 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Avinash Pallival and I'm the Deputy Director of the Soas South Asia Institute. And I would like to welcome all of you this afternoon to attend what is the first of a series of webinars that we are that we are organizing this term and the idea is to focus on different countries and different aspects of South Asian politics and broader cultural social life and economics of the region. And to really introduce our audiences to the dynamism of the region and the way it is dealing with the challenges of COVID-19, as well as, you know, the longstanding issues that have been kind of influencing the interrelations between the countries of the region but also between the governments and the people across South Asia itself. And I'm absolutely delighted to have our first session of this women of this webinar series, or, you know, delivered by Dr. Amar Ali John, who if you're following Pakistani politics, you would know off very well already and does not require an introduction to that effect but deserves one. Amar just finished, Amar finished his PhD in history from the University of Cambridge, where his work explored the formation of communist thought in colonial India. He's also a member of the Hakuq, a cult movement in Pakistan and has been active for education reform and workers rights, more prominently. He was recently fired for his teaching post for supporting students right and is also facing solution charges are under the current government. So someone who's not just a scholar but is also an activist and a very important voice. On the issues related to on political issues and social issues related to Pakistan, and he would be talking this afternoon on the issue, a very timely issue in fact, of history rage and reversal. Imran Khan phenomenon, not just the rise of Imran Khan, but also the way the Prime Minister of Pakistan has dealt with some longstanding issues whether it's of economic growth relationship with neighbors relationship with big pause and this constant issue of civil military relations and the tensions is something worth thinking about in much more depth. And I'm honored to have Amar join us this afternoon. I'm a thank you so much. Before I give you the floor I would like to just make a couple of housekeeping announcements. Amar would be speaking for about approximately 22 to 25 minutes following which we'll open the session for Q&A for another 30 35 minutes, it will be a one hour session altogether. And at that point, when we open the floor, you can, I would recommend, you know, encourage all of you to kind of use the slot below for Q&A to raise your question with a short introduction about yourself, who you are, who which institution you're affiliated to. But of course, if you want to speak up your question, please let me know or raise your hand, and I'll offer you the floor. So on that note, and without wasting much time at my end, Amar the floor is all yours and thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Thank you so much Dr. Vinash and Sunil and everybody at SOAS South Asia Institute for inviting me. We're talking about Imran Khan and Pakistani politics at a time of great uncertainty and instability in Pakistan. Right now, we are in the middle of not only a very intense economic crisis, particularly in terms of high inflation and high rates of unemployment, but also we have seen over the past one month, how the opposition parties have united across Pakistan to form the Pakistan Democratic movement and their jalsas, their rallies have seen hundreds of thousands of people who seem to be quite distressed with the economic situation in Pakistan at the moment. We are also seeing greater repression. And as Dr. Vinash pointed out, that this repression is not only against political actors in the traditional sense of the term, in terms of political parties and leaders of political parties, but also against activists against journalists against academics. So it is at a personal level. Not only have I seen myself being fired from a university but myself along with a lot of student activists faced sedition charges. And I'm still out on bail and sedition by the way carries a life sentence in Pakistan. So we're seeing massive repression. We're also seeing a lot of uncertainty. And I think, instead of talking about the immediacy of the situation, which I think we can in the question and answer session. I want to take this opportunity as I can't really do much academic work these days in Pakistan to think more in terms of the broader themes kind of represented by Imran Khan and the current regime. If you want to know more precisely about the economic base of this movement and more of a political economy analysis, I would recommend Professor Yusman Kastni's excellent article in the Friday Times called Understanding Near Pakistan, as well as Amara Ahmed's fantastic book on the middle, the new middle class in Pakistan. But what I'm going to do here is talk about six broad themes that I think are very important in understanding the phenomenon of Imran Khan, both his rise and the kind of fall at least in terms of popularity that he's experiencing. So I'll just go through them one by one and we can then build upon them during the discussion. So, number one. Imran Khan emerged onto the scene as this anti corruption figure, and you know, most of you know he was a cricketer turned he's a cricketer term politician and emerged onto the political scene in the 1990s as an anti corruption candidate. He was in the imposition of martial law by General Prevez Mashalov in 99 he briefly flirted with the military regime and eventually became an opponent of the military regime. And since 2008 he has been a vocal opponent of the political parties the two main political parties of Pakistan the Pakistan People's Party, and the Pakistan Muslim League. One of these two political parties was that they were fighting against military dictatorship, although as many as there was some glitch. Okay, I'll continue. Although the origin of these parties itself was tied to the military in many ways. In the 1990s there were serious contestations between political leaders who were claiming to fight for democracy, and the military establishment which has controlled Pakistani politics for the past 60 to 70 years. One way in 2008. I think it's a watershed moment in Pakistan's history, because not only did General Prevez Mashalov become extremely unpopular as a result of both the war and terror and later a movement known as the lawyers movement. After he botched an attempt to dismiss the chief justice of the Supreme Court. He also came under increasing scrutiny across the country. Right after the Musharraf's government, the