Ep 214. - Imran Khan: The People's Champion or a Populist Illusion? with Professor SherAli Tareen
Pakistan is an enchanting country, fertile and vast, with a talented young population and, at least on paper, all of the ingredients of a regional powerhouse. But the country is experiencing a tumultuous time. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan languishes in prison while the country’s military leaders use every greater coercion to maintain the status quo.
SherAli K. Tareen is the author of the award-winning books “Defending Muhammad in Modernity” (2020) and “Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire” (2023) – he is currently a professor of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College.
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Transcript - This is an AI generated transcript and may not reflect the actual conversation
Introduction
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military lead is basically ruling the country through Brute Force you have a Muslim political leader who even gestured at the possibility of exercising some kind of sovereign agency
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stand up against the US Empire was something unpalatable to Washington DC Kamar Javid baj
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had a big problem with Imran Khan wearing shalvar kames Pakistan of the 60s and 50s were so much more Progressive they have actively in fact uh also clamp
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down on Palestine protests this is part of a larger global secular violence the
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more violent they get the more popular he gets there is very much aism at work here Pakistan is an enchanting country fertile and vast with a talented young population and at least
0:47
on paper all of the ingredients of a regional Powerhouse but the country is experiencing
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a tulous Time former prime minister Imran Khan languishes in prison while the country's military
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leaders use every greater coercion to maintain the status quo Pakistan's economy is faltering and The
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Brain Drain of qualified professionals continues to leave the country devastatingly affecting
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public services and businesses to help us understand the sheer predicament many pakistanis
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feel we have Professor Sher Ali Tarin who recently returned from the country to share with us his
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experience and understanding of the underlying power dynamics of the country share Ali Tarin is
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the author of The award-winning uh defending Muhammad in modernity and the book perilous
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intimacies debating Hindu Muslim friendship after Empire he's currently a professor of religious
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studies at Franklin and Marshall College Dr sh alamah and welcome to the than you Muslim
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podcast thank you so much for having me pleasure to be here well it's lovely to to have you with us
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and alhamdulillah I think there's a there's a lot to uh talk about about when it comes to Pakistan its politics its social uh and political condition economic and political conditions I think um we've
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had many of our viewers who for some time have asked uh to have a show on Pakistan so inshah
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we hope today to shed some light on uh what what seems to be a country that is going through a a
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very difficult time a very difficult period now I know that you've recently visited Pakistan you've just returned back uh to to the state so I I suppose the first place to start when we think
2:34
about Pakistan's social and political condition uh is the case of Imran Khan um who languishes Subhan
Imran Khan’s imprisonment
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Allah in prison um can I ask a question what accounts for his continued incarceration yeah
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I think in some ways um the way one can uh reflect on that question is that there is a certain degree
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of fear and um anxiety about the kind of popular support that he wields at this point and there is
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a real fear that if he were to come out of prison and mobilize people in the way that he has in the
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past uh that the current political setup May well crumble and uh if he returns to power
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that might uh lead to uh all kinds of trouble for the political puppets and the military lead
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that is basically calling the shots uh and the interesting irony in all of that is that Imran
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Khan largely speaking has been a pragmatist so it is wholly possible that if he comes out and U you
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know is given a chance uh at general elections in which most likely he will win by thumping majority
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uh it there is it is only possible that he might go through a very pragmatic route by giving some
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kind of a general pardon and I mean he's not the kind of he's not the kind of radical politician
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who really I think would be that interested uh in some kind of an overhaul of the political system
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in which the interference of the military lead in matters of politics is completely uh swept
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aside he's in fact even said it even when he was prime minister and later in fact in the sort of one and a half years uh from his removal to him being incarcerated uh that this cannot be done
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overnight that he's more of a pragmatist that he is more of a gradualist so the interesting irony is that someone who is more of a pragmatist and a gradualist uh the kind of fear and anxiety around
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him among the political Elite has reached this kind of a almost U uh uh schizophrenic level that
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uh the current political setup is going out of its way in trying to keep him in and intensifying its
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brutality on its own people uh to make sure that he does not come back to Power asalam
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External powers?
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yeah I I want to understand uh the the causes behind his initial incarceration and and his
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imprisonment um uh there's of course uh the version that many of his supporters will will um
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uh would strongly propose and that's the version that America had hand uh in uh in his um in his
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downfall and they normally cite the case of Donald woo and the cipher um how much do you buy the
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argument that there were external Powers uh who played a hand in in Pakistan's in in Imran Khan's
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removal well I mean there are different layers of this question of what led to his removal and the kind of power dynamics at work there there is certainly a local Dimension which is that falling
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out with the Pakistani military on various for various reasons uh but primarily I think or to
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a large extent precisely because of the kind of uh uh you know foreign policy or this kind of U
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uh Focus that Imran Khan had towards some gesture of Pakistan's popular and political sovereignty
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in relation to us imperialism and US pressure in terms of things like giving it basis uh you
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know for attacks on Afghanistan or you know being more of a cined state in relation uh to the war
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on terror and Imran Khan's long-running position of Pakistan not being a client state of the US
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that had I think a large role to play even in the internal feud between the military and Imran Khan
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and then falling out of favor from each other uh but there is I think a larger International
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context um you know it's difficult to pinpoint the proportionality of the influence or the exact
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sequence of who was involved at what point but I don't think it is a coincidence that this person
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Donald Lou from the state department uh tells the sitting ambassador of Pakistan uh in Washington
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DC Assad Majid that uh you know either you remove this person or there will be grave consequences
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and then just a few days later this vot of no confidence comes and uh you know all these allies
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begin to uh jump ship and his U government um you know falls out of power so I think there is
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certainly an international element to this and the underlying I think for your podcast I think
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the thing that really needs to be emphasized here is that behind that is this gesture that
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Iman Khan made of exercising the sovereignty of a Muslim nation state when he said that you know
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are we your slaves this famous speech that he gave are we your slaves uh and you know people
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make the argument know that was just some kind of sloganeering and he really you know does not did not even have the capacity to uh stand up against the US Empire but I think what is at work here is
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that you have a Muslim political leader who even gestured at the possibility of exercising some
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kind of sovereign agency by going to to Russia and by saying that you know we will buy wheat from Russia because that is more advantageous from our own country so even that hint of sovereignty
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being exercised by a Muslim political leader was something unpalatable to Washington DC and it did
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what it specializes in which is intervening in you know Global South nation states and
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causing absolute Havoc which is what has happened since April of 2022 when Imran Khan was removed
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from power in the last three years economic Ally politically in terms of State violence uh things
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have really really U gone South so I think that is an element which perhaps is underemphasized
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in this whole question of what happened when and you know who was really responsible this big picture question I think we often lose sight of and one of the reasons for that is that one
