On September 25 this year, the former US president Donald Trump suggested that the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, was a traitor who deserved to be executed. Trump accused Milley of secretly interfering in the former president’s foreign policy manoeuvres.

Trump is often described as a right-wing populist who surprised pundits by winning the 2016 presidential election. However, when he lost a re-election bid in 2020, he accused the ‘deep state’ of orchestrating his defeat.

In Pakistan, when former prime minister Imran Khan was ousted in April 2022 through a no-confidence vote in the parliament, he launched an unprecedented verbal assault against certain senior military officers. Some of these were instrumental in bolstering his political career and ‘helped’ him come to power through the 2018 elections.

Khan, too, is considered to be a populist. His opponents often described him as a ‘puppet’ of the military establishment (ME). As prime minister, Khan went out of his way to facilitate the ME’s political interests. He demonised those who were perceived to be ‘anti-army’. He justified actions taken against them, especially by intelligence agencies. 

However, because of his populist rhetoric against the country’s international security and economic allies, and his government’s many failures on multiple fronts, his supporters in the ME attempted to regulate his behaviour. But the attempt made things worse. Khan’s slide into becoming a loose cannon accelerated.

Right-wing populists routinely exacerbate societal dichotomies and present simple solutions to complex issues in an attempt to win over the masses and the military. But this lack of nuance also leads to their comeuppance

This forced his erstwhile friends in the ME to leave him vulnerable to the tactics of an emboldened opposition. The opposition finally succeeded in gathering enough votes to oust him. Like Trump, Khan too began to express extreme bitterness towards the military. 

After the results of the 2022 elections in Brazil were announced, the incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, refused to accept defeat. Thousands of his supporters attacked key government buildings and demanded that the military stage a coup and reinstate Bolsonaro as president. Bolsonaro was one of the many politicians who came to power on the wave of right-wing populism that swept across various countries in the 2010s. 

It is remarkable how the downward trajectory of populists who recently lost power has been quite similar. Trump, Khan and Bolsonaro became overtly hostile towards some military officers. Many of their supporters took to the streets and began to attack and vandalise state and government property. They seemed assured that the military officers sympathetic towards the ousted leaders would intervene on their side through a coup. All three leaders are now facing serious charges that can see them receive long jail sentences.

Right-wing populism often exhibits a strong streak of ‘patriotism’ and nationalism. Therefore, it glorifies the armed forces. It sees the military as an institution that can guarantee the continuity and protection of populist forces, because they aid the military’s interests. But when this strand of populism heats up and becomes increasingly authoritarian, it actually becomes a threat to the military. It begins to treat the military as an entity that is only supposed to police a populist leader’s opponents.

Populism as a whole excels in creating divisions and polarisation in the polity. It thrives in this. Eventually, it also starts to create and manipulate divisions within the armed forces, expecting factions within the military — perceived to be on its side — to aid a populist leader if he is on the verge of losing power or has already lost it.

Trump, Khan and Bolsonaro were all said to have been using this tactic, by allegedly encouraging street violence and rioting. Their aim was to draw the entry of their faction in the military, so it could put them back in power — not through the ballot, but through the barrel of the gun. 

Both right-wing and left-wing populism rage against the ‘elites’ and draw power from polarisation. Right-wing populism romanticises patriotism, social conservatism and often has an anti-modern disposition. Left-wing populism invests heavily in ‘socialist’ rhetoric, but its policies are only mildly socialist. Unlike its right-wing counterpart, left-wing populism is pro-modernity. However, its relationship with the armed forces is somewhat different. 

From the mid-20th century onwards, many regions in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America saw the rise of left-wing populists. Most of these, but not all, came to power through military coups. They were military men and therefore enjoyed ‘natural’ support from their institution. But they were removed through coups as well, mainly by right-wing factions within their institution. Some unsuccessfully tried to change tack by moving to the right, while those who had come through an election were eliminated.

Left-wing populism began to fade away in the 2000s or became largely ‘moderate’. It gave way to the rise of right-wing populism in the 2010s, which even engulfed established democracies in Europe, the US and India. Right-wing populism has a schematic worldview. It eschews complexity and offers simplistic solutions to what are intricate issues. It is this simplicity which attracts the military. 

In an essay for the March 2022 issue of Populism and Politics, I. Yilmaz and R. Saleem wrote that the military is a bureaucratic and highly organised entity, which does not appreciate the uncertainty of politics. Sometimes, it sees in simplicity an uncomplicated political force which can be beneficial to the organised nature of the military. However, since there is nothing simple about modern life, experiments to back ‘simpletons’ backfire.

Simplicity is not always the same as being clear in one’s mind. Chaos ensues if complex issues are addressed through a simplistic worldview. This is at the core of the hubris that populists develop. They end up creating chaos in society and, ultimately, in their own political careers. The examples of Trump, Bolsonaro and Khan should be taken as warnings.

Recently, the Indian populist leader Narendra Modi has plunged into a similar hubris. But whereas, in countries such as Pakistan and Brazil, powerful militaries have enough political muscle to undo populist experiments and populist hubris, the Indian military has no such space. 

Modi’s hubris involves him believing that he is adored by the West and is untouchable within and outside India. But it is this hubris which recently saw him cross a red line by allegedly ordering the murder of a Sikh nationalist and Canadian citizen in Canada. This is the stuff that can destroy his international standing.

It can leave Modi’s India facing what it has always hoped for Pakistan: isolation. Such are not issues that can be resolved by ‘charismatic’ simpletons. Therefore, Modi is likely to aggravate the issue even further.

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 8th, 2023