People's Party government came to power and then later in 2013, the PMLN came to power. Both of them also lost a lot of legitimacy from people who were expecting not just a transition in the political sense, but also in the social economic realm. And continued the economic policies of the previous regime which were dictated by the IMF, the World Bank, trade unions were particularly upset by the fact that there was a brutal crackdown even under so called democratic regimes on trade unions. The student unions remained banned. Many workers and rights activists including people like Babajan from Gilgit-Baltistan, people like workers in Faslabad, peasants in the Uqara military farms in Punjab, they were given life sentences under anti-terrorism laws under these democratic regimes. So what happened in the 2010s is that you not only had the collapse of the credibility of the Pakistani military, but also the collapse of the credibility of political parties. So we experienced a twin collapse, like this simultaneous collapse of the dialectic that held Pakistani politics together, that gave it its drama, that the contestation that allowed for a lot of emotions, for a lot of affiliations to cement. And in the absence of that drama, in kind of the merging of these two players in the minds of the public imagination, there was a void in which there was a possibility of a third forced to emerge. And this is, so this is my first point, it represents Imran Khan and his dire movement represents the collapse of the center. And this is true for other parts of the world as well, where the center has collapsed. Second, I argue that there is a peculiar relationship with history that has been inculcated in Pakistan, where issues of, issues around democratic struggles, anti-authoritarian struggles have been wiped out from popular memory. So when today, I often joke when Pakistanis look at history, young people look at history today, they start Pakistan studies from this conqueror known as Mohammed Qasim. Then they start studying Afghan conquerors, then it's the Mughals, then it's Sir Sayyed, Ilam Aqbal, Jinnah, and then you have the 1992 work of victory. So all of this, this is the kind of like historical memory that has been created. There's no history of the men and women who endured torture for democracy, who went to jail, who even paid with their lives to uphold the sanctity of the constitution. And all of that has been buried under this one term known as corruption. And if you want to have two terms, it is corruption and dynasties, dynastic politics. So that everything else is erased by these two terms. And it's really funny that Imran San is a huge fan actually of Ertugrul, this Turkish drama, and is also a fan of the Ottoman Empire, but he's dead against dynastic politics in political parties in Pakistan. So that I leave for you guys to consider. So there is this idea that all of political history in Pakistan is a history of corruption and hence we have to break from that history. So this Naya at Pakistan, the slogan that he used, New Pakistan, was posited as a break from the old. But the language it used was the language of accountability, which actually is the language of the state and the military against democratic leaders has been that language, has been used since at least the 1950s to thwart any kind of democratic process in Pakistan. So in we what we see through him is repetition in the name of novelty, repetition in the name of novelty, where we're repeating these, these, these accountability drives from the past, but in the name of something extraordinary something new fighting against mafia's kind of the language that is often used by authoritarian figures these days populist figures around the world, which brings me to the third point. Amran Khan was dead fixated on the question of accountability as I just said. Two things need to be said here about the accountability process in Pakistan. As I said accountability in Pakistan has been a major feature of politics at least since the 1950s. The amount of prime ministers and political leaders who've been arrested under charges of corruption would make us think that Pakistani state does not tolerate any corruption at all because it's definitely more than what happens all across the world. But then if you look deeper into what's actually happening. But accountability becomes a technique of governance of managing dissent of managing the opposition. So in a way what happens is, you, you put someone in jail. And then, so there's some corruption charge and since you know most people don't pay taxes in Pakistan you can actually put a corruption charge on almost anybody and get away with that except the military of course. And then anybody who is willing to kneel in front of you, you allow them a way out. And this is the process known as the formation of Kings parties parties that are loyal to the king, as into loyal to the establishment. And this is a very common process used to cobble together coalitions of psychophantic politicians who are willing, who are willing to switch loyalties there's a term in Pakistan for that as well called Lota culture. And in since 2011 in particular, we've seen a lot of such many of such politicians were known to switch sides depending on where the establishment is. We've seen a lot of them enter the PTI, which is the party of Imran Khan. And that's why PTI was its opponents started calling it the laundry machine, the dry cleaning machine, where any politician who has a tainted record if they enters, if that person enters the PTI, they get a clean check. So accountability as a technique of governance and in that Imran Khan posits himself as the transparent candidate, the ethically morally superior candidate because he doesn't have corruption charges, although their charges of rigging their charges of the charges of corruption actually against his sister as well and against a whole host of his party members. But we see that through this kind of user ethical discourse of accountability, he's able to displace all ideological politics. So my fourth point would be that Imran Khan represents a shift from ideological politics to the politics of personal ethics. He's also a personally ethical strong leader who will eventually change that, you know, change the fate of the nation. And this fixation on the personality as compared to the to the manifesto as compared to through divisions, ideological divisions within political parties. And I think that Imran Khan hasn't done himself. It reflects the broader process of the, the, the erasure of ideological politics in Pakistan, and I think Imran Khan is a symptom of that larger process. Another important thing. And I think, again, that's