Daily Times

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has performed exactly as predicted before the elections. Minus a rescue operation in South Punjab and elsewhere, it would not have formed a government in Punjab and struggled for one at the federal level. Now that the party has achieved its goal, all credit is being given to Imran Khan and his 22 year old struggle. No one is talking about the reasons behind this narrow victory, including his personal failings along the way.

As an expat, Pakistan is my party. Once the elections are over, I believe in supporting the government for the sake of Pakistan. This, however, does not mean candidates or political parties give up their right to protest against and rectify the election irregularities. This simply implies doing our best in whatever role we have to make things better; which includes reprimanding the government for their ineptitude and transgressions.

I have always likened Imran Khan to Peter Pan – the boy who never grew up. He is often an irrational man who imagines himself to be rational, and can get away with anything for being our national hero. However, he is the Prime Minister (PM) of Pakistan now. He needs to realise that his pleasure should not be about satisfaction of whatever irrational wishes he might have and blindly indulging in those. Reckless decisions result in the demise of options at his disposal and a great deal of time and energy is wasted in managing their fallout. He can no longer search for someone to blame for our suffering — the buck stops with him.

Khan is prone to making mistakes just like the rest of us. This is because, in the real world, we act on beliefs often based on incomplete and unreliable evidence. However, if he appoints unsuitable people to key positions, despite having the accurate knowledge and advice, it does not make sense. We had expected him to rise from the ashes of ignorance and fear, but he is leaving the solutions to our troubles to psychic intuitions. Whatever system he uses to make his decisions, it seems to be infested with madness. All progress is born out of doubt and inquiry; but in the world he is trapped, to doubt is heresy and to inquire is a sin.

If Dum Darood could progress nations, the most backward would have ruled throughout history

I have been on record that Khan’s marriage is morally, ethically and logically erroneous. It was essentiallya psychological entrapment and he went into it as if in a daydream. Contrary to the assurances, he has made one mistake after another following his marriage. He needs to realise that he has been led into a psychosomatic cul-de-sac with no way out except to bring down the parapets. He may not know that mystics want others to surrender their consciousness to their dominion as theirs is surrendered to them. Reason is their enemy as they want to command not convince, and seek power over reality and the means of perceiving that reality i.e., mind. No wonder autocrats are often depicted as mystics, and every mystic is a potential tyrant.

A real mystic is the one who has abandoned all dreams, thrown away the mirror, and looks directly into life without a medium. He or she is supposed to see the eternal progression of events in a single moment, and in a single atom see the whole reflected. But we see something different here – a desperate yearning for the world. A morbid craving to self-reveal, spread the influence, and entice through glamourous attire and cosmetics. And issuing patronising statements for the nation with a perfect confidence which is usually granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.

Mysticism is an integral part of the South Asian religious scene. It is great as long as it stays as a joyous realisation of the unity of being and is about the brotherhood of man, charity and deliverance. However, if it is confused with theological or metaphysical dogma and the spiritual journey becomes full of fear rather than hope, a dangerous occult is shaped by which the antagonist insinuates false doctrine into the minds of individuals and ultimately the structures around him. For example, Rasputin is known to have advised that before anyone can repent, they have to sin. He is also supposed to have said, “You kiss me, you kiss God. You lie with me; you lie with him.”

Sometimes only a thin line separates rational from irrational, creativity from insanity, and intelligence from absurdity. Mystics would have us believe that they have access to a deeper level of reality. The question is where does it come from? Either it comes from a supernatural being (God-forbid) or it is made possible by the existence of a special sense (intuition) that mystics have and we don’t. The latter is in line with what cognitive studies have investigated about how intuition works. It is a domain-specific type of (subconscious) information processed by the brain, yielding insights that are fallible and limited only to that domain. In case you fancy expertise in this domain, the number of hours are equivalent to those required for a PhD in an academic field.

If Dum Darood could progress nations, the most backward would have ruled throughout history. Fortunately, scientific credentials and ability to rationalise, not religious beliefs, determine the world order of nations. Khan’s fairy-tale is bound to shatter multiple times before life will paint reality in its place for him. Pray it is not too late for us before he baptises himself with the stream of rational thinking. When Khan does his fault analysis, there’s no point stepping off a cliff and then blaming gravity. Gravity isn’t going to change next time either -so there’s no point assigning responsibilities to people who are born losers and then expect wonders from them.

The writer is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Visiting Professor

Published in Daily Times, September 1^st 2018.