A kingdom of temporary kings

Express Tribune

01-05-2025

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In the humid courtrooms of Islamabad, where ambition wears the robe of law; in the guarded compounds of Rawalpindi, where decisions are written in invisible ink; and in the vibrant alleys of Lahore, where every brick remembers a promise, the old lessons of The Prince stir quietly beneath the surface.
More than five centuries ago, Niccolò Machiavelli observed that promises are made to serve the past but broken to serve the present. Nowhere does this hold truer than in Pakistan's restless political landscape, where alliances shift like sand dunes, and survival, not service, has become the ultimate art.
In The Prince, Machiavelli laid bare the mechanics of power: loyalty is a mirage; fortune must be subdued by force; and a ruler must master the delicate balance between love and fear, always leaning toward the latter. From the khaki corridors to the marble halls of Parliament, Pakistan's rulers have long understood this playbook, often better than they care to admit.
Here, promises are declared with grand gestures on rickety stages and broken in whispered deals behind heavy doors. Political dynasties, once heralded as the torchbearers of democracy, have morphed into guilds of survival, trading principles for protection.
Every election is a duel between dreams and cynicism, and cynicism almost always wins. Manifestos are printed in glossy brochures, lofty visions are unfurled under blinking lights, yet when the dust settles, the only promises kept are those made behind closed doors.
Those who rise by fortune alone, Machiavelli warned, struggle to keep their thrones. Pakistan's history is littered with leaders who mistook a favourable wind for deep roots. They rose on the backs of borrowed alliances, hollow charisma and fleeting moments of national desperation, only to find that the same hands which lifted them could just as easily cast them aside.
The silent empire, that permanent establishment Machiavelli would instantly recognise, is Pakistan's true prince. Generals retire, judges swap robes, politicians trade loyalties, but the system mutates and endures, self-renewing like a virus for which no vaccine has yet been found. Beneath the visible theatre of elections and cabinet reshuffles, the architecture of control remains intact: flexible, unaccountable and eternal.
Power here understands well that it is safer to be feared than loved. It struts through marble corridors in pressed uniforms. It thunders from cracked microphones at political rallies. It smiles from billboards that vanish overnight when fortunes shift. Love here is a liability, a fleeting emotion easily shattered by the next great betrayal. Fear, however, endures like a bitter aftertaste in the national consciousness.
Once, a cricketer prince stood before the towering silhouette of Minar-e-Pakistan, arms raised to the swelling crowds gathered under the open sky. He spoke of justice, of rebirth, of a country cleansed of its old sins. The people roared back, drunk on hope. Somewhere, in colder, quieter rooms, men in suits and stars took notes. They saw not just a leader rising, but a useful instrument for unsettling old arrangements, until the day he too outlived his utility.
Machiavelli's warning was clear: those who rely on fortune must work twice as hard to secure their reign. In Pakistan, fortune wears a uniform, and favour is always conditional. When the tides shift, they do so without warning, sweeping away even the most meticulously built empires.
Betrayal is not the exception here; it is the bloodstream of politics. Yesterday's kingmaker is today's exile. Today's insurgent is tomorrow's insider. The line between villain and saviour blurs until it disappears entirely, swallowed by the sheer pragmatism of survival.
Down the Grand Trunk Road, in the heart of Punjab, political dynasties whisper into the ears of loyalists. The Lion of Lahore, bruised but not broken, plots a careful return. His heiress sharpens her speeches; old party workers dust off tattered flags. The thrones may change occupants, but the choreography remains the same, a careful dance between nostalgia and necessity.
Machiavelli would recognise every scene. He wrote that a ruler must appear merciful, faithful, sincere and religious, but be ready to act otherwise when needed. Pakistan's politicians perfect this masquerade: during campaigns they wrap themselves in virtue, during governance they wield power like an unblinking blade. Justice is brandished at rallies, bartered in negotiations, and quietly buried when inconvenient truths threaten fragile alliances.
The judiciary too moves carefully along a narrowing tightrope. By day, judges anchor their words in the Constitution; by night, they read the shifting winds of power. Verdicts do not always fall by the weight of evidence alone, but often by forces less visible and far more compelling. Laws, by themselves, cannot secure a kingdom; as Machiavelli saw, real power must always be buttressed by something stronger; force, fear or influence.
In the candlelit homes of the poor, in the crowded buses that rattle through the cities, the people whisper. Another promise broken. Another prince fallen. Another saviour waiting in the wings. Beneath the noise of political spectacles, their quiet despair and stubborn hope persist, unacknowledged but undefeated.
Machiavelli understood them too. People may mourn the death of a loved one, but they are slower to forgive the theft of their inheritance. In Pakistan, generations have watched their true inheritance - dignity, justice, and a future - bartered away by leaders who loved the throne more than they loved the people.
The cycle is relentless. A populist rises. The old order recoils. An alliance is struck. A coup, soft or hard, unfolds. A courtroom becomes an execution ground. The people are summoned, inflamed, exhausted, and finally silenced.
And yet, beneath the dust and disillusionment, something stirs. The hunger for real leadership, not princes, not caretakers, not kings in waiting, but servants of the people, remains. It endures in every quiet conversation, in every guarded hope, in every refusal to fully give up.
The stage is set. The players are the same.
The audience, though bruised and battered, still watches.
And somewhere, in the heavy air of an endless Pakistani summer, The Prince walks on.
But this time, the audience does not just watch.
They wait.