- By: Barrister Usman Ali (Ph.D.)
In Pakistan’s history, certain decisions transcend the realm of routine judicial proceedings. They shape national consciousness, define the direction of the state, and raise uncomfortable questions about collective accountability. The sentencing of former ISI chief and senior Pakistan Army officer Lieutenant General (R) Faiz Hameed to fourteen years’ imprisonment on multiple charges is one such moment. On the surface, it appears to be action against a powerful individual. Yet the central question remains unanswered: can the punishment of a single general undo the damage inflicted over years on the state and society, or is this merely a symbolic act that leaves the real problem untouched?
Pakistan has endured repeated political, constitutional, and military crises since its creation. Martial laws were imposed, elected governments dismissed, politicians jailed, exiled, flogged, and even executed. Yet despite this history of repression, one principle largely held firm. Political parties and leaders, however aggrieved, did not align themselves with foreign powers against the state of Pakistan. They disagreed, resisted, and protested, but they did not weaponize hatred toward the country itself. This moral boundary preserved the distinction between political struggle and state survival.
Over the past fifteen years, however, that boundary was deliberately eroded. A small group of powerful generals chose not only to engineer governments, but to institutionalize hatred, character assassination, and division as instruments of political control. Driven by hostility toward the country’s two major political parties, an artificial third force was constructed. To project Imran Khan as a national savior, it became necessary to portray all others as thieves, criminals, and traitors.
This project required an organized propaganda infrastructure. Social media was converted into a weapon. Thousands of salaried operatives were recruited to attack every critic with abuse, slander, and personal humiliation. Mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters were not spared. Simultaneously, heavily paid television anchors were integrated into this ecosystem to spread lies, outrage, and political hysteria around the clock. The outcome was not a political movement but the rise of a blind cult, one that stopped seeing a man as human and began treating him as a messianic figure.
Within this cult, Imran Khan was elevated variously as a spiritual guide, a saint, and a redeemer. All moral limits were crossed in vilifying his opponents. Dissent was equated with treason; criticism became proof of betrayal. Politics was reduced to absolutism, where loyalty to one individual superseded loyalty to institutions, the constitution, and ultimately the state.
The participation, active or silent, of large segments of the judiciary and the media further entrenched this process. Imran Khan was eventually ushered into power through the back door. Yet once in office, the illusion quickly collapsed. The supposed savior lacked both the temperament and the capacity required to govern a state. Governance failed, Pakistan grew increasingly isolated internationally, and new records of corruption were set. Global institutions repeatedly flagged the country’s worsening corruption indicators. Political opponents were subjected to systematic victimization, women activists were arrested, press freedoms were curtailed, and Pakistan came to be listed among countries hostile to media freedom. Ultimately, the entire experiment collapsed, and Imran Khan was removed from power.
But the problem did not end there. The real danger lies not in Imran Khan himself, but in the mindset cultivated over years of patronage. Individuals trained systematically in hatred, falsehood, and hostility toward the state. People who today despise their own country, who spread venom against Pakistan from abroad, who celebrate every national crisis as validation of their worldview. Others remain captive to this cult within the country, believing loyalty to a single individual outweighs loyalty to Pakistan itself. This is not accidental; it is the product of deliberate ideological conditioning. And it is this mindset that poses the gravest threat.
None of this can be attributed to Faiz Hameed alone. This is a long and well-documented story with many known characters. If accountability is truly the objective, it cannot be confined to a single name. All those who laid the foundation of this project must be held answerable, those who spent billions of public money to construct an organized anti-state narrative, and those who misused state institutions to pursue personal vendettas. Without this, Faiz Hameed’s conviction will amount to little more than a temporary headline.
The state now stands at a decisive crossroads. Either there will be impartial accountability, firm action against hate-driven propaganda, and real consequences for those working against the state, or this sentence will join a long list of symbolic gestures that changed nothing.
If the same elements are allowed to return tomorrow, rehabilitated as they were in the past, and if decisive action is not taken against such forces within the country, the message will be clear: loyalty carries no value in this state. When people come to believe that no one will be held to account, those determined to undermine the country will act without fear. States then begin to collapse from within. History teaches us that the sound of such collapse is often heard long after the damage is done.
This is the moment at which a state either chooses to correct its course, or quietly resigns itself to decline.