The military-establishment (ME) and the government have decided to call Imran Khan a ‘fitna’ [conspiratorial, divisive, violent]. To most other anti-Khan folk, he is stubborn, narcissistic, egotistical and, therefore, unfit to hold any important political office. Just before he became prime minister in 2018, and during his tenure as PM, Khan’s antics and rhetoric were either viewed as being ‘brilliant’ and ‘endearing’ by his supporters, or were simply satirised by his opponents. 

In 2015, though, three years before Khan became PM, the nuclear physicist and author Pervez Hoodbhoy wrote in Dawn that Khan was actually “dangerous.” Hoodbhoy stopped just short of calling him mad as well. Of course, Hoodbhoy was severely castigated by Khan’s supporters. Yet, today, almost a decade after Hoodbhoy’s article, there are a lot more people who are expressing concern about Khan’s state of mind and emotional disposition. But, to his established fans, he remains a ‘master strategist.’ 

Indeed, to remain in the picture despite being in jail, he has cleverly manipulated the widespread support he enjoys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and in urban and peri-urban areas of central Punjab. He has also shrewdly utilised the courts to frustrate the plans of the ME that wants to completely neutralise him politically. 

His party still has a powerful network on social media. But all this has only produced small victories for him. The larger picture has been more about him digging deeper a hole he has been in after he was arrested last year. 

Imran Khan’s antics over the past few years have been driven by pressure, paranoia and a fear of losing influence. His increasingly untenable position is a product of his own making and seems to be leaving him with no way back

Clever little schemes to frustrate his opponents are not sound political strategies — especially in a scenario in which he is facing a series of serious charges and his party, outside of social media, is in complete disarray. What’s more, the current ME seems hell-bent on teaching him a lesson for demonising it. 

His ‘strategy’ to continue demonising the ME through his social media networks, as a way to frustrate it and thus attract its attention enough for it to agree to have a dialogue with him, is a rather unsound scheme. Is it delusional? Utopian? Or just plain mad? Khan is not stupid. But like most contemporary populists, he too finds conventional political tactics to be beneath his ‘popular’ and charismatic stature. 

So, instead of formulating pragmatic tactics to have a more meaningful exchange with his civilian opponents and look to present a new and improved version of himself to a seething ME, he has often decided to use diabolical schemes, whose conclusions, in his head, are not very realistic.

For example, most political commentators insist that Khan seemed to be convinced that last year’s riots, instigated by his party and in which military property was attacked, would trigger a rebellion against the current military chief and see pro-Khan generals spring him from jail. Nothing of the sort happened. 

Last week’s plan to occupy the country’s capital was equally flighty. Khan believed that this would raise the possibility of an important international summit being cancelled, which would force the government and the ME to reach out to him and request him to pull back. The plan flopped.

So, has Khan taken leave of his senses?  Perhaps. But this malaise is not uncommon among politicians, especially those who’ve enjoyed a high degree of adulation and influence. In 2019, the American professor of psychology David P Barash wrote that political leaders can often act out of anger, despair, stubbornness, revenge, pride and dogmatic conviction — particularly when under threat. Moreover, in certain situations, an irrational act, including a lethal one, may appear justified to them. 

While in his bunker during the final days of World War II, Adolf Hitler ordered what he hoped would be the total destruction of Germany, because he felt that its people had failed him. In 1941, when the Japanese defence minister ordered an attack on the US navy at Pearl Harbour, he said, “Sometimes it is necessary to close one’s eyes and jump off the Kiyomizu Temple [a renowned suicide spot in Japan].” 

Pressure, paranoia and the fear of losing power and influence can have a devastating impact on a political leader. If he has accumulated influence and support in abundance but begins to feel that he is close to losing it, he may lose his bearings and begin to plot a revival through irrational means.

In a 1993 study, the psychologist J D Mayer wrote that this is when a political leader becomes ‘dangerous.’ He called this the ‘Dangerous Leader Disorder’ (DLD). The disorder’s symptoms include: indifference toward people’s suffering and devaluation of others, intolerance of criticism, and a grandiose sense of national entitlement. 

DLD symptoms are clearly present in various contemporary populist leaders. Recently, when Khan and his mouthpieces were egging on his supporters to come face to face with armed military troops posted in Islamabad, some political analysts and commentators lamented that Khan was treating his supporters like sacrificial lambs, because he needed some dead bodies to put pressure on the ME. 

It is now a well-established fact that Khan does not take criticism very well and, even in jail, believes that he is entitled to become PM again and run the country in whatever manner he pleases. Hoodbhoy saw this coming. In fact, there are also those who claim that they had warned the previous three ME leaderships of investing in a man who knew very little about ‘proper politics’, was impulsive, egoistical, superstitious and would go to any length to restore his position if and when it was taken away from him. 

The truth is, his position wasn’t taken away. He gave it away himself, by behaving in an irrational manner on numerous occasions. He began to be seen as a threat by the ME to the country’s economic interests and foreign policy. According to his civilian opponents, on the other hand, he was plotting with some high-ranking military officers and judges to remain in power by completely eliminating all opposition, turning Pakistan into a one-party state and reducing the military into his personal police force.  

That was one side of his ‘madness.’ The other side emerged when he was constitutionally ousted in 2022, and then put in jail on various charges. This is when Mayer’s DLD earnestly kicked in. And it is eroding any possibility left of him ever becoming PM again.

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 13th, 2024