something to do with history is that Imran Khan came to power in an elections that were widely regarded as being managed. And this is not only through the courts where that were used to target opposition leaders, including the former prime minister Navash Sharif. There was a media that faced a lot of censorship at the behest of the military during PMLN's term, as in the last government's turn, and got a lot of positive coverage for Imran Khan, forcing people to switch loyalties. And here I'll just tell you an interesting incident in 2018 when a candidate of the PMLN, which is now the party in opposition of our chiefs party. He publicly stated that he has been he's being pressured by the intelligence agencies to switch his loyalties to Imran Khan's party. Later, he was he went missing and when he came back, he said, there was no such pressure on me, and I was not taken away by any intelligence agency. I was actually taken up by taken away by the agricultural department. The agricultural department now is synonymous with the intelligence, because you can't really name the intelligence apparatus. There's a whole host of this very flowery vocabulary that's come up. Navash Sharif famously called the intelligence agencies Khalaim Akhloop, alien forces who were fighting. So, you know, there's that censorship that became very an important integral part and intimidation and harassment. And then there were a lot of complaints on the day of the elections as well. In particular, the role of the boots on the ground when it came to managing the elections. One thing that Imran Khan represents, but I think broadly what Pakistan represents and one thing Pakistan can teach to or add to political theory, political science is the art of managing elections, because we've been doing it since 1954. So it's not even that, you know, you can just have an Arab style dictatorship where there's a dictator who's just there and he's in your face for like 50 years and there's not much you can do about it. Because of the impetus of the anti-colonial movement, because of certain tradition of democratic elections, even under the British, there's an expectation, a popular expectation that elections will be held. It's just that rather than holding them in a free and fair way, if you can stage those elections, then that would be better in an ideological sense as compared to just having martial law. So the staging of elections, I think is something that, or managing elections, staging elections is something that a lot of these are now doing all over the world and I claim that it's, I claim a Pakistani copyright to this exercise. Okay, after coming to power. So this gets interesting. So Imran Khan posits himself. So this is point number six. After coming to power, we see a very different kind of Imran Khan. Before 2018, he was dead against the IMF. He said I'd rather commit suicide than go to the IMF. He occasionally spoke quite openly against the military establishment. He spoke against drone strikes. He spoke out and one thing that I have to admire about him is that he was one of the most vocal people on the missing persons issue for a very long time. At a time when it wasn't, when it was, it wasn't as dangerous as it is now to talk about it, but not many people was talking about it was just not as cool. And Imran Khan made some really incredible speeches at that time for the missing persons. After coming to power. However, we see a very different kind of fun. Not only has the economy tanked. Imran Khan went within the first year of his government went to the IMF and negotiated one of the most horrible and and extractive deals, which many major economists in Pakistan want would cause unemployment and price hike. And this is exactly what we're seeing at the moment. This is for the first time in decades that government servants have not received an increment, their attempts to privatize the healthcare system, their attempts to privatize the railways. There's this entire neoliberal agenda that is being imposed. And that's why I think it might be the kind of neoliberalism and the kind of privatization and the kind of budget cuts to higher education. We suffered 40% budget cut last year in higher education by a government that claimed to support, not only education but claim to represent the youth of Pakistan. The neoliberalism that we're seeing is it may make Imran Khan closer. Some people, you know, compare him to Trump, I think he might be closer to Ronald Reagan in some ways. One because of the neoliberalism the other because he's the star is controlled by others and I'll come to that in a second. So there are all these reversals that happened, which is why his government started being called like a government of U-turn. So U-turn is something that's now become synonymous with the Khan regime. And whether you look at health, education or different aspects of governance is a lot of discontent right now and people often say that the solution to every problem of the Khan government lies in the speeches of Imran Khan himself prior to coming to power, prior to 2018. Which then leads to my final point, which is the fact that since his regime, his grip on power has reduced, he started him and his colleagues have started doing a couple of things which I find to be very both interesting academically but also very worrying. One of course is this refusal to accept responsibility. So he, like many other populist authoritarian figures, continues to blame the opposition for the mess Pakistan is in right now and it's been over two years now that he's been in power. Continues to blame the opposition. And I find that particularly interesting because this is, as I said, this is a regime that is built on the denial of history. But at the same time, it is the most imprisoned regime imprisoned by history itself, ironically. Not only in terms of the fact that cannot overcome the historical forces, economic, social, political that control Pakistan, but also that it relies on a certain notion of history. It invokes it again and again and again to justify its own mediocrity in the present. And you know the claims now that jokes now that you know soon he's going to start blaming the mohals as well for what's happening right now it's just this constant going into the past to defer responsibility, which also plays out in another way, which is the fact that because he's been called a puppet he's been called selective instantly by the people's party leader below. He, there's also this immense confusion now on who is running Pakistan exactly. So, you know, you have, but if you have the generals, but they claim it's the government, it's Iran, Iran claims that even now it's the opposition mafia's work controlling