According to the veteran political analyst Najam Sethi, last week’s controversial post on the social media platform X by the chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, was part of Khan’s ongoing strategy to sow a rebellion in the country’s military. 

The X post was accompanied by a short video which argued that the former military dictator Yahya Khan was responsible for the country’s break-up in 1971. The clip also included images of the current civilian and military leadership, alleging they stole PTI’s mandate in this year’s elections. Khan has continued to ruffle feathers, specifically of the military establishment (ME) that was once close to him and aided him in coming to power in 2018. 

But, of course, that variant of the ME was different from the one that emerged after Khan was ousted in April 2022 through an act of parliament. 

Khan believes the current variant is out to destroy his political career. But more worrying is the notion that Khan, despite being behind bars on numerous charges of corruption, is trying to seek the sympathy of some top military leaders and hoping that they would push out their boss Gen Asim Munir.

The parameters of acceptable political and social discourse have been stretched to such an extent that the likes of Imran Khan and Donald Trump can get away with the most outlandish statements

Sethi is one of the country’s foremost political analysts, who chooses his words carefully. He has repeatedly proven to have an inspired understanding of realpolitik. Therefore, one cannot take his view on the purpose of Khan’s X post lightly. 

But his claim has been present in mainstream political discourse ever since PTI activists went on a rampage on May 9 and 10 last year. The activists had violently attacked military property and monuments. This ‘unprecedented’ attack produced two reactions. Whereas some folk hailed the attackers as ‘revolutionary democrats’, there were also those who saw the protests as an attempt to attract the attention of senior military officers who were supposedly ‘sympathetic towards Khan.’ 

The latter view strengthened when Khan’s rhetoric became increasingly toxic towards the current ME. According to Sethi, the X post and video were just another way to achieve what PTI set out to do in May, 2023. And if this too doesn’t go anywhere, Khan is likely to produce more of the same. 

Indeed, there is now nothing so exaggerated about the notion that Khan’s rhetoric is supposedly ‘bold’ because much of the judiciary and many in the mainstream media are tilted towards him. However, there is a lot more behind Khan’s iconoclastic manoeuvres than just this. Like a classic neo-populist, he is trying to shift/shatter what is called ‘the Overton Window.’  

The concept of the Overton Window was conceived by the American political scientist Joseph P Overton in the mid-1990s. His concept remained on the margins of political science until it suddenly began to gain traction from a wide range of political scientists, especially those studying the rise of neo-populism in the 2010s. 

According to Overton, politicians can only pursue policies that lie inside “the acceptable window of discourse.” This window, now known as the Overton Window, is always in the centre. Anything outside the Window is deemed either ‘too radical’ or entirely ‘unacceptable’ — or too left or too right. 

But the Window can be shifted. For instance, an idea that was once deemed too radical can begin to be proliferated by social movements, think tanks and the media until it becomes part of the mainstream discourse. Once this happens, the idea enters the Window. It then begins to shift the Window to the left or to the right. Either way, its new position becomes the new ‘acceptable’ centre. 

For example, till 1920, the idea of women being given the right to vote in the US lay well outside the Overton Window. Women’s suffrage was deemed too radical an idea. But after years of activism by women’s groups, and social change, the idea of women’s suffrage gradually became an acceptable topic of mainstream discourse, thus entering the Overton Window. This then led to US women being granted the right to vote. One can say the Window in this case shifted slightly towards the left. 

In the late 1970s, ideas critical of the welfare state in Scandinavian countries became part of acceptable mainstream discourse. These ideas had remained outside the Window. But for years, they were being pushed in the mainstream by right-wing economists and think-tanks. 

They finally entered the Window when neo-liberalism became a global phenomenon. Since the ideas had become widely acceptable, politicians in Scandinavian countries did not fear becoming unpopular anymore by reducing the economic role of the state. In this case, the Window shifted slightly to the right. 

Two views have emerged among political scientists using Overton’s concept to study the rise of contemporary neo-populism. One view suggests that neo-populists have succeeded in mainstreaming ideas that were once entirely outside the Window, thus shifting it too much to the right. Others suggest that this drastic shift has actually “shattered the Window.”

Examples of this include Donald Trump calling Mexican immigrants “rapists,” ruling Hindu nationalists using dehumanising rhetoric for Indian Muslims, the Hungarian president lamenting “racial mixing” in Europe, and a former Brazilian president publicly insulting his opponents by calling them “despicable bast**ds.” 

These are but just a handful of cases exemplifying how far-right rhetoric and ideas have been gaining mainstream acceptability and thus entering the Window, shifting it way to the right. As one British analyst wrote, ‘polite society’ is now okay with this kind of rhetoric. 

Personally, I agree with those who think the Window has been shattered. This is hugely problematic if one were to perceive the Overton Window as a moderating tool that compels ideas (coming from the left or the right) to evolve at a certain pace and greatly modify themselves to become mainstream. The shattering of this Window means that it can now be stormed by the most outlandish and irrational ideas which can turn into actual policy. 

Khan in Pakistan is mainstreaming certain ideas that were outside the country’s Overton Window. The Window in Pakistan has been shifting to the right since the 1970s, so, basically, Khan is pushing it further to the right. This is bound to shatter it. 

This is not to suggest that looking to cause a mutiny in the ME is an entirely right-wing idea. It’s an irrational idea. It will not produce a mighty revolution, but a devastating existential turmoil in which, at best, Khan can only expect to become a warlord in some part of Mianwali instead of a Mao Tse Tung with an Islamic touch.

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 9th, 2024