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of the kind of most popular narratives that was U presented in Western media the BBC and other
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avenues was precisely the whole Narrative of that this really is a local case of a you know lover
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beloved relationship that went or right between the military and Imran Khan that as this you know BBC columnist uh Muhammad hanif you know wrote a column I think in May of 2023 that this was just a
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lovers spat uh what that kind of a narrative does is that it does not allow one to even think about
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the larger ideological and political Dynamics at work in this tussle uh and turns it into some kind
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of a local issue which does not have any political ramifications Beyond just the relationship between
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the military and Imran Khan I think there are major political ramifications there this is part
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of a much larger Global Trend uh if you compare the case of Imran Khan to Rashid Gushi to musi
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before that all very different case studies all very different people but there is a Common Thread
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that that I think weaves these case stud together and that Common Thread is uh the refusal of the
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American Empire to U tolerate any hint of Muslim political sovereignty uh which we see in different
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ways in these different contexts but I think that is a large big picture kind of uh framework that
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one needs to analyze this in a fashion which is beyond just these kinds of Superfluous accounts
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of an internal lover spat between the military and Imran Khan that begs the question what is
Army leadership and America
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the relationship between uh the Army leadership on the one hand and the American Empire on the other
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hand what what is the power dynamic between these two entities well I mean for most of Pakistan's
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history that power Dynamic has been primarily as a vessel of the US state the military has for
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most of its Pakistan's history a very trusted um client of the American state U and since this is
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a you know the thinking Muslim podcast right on the eve of Ramadan I'm not using stronger words than that though those would be more appropriate for this military um but the military itself goes
12:08
through this kind of schizophrenia on the one hand sometimes it draws on these Islamic symbols of you know tipu Sultan and the bullwark of some kind of Islamic sovereignty and they call the nuclear
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bomb some kind of an Islamic bomb so they go in that route often times but then it also of course
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and more dependably so uh goes to the root of you know we want to be trusted allies of the us and
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this was seen of course most dramatically and most consequentially in terms of the US war on terror where you have you know perves mashar the military dictator is completely allying with the
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US uh turning a blind eye towards all the Drone attacks and the kind of killings that happened as a result of that because that for him was good for the Pakistani currency I mean that was
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the kind of mindset that he followed and he had this kind of a larger secular Narrative of seeing
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himself as some kind of a calist uh and he very explicitly actually has expressed his admiration
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for Ataturk where the whole idea was that we will Ally with the west and we will you know moderate
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and Enlighten Islam and Muslims in Pakistan uh and that is what uh the progress of the Pakistani
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Society should depend on so this really I think is is an important point because what it shows is
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that these events that have happened from 20122 onwards are part of a much larger Continuum in
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relation precisely to what you mentioned the relation ship between the Pakistani military and the American state which has gone through its abs and flows uh but in this particular context we
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see that mushara Doctrine being employed in even more horrifically violent ways whereby
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the previous military Chief Kamar Javed Baja the one who preceded the current one Asim munir you
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know has been on record at even having told the Americans as a way to Curry favor with them that
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you know I don't even like Chinese food is what he told them at one point you know don't think of me as some kind of a China Ally really you know am a true Ally of yours and in this case what we see is
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people like Kamar Javid Baja these are basically I won't even use the word bestest toxified for them because they're not even authentic West toxified they we might call them as wab West toxified so
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Kamar Javid Baja had a big problem with Imran Khan wearing shalvar kames he kept on you know in his
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different interaction saying that the Pakistan of the 60s and 50s were so much more Progressive
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and you know so much more quote unquote modern so this very superficial this intensely mediocre
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uh kind of vision of what is a progressive westernized Society coming together with a an
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alliance which has some catastrophic consequences so there is no question that in 2022 and prior
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to that this guy the Army Chief was very much working in collaboration with the American state
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and remembered that the American state of course was being run by uh Joe Biden uh that foreign
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policy genius that we call him the guy who after the Iraq invasion had this great idea that let's divide up Iraq into the Kurds and the sunnis and the Shia as if this is some kind of you know apple
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pie that you can slice into different pieces uh so and that's a kind of violent human who we saw
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of course in terms of the Gaza um uh genocide of how he perpetrated that uh so he was the one
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in power and clearly I think that underlying uh sort of islamophobic uh contempt towards a Muslim
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political figure exercising any of agency was very much at the heart of what happened so yes there
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is this collaboration that is continuing and the last thing I would say on that frot is that that
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Alliance currently in terms of discourse and in terms of the power dynamics is deeply connected to
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Gaza as well so the current military lead there is no question that they would not say that in public
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because of course Palestine is a very sensitive question in Pakistan still uh but there is no
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question that you know why is it that you don't find the Pakistani government uh making any kind
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of substantive critiques or even statements in relation to Palestine why is it that in cricket
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matches today in Pakistan you're not allowed to take a Palestine flag into the stadium this is the
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second largest you know Muslim country uh with apparently nuclear bomb and they have actively
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in fact uh also clamp down on Palestine protests which primarily have been led by this political
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party the jamaat Islam and they have always been U you know brutally uh clammed down upon by the
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military lead through the local police of course but they're the ones calling the shots uh and how is all this connected to the PTI Imran Khan's party and this current political scenario the
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way it's connected is and I'll give you one small example and I will give you a sense of how it's connected you know last year I've been told by you know my sources uh at this Elite University
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in Pakistan perhaps the most elite University in laor called Lums the lore University of management Sciences so there the students decided not to have an encampment because that would not you know have
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been maybe feasible but they wanted to do some Palestine solidarity marches which were authorized
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by the university and they were about to go on and at that point the trustees and the people
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who have power basically forbid those protest uh primarily at the behest of the military lead
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because they're very sort of sensitive about these kinds of pro protest at you know universities like lams and the main reason why they were so anxious about it because the their anxiety is that what
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if these Palestine protests snowball into and mushroom into a larger protest about the uh
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exercise of popular will and popular sovereignty and turns into a PTI protest a political party
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and a political solidarity which has been heavily and intensely uh you know clammed down upon by the
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military Elite in the last three years years or so so that is the level of fear that they have and that fear basically connects to certain larger desires and larger goals of the American
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Empire so that is how razza the torture against PTI and Imran Khan and the alliance between the
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American Empire and the military connect with each other this is part of a larger Global secular violence uh which then manifest in different ways in different theaters like Pakistan
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so that's very fascinating the picture you paint is then one of a a military junter that is able
Autonomy of civilian leadership
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to exercise power at will and uh will sometimes exercise that power directly like mashar or on
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other occasions exercise power through civilian leadership so how how much of how much autonomy