everything. Then you have media, then you like, basically you have this defer, deferment of responsibility. The latest that that Iran said three or four days ago was that it's actually Israel and India. They're running things, which is expected when you know, when things are falling apart. And you see that it's very painful to see this kind of void. And what happens and what is happening here as happens in such situations is that the violence of the state is increasing. And recently, we had journalists like Mathew Lajan, we had we had a PTM activists activists of you know, Pashtun Tafas movement student activists, people from across the country, I mean, recently even the same IG, the IG police of sin went missing, because he would not approve of an arrest of a political opponent of Iran. So, even the idea of police can be abducted and there was another joke out of this, you know, PTM Pashtun Tafas movement is hated as an anti state movement. And people said now after the abduction of the police chief by the military, we need another PTM police Tafas movement. Police protection movement, because you know, even the police is not safe here. And this kind of increased surveillance and violence. There's a something about the kind of sovereignty we're looking at and you know, here, here, Professor Barumbar who has this amazing thing on missing persons in Turkey and where she says, you know, missing, missing persons become the ink through through which the state doesn't sense its sovereignty, but an ink that that disappears itself. So it's sovereignty without responsibility. It's, it gives you the message that that you know we're watching you. And we're ready to erase, not just you but the but the entire crime associated with you we're ready to erase ourselves in the act of attacking you. And this is something that we are increasingly seeing with the kinds of threats harassment that that all activists are facing someone like me can face them was not in that sense, you know, a major political figure, you can just imagine what's happening to people in the peripheries. And by saying, this is the PDM movement has created a lot of a lot of anxiety in the state structure and everybody's blaming everybody recently. Dr. Avinash Dr. Ayesha Siddika has talked about this content, even within the military, which might be true because in such moments, everybody starts blaming the other and we don't know where the center of power lies. The convictions are becoming clearer, they're deepening, and I think there's a lot of palpable anger among the public. And one thing that I think is still the lining in this moment, not only that political opposition is is organizing, but I would like to mention that that an even more interesting fact is is is the presence of new social movements in Pakistan, whether it's the audit match, women activists who are defying so, you know, common sense in society and really pushing the limits of what it what it means to be in the public sphere in Pakistan, whether it's a student activist, particularly around the student solidarity march and progressive students collective organize these wonderful marches and face sedition charges last year, they're organizing again this month, whether it is people like Mayor Satar a political prisoner on the military farm a peasant who was who recently was released after four years of being in jail on on terrorism charges and and received a heroic welcome, whether it's movements such as movement and its leaders most and our and you have these new social movements that are not anchored in any political party, but that are really challenging the status quo. And I think they open up the possibility of imagining a very different future. And if you run fun is today if he represents the paralysis of the system, the cynicism of the system, the reversal of all dreaming. I think these movements are telling us that it is still possible to dream of a better Pakistan. Thank you. Thank you so much, I'm a that was really comprehensive and such a short time you gave us a really kind of in depth overview of the, you know, different kind of dynamics that came to play into the rise of Imran Khan, and what he's actually typified really right I mean there's a, there's a whole lot of malaise which lies in this kind of a contract, which represents collapse in your words. Before I, you know, open the floor just a quick note to all the participants we have 63 attendees thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. I already have a couple of questions written down in the Q&A box which I'll kind of spell out in a second, but I would encourage you all to kind of either write your questions over there, or raise your hand if you want to ask your questions and I'll, I'll request you to join in. But as the chair, if I may, if I may start, you know, start with the question here. You know you made points which made me think a lot about how elections and the relationship of different political parties different political leaders perhaps less so the armed forces in India's case. But, but ideological forces of the Hindu right have approached the idea of democracy electoral democracy, and how it has been kind of, you know, dealt with in real time. I heard a lot about you know you mentioning that how power is being negotiated and managed, or how different entities are managing these aspects to come to power or maintain a particular constellation and power with the military being the arbiter really and of course they could be strains within the military, but that the at an institutional level it still remains one of the most politically powerful actor in Pakistan till today whoever they might decide to select or ally with. My question to you is, what was it perhaps in your view. You know, PTI thinking could be an actual deliverable deliverable in the socioeconomic sphere or really any sphere where they thought that genuinely. Yes, this is really an issue or an, you know, an area in which we can make a change even if we have whitewashed history kind of branded everyone corrupt and that's a that's a technique that is not just, I mean, limited to Pakistan in the region there is this you know whitewashing of history, and using all these big broad brush narratives to taint the opposition as being something someone fundamentally deplorable. So what is it in your view to just you know sum up, what did they actually expect to deliver, we all know the economy wasn't the doldrums they for a lot of different reasons in a structural sense. So what did him run can't really thought he would be able to actually give to the people. Thank you. I think I increasingly I think they were, there's a lot of, so you know the language was very interesting by