Hundreds of thousands of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf supporters came out onto the streets across the United Kingdom last Sunday to protest after Imran Khan lost the vote of no confidence the previous day.
Protests were held across London, Bradford, Manchester, Nottingham and Glasgow where chants could be heard in support of Khan while also simultaneously expressing their anger for Khan’s removal. Angry chants could be heard from the crowds for calls to tell the new interim government to leave. In Manchester alone, there were over 2,000 protesters.
In a video message on social media, Imran Khan’s UK spokesperson Sahibzada Jahangir urged PTI supporters to march to the US embassy in London and protest against the foreign interference by America”.
While analysts say that the foreign hand Imran Khan is referring to may be exaggerated and may help him garner support for his next election, this message of an outside role in Imran Khan’s removal has resonated with PTI supporters both in Pakistan and the diaspora in the West.
Khan since his early days of campaigning has always resonated with Pakistanis living in the diaspora. One of the reasons for that may be that many find themselves relating to him as someone who has roots in Pakistan and has lived abroad for many years but much like themselves, still feels strongly for Pakistan.
Khan was someone who came from a modest background, made a name from himself back home and internationally through his hard work and talent, spent many years in the west but chose to return back to Pakistan to help his country. This is an image they identify with and to many in diaspora, he is both a hero and saviour, and for them it romanticises the idea of saving a country that so desperately needs saving.
In Manchester alone, nearly 2,000 PTI supporters came out to protest Khan’s removal. Adnan Tariq, who is an IT developer in Manchester, first moved to the UK 18 years ago. Tariq is an official member of PTI UK and came out to protest Khan’s removal on Sunday.
“I don’t think anyone in PTI is comfortable with it [the removal]. We know it’s been manipulated. There’s been some horse trading as well. People have changed their loyalties,” he said.
“There is also the issue about the letter as well, which makes it more suspicious,” he said. “But even with or without the letter, the opposition should have allowed PTI to complete their term.”
“Khan sahab is the leader. He is PTI essentially. Him not being the Prime Minister does not make sense,” he said.
Tariq has been a PTI supporter since 2008 and soon after PTI UK was officially formed in 2011, he was elected the finance secretary in 2012.
Tariq was a student in Bradford at the time when Khan first began his visits to the UK during the Pervez Musharraf regime. Khan held protests across the UK and organised talks in UK universities for Pakistani students, appealing to them to participate in politics in order to the change the status quo back home.
Khan even protested with the young students at the time, creating an excitement among the students, many who were awed by this cricket star walking side by side with them chanting slogans of change.
Insaaniyat, Insaaf and Khudaari (Humanity, Fairness and Independence) was Imran Khan’s message and it appealed to the youth. During one such speech that was held in King’s College, Tariq first heard Khan and soon after, became a PTI supporter. “People like myself, middle class or lower class, who don’t have a political background joined PTI because of what was going on in the country at the time”
“We didn’t want to support the usual two-party system that had been going on for so long,” he said. “He was the third alternative and he was not the usual face you would see. He was making sense at the time and especially for people living abroad, he related it to how things work here.”
“Obviously, any patriotic Pakistani would want the same in Pakistan,” he said.
“There’s no future without Imran Khan. But we will come back and we will come back with a large majority. There was a huge turnout across Pakistan in support of Imran Khan on Sunday,” he said. “I have no doubt he has got a bright future.”
Similarly, Chaudhry Shahzad Ahmed moved to the UK from rural Rawalpindi to study at Manchester University when he was 23. Ahmed who is a businessman now was 17 years old when he joined PTI back when he lived in Rawalpindi. A friend of his forced him to attend a PTI rally and right away, he felt a connection with Khan’s words.
Ahmed was the first elected General Secretary of PTI UK in 2014 and is currently a member of its Standing Committee for Accountability and Discipline. He even tried his luck to get a ticket in Rawalpindi during the last elections but was not successful.
Like others, he too had felt Khan’s aura and charisma in the past too when he had been in school and had raised funds for Shaukat Khanum hospital. When he heard Khan speak about Pakistan and what was needed to change the trajectory of the country, it was enough to convince Ahmed to join to party. For Ahmed, 'Khan Sahab’s' words and politics were refreshing and vastly different status quo. “I decided that this is the guy I need to follow,” he said.
In 2007, when Khan decided to file cases against Altaf Hussain, Ahmed decided to become actively involved in the party. “Since then, there was no looking back,” he said.
“He is honest and whatever he says, he at least tries to do that,” he said.