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do these civilian leaderships actually have uh in relation to the power of the military almost none
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and I think that's an excellent question because that question allows me to give your viewers a better sense of the last three years and the kind of political scenario I mean I realized that a lot
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of the coverage in the last especially two years has been of Palestine then Syria but Pakistan is a really important case study which is connected to these theories as well so very briefly I just
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want to give a quick summation which connects to your question um so what we have to realize
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is that currently the popular will of the people is completely at odds with the sovereignty of the
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state so this is the underlying political problem at work in Pakistan today um and the best example
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of that kind of a gulf between popular sovereignty and state power and sovereignty are the elections
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that happened exactly a year ago on February 8th 2024 now the context of those elections is
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this that from April 2022 to February 2024 uh when Imran Khan's was removed from power through this
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very controversial quote of no confidence in April 2022 in that time frame PTI supporters or anyone
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seemed to have any kind of solidarity with the Pakistan pansa party the Pakistan Justice party
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or with Imran Khan uh has been brutally you know um uh tortured and in large numbers and the kind
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of state violence is really horrific uh and mindboggling to just give you some examples
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uh you know in 2023 February in fact a a young autistic young boy I think in his early 20s or
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so who was a PTI supporter was uh jailed and then sexually tortured and brutalized and murdered by
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the local Punjab police but of course at the beest of the Pakistani military over 50 people have been killed uh usually you know peaceful protesters uh most recently on November 26th where you had
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peaceful protesters in Islamabad and they were literally fired upon at point blank in which uh
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it is estimated that 15 to 20 people were killed mostly from the province which is the majority
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patan Province a lot of these were batan men so just to give you a sense of the power imbalances within Pakistan as well so you have this primarily uh you know uh uh and of course I don't want to
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kind of accentuate some kind of ethnonationalism here but this is an important context of primarily you know landed Elite and Punjabi military lead firing shots at these patan protesters um in the
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lead up to the election you could not even see a PTI flag in the public sphere I remember I was in
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laor and different parts of Punjab uh in January of 2024 and you could not even see a picture of
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Imran Khan or of the PTI flag now remember this is a person who in addition to being a politician is
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really one of the major national stars in terms of cricket in terms of philanthropy whatever opinion you might have of him but he's really perhaps the most well-known Pakistani but you could
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not even see a poster or a picture of him in the public sphere um all supporters were again being
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brutalized if anyone was seen with even a PTI flag was being you know taken to the uh jail and and
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U uh and and in many cases beaten up and tortured you had PTI political leaders whose Alli whose uh
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political solidarities were being changed through brute power through blackmail by saying that you
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know we will pick up your kid or we will pick up your husband wife whatever and often times these were not just U threats these things were actually done as well businesses completely raised
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uh from the ground um uh and really the most kind of um inhuman uh uh tactics of brutalization were
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used for example you know one senator of the PTI who's over 70 years old because he critiqued the
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previous Army Chief Kamar Javed Baja in a tweet the military basically literally went into this
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is a sitting Senator went into his home beat him up uh brutally in front of his grandchildren uh
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and then locked him up and he's actually still in prison U he was later again imprisoned this is someone called aam saati so these kinds of things were happening and to put a you know a cherry or
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whatever you might want to call it on this stored cake uh right before the election the Supreme
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Court which was then being run by this intensely biased chief justice um he basically decided
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that they will take away the election symbol of the Pakistan TQ insa the famous cricket bat and
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this is in a country in which most people rely on these victorial you know presentations of election
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symbols to know who they will vote for once they go into the uh polling Booth despite all of that
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and on Election Day literally PTI people could not have come out and showed their solidarities
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but despite all of that on February 88 by 10 p.m. 11:00 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time the PTI was on
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course to win around 180 or so seats uh in the Assembly of 266 uh and the pmln sharif's party
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which has been installed into Power currently won only 17 stats and incredible stories for example
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this cancer survivor woman in her you know mid 70s a cancer survivor called Yasin Rashid who's a
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gynecologist uh and a PTI political leader she has been imprisoned now I think for almost two years
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and from the prison cell she managed to beat Naas Sharif and the current chief minister of Pakistan
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Naas sharif's daughter Mariam Naas also badly lost her provincial assembly seat so this was really an
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event of tectonic proportions despite all that the PTI and the Pakistani Republic had gone through
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they went to the polls and they defied state power and brutality uh and the and PTI came
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with a thumping majority now what happened the next day is not just an electoral fraud
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it is a major electoral robbery that happened where they basically the military you know went
24:56
into polling booths and sealed these uh you know places where they were tabulating the votes and
25:02
just fudged the whole results and some incredibly clumsy things were done uh you know in that whole
25:08
process for example you know the the number one was changed into nin in some polling boots and
25:13
and constituencies just to in in the most childish fashion uh bring in the pmln and the bto's party
25:22
the Pakistan People's Party into Power uh so that is the background of the current political
25:28
setup in that you have a political government which has been completely installed by the
25:34
military now the military has always intervened in Pakistani politics in elections but this kind
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of blatant almost childish Intervention which is you know seen it is as you know uh obvious as in
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broad daylight what happened on that day what that did is two things one is that it just exemplified
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this underlying Chasm between popular sovereignty and state sovereignty and what the good thing that
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that that it did was that it really made it very obvious that who actually is has the Mandate and
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who actually is being followed by the people and that is Imran Khan and the PTI party so currently his popularity has soared to un you know unprecedented levels and the biggest irony
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in all of this and I just close on that note is that had Imran Khan not been removed in 2022 in
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all likelihood when the elections would have happened uh in 2020 uh 3 he most likely would have
26:35
lost uh because that is the trend that you see in Pakistani politics that often times in governments
26:41
don't make it through usually there is enough kind of public resentment and there was quite a bit on questions of inflation other reasons and so on so by removing him from Power uh and and and doing
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all this kind of brutal tactics to keep him out of power his popularity keeps on soaring and we can
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talk a bit more about you know my reading of why that might be the case uh but now the situation
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is that he is incredibly popular and the military lead is basically ruling the country through brute
27:09
force and the more popular he gets the more force and violence they expend so that is the underlying
27:14
tension at work here and the contradiction at work here that the more violent they get the more popular he gets and but this situation is not sustainable for too long uh but currently that
27:23
is what is happening so the current political Elite have absolutely no political standing or
27:29
legitimacy uh there are installed puppets who have shown the True Colors by the way the pmln and PPP
27:36
that you know when it comes to the question of you know coming into ceremonial power they don't
27:41
really have any real Powers at all but even for ceremonial power they're willing to basically act
27:48
as puppets of the military Elite and that shows that you know all these Civil Society activists
27:53
and who used to extol the PPP and the pmln during Imran Khan's government as some great champions
27:59
of democracy and you know civilian Supremacy these basically two parties are parties of rabbit Thugs
28:05
who are very comfortable in selling their souls when it comes to even getting ceremonial power so
Khan’s military relationship
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there that is what the situation is right now so I want to pick up on uh the point you make about ceremonial power versus real power and of course the Army is the power broker the the real power
28:21
behind most civilian leaderships I mean how immune was Imran Khan to uh to to such a relationship
