[This piece I wrote like in a fit.]
Finally, I found what may be termed the penultimate explanation.
Since this IK (Imran Khan) phenomenon emerged on the political scene in Pakistan (end of 2011), I have been writing and speaking about it, trying to explain it.
Although, of course, there could never be a single explanation that is sufficient, especially in the case of a social phenomenon, in certain cases, there is an explanation that presents itself as revealing as the crux of a matter can be.
This explanation that I have found or realized now, and I term it the penultimate explanation, is such one that, without any fear of exaggerating, can be said to be the final explanation regarding the IK phenomenon.
Personally too, now I feel that finally I am able to untie the knot. I find myself satisfied with it now.
Actually, what used to baffle me is the question: How the people with intellectual credentials could side with IK? How could the thinking people be the defenders of IK?
No doubt, exceptions are those people who know why and for what interest of theirs they are siding with IK. They include politicians, media persons, etc.
Mind it, I have no qualms against the voters of any party, IK’s PTI included.
To me, it is a very confusing situation when I find personalities like Salman Akram Raja, a well-known lawyer, for whom I had a great appreciation for his juridical acumen, standing on the side of IK. I can’t understand the puzzle of the working of their minds regarding IK.
It’s the same puzzle: How could Aitzaz Ahsan speak in favor of IK?
Alas, I saw a number of people from the religious lobby siding with IK; there are who still do. That presented a disastrously flabbergasting situation to my mind.
That list comprises some of my good friends also. Again, in this case more explicitly, it is a perplexing situation for my understanding—how and why they could side with IK?
I had already noticed how a lot of supporters of the ZAB+PPPP converted to IK. In the case of MNS+PMLN, there are almost none.
That’s a telling fact. It’s the political Jurassic Park: The DNA of a dinosaur was incubated to grow into a dinosaur.
The penultimate explanation is as follows:
The ones who think not in terms of values and particularly moral values are vulnerable to sliding into liking IK or anything like him.
The ones who think not in terms of intellectuality are vulnerable to sliding into liking IK or anything like him.
The first proposition amounts to saying that those who, in their thinking and actions, are not guided by moral values as a first and the last and social and other values as a routine are open to side with anyone with no system of values.
A system of values has no presence in their system of thinking.
Also, their judgments are devoid of any criterion based on moral and other values.
And as a matter of fact, when one’s thinking is not based on values, it will fatefully be parochial and tribal on the one hand and reactionary (I mean the ones who react, and not the political reactionaries) on the other.
So far as the second proposition is concerned, it means that they are people with thinking but not consistent thinking. Their thinking lacks consistency. That is, there is no logic involved in their thinking process. It is without any logic or with an illogic.
And such thinking is a system of thought built on a hodgepodge of contradictory and inconsistent bits of thought.
In conclusion:
A recently published book attempts an analysis of Imran Khan.
Imran Khan: Myth of The Pakistani Middle-Class, by Nadeem Farooq Paracha (Vanguard Books, 2023).
I have yet to see the book, but I did read a review of it in the Dawn (8 September, 2024). The reviewer, Dr Erum Khalid Sattar, performed a soft-handed anatomy of the book.
Let me first quote certain views of the reviewer.
“The book begins with Khan’s cricketing days. While it may not be immediately obvious why the recounting of this history may be important to start with in relation to the main focus of the book — the role of Khan in Pakistan’s politics along with the changing nature of middle-class politics in the country — Paracha draws important insights from this era, that speak to the psyche of both Khan and the country (in particular its growing middle-classes).”
“In many ways, this book is very much about unfolding events and tussles that are current and ongoing, and about whose ultimate resolution there is not yet closure within the country’s politics. Given this fact, it is an impressive undertaking by Paracha to help situate what feels like current events, within historical academically grounded analysis.”
“Grounding our current discourse in history and theory is surely a worthy goal: one that may lead to more mature political discourse…”
From the review, I gleaned that the author’s methodology is solely based on the Marxist approach. It attempts a class analysis first and foremost, as is obvious from the title of the book also. The historical analysis the book takes recourse to is another tool from the Marxist toolbox.
No doubt, a psychological analysis of the IK phenomenon is long overdue in Pakistan, though that may not have the quality of analyses of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini carried out in the West.
But the reviewer of Paracha’s book may not have realized that her anatomy of the book brings the point home that the book did not try to touch the boundaries of an intellectual and moral analysis of the IK phenomenon.
I do not deny the importance of a class and historical analysis of a phenomenon, but I do want to emphasize the significance of an intellectual and moral analysis as an ultimate guide to understanding a phenomenon. And the same is the case with the analysis of the IK phenomenon.
Among other things, that also explains the dismal state of analysis in Pakistan. That is, it may be anything—class analysis, historical analysis, etc.—but extremely rarely a moral and intellectual analysis.
And that’s the largest stumbling block in the way of intellectual and political progress in Pakistan.