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Bani Gala

Wings of Hope

Imran Khan reminded us how we were not children of a lesser
God. He questioned the status quo. He ignited the fire in us to
defy and question. That is what his party stood for.

By Imran Jan | August 2020

For decades, Pakistanis were fed up with the hopeless politics of Pakistan. Post-Zia, we saw a musical chair style of democracy in which Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto took turns in ruining the country’s politics, institutions and, most importantly, the people’s hopes for the future. Then came Musharraf, followed by governments called true democracies.

In the background there was a man making all the right sounds. He said all the things we wanted to hear. He made us think the things we didn’t even know were kosher to think, given the mental shackles we were in. We already loved him for winning the Cricket World Cup for Pakistan and founding the impossible cancer hospital in the country, which gave free treatment to the poor. We had no doubt he was selfless and charming. His charisma and stardom were quoted even in the Indian film industry.

He reminded us how we were not children of a lesser God. He questioned the status quo. He ignited the fire in us to defy and question. That is what his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf stood for. I was once at a large departmental store in Islamabad. After I filled my cart and was about to pay, the credit card machine got into a glitch and my payment couldn’t be processed. But their main machine in the manager’s office was working.

They kept asking me to pay cash and I kept arguing how I wouldn’t put up with their laziness and will make them work harder and do what I want rather than what they found comfortable. My arguments eventually led the manager to use his machine to process my payment. The manager had an interesting question for me. He smiled and asked if I had come from abroad and whether I was a PTI supporter. I said yes to both.

That spoke volumes about the reality for us as a nation. Those people who had lived in Pakistan all their lives were used to accepting the status quo. Hope and development were foreign ideas to them. This was when belief in one’s importance, ability, existence and struggle were equated with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. Such was the image and calibre of the PTI. Pakistanis learned to question and argue either after they had returned from abroad or if they had been listening to Imran Khan. PTI was a party of the brave new Pakistani nation, the one that was not lethargic and passive.

Many Pakistanis in America, whom I know personally, wished and planned to permanently return to Pakistan and help to further the cause of the PTI. But that became the happy ending of season one. What followed later was not pretty. Spoiler Alert: In the next season, PTI did the unthinkable again, only this time in reverse.

PTI started enlisting con artists such as Aamir Liaquat, thieves such as Pervez Khattak, opportunists such as Fawad Chaudhry and so forth. There was no barrier or filter for allowing anyone inside the party as long as the new member could win. Electables were ushered in, in the name of pragmatism.

But that pragmatism is what the Pakistani nation had loathed in the first place. It were those very practical solutions that we wanted to avoid. We wanted to see a postman getting elected to a public office, a taxi driver, a vegetable vendor, etc. We didn’t want what was dubbed as rationality in Pakistan. We wanted the idealism that had rejuvenated us. I wonder if Jahangir Tareen is that grocery vendor that we had dreamed to see in power. He is in the business of a major grocery item anyway. It is called sugar.

What PTI is today is a mere skeleton of what we once saw as hope for Pakistan. Imran Khan was a glamorous cricketer but he was adored because he delivered results and fought till the end to ensure Pakistan’s victory. He defied all norms and authority to do the unthinkable.

Someone once said that Kim Kardashian is famous for no particular reason and that she is famous because she is famous. Today, Imran Khan has degraded himself to that level. He is famous because he is famous. He has only surrounded himself with major con artists and corruption czars.

If Nawaz Sharif escaped by lying about his health, it is more of a question mark on the incompetence of Khan rather than on Nawaz’s bluff. Pervez Khattak has practically ruined Peshawar by starting to build the impossible and impractical Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) project, which has become a symbol of loathing and frustration in the city. Today, he is a federal minister and behaves as if he has done nothing. The BRT is a symbol of corruption, incompetence and dysfunction. Yet, Khattak was not removed from the party or reprimanded. Rather, he was made a federal minister.

What would the PTI like us to judge it by: successes or failures? The former are too few and the latter too many. Should we play the numbers game and judge by the larger number, which would be failures, or should we give the benefit of doubt and judge by what the future holds? But the future of PTI is more like astronomy: there are more questions than there are answers. Politics doesn’t have to be like that.

When PTI won the election in 2018, the phrase “reform agenda” entered our lexicon. However, I am yet to see any significant reform, unless I was on Mars for the last 2 years and missed the show. Where are the efficient public hospitals? Where is the improved access to sanitation? Where is clean drinking water? Can we even find it in the bottles? It doesn’t matter when people say that Khan’s days are numbered. In my mind, the Khan that I saw on the campaign trail is long gone anyway.

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