28:28
I mean I I note that when he did uh come to power um there was plenty of discussion in especially
28:35
in the west about how the Army leadership was patronizing was supporting his organization and
28:43
uh PTI and and supporting his rise to power uh and also working against the other parties diminishing
28:50
their impact upon the Electoral politics uh and and even in power um it just seemed to me
28:56
I remember one anecdote during the time of covid when he wanted to I can't remember the issue but
29:02
he wanted to Institute a lockdown or whatever it may be and the Army leadership um uh uh intervened
29:10
and and uh removed that uh policy area from from his from his portfolio so it just seemed
29:19
to me that uh the Army leadership uh was the power broker maybe not as blatantly as you describe now
29:25
but very possibly at that time so I think when it comes to this whole question of Imran Khan's
29:31
relationship to the military or the legitimacy of his own power when he was in power from 2018 to
29:37
2022 the problem with the analyses that circulate on this question is that you know often times and
29:43
this is true for Imran Khan as a figure as well that it really uh you know operates often times
29:49
on extremes from you know hero worship on the one hand or complete you know rabbit caricatures and
29:56
complete dis proportional Ambush on the other hand and I think on this question that is the
30:01
case as well so the kind of narrative that we often times see for example in you know Western
30:07
newspapers or even English you know newspapers in in Pakistan and so on is that you know Imran
30:13
Khan was brought in by the military because at that time it had problems with nas Sharif for various reasons and the military is really the one who brought him into power and Imran Khan
30:22
was the military's puppet just like the current political leaders are the military's puppet so it's basically the same cycle is being repeated there is nothing new about it um and we are just
30:31
sort of changing actors here but the Dynamics are exactly the same so I think this is perhaps the most pernicious kind of argument that can be made for a few different reasons one is you know just
30:41
I I give you very small fragments of the kind of violance that has happened uh in Pakistan in the
30:46
last couple of years and we can go back to that topic uh in a moment as well so that's one reason
30:52
that there is no comparison between the kind of violence that you know Imran Khan supporters or
30:58
even those who might be doubted or suspected of being his his supporters and in many cases they
31:04
actually were not even his supporters and I can tell you some stories on that front as well so just this degree of violence and suppression and brutality that we have seen in the last uh you
31:13
know three years has no comparison with what might have happened to NAD Sharif supporters earlier on so that's Point number one the second thing is that that narrative basically works on
31:25
the assumption that in 2018 Imran Khan was some very unpopular leader who was you know installed
31:32
by the military into power and if it was not for their help he really did not have any kind of popularity that is not true either um and a great example for showing that is the province ofun KP
31:44
where his government for the first time came into power in 2013 and made a government and then when
31:49
it came to the 2018 elections not only did it come back into power but with a thumping majority the first government was a coalition government so clearly there is something that he must have
31:57
done to get that kind of a thumping majority all of that could not be the work of the military uh
32:03
you know his political rallies and the kind of support he was drawing was in huge numbers that could not just be the work of the military um uh so so in some ways what one can say is that
32:15
Imran Khan even in 2018 was popular but not to the same degree as he is now I think that would
32:22
be perhaps a more kind of measured thing to say and the other measured thing that one can say is that when it comes to the province of Punjab there are people who uh you know changed their loyalties
32:32
and left na Sharif or became independent and many of them joined Iman Khan uh because they saw that
32:38
you know this basically is a political actor most likely to come into power and on that front it is wholly possible and it is wholly reasonable that the military might have had a role to play
32:49
in that you know change of alliances and so on uh and it is also true uh and this is something
32:54
even Imran Khan himself admits that once he came into Power the coalition government on which his
33:01
government depended did include many allies who were brought into you know Imran Khan's
33:06
government as allies by the military now there are competing narratives on that front so many people within you know PTI or people you know who are IM Imran Khan supporters you know argue
33:16
that in 2018 elections in fact on Election night uh it is PTI that the military worked
33:22
against because you know at one point uh when the results were being announced uh this you know
33:28
Software System called the RTS I believe you know went down and then when the results started coming
33:34
back later at night there were quite a few PTI people who were winning and and were you
33:40
know later lost to pmln leaders so there are different narratives on that front but it is
33:45
I think you know true that the the government was kept together by the military um and that is how
33:53
they you know play this game you know keeping people depend depended U uh dependent on them
34:00
and it is also true and I think this is a very important critique that one should make of Imran Khan which is that when he was in power from 2018 to 2022 his party is called the Justice party of
34:11
Pakistan but it really did absolutely nothing to address the Injustice of the most uh you know uh
34:18
intensive and the most U um uh nauseous agent of Injustice in Pakistan and the most powerful agent
34:26
of Injustice in Pakistan and that is a military Elite and then he was quite comfortable on being on the same page as he used to call it and for that he should absolutely be critiqued
34:35
and absolutely be critiqued very severely um so he basically went for that pragmatic route of staying
34:40
in power going after the quote andquot corrupt political Elite in many cases they are corrupt
34:45
um some of them of course had joined his party as well so the point here is that you know there is
34:51
no reason to make an argument for some purity of Imran Khan's politics there are a lot of problems there there is this underlying problem of the absence of any kind of critique of the military
35:01
while he was in power and other problems as well but to say that he was some kind of an unpopular
35:06
leader who was just installed by the military or he just was a complete puppet of the military um
35:13
and um and the same thing is now happening now to make that kind of a you know complete proportional
35:19
comparison I think that is also intellectually dishonest uh and I think the truth lies somewhere
35:25
in between that yes he was popular especially KP but in other places the military did help him and
35:30
did help keep his coalition government together but in many instances he did not act like a puppet at all times and that is the reason why the relations between them soured and what happened
35:40
after that uh so just on that point of the Imran F's discourse in relation to the military you know
35:46
that also has evolved over time so in 2009 10 11 he's on record for example in a speech he gave
35:52
at the New York Historical Society or I think the Asia Society whatever that is called uh he gave a
35:59
speech in which he said that you the military is not able to run the Affairs of a country and he really was very sarcastic towards them that their training basically is on the battlefield and they
36:08
can't handle problems of governance he was always a very staunch and a very vocal critic of enforced
36:15
disappearances of the Balo people of the patan in the tribal areas he was one of the most vifer uh
36:22
you know critics of the US war on terror and drone attacks and the collateral damage as a result
36:27
of that and the kind of Havoc that caused so he was very good in terms of connecting the
36:34
Injustice of the Pakistani military lead with the Injustice of the American Empire but from 2013
36:41
onwards we do see a shift in his discourse that he really began to temper that critique of the
36:49
military and really mute that critique of the military for pragmatic reasons and eventually that critique was completely mutant while he was in power and now in the last last few years
36:58
that critique has come back in even much more intensified ways so one hopes that you know if he somehow does come back into power that at least he will keep some of this uh you know discourse and
37:09
and and promise of really uh uh addressing the underlying root issue uh which connects to all
37:17
other issues which is the Injustice and the you know frankly the kind of brute terrorist violence
37:22
of this intensely mediocre but nonetheless powerful military um uh so so that is what
Become a member
37:28
one might hope for when the genocide in Gaza began I vowed we would never let those responsible get
37:34
away with this silence was complicity in a world that wants us to remain Placid a world that wants
37:40
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37:47
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37:55
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38:01
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39:21
us so far we've we've spoke about uh the uh civilian leaderships and we've spoken about
Landed gentry in Pakistan
39:32
the Army and the intensity of power that is um uh that is located in the Army leadership but
39:39
um uh what about the landed gentry because of course um uh many a time it is said that um uh
39:48
voters vote according to voting blocks and the landed gentry are in effect in charge of great
39:55
sves of people who are uh who vote according to the interests of of those landed gentry and many
40:02
of them of course populate the political parties and and of also I understand the PTI had a number
40:08
of these landed gentry uh uh within them um unlike India after partition 1952 I believe uh there was
40:16
the zamindari ACT which uh um uh enacted the abolition of large family uh land Holdings we
40:25
haven't seen anything similar in in Pakistan um and so how much do you uh do you believe that um
40:34
uh the landed gentry and and its influence over voting blocks uh is a is a is a major structural
40:40
problem I suppose that Pakistan needs to deal with absolutely Jal that's an excellent question and that in some ways is the underling contradiction of the Pakistani nation and the nation state which
40:49
is that on the one hand you know especially the decade of the 1940s especially right before the 1947 partition one of the sort of rallying slogans for the creation of Pakistan was
41:00
that this is a country which will uh transcend differences of ethnicity class you know landed
41:08
Elite versus non- Elite uh and will invest in this kind of an abstract but nonetheless very powerful
41:14
idea of divine sovereignty so this famous slogan that what is the meaning of Pakistan there is no God but God Pakistan so this is the this is the kind of discursive mobilization that you know J's
41:27
Muslim League also Drew on but when it came to the actual you know elections that happened
41:33
right before the partition uh on that front it really was these kinship based solidarities and
41:40
relationships uh which were based on questions of land and landed Elite and their relationship to
41:45
their subjects uh this contradiction has been most extensively talked about by the historian David
41:51
Gil Martin in his book called I think Empire and Islam it was on the Punjab but precisely on this underlying cont ition of the Pakistani nation state uh which has been there for a long time
42:01
so I think and that also manifested in a moment such as the 2018 elections so in Punjab especially
42:08
Imran Khan did rely in many constituencies on this landed Elite who had their water blocks
42:14
