There’s an overwhelming sense of betrayal in the spiralling rhetoric of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan. This sense is also prevalent among his core support base, mainly consisting of animated clusters from the country’s urban upper-middle and middle class segments. He also has traction in lower-middle class pockets, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Before we dive into what aids him in retaining his support within these groups — despite his ousted regime being calamitous for the country’s economy — let’s first explore the sense of betrayal Khan and his supporters seem to be nursing.

Khan was ousted by the opposition parties through a no-confidence vote in the parliament. It was an entirely constitutional manoeuvre. Yet, according to him and his supporters, the move was facilitated by the US regime which, apparently, wanted him out because his policies were not conducive to US interests in the region.

There was also talk in his ranks about how he had risen to become an important leader in the Muslim world, and was trying to create an anti-West Muslim bloc. Of course, all this has so far proven to be nothing more than populist hogwash.

Former PM Imran Khan’s supporters’ sense of betrayal is about having been robbed of their delusions, not their money

But what seemed to trigger Khan’s anger most was the manner in which his erstwhile ‘friends’ in the military establishment decided to beat a strategic retreat from outrightly supporting him. They just couldn’t afford to continue doing this amidst the mess their man and his regime were creating in the name of economic and foreign policy. Khan sees this as a betrayal. He was allegedly promised a decade-long stretch and the erasure of all and any opposition to his regime.

The opposition, whether mainstream such as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F) etc., or the activist Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), exhibited resilience and, eventually, some clever political moves. It turned the growing sentiment within large sections of the polity against the government’s economic blunders and demagogic posturing, as a way to convince the establishment that Khan had become a liability.

The sense of betrayal intensified when a leader from the PML-N, Shahbaz Sharif, was elected by the joint opposition as the new PM. Khan detests the PML-N.

The sense of betrayal is writ large across Khan’s post-ouster rhetoric. And this rhetoric has found its way into that of his supporters. This is generating some curious scenarios. For example, as Khan’s more-than-obvious allusions to his betrayal by the top military leadership increase, it is beginning to be manifested more overtly by his supporters, especially on social media.

It is being framed as a stand against military intervention in politics, even though those who have been deriding such interventions for decades are not impressed.

They responded by pointing out that the people who have suddenly become ‘anti-establishment’ were, till now, willing tools of the same establishment. On Twitter, various human rights activists and journalists who were harassed, ‘disappeared’ or faced online psychological and emotional abuse, insist that those spouting anti-establishment rants today, are the same people who were applauding human rights abuses that took place during Khan’s regime.

Even those who are subtler in this respect, but are protesting against Khan’s ouster, had remained quiet when these abuses were taking place.

But the contradictions and ironies that populist politics is often riddled with, doesn’t count for much to those who practise or support it. In fact, the mindset that populism encourages has the incredible knack of seamlessly navigating around contradictions (and hypocrisy), by simply ignoring them.

They don’t matter, as long as the focal message is going through. In fact, in the case of populists such as Khan, the man became the message. His carefully crafted image, of being ‘the only option’ and ‘incorruptible’ and a ‘world famous celebrity’, continues to undermine (among certain sections of society) the many disasters his regime presided over.

The upper- and upper-middle classes actually prospered because of the former regime’s lopsided economic policies. Most economists have termed the policies as ‘pro-rich’. The middle class, lower-middle class, and the classes below (who are in a majority) on the other hand, suffered. So why would certain segments of the middle and lower-middle classes continue to support Khan?

It seems their economic interests have transcended into an imaginary realm that is still being peddled by Khan. It is a surreal mixture of ‘New Age spiritualism’, Islamism, conspiracy theories and post-colonialism.

Like a cult, Khan’s PTI gave the mentioned segments a sense of purpose, and experiences produced from the intensity of the group dynamic. Indeed, this sense of purpose was weaved together from Utopian promises. And when the government fell, many among this lot overlooked the possible economic and political benefits of the fall, and were plunged right back into what they had been a part of before Khan came to power.

The anxiety of losing an identity and purpose that they had invested their egos and emotions in, did not creep up when Khan was at the helm as PM. It crept up only when what they thought impossible actually happened. He fell.

If middle class segments are transcending their economic interests in a bid to retain an identity that was carved out for them by Khan, so are certain sections from the lower-middle classes. But to these, the loss of received identity also meant something else.

The identity made them feel (and not be, or accepted as) middle class. They did not have to work their way up to become middle class. Instead, they simply needed to support PTI and attend the party’s rallies, largely populated by a class they aspire to be a part of.

Recently, a video went viral in which a young man from a lower-middle income group was seen cursing Gen Bajwa, the military and the opposition for downing Khan. He then set ablaze a Pakistani flag.

To him, the message was the man, Imran Khan. A man who made him feel ‘middle class’. The man’s downfall thus meant the erosion of that feeling, that emotion. The crushing of the economic fortunes of the young man’s income group during Khan’s regime did not matter.

Cause for concern.

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 17th, 2022