Imran Khan and the polio campaign

Good, but is this too little, too late?

Heartening to find the PTI leader Imran Khan finally realizing he has a province to run. Till now, the bulk of his public profile was spent on those allegations of rigging that his party made since the last elections. Then, there was the run-up to his anti-inflation protests (which culminated in today’s protest), a curious issue to rally around, given that the inflation position in his own province as grave as it is in the Punjab.

Then there was his near-aloof status on the biggest problem that his province (indeed, the country) faces: terrorism and militancy. His party was clear on its stance on the issue and the KP province brought him to power. The problem that followed, one shared by the PML-N, another party on the same page as him on the terror issue, was that this stance was not workable. The terrorists, it appears, don’t want to talk. And their list of preconditions is ones that no self-respecting state would be ready to accept.

Whereas the League is shuffling its feet and hemming and hawing, the PTI has been passing the buck to the federal government. As a result, the anti-terror apparatus in the province has been left in a demoralized state of autopilot ever since the Pervez Khattak administration took over.

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‘He also asked ‘whoever’ that is doing it (the Taliban have repeatedly claimed responsibility) to stop. Not as unequivocal as strong leaders are supposed to be but at least it’s a start.’

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One swallow does not make a spring but for whatever it is worth, Imran Khan has politically owned, the other day, the anti-polio drive and called its personnel mujahideen. He also asked ‘whoever’ that is doing it (the Taliban have repeatedly claimed responsibility) to stop. Not as unequivocal as strong leaders are supposed to be but at least it’s a start.

The road is long. The province’s beleaguered police, for instance, would ask whether its work is in any way less important than that of polio vaccinators. It’s certainly more dangerous. How about some condemnation of attacks on them? Just this week, yet three more members of Peshawar’s remarkable bomb disposal squad (which has emerged as a sort of centre of excellence) died with their boots on, trying to defuse IEDs. With a provincial government that doesn’t seem to care one way or the other, these sons of the soil (who get a fifty-rupee per diem as hazard allowance) do their job with a zeal few others can match, for what beats the threat of mortal danger?

The fact of the matter is that there really is no other way around this problem. No out-of-the-box solution, no great epiphany. Just a simple, clear and focused routing out of these terror outfits. The government might think it is a coup, getting Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, “The father of the Taliban” onboard the drive and for Imran Khan to administer the drops himself to the Maulana’s own grandson, but they fail to realize the Maulana’s own traction in militant circles was overstated to begin with. One by one, all the possibilities of an approach other than a dead-on confrontation are falling away.

Imran Khan’s politics itself is also at the risk of being compromised. His conservative constituency is spirited but his liberal followers, the ones who did such a good job raising campaign funds from the west, are getting increasingly uncomfortable. Something has got to give there.