SMOKERS' CORNER: STORIES OF DECLINE – Journal

Illustration by Abro

Since 2014, politics in Pakistan has largely been a battle of discourses. This is not new or unique to the country. But these battles were not as intense as they are today. This is mainly due to the presence of populist electronic media and the increasing use of social networks.

In Pakistan, between 2011 and today, the only constant in these battles has been Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI). In most cases, the other side has been parties such as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). However, since Khan’s ouster in April 2022, another combatant has been sucked into the battle: the military establishment (ME).

Although from 2011 to at least 2021 the ME was on Khan's side, he reconfigured his strategy when he began accusing the ME of being part of a grand regime change plot that saw a successful no-confidence vote against his government in parliament.

But by then, the PTI had already mastered various tactics to effectively spread its narrative through electronic and social media. Until late 2021, the Ministry of Defence was shamelessly helping the party achieve this. This was before the appointment of the current military chief, General Asim Munir. When the PTI narrative began to target General Munir, the Ministry of Defence seemed perplexed, despite the fact that the training the PTI received to master these tactics was allegedly provided by the military’s media wing.

Since his ouster, Imran Khan has desperately tried to push a fear-based narrative about Pakistan’s future. But recent events make it clear that he and his enablers will now face a strong counter-narrative.

The PTI’s narrative has managed to anchor itself in the minds of many Pakistanis, including those in the military, the judiciary and the media. But what was the narrative that helped make Khan a popular and, in some cases, even messianic figure in the eyes of various urban and peri-urban segments, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and north and central Punjab?

From 2011 until he became prime minister in 2018, the narrative presented Khan as a dashing, internationally admired, and incorruptible figure. He was the former sports hero who had led the Pakistani cricket team to victory in the 1992 World Cup and was now poised to lead Pakistan as a politician. The narrative portrayed the PML-N and the PPP as thoroughly corrupt. It presented Khan as a pious (but still handsome) father figure who was waging a jihad against corruption.

Then, during his tenure as prime minister (2018-2022), the speech expanded its Islamic allusions, especially as Khan began to stumble on various fronts, mainly in the areas of economy and foreign policy. Nevertheless, until his ouster, the speech remained what is known as a speech of progress.

Indeed, the narrative presented the PTI's opponents as existential threats because of their greed, but it was mostly about Khan as a visionary whose policies would make the Pakistani passport one of the most powerful in the world and transform Pakistan into a country where many foreigners would come to work.

There was also talk of launching ingenious programs, such as a chicken breeding program, through which chickens would start laying exponentially more eggs. The story also touched upon Khan's deep understanding of the works of poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal and Islam, which would help him make Pakistan a true Islamic welfare state.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. According to political scientist SR Shenhav, political narratives are largely constructed from certain perceptions of reality and not necessarily from reality itself. They are not based on hard data or facts. Rather, they are based on perceptions and emotions. They operate within a particular worldview. If a worldview is prevalent, then the narrative is more likely to find traction.

As it became clear that Khan’s regime was in trouble, the narrative began to lose its appeal. As a result, the Islamic aspects of the narrative were reinforced, but to no avail. Khan’s narrative of progress was built on overpromises and utopian aspirations of the middle class. But something interesting happened when Khan lost power. He rethought the nature of his narrative. From a narrative of progress, it became what political science calls a narrative of decline.

Political scientist Robert Ralston calls this declinism. He argues that decline is most often the work of opposition brokers. These brokers bring together disparate groups and individuals. They blame the country's decline on the establishment. Ralston adds that negative events or conditions help narratives of decline resonate with the public.

Narratives of decline are largely constructed from an amalgam of pessimistic perceptions. While a narrative of progress can slide into utopian territories, a narrative of decline slides in the other direction, into dystopian realms. After his ouster, Khan launched a narrative of decline in which he saw his ouster as a symptom of Pakistan’s inevitable decline as a nation-state. This narrative then began to use examples of Sri Lanka’s economic collapse. For Khan, this was the direction Pakistan was heading.

In February 2023, when dozens of Pakistanis drowned while trying to reach Italy illegally on a boat, Khan explained that it was due to the desperation of people who wanted to leave a Pakistan on the brink of economic collapse, anarchy and civil war. Sadly, Pakistanis have been drowning to reach Europe since the 1990s, but the 2023 tragedy was co-opted by Khan as an event that had something to do with his ouster.

The narrative of Khan’s decline reinvigorated Khan’s disheartened supporters. In this narrative, he became the only person capable of delaying the country’s fall. In May 2023, PTI militants and leaders poured in and began attacking military buildings and installations. Many were arrested, but most courts refused to convict them, on technical or other grounds.

However, a year later, when the ME arrested the former pro-Khan ISI chief, retired Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, it was a sign that the ME now had enough material to finally craft a counter-narrative that portrays the May 2023 riots as a widespread conspiracy to provoke a mutiny within the armed forces.

The PTI, Khan and their alleged enablers in the judiciary and the media, as well as some former army officers, should be worried because the counter-narrative is based on supposedly solid evidence and not just perceptions. The counter-narrative views these elements not only as prophets of doom and architects of anti-Pakistan propaganda, but also as outright enemies of the state.

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 25, 2024

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