The wrath of Khan

Legions of PTI online warriors stalk the internet ready to defend their Kaptaan from any and all charges.

Anyone who makes their living writing about Pakistani politics will be painfully aware that writing about Imran Khan, in even a vaguely negative tone, is hazardous to their ego. Legions of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) online warriors stalk the internet ready to defend their Kaptaan from any and all charges. For them, Imran is a pinata of goodness: no matter which side or angle you bash him from; all he releases are tasty treats.

Just when you knock down one argument for Imran’s ascent to power, another one arises in its place. First, we are told that everyone else has been tried and been found wanting, so now Imran should get his chance; as if he is the neglected kid at the birthday party who hasn’t yet had a go at getting a prize while playing pass the parcel. Then his record as cricket captain is touted, which requires one to overlook that he had all the dictatorial tendencies of Caligula while leading the team. A quality that may be fine for someone leading the notoriously ill-disciplined cricket team but not something one is looking for in a democratic leader.

By far, the most compelling argument in Imran’s favour was his incorruptibility and integrity. Here was a man who had navigated the grimiest corners of Pakistan — its political world — and emerged with nary a black mark. Imran had turned down the entreaties of a dictator and could lament the corruption of the civilian leadership without a hint of hypocrisy. If unflinching honesty was what you wanted, Imran was your man.

No longer. The man who loved to denounce every politician around as a lackey for the Americans or a stooge of the military has now invited into his fold people who would genuinely fit both categories. Dissatisfied members of the PML-Q Likeminded, who were not happy with their leadership offering their support to the PML-N, have now allied with PTI. This dissident group within a dissident group is filled with just the type of careerist politicians whom Imran lived to skewer.

It is now up to Imran Khan to offer convincing explanations for why he has welcomed Gohar Ayub Khan, a lota of the first order who not only left former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to ally himself with the dictator Musharraf but is the son of a dictator himself. This is just one example. Every PML-Q member who has now allied himself with Imran could serve as a model of all that the PTI exists to repudiate. For true believers, this should be a deal-breaking betrayal.

Now that the raison d’etre of Imran Khan’s political career — that he is the one man who will never compromise his ideals — has proven to be hollow, will his internet jihadis quietly slink back to their crevices? Hardly likely. You could pen their defences of the PTI in advance. It would go something like this: Imran Khan knows that to get power and transform politics in the country he has to ally himself with the same old politicians because they have constituencies that will transform into National Assembly seats. He has to make a deal with the devil to allow his true angelic self to spread its message of peace and honesty.

The funny thing is that we heard this exact defence in the recent past. Another warrior who had dedicated himself to rooting out corruption used these same words to justify his alliance with the likes of the Chaudhry brothers and other politicians with less than stellar reputations. Who would have thought Imran Khan had so much in common with Pervez Musharraf?

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2011.