Ahmed flew back after the 27th rally in Pakistan, and participated with his wife and two children in the Manchester protest last week. For him, the vote of no confidence against Khan was a ‘set up’ and ‘predone’. “It was in the air for the last six months that Shahbaz Sharif was ‘prime minister in-waiting’.”
Anwar Ul Haq, who is originally from Kallar Syedan Tehsil in Rawalpindi, Punjab and has lived in the UK for over 30 years and currently resides in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Haq is a member of the Overseas Election Commission for PTI UK.
Like everyone else who supports Khan, Haq feels that there are other external forces responsible for Khan’s removal. “There must be some unseen elements that have played a big role in this,” he said. “Some external elements were involved big time.”
Haq, whose parents and siblings still live back in Pakistan, has supported Khan for a long time. “He is a fantastic and visionary leader,” said Haq. “I grew up with this political system and with martial law in Pakistan. I haven’t found that they are doing something for the public. It is a known fact that they [PPP and PML-N] have stolen people’s money and have benefitted from it.”
“When I was younger, bribery and corruption were considered terrible things but now [because of them], it has become the norm. The difference between halal and haram has disappeared,” said Haq. “They have polluted the upcoming generation and basic values of the society have been wiped out.”
Haq is also in the process of moving back to Pakistan and hopes that Khan will be in power when he does so. “I will be more comfortable if he is the leader because I feel the security issue will be worse if he is not. However, if he isn’t in power then I will be part of the struggle in coming years, and we will try our best to make the country better.”
Zareen Asad who lives in Manchester went to the protest with her family. Asad moved to Manchester from Lahore after getting married ten years ago.
Asad, like many of his other supporters, first heard of Imran Khan when she was in school in Lahore and he was the captain of the Pakistani cricket team. She can still clearly recall his charismatic persona from the time he came to her school to speak when he was collecting funds for Shaukat Khanum. Asad and her friends at the time began raising funds for his hospital. “I’ve been a fan of Imran Khan [for a long time],” she says. “When he had his first major rally in Lahore, that’s when I started to really support PTI.”
“PML-N and PPP have been taking turns for a long time and they have ruined Pakistan with corruption. They are only interested in making money themselves,” she says. “PTI under Imran really came as a breath of fresh air.”
“If there is someone better than him then yes, we would support him or her but right now it is about these two big parties who have come into power. It is their corruption that is worrying at the moment,” she said.
Khan can do no wrong
Many have criticised that overseas Pakistanis are woefully out of touch with the problems faced by those living within the country on a day-to-day basis. Khan throughout his term as prime minister has been heavily criticised by the opposition for the high rate of inflation since he first took office. For Pakistanis back home, the high rate of inflation has hugely impacted their daily life.
However, for PTI supporters in the diaspora, many assert that Khan hadn’t been given enough time to make significant changes. “Unlike his predecessors who had artificially increased value of the currency, Imran Khan’s main priority was to stabilise the economy in the long run,” Haq said. “Inflation has also been a worldwide issue.”
According to Ahmed, “Inflation is an international phenomenon right now due to Covid-19. It’s not just Pakistan that’s suffering,” he said. “There are a lot of success stories as well from the last few years. Your exports flourished. There’s more business done in property than ever before. Your retail business has boomed and your tax collection has also increased.”
Similarly, Asad says, “I think inflation is in the world over. Even in the UK prices have been going up like no tomorrow.”
“Inflation has also been affected the political instability these past few weeks,” she adds. “I wouldn’t say that everything he did was perfect. Yes, I am pretty sure he must have made mistakes but he one thing I know for sure is that he is the only honest politician who can run this country.”
The right to vote
Since Khan holds a significant amount of support from the Pakistani diaspora, he has been working for them to be able to vote in elections. Currently, there are 11,000 registered members of PTI UK who pay an annual fee of £36 for their membership to the party.
“We’ve been waiting long enough to have voting rights and now [with the change in government] it doesn’t look like that will happen,” said Tariq. “We still have a strong connection to Pakistan. We have our friends and family there. We go there pretty often. We’ve got a home there,” he said. “As a patriotic Pakistani you just want to make sure you can still contribute and stay in touch.”
Asad also shared similar sentiments: “Our roots are in Pakistan. We just cannot sit and ignore what’s happening in Pakistan.”
As Haq says, “This is our basic right and it’s the government’s job to accommodate us. Overseas remittance and property sector are both being supported by people like is so we should be involved and have a vote of right.”
“Khan sahab promised us [this right of vote] and PTI UK has played a vital role in trying to get overseas Pakistanis the right to vote,” he adds.
This article was first published in the April 17th issue of the magazine.