What attracts historic crowds to Imran Khan rallies?

Into the fourth year in power, political conversations about Imran Khan’s performance centred on failure, inept decisions, inexperience, incompetence and a bad team that was unable to deliver anything on what the former prime minister had promised. His manifesto of change became a joke, often with his media and political distractors. His supporters appeared to be apologetic, citing COVID-19 impact, lack of majority in the parliament and the political baggage he was forced to carry as a bargain with the establishment, in having political groups and individuals in cabinet that had a tainted past.

Seemingly, he had lost the battle of narratives, as the airwaves and television screens accused him of everything going wrong in the country from the current account deficit to rising consumer inflation. His rhetorical position on creating the ‘state of Medina’—symbolism of compassion, equality, justice and welfare—was ridiculed day and night. In the face of all opposition and offensive media attacks, however, he continued with his narrative of justice, ending corruption and liberating Pakistan from the stranglehold of a few dynastic political families that have ruled this country for the past half century or so.

Pakistan’s powerful military, the real power-broker playing a role in bringing Khan to power, had once shared his diagnosis of Pakistan’s endemic political failures. But he was perhaps too independent-minded to define what was in Pakistan’s interests, a bit obstinate, unforgiving and unwilling to reach the opposition across the aisle to make the system work.

The fact is that Khan’s foreign policy direction and his consistent critique of the American war on terror, coupled with the big controversy he raised over the visit to Russia, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Imran Khan, with a quarter of a century’s experience in politics, could see a ‘new deal’ behind the political storm brewing behind closed-doors in Sindh House in Islamabad and enticing his coalition partners. The facade of peaceful political change through a constitutional method of a vote-of-no-confidence was played out before the public watching intensely. During the night of April 9-10, the courts of highest authority and status flung open their doors in the middle of the night to make sure that the constitutional procedures under their orders were carried out in full faith.

Khan had prepared himself for his humiliating departure from power and his counter-attack well before that fateful midnight by calling his supporters from all over the country on April 7th in Islamabad, to expose the conspiracies against his government and to give them a message. The crowd spilling in all directions and still on the road, astonished even his worst skeptics about Khan’s popularity even when power was slipping out of his hands. The next rallies in Peshawar, Karachi and then Lahore, were reflections of one another, even bigger and more determined crowds of mostly younger Pakistanis. How can one make any sense of this pouring of immense populations to listen to Imran Khan when they could do so at home on their television screens? It is a combination of many factors— a victimhood feeling, a ‘conspiracy’ narrative, intervention from powerful institutions, and the mythology of ‘liberation’ that make Khan a hero for the cause of Pakistan. There is also a more substantive reason, a sub-text of what is happening and what is likely to shape the future of politics: it is the failure of the political order as the country has practiced it since 1973.

For the supporters of Imran Khan, and the general public, it is not his failure but the systemic disorder that he had to work with, and which under every regime in the past, has failed to deliver. The constitution, courts, parliament, elections and the media are nothing but reflective of more powerful interests that shape them and politics. Imran Khan has added something more ‘sinister’ to this mix, the ‘foreign power’ and ‘liberation’ that added fuel to a fire simmering for a long time. The new generations have embraced the message without question.

- Rasul Bakhsh Rais is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS, Lahore. His latest book is “Islam, Ethnicity and Power Politics: Constructing Pakistan’s National Identity” (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Twitter: @RasulRais