and I remember at that time you know when he used to be asked that question of you know why are you going with these landed Elite and basically what they're called electables and he used to say well
42:22
they know better the science of Elections the how to gather people on the day of the election and get you know get people from Vans to the polling booth and so on so that was again his pragmatic
42:31
side that you know but those are precisely the people who you know um uh led to the sinking
42:38
of his political ship because they're the ones who shipped gun uh jumped the ship in 2022 um and then
42:45
he later even acknowledged that you know that was a mistake that he made so there is a cycle with Imran Khan of doing these kinds of things and then acknowledging his mistakes later on um but 2024
42:57
precisely why that is such an incredible election is that this long running pattern in Pakistani
43:05
politics also in some ways uh you know came down in dramatic fashion here you had young people
43:15
you know in their 20s early 30s Unknown People many of them women uh going up against these you
43:22
know uh really powerful landed Elites who had these former electables who had this you know
43:28
so-called voting uh you know voters bank and many of these you know stalwarts of this landed Elite
43:37
uh lost really horrifically on Election Day so that really is one of the most interesting
43:43
moments where this long running contradiction of the Pakistani nation state which is still there but we saw at least a glimpse of the political possibility of what can happen in the face of
43:53
popular globalization popular sovereignty so febrary 8th 2024 is really a landmark moment
44:00
in Pakistani politics and history for that reason in that we really saw the possibility that this
44:07
landed Elite always in collaboration In Cahoots with the military um you know keeps uh Power and
44:15
we saw a popular mobilization that really uh broke some very important uh pillars of this
44:21
power the third thing that is important to note here of course uh the big elephant in the room
44:27
is that the most powerful and fluent and uh you know uh uh possessive landed Elite in
44:37
Pakistan is actually the Pakistani military that actually owns most of the most important kind of
44:43
prized you know land so you have for example these cantonments uh in you know places like
44:49
you know border cities like qua where I'm from uh you know even in Karachi you have these Defense
44:54
Housing Authorities Etc which ultimately of course of course people buy you know land and so on but
45:00
ultimately these are military properties you know you have the Navy areas and you have the uh you
45:05
know all kinds of different sort of corded off areas that the the military has and of course in
45:10
Punjab many of the protests that have happened in terms of the farmers trying to reclaim their land
45:17
uh you know most recently uh the current military Chief Asim munir this again a very intensely
45:24
mediocre psychopath you know went with the chief with Mariam Naas I think they were opening some kind of a green zone or something in the desert area uh um I believe of cholistan um and uh and
45:38
and in some without any kind of consideration for the local populace um on so so so so the
45:44
underlying sort of usurpation of power and land by the military Elite is one of the major kind of
45:50
sources of Injustice that has being perpetuated uh you know for many decades but what has changed J
45:57
I think in the last two years or so and that in some ways is perhaps the most positive thing that has happened as a result of this brutality of the military which is this that this military had been
46:07
engaging in these kinds of practices of torture brutality violence suppression since the Inception
46:13
of Pakistan mostly in Border areas like bistan the tribal areas and against you know minorities
46:20
of different sorts mostly ethnic minorities at times also religious religious minorities but
46:27
what has happened in the last three years is that there is almost a consensus in Pakistan at this point that these are the people who are the root of all problems and the these people are
46:37
incredibly unjust brutal terrorists and and and you know it has to be said in this way and this
46:43
underlying secular you know assumption that when a nonstate actor commits violence that is Terrorism and when a state commits violence that is not considered to be terrorism we need
46:51
to really question that underlying separation um there is a consensus on that front and that
46:56
consensus has emerged most dramatically in what used to be the stronghold of the military which
47:02
is the Punjab not only in larger cities like laor but even in interior Punjab for that matter uh so
47:08
people who would really be the most DieHard kind of military supporters and many of them in fact were also PTI supporters um you know to be fair they really their opinions have
47:18
completely switched I mean the kinds of abuses I heard being H at the military in Lor and in
47:23
Punjab on this recent trip that I went for uh is quite unprecedented um and the reason for that is
47:31
that Punjab went through the most brutal clamp down in relation to the PTI and Imran Khan of
47:36
course the military has been brutal and still is in baluchistan the trial areas but in terms of its
47:42
brutality and violence against PTI supporters or those who might be suspected of being PTI
47:47
supporters was most dramatic in Punjab and I'll just give you one small anecdote and you know
47:53
close my answer on that you know most recently I was in lore and you know the the person who told me this anecdote especially told me that if you ever go on an interview or a podcast tell my
48:01
story don't say my name but tell my story so this was basically a local Uber driver or Pakistan's version of you know Uber and so on it's called IND drive and this was a person in his early
48:10
30s mid-30s um you know from the middle class and he said that in um May 2023 which is this uh you
48:22
know quote unquote watershed moment as presented by the military May 9th 2023 that we should talk
48:28
about in a moment as well where basically what happened was that there was a protest against
48:33
the military what was the nature of the protest there are different versions of it so I won't get into that right now and stick to the story of this person uh in the military contonment uh you know
48:42
military sort of areas in in lore U and so on uh and there was as a result of that a brutal clam
48:50
down a brutal reaction by the military lead so this person said that one night in the middle of
48:55
the night the Punjab police come com breaks his door gets into his house takes him his wife and
49:01
his one-year-old son and takes them to the jail and all night his child was crying and there was
49:08
no food no milk for this young kid you know he his diapers were wet he was not given any kind
49:14
of a change of diapers and all night the police um basically U uh uh uh uh uh urged him to admit that
49:24
he was part of the May 9th protest that he is a PTI supporter and this guy said I have nothing to do with the PTI I was not even close to the area of the protest on that day he was riding his you
49:34
know taxi somewhere else and they just kept him in jail all night and in the morning they said oh
49:39
sorry we picked up the wrong guy you can go back now at 11:00 a.m. and these are stories that you hear so frequently so repeatedly uh and and the extent of these stories is much more dramatic that
49:51
what than what came out in the news or on social media even and the and the reason for that is that
49:57
how widespread this was this was not some kind of a specific curtailed kind of military you know um
50:04
Campaign which was of course run through the local police but this was a really widespread campaign in which people were basically picked up at will they had made a whole list of people who needs to
50:12
be picked up but then the police and trying to you know make up the numbers on that list picked up people at random often times kept them in jail for you know many nights as part of their raids they
50:22
they stole any cars or any other the valuables in the in the house from which they were you know picking up people and if someone was affluent and they could give you know four or five lakh rupees
50:32
they would release them and hence of course the middle class and the lower class was primarily the victim and the target of this military abuse and because of that although there has been you know
50:43
this tremendous silencing through the threat of violence but the opinion about the military has
50:48
completely shifted and that I think in the long run is a positive development uh because if there
50:54
is some kind of a consensus uh on this front that might lead to the possibility of some kind of an
50:59
alternate future I mean you were asking before we began the podcast of why you know Pakistan has not
51:05
gone on the path of what happened in Bangladesh so uh that might come up but one of the reasons for
51:11
that precisely is that the internal groups within Pakistan have been so fragmented you have the
51:16
Balo you know resistance in terms of the Pakistani military's sort of colonial attitude and violence
51:24
in baluchistan you have of course very strong batan resistance movements then you have the PTI then you have other movements uh that have of course been happening most recently in place like
51:34
Gil bistan um and parar of course uh but these different movements of protest I think have not
51:42
come together in any kind of an ideological or a coordinated fashion and one reason for that also
51:48
is that you know student unions have been banned in Pakistan for many decades which is different from the case of Bangladesh so because of these Dynamics you know people have not been able to
51:57
coordinate some kind of a mass movement in the face of this brute violence and and suppression
52:03
uh but hopefully there might be possibility of making that happen and that I think is the one sort of Silver Lining that we might take from this kind of brutality when violence reaches a point
52:13
that people that it becomes uh you know incredibly banal it begins to lose its Effectiveness uh but
52:19
nonetheless I the situation is absolutely terrible and you know people have gone into silence and I
52:26
would not blame them in that kind of face of that kind of brutal State violence U you know it makes sense to to protect one's own dignity one's own body and one's own family Pakistan as you said
Power of secular elites
52:36
earlier is full of uh contradictions and one such contradiction which I've always uh wondered about
52:42
is we see decisively since the 1960s and 70s and 80s Pakistan has moved in an Islamic Direction
52:49
there is an islamization of society when I went to Karachi it was very clear to me that uh a very
52:57
uh a large plurality of society have their sentiments uh within some form of Islamic
53:02
framework and are very uh conscious of their relationship with uh with Islam and and their
53:08
religion uh however that doesn't seem to translate into Political expression um the Islamic political
53:15
parties jamaat islami in particular do not do very well in in uh national elections and um
53:23
it it's it it there there's a sense that those political Elites the the secular Elites still
53:30
have a stronghold a strangle hold over uh the cultural outputs uh on on mass media H how do you
53:38
account for this disparity between what seems to be uh Mass Society support and the power of these
53:45
secular Elites there a couple of things that need to be kept in mind in relation to that question that's an excellent question one is that even someone like Z hu who sometimes seen as this you
53:55
know paragon of the islamization of society and you know who brought in all these policies uh U
54:04
that led to some kind of a public islamization uh he in many ways was also a very trusted Ally of of
54:12
the US uh and alongside his islamization policy he also is someone who basically was trained by the
54:19
US military who in fact even had fought against Palestinians before he became the military chief
54:24
of Pakistan so you know what but one ought to all you know be cautious of not equating some kind of
54:31
a gesture toward islamization with any expression of Muslim political agency and sovereignty so he's
54:38
