In 2007, the Musharraf dictatorship found itself in the doldrums. Suddenly, it was up against a charged protest movement, an economy that had begun to falter, and the return of two political leaders from exile, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. Both had been kept out from the political system designed by Musharraf during his tenure as ‘president.’ He was also unable to smother private TV news channels that, ironically, had mushroomed during his government. By 2007, almost all of them had become chattering vessels for opposition leaders and narratives.

This was something new in Pakistan. The state-owned PTV was not the only TV channel anymore. The content of the new channels could not be conveniently moulded and shaped according to a sitting regime’s needs and interests. Therefore, it won’t be an overstatement to claim that the channels contributed in expediting Musharraf’s downfall and ultimate ouster.

All this was being closely watched by a startled ‘establishment.’ After Musharraf’s departure, the establishment eventually began to harness this phenomenon by gradually arm-twisting and reining-in numerous channels, first to help it create brand Imran — especially among an urban generation of youth who had come of age during the Musharraf era — and then to demonise anyone or anything that stood in the way of turning this brand into a ruling possibility. 

But this was in the near future. Because during the period the Musharraf regime was badly wavering, all it could think of or do (to retain the attention of Musharraf’s aforementioned urban constituency) was to pull in certain characters from what is often referred to as the ‘conspiratorial lunatic fringe’, and forcibly create some space for them on TV channels.

With Musharraf’s ministers badly faltering in convincingly addressing the rapidly proliferating narrative against the regime, the script provided to the conspiracy theorists was simple: Explain the movement against Musharraf as an evil scheme hatched by the enemies of the country and their Pakistani agents. 

These colourful and articulate theorists drew their material from various popular conspiracy gurus such as the Turkish Harun Yahya and the American Alex Jones. This was then fused with sensational narratives from popular conspiratorial cultural products that included fabricated texts such as the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and low-budget straight-to-YouTube ‘documentaries’ such as Loose Change. These were then peddled with a healthy dose of cherry-picked sections from Allama Iqbal (as interpreted by the theorists) and tales of ancient Muslim warriors drawn from literature that was more historical fiction than fact. 

As the opposition’s manoeuvres and narrative gain momentum amidst rampant inflation, political repression and utter governmental incompetence, the conspiracy cards are out again — but with a twist

Did all this attract the attention of urban youth? It did. Unable to grasp the complexities of the ways in which political turbulence emerges and evolves, they were provided ready-made answers through which they could understand the commotion in an entirely angled manner.

According to the British academic and author Jovan Byford, in his 2011 book Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction, “Conspiracy theories seduce not so much through the power of argument, but through the intensity of the passions that they stir. Underpinning conspiracy theories are stories about good and evil. This gives conspiracy theories a strong emotional dimension.” 

So those who put the conspiracy theorists to work on TV amidst the turmoil during the Musharraf regime, knew exactly the kind of emotions they were looking to stir (against the opposition). 

But did it help stall or evade Musharraf’s fall? No. His constituency was limited and largely apolitical. This too was noted. Therefore, from 2011 onwards, the establishment began to aid Imran Khan to adopt Musharraf’s constituency, expand it and then rapidly politicise it. Nine years later, Khan was able to form a minority government, largely popular among the urban bourgeoisie. Even though the conspiracy theorists who had appeared during the tail-end of the Musharraf regime were eventually discredited and their tirades debunked by a host of historians, an idea that they had introduced during their figurative 15 minutes of fame stuck.

This idea was simple: if one continues to lie about something with conviction from a mainstream platform, that lie, especially when carried and proliferated by social media sites, often begins to be taken as a ‘fact’ by large groups of people. 

The purpose of these so-called ‘facts’ is not to enlighten people, but to sustain an audience in times of crisis and make sure it doesn’t drift away into the opposition’s camp. If it needs to be lied to, then so be it. But the lie requires to be told in such a manner that it works to emotionally and psychologically reinforce narratives that have begun to erode in the minds of the targeted audience. Because once this audience is emotionally invested in the lie, it is also likely to treat anything debunking the lie as a grand conspiracy. 

During times of crises for a regime, daily micro-battles can be fought through this approach. However, as we saw during the last year of the Musharraf regime, and as we are now seeing in Modi’s India and Trump’s America, the rising intensity of this approach may as well be signalling that the war engulfing the daily micro battles is being lost. And in Imran Khan’s Pakistan too, the intensity of this approach has risen amidst the rising tide of opposition against the government and its backers.

In a feature on the February 1990 elections in Nicaragua, which an opposition alliance won by defeating the ruling Sandinista party that had come to power in 1979 through a revolution, Time magazine quoted a man who had supported the Sandinista but voted for the opposition.

He told the magazine that a majority of Nicaraguans had voted for the opposition ‘with their stomachs that had become empty.’ The Sandinista had painted the opposition as being anti-poor and made emotional appeals to the electorate to not allow a rollback of the revolution. But these slogans had no meaning to those fearing starvation and joblessness. 

As the opposition’s manoeuvres and narrative in Pakistan gain momentum and currency in a scenario riddled with rampant inflation, political repression and utter governmental incompetence, the conspiracy cards are out again. But this time they are not being played by those brought in from the ‘lunatic fringe.’ However, the content and modus operandi are the same. We are now seeing ministers adopting this role. A recent example is the manner in which the Information Minister Shibli Faraz explained the opposition alliance, the PDM, as ‘the third piece of the axis of evil’ (Dawn, October 25). The other two pieces being India and Israel. 

This may sound entirely ridiculous to most because it smacks of typical conspiratorial claptrap. But Faraz is talking to a constituency that had actually bought the curious Utopian fusion of a theocratic fantasy and modern developmental economics sold with great passion by brand Imran and his makers.

However, to an empty stomach it is nothing but hogwash and that too coming from an incompetent regime which has been reduced to now defending its ‘selection,’ knowing well that the claim of it being elected has been shot to pieces.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2020