Failed project ‘Imran’
How did we reach here? These are the fruits of the failed ‘
project Imran’, launched to crush the political parties of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and former president Asif Ali Zardari. It was also a continuation of the 75-year-itch that the Pakistani establishment has had of destabilising its own country.
It was promised to be a 10-year plan, with Bajwa and former DG ISI Faiz Hameed taking turns as Army chief, and their ultimate goal being to rig the elections and selecting Imran Khan as the PM. Inspired by the one-party rule in China and becoming a ‘brown’ Xi. In the process, they also do away with the parliamentary form of government and replace it with a presidential one. Parliamentary democracies can only work in
Anglo-Saxon countries. We never got the memo that next-door India is an Anglo-Saxon country.
Before the 2018 election,
judges were strong–armed by the ISI to give decisions against Nawaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz. One judge mentioned how Faiz Hameed had said that if he didn’t rule against Nawaz, “our two years of
hard work will go to waste”. And we all paid for that hard work for the next four years.
There was no opposition leader at the time who was not put behind bars on political cases. Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Hanif Abbasi was
sentenced to life in prison in an ephedrine quota case in July 2018, four days before the election. The urgency was that the Rawalpindi seat contested by Abbasi was to be handed to Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad. Whom Bajwa now labels “absolutely
useless guy”. Managing media was the biggest part of pre-poll rigging; public rallies of the PMLN were
censored and the programmes were dropped across mainstream channels.
From the pre-election to the last four years of government, this group of
faujis (soldiers) and their
ladla (favourite) politician worked hand in glove. Whether it was former DG ISPR Asif Ghafoor urging the media to
report positively for six months, giving time to the government, or making political assessments like, “2018 will be a year of
tabdeeli (transformation)” which was a slogan of PTI. Or in the later half, Faiz Hameed
showing up in Kabul with a cup of tea for self-promotion: “Don’t worry everything will be okay.” How okay it is with the Afghan Taliban and the resurgence of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) since is a secret to none. Maybe it is as okay as the early retirement of Hameed.
All these men in uniform acted like PTI workers. Yet in a parting speech, Bajwa wondered why Indians don’t criticise their Army as Pakistanis do. Well, to start with, I never heard their Army chiefs bring in a ‘
Bajwa doctrine’. That termed the 18th amendment of the constitution, which gave autonomy to the provinces, as “more dangerous than six points of Sheikh Mujib,” the founder of Bangladesh. Also, never read about how the Indian COAS queues up to get egg omelette or which YouTuber he listens to when making a shave. I guess that’s why Bajwa doesn’t hear Indians complain about their chief. And I am not even mentioning the politics of it all!
The biggest beneficiary of these good times on the same page has been Imran Khan — from a
tanga party to a one-time prime minister. Today it is laughable when Khan quotes Muhammad Ali Jinnah to Gen Asim Munir to talk about the role of the armed forces within the ambit of the Constitution. All that is fine, but was Imran Khan in deep slumber when he was using the same uniform for his chores?