the way. I talked about making Pakistan, both the rest of Medina, which is the state of Medina. Also, this I will be like Sweden. So it's like Medina Sweden combined. Everybody seems to love Sweden in Pakistan and around the world as some kind of this utopia I don't think they actually know much about it but you know, sounds like a good like utopia. They were supposed to they, they thought you know we can have some kind of welfare state, but the fundamental idea was, it was actually in, if we speak in economic jargon, it's basically trickle down that we're going to trickle down economics we're going to allow Pakistan to be this wonderful investment, not just Chinese investment but global investment, we're going to have an educated elite, we're going to have an educated middle class that will participate in this so this very corporate thinking was was part of the PTI PTI support base and understandably because the other opposition, the current opposition parties were too tied into their traditional networks of patronage. And I think they lost out on this like new huge political force that appeared this new middle class and there's a lot of literature in on on the new middle classes in India but increasingly good work is being done in on Pakistan as well. And I mentioned Professor Mara Ahmed's work if anybody is interested. So, I think they thought that they'll be able to do that. They did not expect this kind of this kind of an economic collapse, and I think they underestimated the importance of governance on on you know it's this. Idea in this obsession with article and I'm not saying article necessarily is a bad show I actually quite enjoy it to be honest. It's just this idea that you need this heroic figure who based on his, it's always a his by the way on on his will can change history. And then you don't understand the capital, the cap theories of like society or state and power and how things work on the ground in the current wheat prices in Pakistan is there's not because of the economic crisis that we we have a shortage of wheat and wheat is a staple food and the prices are skyrocketing. It's your bad governance. And in my plan, it seems to me and his supporters as well, get bored with the idea of nitty gritty or details of how it actually run the case. It's more about this, this, this poem, this greatness will become this, this, this become this glorious nation that will then, you know, go to the Muslim glorious Muslim past, but in a modern way such as this kind of or at least neglect of details. I think not right now what one thing that I was particularly disappointed by was the education system. I really thought he would take that seriously, just in terms not in terms of a radical thing but in terms of just like increasing more scholarship is helping speaking to them, not only has the cut funding. He has actually increased surveillance on campuses he thinks there's a fifth generation walk going on on campuses where teachers like myself are playing with the minds of young people and and they will be catastrophe, misrecognizing that the real catastrophe is the poor quality of education that's been given and the fact that we don't have critical thinking and anybody who raises his or her voice is silence. I mean students have been have been disappeared under his government. This I thought was particularly shocking because I thought he genuinely even in a in a right-wing sense had some idea of the importance of education in Pakistan. Right now, all he's reduced himself to unfortunately is attacking the opposition. There is a culture of cruelty. You know we've been saying this for a while is you know his base enjoys cruelty is based enjoys when people are when he gives you know the biggest role he's gotten since coming to power when he was when he was in Washington among the diaspora. And giving the speech and he said you know I when I go back I will ensure that all the ACs their conditioners in the jails of these political opponents are removed and they suffer in the heat. And it's just this meaningless term you know like this cruel thing to say, but people loved it. Right. And this increasingly is this cruelty is substituting the failures on the policy level and that's very dangerous. Thank you so much. There are a lot of questions already coming in the five questions what I'll do is I'll try to kind of club them together. The first two three questions one by an anonymous attendee but one by Hassan Massoud questions about expectations of free and fair fair elections, and whether people still expect the elections to be free and fair because arguably the length of military in the country have been fairly short according to one of the questions and how effective could party politics really be given how powerful the military is in this situation and how kind of interventionist it has been which direction are we headed on these counts. There's definitely a crisis of political parties. One is that there isn't much internal democracy in parties that again can be partly explained by the fact that these parties have been forced to operate under a lot of pressure. But I think if there was more of an institution of parties, parties as institutions, we would have seen a more sustained movement for democracy. There's a mistake made by political leaders to keep control around themselves that removes them from the public that that does not allow any kind of transparency. So I think the party form has to change. Having said that, we cannot underestimate the opposition parties, they, they have a lot of support across the country, they can still take out bring out a lot of people onto the streets, they've been. I mean politics is a full time thing and they've been doing it for the last 40, 50 years. So they have a base. And what's what the man has managed to do, which I think is incredible is managed to unite all political opposition, even the most I mean the least principle people have also like he could have even bought we could have even worked with his managed to alienate all of them and right now the opposition is a massive force and if any of you have seen the rally is the crowds in what you know that they this is a serious force. And that's why he's getting increasingly nervous. But yes the military remains very powerful but I also want to emphasize that we cannot overestimate the might of the military the military needs people to run the country. That's why they need political parties. That's why they formed their own parties. That's why they need these sandbags like in Brown Khan, because this country is too big to be governed by a tin port in port dictator and do the ethnic fault lines are too unmanageable without some kind of representation. So