Pakistan's on again and off again affair with democracy had a glorious moment this past week when Imran Khan was ousted as prime minister after he lost a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly. This became possible because of a historic Supreme Court judgement by a five-judge bench that ruled against all attempts of the now-ousted prime minister to subvert the constitution, something that has in the past been achieved by military dictators and the so-called deep state establishment in that country.
Legal experts and commentators in Pakistan write that the same Supreme Court had in the past invoked something called the "law of necessity" to justify military coups and take-overs. Lawyers representing Imran Khan too had argued that it was essential to invoke the law of necessity and dismiss the no-confidence motion against him "in the national interest". The fact that the Pakistan Supreme Court in this instance rejected an argument it had succumbed to in the past implies that a precedent could have been set, creating legal protection against another outright coup in Pakistan. Imran Khan would become the first prime minister in Pakistan to lose power through constitutional norms.
This happened because two legacy parties in Pakistan, traditional rivals, joined hands to oust Imran Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from power. These were the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) of the former three-time PM of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, whose brother Shehbaz Sharif is now the PM candidate of a united opposition; and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), now led by the 33-year-old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and grandson of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, both a former prime minister and president, who also founded the PPP.
An Indian readership could digress here and examine the bloody history of political families in the subcontinent. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, considered something of a political genius for all his flaws, was hanged to death by a military dictator in 1979, while Benazir was killed in a suicide terror attack in 2007. We all know what happened to Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The contemporary inheritors of the most significant political dynasties in our part of the world grapple with a violent past and the current problem of their own destinies and the relevance of their parties.
In the current Assembly of Pakistan that remains intact, Imran Khan's party holds the largest number of seats since the 2018 election but does not enjoy a simple majority. The PML (N) is the second-largest party and the PPP the third-largest party and the rivals are currently together as Imran Khan now launches a protest after being deposed. Smaller Islamic parties with some numbers are reportedly divided between the two sides.
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Pakistan was created as a Muslim homeland based on a Two Nation Theory that basically argued that Muslims and Hindus make separate nations. If there is one thing we can learn from our neighbour's dramatic history, it is that religion alone does not a nation make when there are linguistic and ethnic divergences. If Islam alone were the glue, then Bangladesh would never have been birthed out of East Pakistan, and we would not have witnessed other sectoral differences inside Pakistan, which geographically also became the site of Great Power interventions and was used as a laboratory to invent jihad for US strategies in Afghanistan.
If we go by some historical accounts about the life of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan's founder, he was, in the end, disappointed with the nation he created. Not so in India, where we gave ourselves a remarkable constitution and started our journey as a republic committed to the loftiest of ideals, including equal citizenship for all faiths. Yet, as India today becomes a de facto Hindu Rashtra where attacks on aspects of minority life and person are a regular feature; we too must ponder the limits of this centralisation cum ideological push. We must simultaneously note the increased articulation of the states with distinct identities, such as Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, against the central push.
One thing has already happened: We have lost our position as a moral power in the world. I have made some journalistic journeys to Pakistan from 1996 onwards - when Imran Khan actually joined politics, and I travelled to Mianwali, his hometown, to meet him and cover his campaign - up to my last journey in 2013. That year I was invited to the Karachi Literature Festival, and the city was jolted by yet another terror attack which had a huge death toll and saw many foreign guests depart.
Jolted by the doctrines of hate that were destroying their nation, the liberal humanists and litterateurs who had organised the festival actually had an opening ceremony that included a dance drama titled 'Tagore' and Gurudev's poem 'Where the Mind is Without Fear' was recited to a dance. Included in the drama was a rendition of M.K. Gandhi's favourite bhajan, 'Raghupati Raghav Rajaram…Ishwar Allah Tero Naam'. As late as 2013, they were still invoking the humanist thinkers and symbols of India that had a moral halo in their eyes.
But as India goes down a wretched path of hate and polarisation, that would never happen today.
But to end on a lighter note, the Imran Khan I encountered in 1996, then fresh into politics and married to Jemima Khan, was tall and strapping and, to date, the most handsome man I have ever met. He still has a constituency, and as a former prime minister and the leader of the largest party in the National Assembly, he has decided to go down the path of invoking anti-Americanism since that sentiment does have resonance in Pakistan due to its particular history. The US exit from a devastated Afghanistan last year would only add to that narrative.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has tremendous implications beyond the immediate theatre of war in shifting global power balances. Imran Khan's fightback will be on an anti-American plank that has resonance in a country that feels used/abused by the super-power. He would like to tie Pakistan with the China-Russia emerging order. There are big geopolitical stakes, and even though he may not be PM, Imran Khan has a constituency and some hands to play.
(Saba Naqvi is a journalist and author)
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