Imran Khan: The ‘honest’ captain myth

Cults—political and religious—can be long-lived and deadly dangerous. Building on his cricketing success and cancer hospital, Imran Khan worked relentlessly for decades at self-promotion. His growing cult swallowed story after story: corruption would end in 90 days; the national treasury would overflow once  "looted dollars" stashed by political rivals in secret overseas accounts were brought back.

Naya Pakistan would overflow with milk and honey—Khan would "commit suicide but never return to the IMF"; foreign policy would be based upon principle rather than expediency; the world's most sought-after passport would become the green one; and Pakistan would turn into a tourist haven. Jobs would be aplenty, the justice system would be overhauled, civil service officers appointed purely on merit, and the police system revamped. But the reality turned out starkly different.

Just months after winning a bitterly disputed election, Khan's government requested the IMF for a loan. Critical dependency on the United States was traded for equal dependency upon China. Today, the Pakistani passport is no more desirable than before and the only foreign tourists are intrepid mountain climbers. In January 2022, Transparency International announced that perceptions of corruption had taken a quantum leap.

Horse-trading politics got a boost once Khan decided that "electable" candidates would be preferred over principled candidates. Although he now admits "mistakes", the future may be no different. In a desperate move, the Punjab chief minister—apparently chosen by his first lady and praised sky-high by Khan until two weeks ago—has just been thrown under the bus. His replacement, handpicked by Khan himself, was once derided by Khan as a scumbag.

To save his sinking ship, Captain Khan has invented the cock-and-bull story of an American conspiracy to oust him. This, he said, owes to his independent stand on Ukraine. So why hasn't Narendra Modi—also ambivalent on Russia's aggression—alleged the same?

What makes cults so attractive and cultists so impervious to factual evidence and reason? Why do so many people set aside good sense and worship leaders?

Anthropologists have related the degree of cultic affiliation to the perceived uncertainty within an environment. For example, they find that rougher seas make fishermen engage in more elaborate magic rituals. Correspondingly, Pakistan's lack of a shared national purpose creates space for putschists and captains who promise to steer the ship of state out of stormy waters.

Military interventions that debilitated democracy paved the way for fix-all miracle magic men like Imran Khan. The broken idols of other wannabe messiahs with fanatical followings litter the political landscape. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Altaf Husain, and Maulana Fazlullah also had sophisticated urbanites among their followers. This happened even before the invention of social media, but technology has created virtually impenetrable silos of political groupthink.

Today, one particular belief sits securely in a nuclear-protected bunker and may survive even the no-confidence vote. Common wisdom is that all opposition leaders are money-hungry cheats and Khan, even with his shortcomings, is clean as a whistle. Correct? After all, it is commonly held that all opposition politicians are venal, even if there is disagreement on which is the more corrupt one.

Imran Khan wins out on this. Chasing money is not his first priority. Of course, opponents do point to his magnificent Banigala palace, high-style living, minimal payment of personal taxes, and the doubts raised by the ECP regarding PTI's foreign funding. These are minor sins. But it is Khan's insatiable lust for power that makes him truly dangerous for this country. While money fattens individuals, absolute power brings catastrophe. Donald Trump wanted both money and power but Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot craved only the latter.

How will Khan rally his followers again? He has already revealed his strategy for the forthcoming elections: whip up xenophobic nationalism; mobilise the religious sentiment that he helped generate through encouraging TLP's anti-France anti-blasphemy agitations. Pro-Khan people are patriots, those against him are traitors, and fence sitters are, in his words, mere animals.

With Imran Khan voted out, Pakistan has won a temporary victory. However, its larger interest demands that all political parties obey rules and the Constitution. They must embrace democracy and pluralism, and cease pursuing narrow interests. Aggression and hate propagation, use of foul language, and denigration of women and religious minorities should have no role to play in politics.

The article was first published in Dawn, an ANN partner of  The Daily Star.

Pervez Hoodbhoy is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.