Herald View: Imran Khan would be bad news for both Pakistan and India

Survival of democracy is a perennial problem in Pakistan. Elected governments are often thrown out of power by the army on flimsy grounds. The country has a history of physically eliminating popular people’s leaders too and Pakistan’s army establishment is known for keeping democracy at bay. But even for a power hooked army like in Pakistan, it is becoming difficult to engineer a coup to dislodge an elected government. General Pervez Musharraf was the last army chief who displaced the elected Nawaz Sharif government in 1999.

Two successive Pakistan governments led by Asif Zardari and later Nawaz Sharif were the first democratically elected governments to last full terms completing a continuous decade in power. It has seemingly disturbed the Pakistan army which has been kept confined to the barracks too long for its comfort. Yet it continued to do back seat driving by hook and crook. The army believes in maintaining its tight grip over security and foreign affairs. Any violation of this norm on the part of an elected government is not just resisted but is severely punished.

Nawaz Sharif paid the price for attempting to mend fences with India twice. He was thrown out of power first by Musharraf after then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Lahore on a peace mission to Pakistan. Sharif paid a heavy price again for being friendly with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi. He is now languishing in jail with his daughter on trumped up corruption charges.

Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) was engaged in an electoral battle of survival, courtesy the judicial coup against PML(N) orchestrated by the army. But people of Pakistan are no longer willing to accept direct army rule. It is a dramatic shift in Pakistan politics that is disturbing the army no end. The army has devised the novel way of engineering a proxy democracy to keep the façade of an elected government while managing back seat power driving through proxy politicians.

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is an army proxy by all accounts who in the ongoing Pakistan elections is playing the establishment’s game of hijacking democracy through the back door. Imran is high on ambition and low on political wisdom. He will be happy playing the army’s puppet if elected the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. It would mean hoodwinking democracy and keeping Pakistani masses out of the power structure. It would also be a continuation of Pak army’s anti-India policy and meddling in Kashmir.

Its grave fallout will also be the encouragement to army-sponsored Pakistan terror groups operating both inside and outside Pakistan. Imran Khan would be bad news both for Pakistan and India, given this background.