The good and the bad about Imran Khan

The challenge to family based politics has come at an appropriate time

Imran Khan evokes strong emotions and highly contradictory divergent feelings among different people. His charged supporters consider him the only hope for the country. In their eyes he stands for merit, honesty and efficiency. He is a hero sent by the gods to fight the giants and monsters that have established control over Pakistan. Their blood starts boiling when anyone points out a flaw in Khan’s policy or his style of politics. The critic is generally accused of being a man on the pay role of the Sharifs or Zardari.

For some of Imran Khan’s diehard opponents the man is out to destroy the system as well the economy. He is doing this at the behest of the army or the unnamed ‘enemies’ of Pakistan. Others regard him as a man who has been given the mission to blast the country’s culture and value system. They claim he is an agent of Israel or the US, or both.

That Imran can collect extra large crowds of highly charged supporters, a feat no other party can perform, evokes admiration among supports while it causes fear and concern to his opponents. Three years back, Kaptan’s opponents pooh-poohed his claims of popularity and ability y to draw crowds. They categorised the PTI as a ‘tonga load’ party. When the PTI chief announced his first a public meeting at Minar-e-Pakistan, Pervaiz Rashid bet if half the seats were filled he would leave politics.

Imran Khan’s appeal in not confined to a single province. It encompasses all the federal units, reaching AJK, tribal areas and Gilgit -Baltistan. The phenomenon needs explanation

Subsequently, they maintained it was just one time affair. Khan had pulled it off by collecting the youth of the ‘burger class’ variety from all over the country by spending tens of millions of rupees. The performance couldn’t be repeated again and again. It would not be possible to keep the momentum.

It was claimed then that the type of youth that has joined the PTI would not turn up at the polls. Most of the non-political lot would not take the trouble to collect their ID cards. To everyone’s surprise, they were there on the election day, forming long queues.

The pundits then predicted that the burger class youth could only come to sing and dance, treating gatherings as events of festivity. They will not able to bear the tension of confrontation with the police, tear gas, baton charges, arrests and incarceration, which the opposition has to go through in Pakistan.

The predictions were belied as soon as hundreds of the youth went through the rough and tumble to emerge as new generation of ‘jialas’. In fact no party other than PTI has the lot now in its ranks.

Imran Khan’s appeal in not confined to a single province. It encompasses all the federal units, reaching AJK, tribal areas and Gilgit -Baltistan. The phenomenon needs explanation.

There is no doubt that the people in this country, particularly the youth, are fed up with the visionless leadership of the two mainstream parties. In popular imagination it is unreceptive, kleptomaniac and nepotist.

The two major parties, the PPP and PML-N, revolve round two families which have discouraged the growth of alternate leadership. The present heads are preparing their children to replace them when they retire. Key posts in the PML-N cabinet are already occupied by the close relatives of the Sharif’s

The spell of family based leadership is breaking in South Asia. New parties and regional groups have emerged to defeat the Congress on the basis of their political platforms rather than family aura. The Bandranaikes are little heard of in Sri Lanka now. The vast majority of the youth in Pakistan knows little about ZAB and draws little inspiration from BB.

Nawaz Sharif and Zardari may be having a lot of money but they singularly lack charisma. What is more their offspring has displayed little talent. Imran’s challenge to family based politics has come at an appropriate time.

Once in power, an intolerant Imran Khan is likely to use not only the government machinery but also mobs to suppress those who dare to disagree, be they political activists in the opposition, PTI dissenters or judges

What many like about Imran Khan is that he has shaken the leaders out of their unconcern for the common man. Khan’s way of addressing Nawaz Sharif might be considered bad political manners, but it appeals to the man in the street as his complaints have fallen on deaf ears. A blast was needed to make the deaf open their eyes and look around.

The Sharif government, which was blindly following IMF diktat, caring little for its impact on the life of the common man, has suddenly realised that the people are highly concerned about the ever increasing prices of commodities of daily use and power charges.

The petroleum price and the power charges would not have been reduced if the challenge thrown by Imran Khan was not there. Khan’s major contribution is that he has made political parties realise that unless they are responsive to people’s concerns and are able to deliver, they will not win the elections.

What perturbs one is that Imran Khan has no consistent world view. He is never tired of talking about democracy but admires the jirga system and ‘tribal justice’. He talks about social justice while endorsing market economy. He has, meanwhile, nothing to say about land reforms.

What is most worrisome about Imran Khan are the fascist tendencies in him. He is impatient with criticism and difference of opinion, which do not go well with democracy. Khan praises a judge when he delivers a judgment in his favour and starts vilifying him when the next decision does not suit him. Imran Khan is intolerant of dissent. Thus a dissenting ‘baghi’ and elected President of the PTI turns into a ‘daghi’ overnight. The dissident’s car is mobbed by party activists acting on a cue from the leadership.

Once in power, an intolerant Imran Khan is likely to use not only the government machinery but also mobs to suppress those who dare to disagree, be they political activists in the opposition, PTI dissenters or judges. There are fears of intolerance that permeate the party from top to bottom, turning the PTI administration into a fascist government.