Pakistan appears to be at the edge of a precipice. The political and military brass are targeting former Prime Minister Imran Khan who has been out of office since April last year. He’s fearing not just his arrest but also liquidation as had often happened to former rulers there at the hands of the military or other stakeholders. The police having surrounded his home in Lahore, Khan spoke of the emergence of a situation similar to the East Pakistan upheaval of the 1970s leading up to the division of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh. Almost the entire leadership of his Tehreek-e-Insaf party has been put under arrest as also thousands of his activists after last week’s protests followed by Khan’s dramatic arrest in a corruption case — and his subsequent release by the Supreme Court. Khan fears his party itself might be banned on the grounds of violence against the army, at the precise time when his popularity graph is at a high. While the establishment’s stated aim is to fix men who had attacked the army in street violence last week, it would appear that this is part of a larger conspiracy.
The street violence in Pakistan happened alongside the ongoing massive rebellions in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by separatist groups set against the Pakistani establishment. The Sindh and Punjab province, the base of Pakistan’s traditional ruling/political class, is the only region where the situation had remained under control. Prime Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif and the Nawaz Sharif family are at the receiving end of the people’s anger over the worsening economic situation and resultant woes in their lives. An IMF bailout is the only hope for the nation embedded in a deep economic crisis. Amid all these crises, Pakistani elections might not occur in the near future also as Khan’s popularity was at 61 per cent against Nawaz Sharif’s and foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Sardari’s 36 per cent.
Corruption in the Pakistani army is legion over the past many years. It is no secret that the loot by the Pakistani generals as also top politicians are parked in tax havens abroad and in investment in the UAE. The Surgical Strike and the February 2019 Balakot bombing by the Indian military – in retaliation to the terror activities by Pakistani agents and the Pulwama attack on CRPF convoy in Kashmir – shamed the Pakistani Army’s top brass. To rebuild their stature, the generals there are now playing the Islamic card and seeking to take on Imran Khan by stressing that any attack on the military is tantamount to an attack on the Islamic traditions of the country.