Thus spake Khan

I wonder if Imran Khan realises that a fatal contradiction lies at the heart of the message the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is sending out to the electorate. On the one hand, the party is promising economic renewal in the country. And on the other hand, it is promising to ramp up the militarisation of Pakistan’s state and society. These are two incompatible agendas and this incompatibility has already been discovered by the last ‘establishment politician’, Imran Khan’s predecessor — Nawaz Sharif.

Watching the emergence of Imran Khan, I am reminded a little of Nawaz Sharif’s rise to power, although there are some important differences in the precise circumstances of the latter. The biggest difference is that Nawaz Sharif rose from ‘within the ranks’ so to speak. He had already been chief minister of Punjab for two terms before he became prime minister in 1990 and made his bid for party leadership — first in the PML and second in the IJI — by presenting himself as the alternative to Junejo.

Junejo had displeased his khaki masters because his government had dared to talk about a cut in defence expenditures and because it dared to chart an independent course in the endgame in Afghanistan that was shaping up following the Soviet withdrawal. Long before Junejo jolted Zia by signing the Geneva Accords that gave the world the commitment that Pakistan would not interfere in Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out, Junejo’s government had talked about sharing the pain of a sharp reduction in government expenditures with the military. A fiscal adjustment had become inevitable in view of a massive piling up of government debt during the three years of Junejo’s rule — from 1985 to 1988.

Nawaz Sharif presented himself as a willing accomplice for the military, but it didn’t take long for him to figure out that his place in the scheme of things was not what he had imagined. He had been brought in by the military establishment for two principal reasons. The first was to continue the privileged access to the country’s resources — both fiscal and natural — that the military had become accustomed to during Zia’s decade. And the second was to provide political cover for a regional geopolitical ball-game that the military had been hatching ever since the withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan, a ball game that sought to pin down India’s army in the mountains of Kashmir using jihadi auxiliaries and the overthrow of Najibullah’s government in Afghanistan.

Towards this end, the nine-party alliance that was cobbled together for Nawaz Sharif in the form of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) had a platform very similar to that of the PTI. The IJI presented itself as the party of economic reform on the one hand, and the party of a muscular and aggressive foreign policy on the other. It’s well to remember that most of Pakistan’s lasting economic reforms began under the IJI — from the Sales Tax Act to the power sector reforms that eventually culminated in the Private Power Policy of 1994 — and all were vigorously advanced during the first Nawaz Sharif government. Also, it’s worthwhile to remember that it was during this time that Najibullah’s government in Afghanistan was overthrown and the Kashmir jihad began in earnest, nearly bringing the two countries to full-scale war in 1991.

But following his dismissal, Nawaz Sharif learned his place in the scheme of things. The second time Sharif made his bid for power, he campaigned on making peace with India. His government presided over the most remarkable and impressive foreign policy feat in Pakistan’s history, when it took relations with India from the nadir of May 1998 to the Lahore Declaration of February 1999. In a mere six months, two countries that had been threatening each other with nuclear weapons were speaking of peace and friendship with each other. Only a democratically elected government could command the kind of credibility to pull this off. But, at the same time, he repeatedly invoked the Taliban as heroes and presented their model of government as some sort of example for Pakistan. Was he playing ball in the West to buy some space in the East, the same thing Benazir had tried before him?

Perhaps, but Kargil taught him who the country really belonged to all along, and if that wasn’t enough, the ease with which he was ousted, tried and sent into exile certainly showed to the world whose country this really is.

Now fast forward to the present. One more time, a candidate emerges in Pakistan’s political scene promising economic renewal coupled with a muscular foreign policy. One more time, the promise of economic renewal is coming in the shadow of a looming adjustment in government expenditures, an adjustment made necessary by the massive accumulation of government debt over the preceding four years. One more time, the candidate promises an aggressive and muscular foreign policy as a superpower conflict begins to wind down in Afghanistan. And rest assured, one more time the candidate will ride the same learning curve that those who came before him in this game rode to their misfortune. I wonder how will he react when he inevitably learns that his place in the whole scheme is only to secure the military’s privileged access to the country’s resources on the one hand, and to provide cover for whatever new geopolitical ball game is being hatched in GHQ following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, on the other?

Pakistan cannot hate and hope at the same time. We cannot growl at our neighbours and gnash our teeth at the world community forever. We cannot search for stability at home and remain a purveyor of instability abroad. Economic renewal will never come in the context of an aggressive relationship with our neighbours and the world community, in the context of unending instability, in the subordination of economic priorities to geopolitical fantasies. If Imran Khan genuinely wants to be a candidate for change, he must shed the belligerent rhetoric and messianic overtones and talk of peace with our neighbours. That would be change we could bank on. All else is only pocket change that jingles merrily in a khaki pocket. Let’s hope he doesn’t take a decade to figure out that his place in the new scheme is to either play ball in PM house, or play solitaire in prison.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2011.