very much a vest toxicated agent on that front when it comes to actual politics and questions of uh Power the second thing to keep in mind is that I think we perhaps need to think about
54:50
the question of political power in ways that are not limited to who gets to sit in the government
54:58
and run the nation state so you know you give the example of jamaat islami You know despite
55:04
it not of course being in the majority or in terms of electoral performance although that
55:10
also has gone through its own kind of shifts U but maybe other parties may have more electoral
55:16
um representation uh in terms of Elections but they do wield tremendous Street power I
55:22
mean their protests often times are perhaps the most coordinated the most well organized and the most massive so when it comes to Palestine this is the party which actually has done the most
55:31
coordinated and U uh intensive protest that became the object of State suppression as
55:38
well um similarly of course when can take the example of this new sort of religious and then
55:45
political outfit uh the TLP as they're called um Pakistan their whole kind of agenda was about the
55:55
protection of prophetic honor but they also then got into the political sphere so they may not win
56:01
many seats but they do they did come second in many constituencies in 2018 and then did
56:07
Rec recently well in 2024 as well so I think one has to sort of realize that um the expressions of
56:16
popular will often times are not fully reflected in who gets to win the elections although that is
56:21
of course the main tenant of liberal democracy that popular will will always be reflected in you know uh the parliament or these institutions of parliamentary democracy but that always is
56:32
not the case similarly is the case of the the Pakistani traditionalist Elite so not many of
56:37
the of course are in the parliament but you know someone like the famous dandi scholar M Veals
56:44
tremendous Authority and tremendous following among the public and that of course can also
56:49
be said about the and someone like J and so on so that's the second point I want to make and on that
56:55
front precisely I think the PTI is one of the most interesting case studies because here you have a
57:02
party being run by a political leader who clearly is not from the Rel religious Elite by any means does not have religious training but nonetheless among the foundations of his political agenda and
57:13
discourse is the whole idea of following in the footsteps of the uh the the community of Madina
57:20
in terms of the social economic Justice in terms of justice for the dispossessed and for minority
57:26
so Imran Khan's underlying kind of sort of Kernel of his political discourse while he was in power was that we need to Aspire towards the community in the state of Madina and it was
57:37
a very interesting kind of case study of of what we might call an Islamic modernism where you had a political actor not trained traditionally in Islam but still had you know some background in
57:46
reading sharti and ibal during his days at Oxford and later uh so decently wors in you know Islamic
57:54
knowledge Traditions often times sites RI and shaal and as well who basically made the argument
58:00
that we need to bring together the socioeconomic framework of the community of Medina with the
58:05
welfare state model of Scandinavian countries so in some ways what he did was he charted a kind
58:11
of model of an Islamic welfare state that did not see its Origins with modern Europe but rather went
58:19
all the way back to the community of Madina so a notion of a certain kind of a you know welfare
58:26
modernity that begins not with Europe but goes all the way back to Medina and one can you know quarrel with some aspects of that as a student of Islam but it's a very interesting kind of a
58:34
political discourse that also has not been looked at with much seriousness by the detractors or for
58:39
that matter supporters of Imran Khan the second thing for Imran Khan and you know the question
58:45
of why is he this popular I think that I think begs uh some kind of reflection you know why
58:50
is this popularity going through the roof other than you know the detestation of the political
58:56
Elite in the military and there I think again your question is very relevant because one of
59:01
I think the reasons why he is he has the kind of support that he does and one of the main reasons
59:09
why he has the kind of visceral hostility that he espouses both within Pakistan and outside is
59:16
his underlying discourse especially in the last three years where he talked about this idea of what he calls true Freedom hakiki aadi where the whole idea was that by investing one's submission
59:28
to Divine sovereignty uh and this whole idea of uh U you know one will only depend on the Divine
59:34
Sovereign and not any other Sovereign like the American state or the military Elite and so on you
59:39
that is where you derive your freedom and that of course he's drawing on ibal and a whole tradition of Islamic modernism that has played that kind of a move but to make that kind of an argument in
59:48
the kind of effective way that he does very often in terms of his discourse and that expression of
59:53
a Muslim sovereignty in the face of a country where you have a massive young population and
1:00:02
large sorts of people who think and I think very rightly so that their decisions are not
1:00:08
made by them but are made somewhere else now that somewhere else could be the General headquarters
1:00:14
of the military Elite it could be the landed Elite as you said it could be the political Elite of these dynastic you know uh tongs the PPP and the pmln um or it could be you know the mother of all
1:00:26
violent Elites which is the American Empire so in that kind of a context where people are yearning
1:00:31
for some hint of sovereign expression if you have a political leader who is you employing this whole
1:00:38
discourse of exercising your Sovereign will uh uh that is bound to have tremendous attraction now
1:00:45
of course that might have tremendous uh you know contradictions and tensions in terms of you know
1:00:50
Imran Khan's own politics does his politics actually match his discourse but nonetheless
1:00:55
because because discourse is also power right and and power is always inherent in discourse that I
1:01:02
think is fundamental to any kind of analysis of the kind of power and popularity and attraction
1:01:10
that Imran Khan yields at this point ranging from within Pakistan in in Punjab really all over the
1:01:17
country to in uh you know Indian occupied Kashmir to you know the streets of Bradford to London to
1:01:25
you know C drivers in New York you know when there all these people are supporting him the explanation that this is some kind of a cult following so that's the most kind of common you
1:01:34
know reaction that you get and even from some very serious academics whose intellectual work I admire and some of my friends even when it comes to Imran Khan there is this incredible kind of POS of some
1:01:44
kind of measured considered critical but measured considered analysis of his popularity and people
1:01:51
really resort to these kinds of explanations that oh he used to be Handsome when he was young and he has just following among uh you know middle-aged women and this is a cult following and he
1:02:00
basically is very good at showing people dreams so that kind of an explanation or the most of common
1:02:06
Trope that you find the most intellectually hacked and problematic Trope that he is a populist like
1:02:12
Trump or you know Putin and here is the Pakistani populist uh you know you just take one category
1:02:17
and make this whole Grand narrative around it what I call the the page Mishra methodology of
1:02:22
looking at the world that does not for this level of popularity and the kind of Attraction and I
1:02:29
think for that one has to look at his discourse carefully I think one of the main reasons why so many caricatures of Imran Khan exist in Western media the guardian BBC New York Times or even the
1:02:39
local settings are there is two reasons one is people don't follow his discourse carefully if you actually listen to his speeches his discourse there is a contradictory but very interesting and
1:02:48
fascinating kind of a political theology at work there and the second reason is that people are
1:02:54
just so incredibly biased and many many cases Inc incredibly jealous of this person and there
1:02:59
is this kind of I know you want to talk about the liberal Elite also but just as a hint I'll throw to end my already very long answer which is in Imran Khan's case there is also this kind of
1:03:08
underlying what I've called Imran aphobia which comes from a certain kind of a secular liberal
1:03:14
Elite in South Asia Pakistan and India where the idea is that he was one of us you know he went to
1:03:19
Oxford had this really glamorous life and all these you know female partners and so on clean
1:03:26
uh and he basically is now talking about the community of Medina hakiki aadi drawing with
1:03:34
Divine sovereignty and dry andun he was supposed to be one of us how dare he betray his own
1:03:40
community so he cannot be that easily dismissed as you know some kind of a bearded you know Muslim
1:03:46
cleric that they could just call the mullah and just dismiss that expect you know by showing that kind of islamophobia that many of these Elites also have so then they turn into these kinds
1:03:55
of narratives of he is a Taliban Khan where he basically basically argued that you know drone
1:04:01
attacks and violence as a result of drone attacks will only accentuate violence not decrease it and
1:04:07
for that he was basically called Taliban Khan or someone who is a religious fundamentalist or a populist so these are very very intellectually um uh limited and dishonest kinds of analysis
1:04:18
and what does not have to be an admirer or you know romanticizing him or glorifying him to do
1:04:23
a little more of a measured discourse analysis and that I think might be more intellectually and politically productive so let me let me then turn to the liberal Elites um I I mentioned in the
1:04:33
earlier question that culturally at least from a you know when we think about mass media the
1:04:39
liberal Elites uh like in many countries I suppose they have a very strong uh strangle hold over
1:04:45
the types of output that reaches Society I mean what's the uh how do you rate the earlier on in
1:04:52
the conversation you spoke about cism and and the Calis class can you expand on that idea as well I
1:04:58
mean do you say these liberals to be Calis in in sort of the Turkish sense so in many cases that is
1:05:04
absolutely the case and um and they do wield you know one of the main counterarguments that people
1:05:10
make when I or anyone might talk about these liberal Elites or these liberal secular Elites is that oh we don't have any power to begin with you know the Pakistani public sphere is controlled
1:05:19
by these religious fundamentalists uh they're the ones who have all these protests and Street power
1:05:24
and our space is already shrinking and you know how dare you say that we powerful but these are the people who basically write opinion pieces in these liberal newspapers like Dawn and Pakistan or
1:05:34
the guardian and BBC uh they're the ones who get you know all this funding from these think tanks
1:05:40
in Washington DC all this us Aid so at least on that front I think one might you know have
1:05:45
to agree with Trump um and and this has been a massive business for many years where you have
1:05:51
this whole Trope of you know women empowerment and trying to make Pakistan are more Progressive
1:05:56
uh so for example you know Jalal after 911 there was this whole kind of discourse coming out of the Rand Corporation and the Heritage Foundation that uh you know the Taliban basically belong to
1:06:07
the deobandi branch of Islam and hence they are the Puritans and the violent uh brand of South
1:06:12
Asian Islam and then you have these other Scholars their Rivals called the barelis and they're the soft sufis and the which is a complete caricature of the BVI school as well and this is something I
1:06:20
wrote about in my first book defending Muhammad in modernity but nonetheless as a result of that in mush's Era this whole discourse of Sufi Islam as the moderate Islam which has been there for
1:06:30
