Once again, he was alone. Once again, everyone refused to help. Once again, he went to where he belonged: his people - Photo Reuters
Imran Khan and His People: A Love Story
By Sheema Mehkar
During a fundraising telethon for Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital (SKMCH), Imran Khan once said that when he started his campaign for building the charity cancer hospital and approached his Aitchison school friends and other wealthy buddies for donations, everyone refused, and no one gave a penny. Instead, it was the ordinary Pakistanis, the poor laborers, the school kids, the women, the street vendors, and the beggars who filled his pot with whatever little they had: from their daily wages to their pocket money to their jewelry. It was the ordinary Pakistanis who believed in Imran Khan and his dream.
Things changed; the cricketer and philanthropist decided to jump into politics, a decision driven by the desire to serve and not lust for power. A path that took him through battles he might not have anticipated but was strong enough to fight and triumph. Imran was an outcast, a misfit for a system that reeked of financial and moral corruption run by parasites, for parasites. He resolved to reform this system, sitting in a room of his newly founded party’s office with probably 10 supporters. He walked alone on a path rife with mockery, loss and suffering. But nothing could budge him from abandoning his dream.
It took him 22 years to live his dream, just briefly, as the dream ended soon with a nightmare to take over. A long, dreadful, unending nightmare that began on the cursed night of April 9, 2022. Today, his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, is battered. He is incarcerated. His companions are in jail. His workers are being abducted and killed. His party’s right to fair elections is stifled. The people are in continuous psychological trauma as the country is grappling with the worst fascism seen since the 1970 general elections.
The system couldn’t accept an outcast, it banished him because he wasn’t one of them, because he was above them, because he became a threat to their small, sycophantic, disingenuous existence. The system pushed him against the wall and narrowed the space around him. Once again, he became alone. Once again, everyone refused to help him. Once again, he went to where he belonged: his people. Once again, his people welcomed him, with their hearts as open as their pockets that filled his pot with donations.
Everything that has unraveled since the ouster of Imran’s government is well-documented. Three generations in each household have witnessed the rottenness of a power structure that has been wronging them for 76 years. There is no going back from this point, there is no undoing of what the minds have registered and the hearts have endured. It would be delusional to think that the public desire for change and unacceptance of the prevalent political system has not shaken and cracked the power corridors. With fresh blood making its way through the political system with continuous social and economic regression, the existence of the status quo is fated to crumble; it is only a matter of time.
Imran has many feathers in his cap, but none comes close to giving this nation a sense of dignity and showing them a way forward, a path to march on to salvage this country from the verge of an apocalypse. Imran’s heroic and democratic fight after his controversial removal and the resistance manifested by his supporters have ignited a candle of hope for the future that no intimidation can quench. He has morphed his people into an indomitable force.
Imran’s naysayers have been trying to write him off forever; they have been predicting his failure again. Little do they know that he persevered for 22 years to come into power with just 10 supporters; with his supporters now in millions, it won’t take him 22 years this time. Irrelevant of what his opponents have repeatedly claimed, the time has validated him sublimely, dissipating all the doubts, if there were any. Through his loyalty, bravery and steadfastness, Imran has immortalized himself in ways only a few in history have.
After incarceration, Imran was asked, “What will you do now?” He replied, “I will wait for the help of my Allah and my people.”
Less than a week from now, Imran Khan, sitting in his prison cell, will be waiting for his people, the same ordinary Pakistanis whom he loved and who loved him. Will they come out and vote for him? Will this love story live on?
We all shall be looking.
( Sheema Mehkar is a writer, poet, and painter. The Express Tribune)