the military is it knows it can't deal with it on its own. And the recent crisis in sin where the sin police, after the abduction of their IG, threatened to go on strike. It frightened the hell out of the generals, because you can't manage a like sin with boots on the ground. You have to have political leaders and the police, and then civilian infrastructure. So, I think there's the very powerful but we cannot overestimate the power if there's a sustained democratic movement that's sincere, we can, we can push. We can go beyond the limits of what's possible. Thank you. Again, there are quite a few questions. So I'll combine two questions. I'll club them first of it is by Robiza mabean and interesting question actually, and it is, is there any significance in your opinion that Pakistan has a first lady who's not seen or overtly present in the political course it's a question related to gender politics but also to to the issue of religion and how in rank on has been able to navigate the space of being the poster boy of Pakistani cricket, the figure who was loved by Bollywood and generally in India at least pre for 2014 India right there was this idea of Iran Khan, very westernized very eloquent, very open as far as issues of gender equality are concerned, but then you see a different kind of Imran Khan in power, if you could say something about that and somewhat, you know, taking the, you know, there's a question by Hamza Waqas about and another anonymous attendee, both of which relate to the future of the left movement in Pakistan, right. If Imran, if Imran Khan's government faith fails, or you know if he's eventually voted out, do you feel whoever would come let's assume whether it's, it's a part full the whole of the PDM or part of those are parties were forming the PDM today the democratic movement, would they be more tolerant towards left ideas and practices, is there a scope for that kind of politics in Pakistan today. Thank you. Thank you. For the first question I think it's a fantastic question and Imran Khan is the, like, the biggest sex symbol Pakistan has ever. There's no doubt about that on the global stage and he's, he's his charisma in that sense was massive across the world. And the fact that he was popular amongst women outside of Pakistan enhanced his image more, you know, in the West, I mean his first wife was British, Jimi Khan was a fantastic activist by the way in on does a lot of fantastic work on human rights issues in the UK and I think there's a there's this interesting sex politics sexual politics here that you that men who are popular abroad actually reinforce the nation state, like the virility, the sexual potency of the nation. Of course if a woman was that popular and having that many affairs around the world that would have been that would have led to many earthquakes and people do believe it's happened because of the possibility. So it was seen as someone who could like actually adjust in a very intimate way in the Western world and in India. On the other hand his flip to Islam made him even sexier to use, you know, a sexual language is actually the fact that someone is desired by people all over the world and that he can renounce it is something that makes him even more popular within a certain conservative milieu. It's one thing to be to be to be modest, if nobody really wants you. But it's another thing if you are the symbol, and yet you were not this whole idea of renunciation for the nation for religion for sovereign for larger sovereign, or for larger mission is something that works too well. And his brief marriage, the second marriage with the journalist Reham Khan actually did not fit that definition, because she was, she was too assertive. So they really I mean the sexual politics here works as someone who is, who has, who has a very loyal wife was desired by the public has a loyal wife who can keep herself away from the public days, unless necessary, unless absolutely necessary. And the current first lady gives this perfect image although Pakistan of course has changed quite a bit as well so that she's also attacked for absence. And I think he's what what was probably going through his mind is to cement that that idea of him as someone who's renouncing the joys of the world, renouncing a certain kind of a public image in favor of this grand project which has nostalgia at its heart and I want to go back to some kind of Islamic. So, on the, and just on this, this part by saying you know, they, it has to recognize that I don't think this kind of thing is sustainable for too long because the public sphere has too many women now in Pakistan. And I say that you know of course as a positive thing, the expectations have changed is a feminist movement that's growing. So this kind of very, you know, old school hyper masculine thing still has of course appeal. It's on the decline and it won't, they won't be able to sustain it for too long. As far as the leftist concerned. I think the PDM will be once they come to power, they will be brutal, because I don't think it's, it's, it's their wish, like, you know right now. We're in touch with some of the leadership, the very gracious opposition parties tend to be very gracious to activists when they're in the opposition. But the problem is that really I mean we have to think about how does this country, how will this country actually work. They were hoping for investment from China, massive investment that has slowed down considerably. And I think that the IMF package will somehow make the economy work again. That hasn't happened, but historically has been a rentier state so it's willing to rent itself out for conflicts around the world. They're not needed anywhere. In the same way, like they were doing the water terror or a bunch of hard. To the point where they're selling off islands and thinking, you know, like these islands and sin that being sold as a major economic plan that somehow they'll turn into Dubai, which is a joke it won't happen so really. There is a crisis of surplus populations which is going to get worse with the climate catastrophe with the fourth most wonderful nation to climate change. And there is no ideological debate on how to give these surplus populations a place in society there are millions and millions of young people who feel they do not belong any anymore in Pakistan. And the only way to keep them in check. When the system cannot respond to their questions is to suppress them is to police them is to is to is to basically even even use laws against them I today the youth. I was asking this question if I'm identifying him that he's a young person and he probably knows that young people today are seen as a law and order problem. You can't