many years in Pakistan but this really became an object of tremendous State you know expenditure
1:06:36
of money and power a lot of this money was coming from Washington DC building of Sufi universities
1:06:42
and so on uh by presenting Sufism as some kind of a you know soft form of Islam so there is
1:06:49
very much a cism at work here where the idea is the underlying idea is that progress only happens
1:06:56
once you moderate regulate and control this thing called religion and religious practice and
1:07:02
expression and Islam that if you don't regulate it if you don't moderate it it will spill over into violence and mashar basically used that whole kind of anxiety of the US Empire at that time about
1:07:13
quote unquote religious fundamentalism and you know Islamic quote unquote terrorism U to uh you
1:07:20
know Advance his whole brand of cism uh which had been there for many years but he really gave it
1:07:25
a new life but on that front many people who might call themselves anti-ar anti-military but on that
1:07:33
front that underlying commonism still exists so there are many people in Pakistan in the academy
1:07:38
in these think tanks and you know the government and so on bureaucracy some of them are bestest
1:07:44
toxicated other want to be bestest tox bestest toxified who for example are very critical of
1:07:50
the military but they were you know all for the Drone attacks by saying no no it actually
1:07:55
kills these religious fundamentalists I I remember at an academic conference in the US a major you know Pakistani academic standing up at the Q&A session saying that but ultimately you
1:08:04
know drone attacks are quite accurate and mostly the people who we hear about who were killed were terrorists so you know of course there's some kind of you know human error that might happen
1:08:13
so that's the level of violence these people have in terms of the religious threat uh now that is
1:08:19
not to undermine the violence that you know some you know of the religious clerics and the elite have also committed and this is not something kind of giving a free pass to the religious
1:08:27
Elite and the religious sector either but this underlying cism uh often times does get this
1:08:34
kind of state sanction and in the current moment that is something which is really at work at the
1:08:39
foremost where you have this mixture of cism uh uh toxic dynastic thuggery in the form of pmln and
1:08:49
the PPP party um and and and in terms of cism it is really this particular political party the pmln
1:08:56
also has made tremendous strides and trying to be you know proper cists uh but it is really the
1:09:01
Pakistan people's party uh you know BTO uh party that has been at the Forefront of you know going
1:09:06
to Washington DC trying to present themselves as the good liberals the good Muslims the progressives um who can really bring about some kind of a progressive change in Pakistan through
1:09:16
the discourse of you know women's emancipation and so on while at the same time uh brutally clamping
1:09:23
down on opponents in their own province that they have have you know ruled over for the last few decades in terms of infrastructure the most rundown major city in Pakistan right now Karachi
1:09:32
and really an incredibly incompetent incredibly corrupt uh dynastic thugs uh but they played that
1:09:38
game quite well of presenting themselves as the you know good progressives within the Pakistani Society the one kind of qualifier I want to make so as not to be misinterpreted that I think we do
1:09:49
need to make a distinction between what we might call this liberal secular Elite you know driven
1:09:55
very much by this kind of unvarnished cism and a certain what we might call you know a left an
1:10:03
intellectual left and also an activist left that might be very critical of Imran Khan for different
1:10:09
reasons and on some counts I do not agree with the extent or the vifer of their critique and
1:10:15
I think at times they also perhaps caricature ran in B but that is a disagreement but one has
1:10:21
to acknowledge that there are what we might call a more principled left that has been critical of
1:10:26
the military um in a principal fashion and many of them in fact were very vigorous critics of
1:10:32
Pakistan in some cases people who were actually mistreated during Imran Khan's government by
1:10:37
the military lead in terms of being jailed for you know sedition or critiquing the military on
1:10:42
Twitter and so on and Imran Khan did not do much to help them although in some cases he has said
1:10:47
to have you know gotten people released and so on but very critical of Imran Khan who went through
1:10:53
a lot of problems during his government but still have taken the principal stance of being critical
1:10:58
and very publicly so against the current military dispensation so we do need to make a distinction
1:11:04
between a liberal secular Elite and a certainly more principle left in the academy and you know
1:11:11
the activist circles and so on though many even among the latter I think for the year or so after
1:11:17
Imran Khan's removal were embroiled in this whole debate is Imran Khan really properly anti-colonial
1:11:23
is he really properly revolutionary is he is this really unprecedented uh who were really going in
1:11:29
a very childish fashion you know writing emails or getting you know uh endorsements from poor
1:11:34
n Chomsky who to get emails from these leftists saying that no Imran Khan is not really radical and then Imran Khan support writing to him saying no no he really is much more radical
1:11:44
than these people are presenting him to be it's quite bizarre kind of ideological battles that happen in Pakistan um so I think that was a very unhelpful kind of discourse is this
1:11:51
unprecedented is he really a good revolutionary or not where people would literally being brutally killed and jailed and uh you know suppressed with incredible power so what if it was unprecedented
1:12:02
or not though in the urban centers I would say this is unprecedented especially in relation to the urban centers but yeah so that I think is some kind of a brief map of what we might
1:12:12
call S kind of a liberal secular Elite but then a much more principled and in many cases a very
1:12:17
academically sophisticated left that many of whose work I I admire and also follow sh Al um
China Pakistan relationship
1:12:25
any conversation about Pakistan would be insufficient without a discussion uh on the role
1:12:31
of China and China's relationship with the country now of course um China has a very strong trading
1:12:37
relationship and and some would suggest that when it comes to the Belton Road project uh Pakistan is
1:12:44
China's most important Ally in expanding its um Maritime and uh trade routes uh across uh
1:12:53
not just the region but of course as a gateway to the Indian Ocean and and Europe and Beyond
1:13:00
uh so Pakistan plays a very important role in uh this uh uh Chinese bid to become at least a World
1:13:08
Trading power if not a world political military power and of course uh your in the states and
1:13:14
the American particular the Trump Administration is very worried about China's rise and and uh you
1:13:21
hear often from both Democrats and Republicans that uh Pakistan is in danger of becoming a
1:13:27
vessel of the uh Chinese State uh uh through debt diplomacy and and it's it's uh uh disproportionate
1:13:36
trading uh relationship with uh with Pakistan what's the truth be of that relationship that
1:13:43
dynamic between Pakistan and and China so J I'm I'm I'm not an economist but you know what I've
1:13:49
seen from experts um it's clear that you know for a long time but especially in the last 10 years
1:13:55
or so the indebtedness of the Pakistan's economy and the kind of financial crisis that Pakistan has
1:14:01
been going through uh which again has been really really brutal for especially the middle class but
1:14:07
at this point even the upper middle class let alone um the impoverished uh the lower classes
1:14:13
that in many ways the relationship to any of these you know foreign entities powerful foreign entities has been one of trying to get some kind of help or some kind of you know um Financial um
1:14:25
Boost from where wherever they might get it uh on this particular question of course when Biden was in power there was I think a certain kind of a tilt towards the US uh that also was seen in
1:14:36
this regime change operation against Imran Khan uh not any kind of open hostility towards China
1:14:42
but there is very much a kind of tilt that Kamar Javed Baja the previous military Chief I think
1:14:48
thought that by tilting more towards the US a more kind of traditional you know Pakistan's Ally this
1:14:54
you you know superpower when it comes to the whole Russia us situation and and this kind
1:15:00
of us China relationship so that is where the the loyalties should lie uh but now that Biden
1:15:06
is out of power I think it remains to be seen how that will be reconfigured but the one of the major kind of challenges that the Pakistani state has faced is that precisely this question
1:15:15
of the non-transparency of these contracts and the whole uh uh you know the terms of this uh
1:15:22
uh belt and Road initi itive um and in some ways that also was seen during Imran Khan's government
1:15:31
there was some sort of percolations of the idea that this needs to be made more transparent but at the same time ran F very uh you know um uh in a very uh praising way talked about the way China
1:15:42
has taken its population out of poverty that he clearly saw China as a major role model for that and he was all you know prais for China on many fronts and clearly his relationship with the US
1:15:52
was much more tense and cold for very reasons especially is discourse on the modern Terror
1:15:57
and the question of American imperialism more broadly speaking so it remains to be seen how these configurations will play out uh but uh the relationship is marked by a complete uh imbalance
1:16:09
of power uh when it comes to China when it comes to the US or when it comes to the Gulf States and
1:16:15
the UAE in that whoever might provide any kind of economic aid um uh that's where I think the
1:16:23
loyalties will shift I don't think there's much kind of an ideological discourse or calculations
1:16:28
being played here in terms of you know what does Pakistan stand for what should in Islamic welfare or you know Republic uh Ally oneself I think this is just primary you know Primal
1:16:39
needs of sustaining the country and keeping this uh military dispensation going through
1:16:44
help that they might get from anywhere and I don't think there's any kind of a principle stance or position that is being taken uh on that front one final question for you uh sheral and
Pakistan’s potential
1:16:55
it's really been a fascinating conversation um I I want to end with uh maybe a more hopeful note
1:17:01
hopefully a hopeful note and and that is the potential of Pakistan and it's its ability to
1:17:08
uh to rejuvenate despite all of the uh very many um challenges that the the country faces I mean I
1:17:16
I I visit uh visited Karachi not so long ago and um you know I fell in love with the country I'm
1:17:22
not actually originally from Pakistan uh but I I fell in love with the country and and actually I would imagine if Pakistan became a a state that was stable uh very many uh good Minds from
1:17:35
across uh the West who had left Pakistan second third generation pakistanis would return back
1:17:41
to that country to rebuild it uh but for whatever reason Pakistan remains stubbornly uh this country
1:17:48
that um uh attracts uh a lot of a lot of um uh dissension I suppose a lot of of disagreement uh
1:17:56
or or dislike even or distaste amongst amongst pakistanis who live abroad in terms of a place
1:18:03
for where where they can uh live their lives out so what is the potential of Pakistan and and I
1:18:09
suppose the secondary question is how do we get there like how do we support Pakistan to reach
1:18:15
that potential that's a great question Jalal um couple of things I would say in response to your question uh the first thing I would say is I will talk about Hope in a moment but I also do
1:18:25
want to use the opportunity of this question to make the point that uh you know one ought not to
1:18:32
sort of artificially manufactured hope but I do want to also reflect on just the degree of um um
1:18:40
