Is Imran trying to serve old wine in a new bottle?

By tradition, the first sitting of a National Assembly session is adjourned, if it follows the death of a parliamentarian and Begum Bhutto was not an average politician. Anticipating no formal business, therefore, only a handful of members were present in the house when it started the Monday session.

Taking advantage of the lull, I tried to meet as many MNAs as was possible before I began trying to meet the deadline of this column. My sole objective was to find out their reaction and possible game plan for dealing with the “Tsunami” that Imran Khan is presumed to have unleashed by addressing a mammoth crowd in Lahore on October 30.

After talking to nearly a dozen of MNAs, representing all possible shades of our political spectrum, I beg to report that our usual legislators didn’t appear much pushed. Fairly a good number rather expressed disdainful cynicism by pointing out names that are joining Imran Khan in droves.

A son of Raja George Sikandar Zaman from Khanpur/Taxila is the latest addition. He is scion of a family that remained fiercely loyal to the British and always relished ministerial slots, whenever a military dictator was in absolute control.

Some people I talked to also kept wondering as to why the Imran-inspired youth with digital reach should employ its accumulated vigour to re-launch tried and tested products like Mian Azhar of Lahore; that too as the neat, clean and fresh faces. The long queue of usual suspects of our power games to seek blessings of Imran Khan, in a way, reinforces the inherent tenacity of our elite.

For over five thousand years this wretched land of Indus has been exposed to various invasions, both from within and outside. After initial resistance, the status-quo empowering elite would eventually get adjusted to new rulers to keep the average Joe in fate driven submission. With all reservations and my incurable cynicism, I always felt strongly that Imran Khan would take a long time to accept such elitist characters. To my utter shock, he didn’t wait for more than two weeks. Life has surely turned fast-paced in this age of virtual reality.

Imran Khan-driven hysteria might be subsiding by adjusting to realpolitik, but such adjustments make media boring, especially the electronic one which is all about drama, tension and dazzling spectacles. Probably to fill the expected void on this front, General Pervez Musharraf, is getting jittery these days.

I have it from highly reliable sources that for the past four days, his close aides are being subjected to a massive dose of tantrums by the former president -cum -chief of army staff. The retired general wants to advance the date of his much-announced landing in Pakistan. Instead of taking a plane for Pakistan on March 23, 2012, he now wants to come here on December 25, 2011.

My sources claim that the former president started having fits on this count after the Lahore rally of Imran Khan. He seriously believes that after taking over in October 12, 1999 he cultivated a strong constituency amongst the upwardly mobile urbanites of Pakistan. Besides promising “no Nawaz Sharif; no Benazir,” he also generated a feel-good mood for these classes by triggering appearances of vigorous economic activity. His “enlightened moderation” provided some “ideological moorings” as well. General

Musharraf, it is reported, keeps insisting that urbanite pockets in Pakistan are excitedly waiting for his return and if he delays the promised landing, a hard and significant chunk of his potential constituency will cross over to Imran Khan.

Begum Sehba Musharraf was in town recently. That usually quiet, lie low but elegantly engaging lady has been holding a series of meetings with many of those, serving and retired, who really matter when it comes to power management in this country. No one told Begum Sahiba in categorical terms that her husband should forget returning to Pakistan and that he should forget about his political plans. But without any exceptions they pointed out to ‘clear and forceful’ dangers to his security. Begum Sahiba honestly conveyed these fears to her husband but that provoked the commando in him to become even more adamant. We have to wait for his final decision, though the electronic media would love to have him around in the anticipated post-tsunami silence.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 15^th, 2011.