The other Establishment

They hide in plain sight but operate in the shadows. They scatter in the day but gather at night to scatter again as the sun nibbles away the remnants of weakening darkness. They are here, there and everywhere. And they never fade away into the twilight.

Say hello to the other Establishment.

In the game of power, it is this group of people who represent the real status quo. Yes, not the civil, military and judicial Establishment, but this group. They can smell power. They can sniff weakness. They may not have built the system, but they know better than anyone else how to work the system, how to mould the system and how to milk the system.

Who are they?

They are the politicians who swim with the current and not against it. They are the politicians who claim to provide stability, security and strength to the system. They may swing from one political party to the other but their core — consisting of hard-nosed, clear-eyed and coldly-calculated realism — holds steady.

Through the 1950s and 1960s they were the only game in town. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, one of their own, turned against his own due to a certain set of peculiar circumstances. But his revolt — if we may be bold enough to call it that — was a blip on an otherwise straight line. The blip straightened itself soon enough but the system was unforgiving and Bhutto had to pay the price. The hard-nosed, clear-eyed realists found a fertile landscape in the 1980s to strengthen their roots inside the system while absorbing nourishment from the nutritional power of the military Establishment.

Once General Ziaul Haq perished and the politics of Pakistan entered a new era, fresh undercurrents generated by the new power equation exerted unexpected stress on this politically powered and pampered breed. Sharifs and Junejos and Chatthas — once flourishing under the same mighty umbrella — now lunged for one another’s throats. The great splintering had begun.

From the early 1990s till now, the splintering continues in one form or the other. Zia’s death ushered in Bhutto’s party and through the decades Pakistan saw the rise and fall of political titans giving way to the long reign of General Pervez Musharraf and the ultimate rise of Imran Khan — and yet the core of the other Establishment held.

As it does today.

In fact, never has this Establishment been more pronounced, more powerful and more relevant than it is today. What then binds this other Establishment together? The answer may lie in how Pakistan’s power matrix has been constructed since the early days. Since the promulgation of the first martial law by Ayub Khan, the military Establishment remains the front and centre of the power hierarchy. Its relationship with the civil side of the Establishment (Bureaucracy and Judiciary) has fluctuated over the decades but the troika has held its ground as the frame around which the larger state structure is built. Politicians have climbed into power by scaling this steel and brass frame. Or they have been imprisoned inside it.

Some leaders of the people feel this structure is a relic of the past in the way that it is constructed; that it needs to be unhinged and refitted in a manner that provides space to other stakeholders. Some call it a change for the modern times; others call it developing an ideology. In either case, whoever wants to rearrange this mega structure better have the tools, the skill and the strength to undertake this gigantic task.

So far everyone who tried has been found lacking.

But those who belong to the other Establishment think differently. They respect this steel and brass structure. They recognise that working on the structure is a better option that climbing over it or being imprisoned inside it. They know power when they see it. They can sense it and smell it. That’s why they are good at pursuing it, unshackled by the limitations of beliefs that are held too strongly, too vehemently and too — dare I say — myopically.

Nowhere are such realists found in such abundance as in Punjab. They now populate the ranks of the PML-N and the PTI in generous quantities. Imran would not have been in power without them. Nawaz would not have been out of power without them. Their arrival bloated the PTI into the behemoth it is today. Their departure cut down the PML-N to the skeletal structure it is in danger of becoming.

And yet to define this other Establishment in terms of electables would be a mistake. It is the mindset, the thought process, the linear logic and the recognition and appreciation of the might of the prevalent system that binds the members of this other Establishment together. They may house themselves with Leader A today and Leader B tomorrow but at their core they remain fine connoisseurs of power flowing through the veins of the State structure.

A few years ago dreamers thought political parties were getting stronger through the growing strength of an independent judiciary, a vibrant media and a vocal civil society. These dreamers had — as it turns out — underestimated the powers of the Establishment and the other Establishment. Together now, the two Establishments are reaffirming their control over a society that seems fearful of sudden ideological convulsions. The famed ‘Erdogan Moment’ in which the mythical man of the people takes charge away from the Establishment is not really around the corner. It never was, despite what Nawaz Sharif thought. Had he looked closely inside his own ranks he would have seen a majority wearing the badge of the other Establishment.

The Age of the Establishment is upon us. Perhaps it’s for the better. The state troika forming the steel and brass structure is strengthened by the resolve of the other Establishment to play by the laid down rules. This combined strength is further buttressed by the overwhelming support of a large section of the population that aligns itself with stability, continuity and status quo.

Swimming with the tide is the rage again. Ideology can wait. So can change.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th, 2018.

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