Kudos to Imran Khan

Will Imran again be muscled out of limelight by sharp elbows of Zardari to claim throne vacated by Nawaz Sharif?

“Today history is made in Pakistan. The credit goes to Imran Khan for standing consistently and firmly against corruption and not stepping back until justice was served. Hats off to the Supreme Court panel for giving the right verdict, this would have never happened without them,” is one of the many messages that pinged on my cell in the early hours of July 28^th.

Call him ‘crazy, egotistical or dimwitted’, but stop! Think! Who was the first to throw a stone at the glass house of Sharifs that has finally been shattered to pieces? The answer staring in our faces is Imran Khan. I know his detractors will not agree. Plain and simple, Imran is their bête noire, their pet peeve, anathema and bugbear. “The leaks are God sent” declared Imran on April 4^th, 2016, when Panamagate exploded. The first daughter, Maryam Nawaz, rushed to save her own skin by disowning any ownership in the named offshore companies, tweeting that the leaks were “distortion of information.” The bloodletting didn’t end there as the solo trooper took to the highroad that led to the Supreme Court demanding Sharifs’ response.



The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

We, the people, owe a debt of gratitude to this man. He sparred with the mighty and the powerful accusing them of corruption. He singlehandedly challenged General Musharraf, Altaf Hussain, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif for their evil deeds. But his words were left twisting in the wind. They didn’t matter a whit! He sounded like a broken record, repeating the word ‘corruption’ and ‘tsunami’ to a helpless nation weary of the plunderers. Even his supporters began calling Imran unbalanced. Many moved away from him. Imran is not an angel or a saint. He has faults as all humans do, but let’s step back and go back in time to retrace this man’s lonely fight of many years soldiering against the status quo that bred kleptomaniacs, cheats, liars, thieves and criminals.

Eight years ago, on a steamy May afternoon, I sat at Imran Khan’s Bani Gala home for a formal interview that lasted two hours. He was a most gracious host. His answers were straight forward and honest. On leaving him, I wished him well and hoped that one day he gets to lead the country that he loved passionately. “You’re not an idealist; You’re not a romantic; You’re not shallow [even though when you entered politics many thought you lacked substance]; so why then are men like you not in the forefront of our destiny?” I asked him.



“I’m in no hurry. My time will come. We have a groundswell of people joining us. The man on the street and I want to live in dignity, not US enslavement. Our culture, values, belief is sacrosanct and is not for sale to foreigners. Our sovereignty is non-negotiable,” he said. I then reminded him that while he was the first to fight for the restoration of then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, others like Nawaz Sharif, then in the opposition and Aitzaz Ahsan of the PPP claimed victory when the chief justice was eventually reinstated. “You’re the one who roared in support of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, yet you were left behind by the roadside in the final hours of his restoration?” He agreed but didn’t comment further.

Will Imran Khan again be muscled out of the limelight by the sharp elbows of Zardari and his gang of crafty subordinates to claim the throne vacated by Nawaz Sharif? Will the vendetta of the Sharifs on their humiliating defeat bleed Imran’s chances to win at the polls next year? Hope he can outfox Zardari and Sharif this time around. “Now is the time for steady batting to reach the winning number,” says an Imran-watcher, “but beware of your cricketing partner who can cause you to run out sending you back to the pavilion.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 6^th, 2017.

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