Our country is in the grip of a worse form of political and social polarisation. It is a strange phenomenon that, instead of social realities shaping politics, politics is shaping social attitudes. Social particularism and the concomitant antagonism towards rival political creeds have become a household phenomenon.
The reasons ascribed to this socio-political stratification are the heightened political consciousness of a young cohort of the population due to greater exposure to social media and the digital revolution, plus the boiling frustrations born out of a broken-down governance and political system. But then, was this not the case in the roaring seventies, when left-wing populism and its various variants, such as Islamic socialism, captivated the imagination of the masses, who showed the same zeal while opting for Roti, Kapra aur Makaan?
It was a déjà vu moment for older generations when they observed the same fanatical devotion inspired by Imran Khan’s populist slogans of accountability, reform, and change, which had earlier been inspired by the charismatic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's populist slogans. But why did these promised dawns morph into the “night-bitten” dawns of Faiz Ahmed Faiz? Why did the two revolutions founder on the rocks of political authoritarianism and expedient politics? Was there something wrong with the leaders or the led? Or was it the fallow political soil in which the fecund seeds of promised revolutions failed to germinate? Were the Pied Pipers playing the wrong tune, leading the expectant but gullible followers down a lemming-like, self-destructive path? Were the slogans of change merely a political subterfuge to amass political power?
It is a well-known fact that Imran Khan was brought in as a promised Messiah by the Deep State, which, in the process, caught the popular imagination and used his moment in the sun to make fantastic promises. Millions of houses and millions of promised jobs were attractive slogans but unrealizable goals that were articulated to assuage the hope-soused political sensibilities of the deprived masses, especially the young and frustrated generation.
It was later admitted frankly that those promises were election rallying cries made in the heat of electoral politics without a modicum of preparation or a workable plan. Why those promises were made, and why no preparation was made to achieve what was promised, was never explained. The result was an economic crisis created by a novice finance team whose heads were wrongly identified as finance experts in the heat of the electoral fray.
The lack of delivery and the non-fulfilment of electoral promises did lead to general disappointment amongst devoted followers, but the cult following did not abate completely
Lack of experience and preparation proved to be the promised Messiah’s Waterloo, as did some atrocious governance decisions, such as the imposition of an incompetent helmsman on the largest province of the country. The lack of delivery and the non-fulfilment of electoral promises did lead to general disappointment amongst devoted followers, but the cult following did not abate completely. It is a moot point that, had Imran been allowed to continue as Prime Minister, his political fortunes might have plummeted in the next elections.
The continuity of the PTI rule, however, portended another round of Byzantine intrigues rooted in the personal ambitions of an ambitious general, whose tryst with destiny presaged institutional atrophy. Imran’s supporters allege that praetorian ambitions were behind his ouster from the catbird seat, but they fail to justify a series of false statements and claims that targeted the army’s leadership after his ouster.
The ratcheting up of tensions through incendiary statements, accusing the army leadership of all sorts of crimes against his party, filled cognitive spaces with hatred that was directed against national institutions. This political megalomania resulted in the unthinkable, i.e. the 9th May attacks on military installations and symbols of veneration like war monuments and martyr shrines.
The 9th May madness was inspired by a hubris and narcissism that equated one’s own political ambitions with national honour. The deluded followers, in zombie mode and led by leaders who had thrown caution to the wind in pursuit of narrow political ends, rampaged against erstwhile no-go areas with gay abandon. This crossing of the Rubicon against military installations that symbolised national honour was an unthinkable act that could neither be forgiven nor forgotten in a national security state such as Pakistan.
The revolution finally choked on its own absurdities with this reckless act. Several retired military officers who were behind this botched-up revolution, in epistemic as well as collaborative modes, also got caught up in the act while watching in disbelief the evaporation of the promised revolution.
Unless we stop worshipping the idols of power, glamour, and wealth, we cannot usher in any kind of revolution
Without their active collaboration, civilian political activists could never have mustered the courage and finesse to raid military residences, offices, and monuments. Why did the revolution fail, or, in other words, why did the madness fail to gain the intended political results? The answer might lie in the sociology of political cultism and the psychology of its followers. It was a psychology that preferred cult worship to leader accountability, mistaking rhetoric for the blood, sweat, and toil required to usher in genuine political change.
Professor Abdul Qayum, an erstwhile soldier and an erudite scholar, once wrote a very revealing article titled “Nation of Pujaris.” The following quote from his article attests to the political sociology of our political elite as well as plebeian hopefuls:
“Revolutions will have to be made; they will not just occur. We are a people who dream dreams, not men who see visions. We cannot even latch onto a vision because we already have one, when all we have is a slogan. A vision calls for honest recognition and resolute endeavour, not a smug assurance of a paradise foretold. Those who believe in action, the vision that they formulate in words, are hypocrites, and hypocrites cannot usher in revolutions. Between the Prophet and the demagogue, the gulf is wider than the seven seas. The gulf is just as wide between the man who lives by his faith and the man whose faith is a cloak beneath which he lives as he pleases.”
Unless we stop worshipping the idols of power, glamour, and wealth, we cannot usher in any kind of revolution. A genuine revolution requires dogged resistance to demagoguery and populism to mobilise social and political forces for meaningful change. It requires a compact with a vision and ideology that privileges the rule of law, equity, and hard work, subordinating personal preferences to a greater goal for the collective good. In today’s world, collectivist societies like China are privileging cultural and economic individualism, whereas individualism-based liberal democratic societies are pining for collectivist ideals. In our neck of the woods, we are neither promoting individualism nor collectivism, but mere anger and anarchy.
Hate and rhetoric make for a bad strategy for genuine political change. A people-centric political credo should privilege institution-building, accountability for all, the rule of law, and disciplined hard work instead of social media-based demagoguery and cult worship. The cults worth worshipping are laws, institutions, national discipline, and human security instead of personalities and their empty rhetoric. Weak institutions, dynastic politics, patronage networks, and the deification of personalities have been the besetting sins of the Pakistani polity, dragging back political progress for centuries. Our political sociology prefers the consecration of personality myths at the cost of socio-political accountability.
Genuine leaders emerge out of genuine sociological impulses of a society, while demagogues and populists rise out of the cult-focused predilections of pujaris (worshippers), who hold neither their own convictions nor those of their leaders to a proper standard of public accountability and performance audit. Our young generation is angry and frustrated due to joblessness and a lack of economic opportunities.
The tyranny of algorithms and the engagement-focused business models of social media platforms are exacerbating this frustration without showing a way ahead or pointing out the truth. The result is the worship of cult figures who promise the moon but deliver nothing, while the truth drowns in a cacophony of lies and half-truths, ceding space to populists, charlatans, and political mountebanks masquerading as Messiahs.