From the day the PTI was formed, this sleeper project was bound to be doomed as it lacked basic government knowledge, even less so than its previous counterparts.
Imran Khan was made out to rise among the commons which was not quite difficult—the word cult comes to mind thanks to what happened in that span of time—allowing politics to become stigmatised. The narrative for this sleeper project had been kept irrelative enough to make any substantial difference. Khan had been given a clean slate, and all his misdeeds were brushed under the perennial rug. His marriage was annulled later but their influence in his rise never was: they even allegedly tried to pressurise opponents to back away in recent times—oh, how the word sovereignty gets misused!
Going back to the formation of Khan’s popularity, time had passed and the previous government became so unstable that it was nearly wiped out. A decision, somewhere, was then made in order to give Khan’s sleeper project a more relevant status in governmental control. That status was backed with the same script and the same script-writers as we had seen with previous hybrid reign, without any sense of the how world operates and how future generations will end up paying for their follies. A new dice roll had been carried out, and a new set of leaders was picked out from the crowd. In this resistance, they took over the nation’s greatest assets, halting the country to a standstill for three days. At that particular point in time, one rose upto that disastrous occasion and chanted for unity and somehow diffused the anger, for which he paid with another price. However, his story is for another time—let’s keep the focus on Khan for now.
Even after such a nation-shattering event, the sleeper project continued to chug on, disastrously being made to be relevant in the current day and age—however, the particular hybrid agenda behind it all hadn’t changed at all. Half a decade passed yet again and the nation saw a silent revolution where the country became more and more acclimated with being democratic in spirit, which was unforeseeable as they were busy. It had never become as smooth-sailing as the old project again had been under the umbrella—but in all that, the new project was given more traction. And thus came the time to realise it fully and the new hands gave it full throttle but as history has it, goals were never met. Even to his exit, a hefty price got paid and that made them now hellbent on change. And it was achieved through their old cohorts, and then came a selected regime that was defined by one word; u-turn.
It must have been the script-writers, or maybe additions from himself, to tell those tall claims of change or the bashing of all field players in order to make his persona as clean as possible, a feat not easy to accomplish. Although, in that time, Imran Khan had gotten a cult following thanks to all the propaganda which had been tailored for him. He graciously became a cult leader instead of a politician: something he never was, and never will be. Every promise of prosperity, to paving the way for a democratic means of ruling, he u-turned at every moment and even attempted to justify it as his cult leader status kept growing, all thanks to being in power and his cult following’s unparalleled and unprecedented support. But like any Greek Tragedy, it was coming that the narcissist monster that was created by gods, after ruining all that was given to him, would turn on them sooner than expected. The cult leader in Khan started to increasingly believe that he was the ‘chosen one’ and the grand designs of grandeur with his cult standing firmly behind his every act of fascism. It was literally the reflection of his creators and the time came yet again where change was becoming more and more inevitable. As Khan became unstable, posing more and more threats to the establishment, the real player was approached. A show of power was asked and delivered, and the terms of engagement were locked to be neutrality and constitutionally helping them to build back their image & of country too.
Thus started the process but by then a divide also has been created in their own lines, unacceptable at any cost. It was that divide that hatched upon such disastrous plans that will haunt the country for a long time—at a humble estimate of at least 15 years at the very minimum, methinks. All terms of engagements were made sure to be followed even after it was decided that this selected regime would hang top power even if it meant destroying the piece of paper that actually holds the country together. A major crisis was born but still the real player kept it constitutional and neutrality was asked which prevailed. Yet Khan and his cohorts kept making a mockery of that piece of paper, and then came the backroom plan which was hatched, which you’ve already probably seen on international outlets by now, and how it all played out. But still, the real players made sure that the terms of engagements were to be followed, at least for this stage and they were, finally averting the crisis. Now comes the responsibility upon the real player to undo the ruin done by Khan and his selected regime and again make the system stronger and lives easier, which I’ll talk about in a later op-ed.
With the devastating results which became the undoing and eventual fall of Imran Khan from power and grace, they must now learn to play by the rules, then history will repeat itself…
But this is the chance that the monster that they have creating can truly be culled and a society can be honed and all this will be upon the politicians.
As for the cult, this misguide bunch isn’t going anywhere soon as all the creators who fed it already have started feeling the heat of it. To cater to them, democracy is needed much more, as it will eventually deliver; it is a conversation with tolerance preached by politics.
The progression of any society — and, hence, any country — is by means of politics, and politics only.
The contributor, Syed Hassan Mehmood Gillani, is a poet and writer based in Lahore. He currently directs his own marketing firm.
Reach out to him @shmags_zeus.