even have young people doing reading groups in universities people think the administration and the state thinks that they're plotting a coup. This kind of policing is the future regardless of who comes to power but still if you have a democratic government at least allows for the articulation of an ideological difference with all its violence with all its repression that in the long run can can cause it an alternative. Currently we're stuck in this cycle between the military and the civilian and the military and constitution and I think we have to break out of this historical dialectic dialectic of history move forward and and actually have more debates that are that concern ordinary people in Pakistan. That's on that point actually the issue of you know let you know your point of let this, let the debate move on let the history this dialectic between civilian and military kind of relationship, sort of that that compact must break for something new to new to emerge. There's a question which is also a bit of a pushback which you know by by by Sarah Khaled an important question that she says that you claim that Iran cons political regime refuses to accept responsibility and focuses instead on holding historical forces accountable. And you do not you did not mention any of the challenges that his government inherited from the previous ppp and PML and regimes. So the unique challenge in the history of Pakistan, or you know, especially given the pandemic situations right now. What is your view on the kind of, you know, how these issues were dealt by previous governments, partly you have answered that question but just to put it out there as well. So don't you feel that it's to given the situation that we are in with a pandemic, and the situation, you know, even in geopolitically with the India China, being doing what they're doing right now in Himalayas, a very stressful situation. Is it. valid or is it, you know, it wouldn't be a valuable exercise to judge the success or failure of them run come government at this point in time, is it too early, must we not wait a little that if I understand correctly, is it thrust of the question. You're muted. Sorry. This is a good question and I just mentioned that the governments, the previous governments, although in hindsight we can say they were moving in certain ways that was still a step forward, but they were completely inadequate. They were quite brutal. And this goes for both the democratic and the military regimes, because there's a certain state structure which is which is repressive. Also, one thing we just have to be sure about is that no government comes into power in without there being a preceding crisis. There's never been any kind of a transfer without a crisis. I mean, look at where the time Buddha came to buy in 71 when Pakistan was dismembered. The economy collapsed. And the morale of the nation was low and then you have the global financial crisis in 73. I mean, things weren't things aren't easy when it when the people's party came to buy in 2008. There was a global crisis financial crisis and all the funding that was coming to Pakistan under the machine of regime. It just dried up. So, governments face difficult challenges in a poor country just mismanaged, which is corrupt, which is repressive. Two things, two indicators can can help us see where we're going. One is, has there been a move towards actually including people who are marginalized. Nothing stops him from reinstating student unions or from taking away the subsidies from the mafia as he hates so much in the agriculture or even the military that he used to criticize a lot, even in the industrial corporate sector, which is infamous for not paying its taxes. And these are things he's mentioned before, but there's no, not even a single movement on that side, whereas you see mass unemployment, which is increasing because of course COVID as well. But there's no transfer of wealth from the state. The other thing where I think his performance is inexcusable is the fact that no matter how bad a situation is, you don't need to kidnap people. This is stupid. Kidnapping journalists, kidnapping students, firing teachers. I mean, I've been without a job for five, six years because of this regime. There's nothing that we, you're a teacher, you know, we're not that powerful. We're lucky if people listen to our lectures like students, you know. So just this idea that we can bring a revolution just tells you the kind of paranoid mindset of the current regime. And I think these things are inexcusable. Then this recent thing about the rape that happened in Lahore on the motorway and his refusal, the government's refusal to remove the police chief for a month is completely needless. A lot of PTI support base has moved away from him. The doctors, doctors were young doctors were at the heart of the PTI struggle because the previous regime was trying to PMLN was trying to privatize healthcare. Now they say that that was paradise for us because of the kind of privatization that we're seeing under this regime. So, I think this situation is difficult. I never believed him when he said we're going to make Pakistan, the Sweden of Asia, but come on, like, at least don't be a petty tyrant. This is not what people expected. This is not what the youth expected. His fan base has been beaten up on the ropes. And this is something that I don't think any kind of past or preceding crisis can justify. Thank you. We have limited time from now. So I think it will be a last set of questions, perhaps a bit more forward looking some of them have already come up in the Q&A box. How must a citizen of Pakistan address the next election, given the kind of very dismal situation, even with political parties in the opposition coming together and perhaps challenging the Imran Khan and forge combination that is there in power today. How must one address the issue of elections, the forthcoming elections, and would that essentially lead to any meaningful change. And last question perhaps is with religious groups having the power they do, and the basis of creation of Pakistan popularly understood as being rooted in Islam. The future of the left in terms of getting popular support among the citizenry. You know, you, you mentioned the need to expand, you know, have more debates have more conversations perhaps that's the one way of building a third alternatives right that was also something that came up, and you mentioned the need for it. But in terms of the actual tools that can be used in the face of that descent. How can, how might one address that. So in terms of the first question I really think there needs to be. If if they are ever elections. One they need to be free and fair. And