Illusions and prospects

On the eve of the launch of the Pakistan Democratic Movement's (PDM's) campaign of rallies against the incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, one's thoughts stray to a recurring phenomenon in our political history. This is the cycle of large sections of our society and public opinion initially getting swept away with hopes of something truly positive emerging from the regimes of military usurpers and civilian 'selected' governments, only a few years later becoming disillusioned and joining the ranks of opponents of the regime. This indeed is the pattern of initial hailing, later condemning the regimes of Ayub Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf and Imran Khan, to list a few. Why has this repetitive behaviour defined so much of our political history?

One tentative explanation could be that the initial welcome for such regimes is steeped in disillusionment with all that has gone before, stemming from governments being unable to deliver meaningful outcomes in the interests of the vast majority of people. Ayub Khan used terror and repression to stifle any opposition to his military coup in 1958. His industrialisation programme certainly accelerated the country's economic development, providing jobs and the beginnings of capitalist modernisation of the economy. However, state-led industrialisation soon produced a cartel of 22 favoured families. This monopolistic capitalism in Pakistan also gave birth to an industrial proletariat. When protests by students broke out in October 1968 against the Ayub regime, the entire opposition, and eventually the working class came out in both wings of the country to spell doom for the regime. Of course, such a spontaneous and diverse opposition had little or no consensus programme except the ouster of the Ayub regime. It did not therefore have any answer to the military coup of Yahya Khan that removed Ayub and harshly repressed the mobilised masses until the protest movement died down. Of course what helped Yahya disarm this disparate agitation was the promise of one man, one vote (dropping One Unit in West Pakistan that depreciated the vote of East Pakistan under the parity scheme) in Pakistan's first free and fair election in 1970.

But what the Yahya regime badly misjudged was the depth and strength of East Pakistan's Bengali people's anger and determination to right the wrongs inflicted on the province since Independence. Aided by Maulana Bhashani's ill-conceived boycott of the election, the Awami League (AL) of recently released from the Agartala Conspiracy Case trial leader Sheikh Mujibur Rehman swept the polls in East Pakistan. Since that province had a majority of the population of the country, under the one man, one vote paradigm, this translated into a majority in parliament. However, the Yahya regime refused to accept this AL victory, refused to transfer power to it (helped by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's collaboration), and launched one of the bloodiest genocidal military crackdowns on East Pakistan. The result, after initial Bengali guerrilla resistance and finally India's military intervention, was the tragic breakup of the country and the emergence of Bangla Desh.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was inducted into power as the majority leader in the remaining Pakistan by the military junta that removed Yahya. This does not and cannot accord Bhutto the title of the first elected prime minister of Pakistan since he did not receive such a mandate in the 1970 elections despite winning a majority of the seats in West Pakistan. Clearly, given Pakistan's defeat and precarious situation, the military junta realized Bhutto was their only hope of defusing the anger of the people at the 1971 debacle and salvaging the broken pieces of the country. Since Bhutto had promised 'roti, kapra, makaan' (bread, clothing, shelter, a slogan borrowed from Indira Gandhi), initially vast portions of the people had high expectations from his regime, especially when he attempted land reforms and nationalised the commanding heights of the economy. Initially, this goodwill translated into cooperation with the opposition across the board. But soon, Bhutto revealed his true colours. Within six months of being installed in power, Bhutto turned on the working class that had supported him, killing workers to take back factories occupied by them in SITE, Karachi. Having negotiated with the opposition to install their governments in what was then NWFP and Balochistan, he dismissed the latter provincial government of Sardar Ataullah Mengal in less than a year and launched a military crackdown in the province. Mufti Mahmood's opposition government in NWFP resigned in protest. Balochistan erupted in a nationalist insurgency, while NWFP was rocked by armed actions against the Bhutto regime. Not content with destroying the very consensus he had forged with the National Awami Party-Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam coalition in these two provinces, Bhutto proceeded to pillory the rest of the opposition. Meanwhile, his nationalised sector fell prey to the incompetence of the bureaucracy to whom it was entrusted, while a perceptible shift of landowners into Bhutto's party effectively reversed land reform. Bhutto, by his repressive actions, united the opposition against him. However, once again the opposition agitation over rigged 1977 elections and anti-repression only succeeded in having Bhutto overthrown by Ziaul Haq in another military coup.

The less said about Zia's regime and the 1990s decade of civilian 'musical chairs' that followed, the better. Nawaz Sharif, groomed by the military, was the beneficiary of the military establishment's planning when he was elected overwhelmingly in 1997. However, the protégé, like in the past, proved unamenable to complete domination of the military, leading to Pervez Musharraf's 1999 coup. Surprisingly, but perhaps because people were fed up of and reacting against the kleptocratic Pakistan People's Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz governments of the 1990s, Musharraf was welcomed and hailed by large sections of even liberal and progressive opinion. It took eight years for the scales to fall from by now a disillusioned public. The lawyers' movement delivered the coup de grace.

The rising urban middle class that has emerged in recent years in Pakistan, initially welcomed Imran Khan as a hero and saviour. Two years down the road, inflation, unemployment, a struggling economy (not the least because of the corona pandemic), have put paid to all such illusions. Public buy-in to the argument that the 2018 elections were rigged and Imran Khan is a 'selected' prime minister is visibly increasing. The PDM therefore stands poised on the cusp of a familiar turn of fortunes of a once hailed and welcomed regime. If the PDM succeeds in making life difficult for the government, one hopes the establishment will see fit to revisit its unending interventions in politics, with usually dire outcomes.

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Copyright Business Recorder, 2020