hopelessness and the dire situation of the country is in in terms of its financial situation in terms
1:18:45
of the kind of incredible inflation that we saw I mean you know I've heard stories of people you
1:18:51
know often times it is you know the the drivers that you get the most interesting stories from
1:18:57
so I you know my hotel shuttle that was taking me back to the airport in lore uh the driver saying
1:19:03
that uh you know literally he did not have the uh uh means to even get his son circumcised and that
1:19:11
he had to delay that because he did not have the 5,000 or 10,000 rupees to do that so incredibly dire situation um it complete political um suppression uh and BR brutality you have uh
1:19:25
dozens of political workers imprisoned and being tortured on a daily basis uh you know in in the
1:19:31
mainland and of course in the peripheries en forc disappearances and the military's killing and violence continues on a daily basis and really a you know I will have to say that
1:19:41
I have never experienced the degree of a certain kind of um Melancholia among the Pakistani public
1:19:49
especially the younger generation than what I saw most recently in different places Karachi Lor ET Etc um so and and on on that front I should also say that you know problems have always existed and
1:20:01
of course as I said that if Iman Khan had not been removed from Power most likely he would have lost the elections the next year but things really were not this bad and one needs to make that kind of
1:20:10
Distinction uh in that you know for all of critic critiques that we might make of Imran and you know
1:20:16
his problems of his policies or capacity or the people he was working with there are some you know really uh admiring things that also happened during his uh rule such as for example his
1:20:27
discourse during the very tense pulwama episode uh in 20 19 when indiaan and Pakistan almost went
1:20:35
to war and the speeches he gave there and the kind of statesmanship he showed and showed that you know when nation states go into this kind of a violent spree what are the consequences of that
1:20:44
and showing his underlying pacifist commitments uh you know during covid-19 when you had you know all
1:20:50
kinds of people even you know these sophisticated academics say lockdown lockdown that's that's a way to do things right because that is what the US is doing I think it's remarkable that Imran
1:20:59
Khan really was one of the few political leaders globally who had the underlying kind of Common
1:21:05
Sense and this underlying instinctive uh kind of reaction that no in this context lockdowns will be
1:21:10
absolutely horrific for the you know lower class and so on and that became more of a uh you know um
1:21:17
an agreed about agreed upon point by the scientist Community much much later so on that front U you
1:21:23
know many people who voted for Imran Khan people that I'm in touch with that I speak with in places
1:21:28
like the K Province the reason why they support Iman Khan is not so much about you know that he
1:21:36
was at once allied with the military or even his nationalism for that matter many of them the most common response I I get is the the health cards that he issued during his time where people
1:21:46
were able to use his health cards as an insurance now there are some criticisms of that health card system as well but some kind of gesture towards catering for dispossessed uh towards some kind of
1:21:57
an even in discourse of you know thinking about a welfare state that caters for the dispossessed
1:22:05
for whatever contradictions and tensions might be there in that position but there was some gesture towards that or his whole billion Tre tsunami Campaign which might have again some problems
1:22:14
and I know from my environmentalist friends that it had some kind of neoliberal issues but still at least this gesture of caring for the environment as a theological commitment and his underlying
1:22:25
push against corruption I think is despite the contradiction that some many corrupt people also have entered his party um I think that underlying discourse has been tremendous for Pakistan I think
1:22:34
he really I think is the one political figure who turned this underlying idea of corruption
1:22:40
in a developing country like Pakistan into a theological problem into a problem that really was
1:22:46
of theology uh and and being uh and the question of Justice in Islam so I don't want to make this
1:22:54
between what things are like now and what they were even in the recent past but the hopeful kind of note and this I think is not a manufactured hope but something that I think
1:23:03
is a potential I think the potential really is this is really right moment where you have
1:23:11
people across ideological divisions who can come together on at least this underlying commitment of
1:23:24
showing resistance and critiquing in different ways in whatever possible ways the military
1:23:31
Elite and um the military sort of terrorist Factory um and in addition to that making the
1:23:42
case that they will also not tolerate uh American Imperial um interventions and dictations when it
1:23:51
comes to Pakistani society and that kind of possibility of alliances across ideological
1:23:57
divides I think is possible it's difficult but it is possible in the current moment so
1:24:02
you know one of the most heartening stories that I heard in the last year is again from a student at uh this major university in Pakistan in Islamabad the capital called Kazam University
1:24:14
where I heard about this narrative whereby you had the student who was a PTI support this is around 20 2023 when the military brutality was really at its well it still is at its weak but
1:24:24
uh was really high and the student was talking to a bot student a friend of his and they were
1:24:32
talking and they were you know sort of chatting with each other so the person who told me the story went up to the PTI you know supporting young student and said how come you've become friends
1:24:42
with this belov student you used to be very critical of him and you used to say that they are you know anti-state and used to say that they are you causing propaganda against the military how
1:24:52
come you became friends and and the PTI supporting student said that you know uh I was wrong and
1:24:59
now I realized and I've apologized to him that I was wrong all along about the military about its
1:25:04
violence and that I think was a really beautiful kind of moment where you had the possibility of this Alliance um and I think that Alliance needs to be further uh cultivated not by resorting to
1:25:16
these kind of sarcastic Jabs that PTI supporters that oh look these military loving people have finally woken up and that also is a caricature not all PTI supporters were military loving to
1:25:25
begin with especially in Province um Imran Khan's popularity is much more complicated as I've tried
1:25:31
to argue here but that kind of an alliance an alliance between I think the principal left which
1:25:37
has done some incredible work when it comes to social justice when it comes to you know speaking up for the labor class alliances between them and then this middle class which really is one
1:25:48
of the major sources of this the popularity and the following of Imran Khan uh alliances between
1:25:55
ethnic divides so you know the Balo resistance with the patan movements that have been ongoing
1:26:01
for a while like this famous patan movement called the PTM uh what is called the pashun tus movement
1:26:07
or protecting Pon interests movement uh and you know more sort of PTI leading pans so there is I
1:26:15
think a possibility of some kind of uh you know ideological alliances uh that might then provide
1:26:21
a more unified front to the military it might be a long game it's not something that can happen instantly it's some kind of a model that you just come out in the streets and and cause some kind of
1:26:30
a revolution overnight although that might happen it might be instigated at at a point as well but I
1:26:36
think that is the need of the Aro to come together on this underlying twoo agenda a critique of
1:26:41
the military and a complete intolerance of the political intervention of the military and its
1:26:47
violence and complete intolerance of any kind of intervention by the American Empire um I I think
1:26:54
that is a hopeful possibility that that might be possible and for that I think what you know people
1:27:01
like you Jalal uh can do or those people who are in the diaspora who perhaps have more you know of
1:27:06
a capacity to speak up in more uh sort of explicit ways although in many cases even you know people
1:27:14
who were related to Diaspora people have been picked up and tortured who might have spoken up in the west and elsewhere but what we really can do and what you can do especially in the media is
1:27:24
precisely to try to interrogate Pakistani politics and Society Beyond caricatured headlines
1:27:35
Beyond these kinds of headlines of the Muslim fundamentalist state that uh you know is uh uh
1:27:41
at the brink of uh disaster or the failed nuclear armed state or these underlying orientalist
1:27:49
islamophobic pathological kind of caricatures all these caricatures that Imran Khan you know
1:27:55
the one time blue-eyed boy of the military has now gone against it which is perpetuated even by the BBC I mean even something like democracy now this you know underlying di heart uh uh object of love
1:28:08
for all the Liberals and the leftists all over and maybe in Palestine they were good but when it came to Pakistan Jalal during right after 2022 when all these you know when Imran Khan was removed from
1:28:18
power they literally aired segments where they tried to argue that these people these dynast
1:28:24
thugs Mariam naaz the daughter of Na Sharif and baval B the son of you know bazir B and
1:28:31
as zardari U zardari being you know perhaps the most corrupt of all of these thugs uh that they
1:28:37
were some champions of democracy and the reason why they said that is because they basically brought in these liberal secular Elites to their programs they became the informants the Pakistani
1:28:45
informants and that's the kind of story they went with so I think we really need to listen to the
1:28:50
voices of the people as much as possible why is that Tex driver in Dubai in Bradford in uh you
1:28:57
know London New York laor Karachi so attracted to Imran Khan uh trying to think about that Beyond
1:29:03
these kinds of caricatured hacked categories like cult following and uh you know hero worship and
1:29:09
so on and in some cases that might be true but I think we need a more sophisticated analysis we need to go beyond the headlines and caricatured representations and that can only be done through
1:29:19
these kinds of conversations that go into some depth where people might disagree that many people might disagree with many things I've said but that disagreement should not resort to
1:29:27
some kind of visceral reactions of oh this is uh you know horrible horrible terms that people use
1:29:33
for PTI supporters uh you know some of the most champions of feminism for example talk about PTI
1:29:39
supporters as uh this word called UA which is basically a rhyming for uh the word c and you
1:29:46
know in Udu so I mean that is the kind of level of discourse that people resort to uh rather than
1:29:53
and considered and measured debate disagreement and conversation so those kinds of conversations are needed and I think your platform and other platforms if there were more you know Outlets
1:30:02
like the thinking Muslim in mainstream media I mean the Middle East I I think plays a good role on that front but we need more of this coverage that is not about Pro or anti Iman
1:30:12
Khan but that interrogates these issues beyond the you know headlines which are often times
1:30:19
violent secular headlines that dominate Western and in many cases South Asian media as well
1:30:24
Professor Sher Alin I think that's been uh really a fascinating conversation and we need to bring you back on uh to discuss Pakistan's relationship with India in particular at some
1:30:35
point because I think that requires probably a a separate conversation in Kashmir of course uh
1:30:40
but ja thank you so much for your time today thank you so much really been honor Ramadan to everyone
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