Imran Khan’s ouster and rebranded democracy

Three great revolutions in the areas of science, industry and politics laid the groundwork for European success. In universities, we teach the contributions of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Montesquieu and Rosseau as the great scholars of the enlightenment era, the age of reason who made their great contributions to how to create a reasonably functional, constitutional nation-state. History tells us that the great cause of enlightenment was the Thirty Years’ War (1618- 1648). This war was horrible and destructive and thus compelled German writers to pen harsh criticism on ideas such as nationalism and warfare. What enlightenment scholars did to the world was explain to it that reason was the primary source of legitimacy and authority. They became the advocates of such great ideals as liberty, tolerance, constitutional government and separation of church and state.

This all happened about 500 years ago; and following and practising the ideals of the enlightenment period, West became reasonable and happy. Amazingly, we in this post-war on terror period are still irrational and unreasonable as a society and as a nation and thus continue to remain hopeless and unhappy for most things that happen to us on which we as people have little or no control and because of which in routine our heads bow down in shame.

Do we also need a dose of enlightenment? Could we also finally decide that enough is enough and let’s be sensible and reasonable? Can we also have our age of reason – Pakistan’s revival through an era of reason in which all that is untrue, unjust, unfair and unmerited is not only condemned but thrown out of our lives with its pages torn from our history’s book? Can we do this? Doing this would need the political will of a great leader who can bring about a systemic change riding on the shoulders of the popular aspirations of the people of this country. People are aspiring for a change and they are looking up to a leader to bring about this change. The democratic coup that took place on the ill-fated night of 9 April clearly demonstrated that even after 500 years we didn’t learn anything from the age of enlightenment.

Hobbes advocated the centralisation of power in an absolute sovereign. Who was that absolute sovereign on the night of the downfall of former PM Imran Khan’s government? Where did absolute sovereignty rest? In which institution? Locke, the reluctant democrat, dictated the concept of sharing of power. On the night of the judicial coup, was power shared and rested in all institutions or was it projected in absolute terms by only one sovereign, the institution of the judiciary? Montesquieu authored the theory of separation of power and believed that power that rested in other institutions of the state is always balanced by the great power of law-making parliament. If alive today, he would have felt an irresistible urge to pull his hair witnessing the surrender of a helpless and powerless parliamentary and democratic form of government in the face of some immoral and unethical political wheeling and dealing. And Rosseau, if he was alive and if he had witnessed this Pakistani democratic coup, he would undoubtedly have laughed at all these other scholars who advocated their great theories of absolute sovereignty, social contract, liberty, rights and separation of power. Rosseau was different; he was revolutionary and spoke of how “the powerful and rich fooled the common people into accepting them as their rulers”. He never considered the social contract as a willing agreement and, in fact, called it a fraud against the common people committed by the rich. Maybe what Rosseau believed in was literally proved right on that unfortunate night of judicial coup in Pakistan. So, given the circumstances where is democracy heading in Pakistan?

One can clearly sense that democracy in Pakistan is in the process of getting rebranded. Rebranding in the corporate sector is a common market strategy for creating a different identity for a brand. That is done by reintroducing it in the market by changing its symbol, design or name with the sole purpose of making it more acceptable and competitive in the market. If democracy in Pakistan was rebranded on the night of 9 April, what was it that we were trying to reintroduce and sell to our people?

People view this rebranded democracy as nothing more than slavery and they believe that this new brand which has been mainstreamed to the market would not have been possible without two important factors – judicial activism and military neutrality.

Product rebranding is only necessitated if the product earns a bad reputation in the market. Was Imran Khan’s government so bad that the introduction of a rebranded version had become an absolute compulsion and an irreversible necessity? Even if it was such essentiality, why substitute it with a brand that was already tested and tried in the market? Given that this brand of democracy already had a failure, who was betting on its success?

Common sense and not any grand market strategy were required to figure out that this rebranded model of democracy or a product of someone’s twisted brand vision was never going to succeed. Generally rebranding as a concept fails when the companies don’t do enough research. They get so focused and involved in the planning, designing and promoting of the new brand that they forget or neglect to carry out the market research. That market research was not carried out and today the result is that people just don’t want this rebranded democracy.

This rebranded democracy which has been prematurely launched is widely unacceptable to the people. The key foundation stones on which democracy is built are liberty, equality and freedom but the foundation stones of this rebranded democracy are already known to the people which they believe are the dynastic rule, corruption, fraud and nepotism. The so-called visionaries of this brand change have unfortunately laid the groundwork for the emergence of these tested and tried groups of elites who are luminaries of an already failed administrative system that they previously ran and destroyed.

As I write this, I watch these unfortunate visuals of the government celebrities who had gone to perform Umra being subjected to people’s accountability who are mobbing them and raising slogans of chor, chor. This is unfortunate but this is also spontaneous and natural. There is still time, and this is the third consecutive piece that I am ending only with one wish – please read the mood of the people and read it correctly before it is too late.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2022.

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