that's something I think all political parties have to agree and there has to be a minimal agreement, even among opponents on the rules of the game. We can't have a football match without, but some people some people just like using their hands. That's just, we have to agree on the rules on how we're competing with each other, even if we hate each other. You know, so that's, I think that's, that's the minimal that needs to happen. On the other hand, we cannot be minimalist, we have to actually have our own program. And this is, this is the fact that we are heading towards a climate catastrophe. The fact that millions of people have no jobs. The fact that we're completely reliant on foreign investment, which is not even coming anymore. The fact that young people with degrees who have a lot of aspirations to do well they come from like, you know, I've taught in public sector universities in Pakistan. And these kids are first time, you know, first generation university graduates, they've worked really hard to come to university. And then they struggle with English they struggle with bad teaching they struggle with, you know, repressive administrations, but they keep on going because they don't want to toilet in the farm that like their dad did they don't want to be a driver they don't want to, to be a disposable human and they work hard and at the end of the day they realize that they're either under qualified or under connected for jobs in the cities, and they're too qualified for the jobs of their parents that's neither the past nor the future for a lot of such people time itself and this is, this is a ticking time bomb. This is a crisis that that is already showing itself and you know some of this anger was captured by and but the anger is still there now it's against him run fun but still there and somehow we'll have to talk about alternatives and I think organizing for an alternative political force, which is cognizant of the challenges of climate of workers or peasants of the feminist movements and all these other that the question of ethnic composition of Pakistan particularly the below and the Cindy's, we need to be cognizant of these challenges and bring them together to have a new kind of a deal for the Pakistani people which is not just about restoring democracy, which people rightly suspect they're simply restoring a status code that no longer exists. And it's impossible to go back to some kind of baseline anyway the work there has to be a new social contract something new has to emerge, and we have to work together to becoming that new force, which then brings me to the question of religion. I think it's overestimate people often to over exaggerate the power of religious extremists in Pakistan. I mean, just the fact that politically speaking we've had never had much support for religious extremists at least in terms of the extreme right. So in society, people go towards these, these far right parties because they're the only ones who are welcoming them. You know, the one movement that has that I've seen recently, I studied closely I work with people who are part of it is the vehicle about Pakistan, which all of urban Pakistan mocks, and rightly so because they're outrageous, you know, sectarian and sexist and anti democratic, but you would see within their base that they have more poor people who are active in their movement than any other political party. So they've really riled up the really really poor were angry and they use the language the way it's articulated is the language of religion of the sanctity of the prophet of sanctity of Islam. But I could see the same people being mobilized for, you know, a left politics. And this is something we saw recently in a place called Pindi Bhatia where we're working right now and we did a health care. The guy who was working with us was this really poor worker was fired from his factory in Karachi, then later factory from Faisalabad. He's now working with us as one of the main people in the area. And he's organizing on left issues he's organizing the peasants against the feudal. He has his entire life has been about trade unionism and standing up for workers rights and guess which party was he a part of before joining the movement which is our group. He was part of the very killer back Pakistan, which is this far right religious part. And he said I just I don't care about the religious side of things. I'm this poor man in this village. My mother died of hepatitis my wife has hepatitis his daughter has an outbreak of hepatitis because of the water situation. The poor nobody talks to us and the feudal they don't allow us any kind of space and I just like the fact that this small we came in and he just yelled at them and abused the feudal and the feudal couldn't say anything. And I like that moment of power and I realized they're not with us we actually need our own politics, but we're glad someone has come to us so we can articulate our own politics. And so I think there is a positive and this is study after study in all of all of the world we have the left base of the left has shifted to the right places like Mumbai which was centers of the left from 1920s in the 1970s, 80s is switched to the right to the country. So the decay of working class and I logical and left politics is has resulted in the rise of the right. It's a symptom of an absence. And if we are present. If there's a genuine left that's present and active. I think we can take the initiative back from religious extremes. Thank you so much for such a deep dive into Pakistani politics, especially the Iran Khan phenomenon. We have more questions I'm just getting some questions from Facebook as well, but we have run over time which is always a good sign. So I'll, I'll have to unfortunately wrap this very exciting session up. There are still quite a few attendees here. Thank you so much to everyone for joining us this afternoon in the first of a series of webinars that we are conducting on South Asian affairs. The next one would be in mid November and would look at Bangladesh and its economic issues and struggles in the in, especially in the face of the pandemic, and how Bangladesh has kind of really emerged from being this poster child of international developmental politics to becoming a really an economic powerhouse in the region, overtaking even India in terms of its GDP growth rates. But thank you so much to all of you. If you're not on the South, so as South Asian Institute, emailing list, please get in touch with us we send weekly newsletters about a lot of different issues that are going on. So, please do join us for that. Once again, thank you so much for all your time and your thoughts. Thank you. Pleasure to be here.