Excerpts from book ” how does superclass rule nations; A case study from Pakistan”

The Revolutionary Nationalism

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan in March 2022 claimed he was fighting against western powers; particularly the USA which, according to him, had taken away the sovereignty of Pakistan.
For accusing the Pakistan Army to be part of a conspiracy against Pakistan, he gave examples from the rules of Gen Ziaul Haq and Gen Musharraf, who according to him had been working for the interests of Washington instead of protecting Pakistan’s sovereignty.
After propagating that Pakistan was not a sovereign country, he sold a dream of an independent state if he could be allowed to rule again, therefore he said his struggle against the PDM government was actually the struggle for “real Independence” because Pakistan was not an independent country. He categorically said that India had a sovereign foreign policy but Pakistan had never enjoyed this pleasure.
His thoughts look novel, exciting, attractive, and honest for those who do not have an idea of a long history of different political philosophies that spread mostly in Europe and South America and died down after disastrous outcomes. The dream that Imran Khan sold was not different from what the political philosophy of Revolutionary Nationalism believed.
The political philosophy of Revolutionary Nationalism brought several nationalist political movements aiming to achieve so-called “independence” from “foreign dependence” in Europe, South America, and Africa.
Born in France, this political philosophy strongly influenced revolutionary forces against the established order of their eras. Some of the known movements were the French Revolution, the Irish Republicans engaged in armed struggle against the British Crown, the movement against French rule in Vietnam, the Mexican Revolution, Benito Mussolini, and the Italian Fascists, the Autonomous Government of Khorasan, Augusto Cesar Sandino in Nicaragua, the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement in Bolivia and several minor movements of African independence, that came to the surface during the 1950s and 1960s.
Leaders of these movements first indoctrinated their followers that they were not independent and that some social groups or foreign powers were ruling them directly or indirectly. The second phase was preparing their followers to break down the system and the third phase was to create a new system. The majority of movements evaporated after creating unrest and chaos between phases two and three. The majority of leaders left the countries and got asylum in other countries and some of them were killed by their followers when nothing came out of the disastrous breakdown of the administrative systems of their countries. One similarity in all nationalist revolutionary movements was the simplicity of their leaders. They were from the masses and they lived with the masses.
Imran Khan ruled for 42 months and he did not realize that country was not sovereign and the idea of true independence till such time when he lost the majority in the House and was voted out.
His political opponents believed that the idea of a US-sponsored conspiracy came to his mind when he had already lost his majority in the House and now he was trying to spread anarchy in the country because he did not want to see anybody sitting in the Prime Ministerial chair except him.
There is no doubt that demanding resignation from sitting governments has been the core of his politics. He did the same in 2014 but the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not bow down to his demand though Imran Khan sat outside Parliament building for 128 days. If we talk about his 2014 Dharna (sit-in), I witnessed that participation never surpassed the number of 20,000 protestors although he had the courtesy of almost everybody, and virtually the entire media was manipulating information in his favor, portraying 20,000 people as 200,000. The results of all such manipulation were zero: no resignation, no change in government, and elections held as per schedule.