his party? Imran did not rule it out. However, recently when pressed by the CNN-IBN and PML allegations that he is the establishment’s man, Imran said that if elected to power he will dictate the policies and the military establishment would be kept out of politics. He thinks that the high moral ground of an elected government can counter any interference by the intelligence agencies in making policies. Is it that simple in a country where the war economy has created a strong vested interest lobby?

A senior analyst, who specialises on the military in Pakistan, is of the view that the senior members of the establishment are divided between liberal nationalists, who are pro-US as they want its financial and technically sophisticated weapons; the other group is of conservative nationalists, which is inclined towards China as an alternate source, and then there is a section that is fundamentalist and wants to break all ties with the US. This I think explains Imran’s stance on Afghanistan, which is anti-US but he is favourably inclined towards China. The establishment, it seems, is preparing a political ally for post-2014, when the US forces will withdraw from Afghanistan; an ally who can also keep the fundamentalists happy.

But his politics and views will get diluted during the course of the next one year to the general elections. The dilution of his hard views against the corrupt politicians has already started as many PPP and PML-Q disgruntled elements are being welcomed in his party. At the same time it is quite safe to forecast that all future civilian governments are going to be coalition governments — meaning that a lot has to be given on the table while cobbling an alliance.

Imran’s PTI may change the balance of political power in Punjab but that he can bring any change in the power politics between the establishment and politicians who are elected in a democratic dispensation is a big question mark. As an Islamist party, he will also have to show whether he will follow the Justice Party of Turkey course or just another faction of the Jamaat-e-Islami with pop music and digital media yuppies in his rallies as a point of difference. He says he is a follower of Allama Iqbal, but little does he realise that pan-Islamism of our national poet is a thing of the past with no relevance to the present 21st century world.

(Concluded)

The writer can be reached at ayazbabar@gmail.com