- Now the turn of domestic history
Prime Minister Imran Khan chose to speak of his struggle in reaching office after forming his party in 1996, while speaking at the Foundation Day of his party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He also chose to say that his party had come to office because of its struggle, rather than because of the support of any general, like the PML-N, which he claimed had been fostered by the late Lt Gen Ghulam Jilani Khan, while he was Punjab Governor. This ignores his own party’s rise to prominence in the era of Pervez Musharraf, when he himself first reached Parliament. Mian Nawaz had indeed been a minister in the Jilani provincial Cabinet, while he himself did not hold office, but his backing for the referendum held by General Musharraf was his first public acknowledgement of the link that the PTI had with the military. Imran also stayed away from the lawyers’ movement which saw General Musharraf’s dismissal of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry rejected.
Khan’s struggle was mainly manifested in the famous 2015 D-Chowk sit-in, which led to the Supreme Court setting up a commission to investigate the 2013 elections, and rejecting the PTI’s allegations of fraud. It was around this time that the PTI saw the entry of a flock of electables, who had done the round of all parties, most recently the PML-Q. The entry of these electables, and the consequent de-emphasis of the party’s original anti-corruption stance, also saw the departure of many original ideological members.
The PTI came to office pledging many things, one of them being the punishment of the corrupt. That has been seen as mere persecution of political opponents. The coming to office was hardly the result of a protest movement, being more the result of the demise of the PPP in the Punjab, than a jail-bharo movement with the PTI the only party seen as able to beat the PML-N in its stronghold. If PM Khan wants to revise domestic history, he should do so only where the facts warrant it. However, maybe he is indulging in the pastime of following the popular mood. Political struggle is respected even by those opposing the views of the struggler thus the PTI is seeking the respectability PM Khan seems to crave.
