I suppose the question was inevitable, though it cast an unheard-of aspersion on the prime minister. Imran Khan not just cast a new light on history for his Iranian audience when he said that Germany and Japan had built industries in their border areas to make peace, but he revised geography. True, his statement was not much of an advertisement for an Oxford education, but I suppose the excuse that Oxonians make would be that he was admitted because he was a cricketer, not because of his A-Level grades. Then maybe they will mention that he read Philosophy, Political Science and Economics (PPE) – the so-called ‘modern greats’ – and neither history nor geography. Now if Shah Mehmood Qureshi had made such a blunder that would have been a reflection on not just him but his education, for he went to Cambridge, where he read history.
The question being asked is what did the PM smoke. Why is it assumed that he had to have smoked anything? And no one is asking what he smoked when he called Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari a ‘sahiba’. He is being accused of misogyny, something again associated with those admitted on sports basis. Now there is a genuine question: is it an insult to be a woman? In sportsmen’s circles, it probably is. And among those who smoke stuff. Good stuff or bad stuff? Well, the stuff you get at the Saudi-Arabian-Venezuela border, or maybe at the border industrial zone between Indonesia and Nigeria. Of course, in Imran’s ‘brave new world’, India is about the size of Vatican City, and Pakistan that of Canada.
Of course, the smoking question should be asked of England batsman Alex Hales, who has admitted recreational use of drugs and been suspended for his pains. I like ‘recreational use’. Makes a drug problem sound like a hobby, like stamp-collecting or trainspotting.
Imran, one hears, is afraid to say anything these days. Well, if cows suffer from foot-and-mouth disease, maybe he has foot-in-mouth disease. I see that Ukraine has elected a TV comic, Volodymyr Zelensky, as the president. Zelensky has played a president in skits on TV before. I do not think we need to elect a TV comic as our president, though I have some regrets that Babboo Baraal did not make the effort while he was alive, and nor did Moeen Akhtar. I mean, we do need as much laughter in our lives as Ukrainians do, but as Donald Trump has shown the US, an entire nation can laugh without the head of government being a professional comic. So Imran fits the bill.
Sri Lanka has proved that it is no-account. The blast there led first to a hot exchange between the president and prime minister because it seems that one of them received reports from the intelligence agencies of the bomb plot, but did not tell the other.
So we have got the Sri Lankan agencies doing something that ours does not do, which is file reports with someone other than the chief. The defence secretary has resigned. He was a civilian, like in India. It used to be a civilian here too, but now we have a retired lieutenant-general. Now catch a retired officer who has been re-employed resigning! Especially because he was taking responsibility for anything except the most brilliant success.
Imran might have protested because the official resigning had no reports of corruption against him. As a matter of fact, Imran’s interest in Sri Lanka declined precipitately after he found out it did not border Outer Mongolia, which as no one (but Imran of course) knows, shares a long sea border with Upper Volta. However, he is more worried by the recent stance of Javed Miandad against the abolition of the departmental cricket teams. Imran has long been a proponent of domestic cricket being based on territorial divisions rather than departmental sides even though he himself played for PIA in his playing days. Miandad played for Habib Bank, which was also a formidable side.
Imran has the right to be worried. After all, Donald Trump is leading the way with being rattled by Obama’ Veep, Joe Biden, announcing another White House bid. And Miandad is the only cricketer of that era who could catch the eye of those who picked Imran, even though he has not built a dispensary, let alone a hospital. But remember that six at Sharjah? But somehow, I do not really see the departments vs regions debate as really big in our politics. I know we are cricket-mad, but Australia is also, and they are having an election soon. Is it Ricky Ponting vs Alan Border? Even India is going through a painfully long election process. Do we see Kapil Dev vs Dhoni? Still, Miandad did replace Imran immediately after the World Cup, so Imran is probably right to be worried…