After his ouster from power in 2022, Imran Khan decided to roar back to power by operating from outside the country’s mainstream political paradigm. According to many political commentators, there was talk within his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party about facilitating an economic downslide which, according to the party, would have led to an economic collapse and triggered widespread anti-government protests, such as the ones witnessed in Sri Lanka in 2022.

When this ‘tactic’ failed, and the current coalition government — with the help of the military establishment — succeeded in somewhat stemming the economic decline, Imran Khan and his party began to imagine setting off protests like the ones in Bangladesh, which overthrew the government of Sheikh Hasina Wajid. This ‘plan’ fell apart too.

Before this was that audacious attempt by the party in May last year to allegedly instigate a ‘mutiny’ in the military against the current army chief and inspire other senior officers to spring Khan from jail.

This nature of politics can disrupt certain aspects of the mainstream political paradigm. But it often fails to dismantle or demolish it. Trying to storm the paradigm from outside was viewed as a ‘revolutionary’ act by Khan, his supporters, and by some activist lawyers and ‘independent’ journalists who have decided to side with him.

The anarchic and emotional brand of politics that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has been engaging in is an attempt at barnstorming the mainstream political arena from the outside. But can this kind of rhetorical politics sustain over the long term?

No wonder then, one often heard these men and women using the word ‘revolution.’ They warned that the country would plunge into a civil war if Khan were not released from jail. Interestingly though, Khan’s newfound ‘anti-establishment’ admirers know that if Khan is able to cut a deal with the establishment, he will instantly drop his anti-establishment rhetoric.

A leftist activist recently told me that their support for Khan is a “tactical manoeuvre” to oust the ‘establishment’ from politics by jumping on the ‘anti-establishment’ bandwagon, which the PTI began to construct after Khan fell out with his erstwhile supporters in the military. Khan, his supporters, and his newfound activist admirers are all trying to storm mainstream politics from the outside. They are exhibiting what political scientists refer to as “anti-politics.”

The more immediate meaning of this term connotes complete detachment from politics. But it is mostly used to describe a strand of politics that takes place outside the paradigm of mainstream politics. Its aim is to dislodge and dismantle the paradigm after conquering it. Therefore, ‘anti-politics’ in this context is a backlash against mainstream politics, which is seen as ‘corrupt’, static and tilted in favour of ‘political elites.’

Its view of mainstream politics is anarchic and ‘anti-establishment’ — even though its purpose is to invade the mainstream political paradigm, oust those who are rooted in the workings of the paradigm, and establish those exhibiting ‘anti-politics’ as the paradigm’s new wielders of power. This does not always require serious civil strife. As witnessed in various countries from the early 2010s, ‘anti-politics’ as a populist strategy has managed to grab mainstream political power through democratic means.

This is why the concept of ‘anti-politics’ is closely associated with populist forces that severely attack mainstream political players and state institutions. Populists intensify and bolster any existing ‘anti-politics’ sentiment in the society. Coming to power in this manner is portrayed as a moral and revolutionary act when, in fact, it’s just another way of grabbing conventional power.

But purveyors of ‘anti-politics’, even when they do manage to breach the mainstream paradigm of politics, fail to consolidate their position because their disposition deters them from utilising the tools needed to stay in power — or tools that they detest and want to destroy. Khan is but just one example of this. Trying to destroy what a populist like him detested not only saw him struggling to retain power but, more so, after his ouster, when he wanted to jump back into the paradigm from the outside, he was left feeling isolated and hapless.

‘Anti-politics’, when wielded to breach the mainstream political paradigm, can only achieve bursts of emotional outcomes and commotion, but these eventually exhaust themselves, because mainstream politics has at its disposal powerful tools to retain its influence, repulse attacks from the outside and quickly repair itself. ‘Anti-politics’ is thus only left with useless accolades to romanticise itself — accolades such as ‘heroic,’ ‘idealistic’ ‘brave’ etc. Power either entirely eludes it or, when this strand of politics does achieve power, it quickly loses it.

But, over the last decade, why has the world been witnessing a growth in ‘anti-politics’? The sociologist Paul Blokker and the political scientist Manuel Anselmi have an interesting answer. According to them, the de-politicisation of societies from the 1980s onwards is the culprit. From the 1980s onwards, neoliberalism as a political philosophy and economic model became the dominant idea in most countries.

Neoliberalism looked to create a globalised economy navigated by the private sector and liberated from state and government interference and regulations. Governments began to outsource their countries’ economics to large companies and banks, and governance was outsourced to ‘technocrats’. State responsibilities and influence shrank. Neoliberalism also discouraged active political participation. This led to de-politicisation.

Neoliberalism started to come under fire after the 2008 global financial crisis. Those impacted by it began to severely criticise the private sector and the governments who were accused of protecting it. The backlash sought something ‘new’ or, on the other hand, a return to some wildly imagined ‘pristine’ past. The response to the recession was an intense critique. It did not offer any practical alternatives as such, other than rhetorical flourishes about cleansing the system.

De-politicisation had seen a whole generation detached from politics. So the politics that the recession unleashed was rhetorical, utopian, emotional and naive. It was ‘anti-politics’. This played into the hands of populists. Indeed, neoliberalism, though ‘anti-politics’ in its disposition as well, cleverly tweaked mainstream politics to its advantage, by striking amoral political and economic alliances.

But the ‘anti-politics’ that emerged as a response to neoliberalism’s gradual failure was populist and only interested in lambasting mainstream politics and offering theatrical and rhetorical alternatives that have led to some rather anarchic outcomes.

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 3rd, 2024