Standing in front of the students in university is a matter of great pleasure for any professor. You put yourself on the spot and unlike the politicians you don’t have planted students in the class who will ask you questions whose answers you already know. In fact, you are in a permanent condition of spontaneity and rely on your mental archives to come up with answers to the questions asked. No professor ever knows all the answers; in fact the best ones that taught me always said they knew little or nothing yet they were amazing as teachers and one of the reasons that I have taken up this as my profession is because of the unlimited aspiration that I drew from them.
Ironically, the first thing that I shared with my students on the Friday morning class was that “former PM Imran Khan will most likely be disqualified today in Toshakhana reference by the Election Commission of Pakistan”. Not that I am a great admirer of Nostradamus or in any way do I have his skillset or power of imagination. I am sure not me but many other people in this country must have acquired the Nostradamus instincts and made this prediction. The real question with us Pakistanis is not why we have become like Nostradamus and started making the right predictions. The real question is: why have our institutions become so shallow and so thin-skinned that we can easily see and read through what will be coming from them?
This man Imran Khan is a national hero. I agree there are many people that don’t like him but that is subjective. Seen objectively, since the last six months the time since this unpopular government has replaced Imran Khan’s government, 31 different elections have been held in various constituencies in Pakistan. Out of these 31 elections, 26 have been won by Khan’s PTI. If this is not the voice of the people then what else is? This country has been plundered by our elite who have selfishly ruled us giving back to majority of us nothing but miserable lives to live. One man who has stood up to show these elites their true faces in the mirror is Imran Khan. This is a reality that even his arch opponents and competitors will not contest.
I am always very reluctant to use the word betrayal. I actually hate this word because I truly understand the meaning of this word. Betrayal always comes not from your enemies but from your near and dear ones. It comes from the people that you trust the most. The correct phrase that describes betrayal is backstabbing because you will only turn you back towards someone that you trust.
Khan’s phone calls were tapped and an attempt was made to portray him as a controversial leader. Thirteen parties got together to beat the political force that we call Imran Khan. They could not. The man is electorally undefeated and will remain undefeated — when this realisation set in the schemers and planners of the great game in Pakistan (being played for over seven decades now) had only one game plan — disqualify him. The people of Pakistan have been betrayed by the national institutions that have collaborated to make sure that Khan no more remains the political power house that he is.
A large majority of the people is hurt — the nation in general is hurt. This decision comes on the heels of many judicial verdicts which have set free influential killers that murdered people in the broad day light. This is not justice; this is tyranny which never endures. This is stealing people’s mandate. For the last six months all this circus of 13 parties in the government has done is spray around anti-IK propaganda. When there is such a huge emotional investment of the people in a leader, no such dirty tactics succeed. Don’t we know this from reading history — but yes, the best lesson we learn from history is that we never learn from history.
In February 1999, then Indian PM, AB Vajpayee, had come to Lahore by bus — in a sincere effort to bring the two countries together. How did we respond? We initiated the Kargil war. The Indian PM and the Indian nation took it as a great act of betrayal by Pakistan. They clearly believe and even say this today that while we sought friendship you sought to betray us.
Not just this but in the past week I had the opportunity to view two short videos shared by one of my friends. One was related to PM Narendra Modi who while addressing an audience explains why it is difficult to engage with Pakistan. He explains that he has met a number of leaders in the world, including those of the Arab world, and there is a common thing that leaders all around the world share, when it comes to Pakistan: they don’t know whom to engage with — the government or the military? Modi ends this argument saying: when this is sorted out, we can talk about engagement with Pakistan.
The second video is also related to a famous Indian by the name of Javed Akhtar — a famous poet, writer and a political activist. In this video Akhtar can be seen addressing an Indian politician sitting on stage and telling him how his appraisal on how the Indian society functions is different from his own. But it is Akhtar’s summing up comment which is interesting. He tells the politician that if he wants to have an idea about what corruption is he should go to Pakistan as when he comes back, he would like to kiss in appreciation his own motherland for being so less corrupt.
Why we have come to such a pass that the hated word betrayal seems to define how we exist as a nation. As I write this and see the new drama unfold, my head bows in shame. Yes — Pakistan today has become a Concilium not where gladiators fight but a Concilium where politicians-turned-nihilists reside. They believe in no goodness, demonstrate little loyalty to the nation, have purposeless existence and the only attribute they demonstrate is their unending impulse to destroy anything that comes in the way of their political ambitions and goals. Imran Khan stands in their way but unfortunately for them, behind Imran Khan also stands a sea of people. People of Pakistan cannot betray him. They will not because that will be the end of the very hope of changing the politics of status quo in this country.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 23rd, 2022.
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