IK’s Finest Hour!
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

A world-famous dictum of Mao Tse Tung, 20 th century’s most prominent and successful revolutionary, says that power flows from the barrel of a gun.

Another famous adage of Mao says that when the enemy is strong and you’re weak, retreat; hit back only when the equation is reversed.

Imran Khan (IK) is a revolutionary of a different kind—cut from a different cloth than Mao’s--but he has turned both these famous quotes of the legendary Chinese revolutionary on their heads.

IKo, in the 21 st century, has proven the iconic Mao wrong by having deflated his puffed-up political adversaries without firing a bullet and cutting them to size almost single-handedly.

And IK performed this miracle not by lying low at a point where he’d been knocked off his pedestal by a combined opposition which enjoyed the blessings of Pakistan’s powerful ‘Establishment’.

Unlike Pakistan’s run-of-the-mill, hereditary, politicians, IK didn’t run off the field in the face of the corruption-riddled, mafia-like, tactics of his adversaries who had long been baying for his blood.

In turning the tables on his opponents and their sponsors and mentors, IK may have surprised them out of their wits. But there was no surprise to those who knew him from the sterling reputation he had minted for himself as Pakistan’s most successful cricket captain.

IK’s dictum—when he was ruling the roost of Pakistani cricket—was that the match wasn’t over, by any means, until the last ball had been bowled. So, when his street-smart and thuggish foes were jubilant and agog with excitement that they had knocked off his middle stump, IK was just on the anvil of unveiling his initial salvo: his populous following among the enlightened middle-class and intelligentsia of the country.

As far as IK was concerned, he didn’t spring a surprise on his opponents by taking a rabbit out of his hat. He’d categorically and unequivocally fore-warned them—while they were all up to their necks in intrigues and in hatching conspiracies against him—that he’d be more dangerous for them out of office than as PM of Pakistan.

That IK is living up to the letter and spirit of the warning he’d served on his myopic opponents and adversaries is borne out by the groundswell of popular support his ousting from office has unleashed in Pakistan.

And not only in Pakistan; the wave of sympathy and popular sentiment in support of him has travelled, briskly, from the shores of Pakistan to every part of the world. Wherever there’s a Pakistani diaspora, there’s a cacophony of popular approbation of him and his message.

The inspiring and amazing spectacle of hundreds of thousands of people flocking to his people’s rallies at major urban centers of Pakistan is a spectacle not seen since the hey-days of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB). But there’s a perceptible difference in the human quality of following that IK’s public rallies are attracting from the halcyon days of ZAB.

IK’s crowds are not made up, largely, of common folks who’d little or no inkling, at all, of the political dynamics of their day and era. They were attracted to ZAB’s rallies by the charisma of a youthful demagogue who knew the art of rabble-rousing.

In sharp contrast to that, IK’s mammoth gatherings are largely made up of a mostly youthful and enlightened, educated, urban middle-class intelligentsia, with its comprehensive understanding of the political dynamics at work.

IK is storming the country—from one end to another—with a clear and unvarnished message, his unalloyed clarion call of Pakistan under siege is sinking well with the people of Pakistan. The spectacle of one huge public rally after another is enough to unnerve the corrupt cabal installed in Islamabad under the aegis of the omni-present establishment.

The corruption-ridden mafia thrust over the heads of unsuspecting Pakistanis had the feet of clay, to begin with. On top of it, they discovered, to their utter horror, that they have zero capability to arrest the free fall of an economy tanking under double the speed because bone corrupt managers have their hands at the till.

Even the all-wise establishment that had come to believe in its Delphic wisdom that it couldn’t be wrong—at any instance or under any circumstance—seems baffled out of its wits at the virtual collapse of those installed by it. The oft-repeated dictum that it shouldn’t be dragged into politics has no buyers in Pakistan or among the Pakistani diaspora abroad.

IK’s moral crusade—to rid Pakistani politics of its endemic corruption—has brought about this popular awareness. That, fairly well, is a singular achievement of IK that he has not only turned his defeat into a glorious victory for himself but, in the process, he has aroused the so-called ‘silent majority’ of Pakistanis. They no longer suffer from somnolence. They are fully and vibrantly attuned to the hard ground realities of their country’s politics. There’s no way that the genie released from the long-lost bottle of ignorance could be put back into the bottle.

There’s no bottom line yet in the unfolding drama that IK’s brilliantly articulated performance on the national stage is drawing huge audiences at every stop. But going by his seemingly unwritten script, IK is well wet and all poised to dictate his own terms for the future of politics in Pakistan. The apex court, by its split, 3-2 verdict on the presidential reference regarding Article 63-A of the Constitution has, partially, regained some of its lost respect with the people of Pakistan. But the scales of justice will have to be more pronouncedly equal for the top court to salvage its erstwhile reputation, deeply tarnished when it showed naked bias in favor of those anxious to get rid of IK.

It’s a matter of days, only, before IK gives a call to his followers to congregate in Islamabad for a final assault on the besieged rampart of power usurped by his adversaries a month ago. But the writing on the wall is already there for all to see.

IK may have proved the legendary Mao wrong by turning his weakest hour of defeat into his finest hour of triumph. But Mao’s final victory in the epic struggle for salvation against forces of oppression and injustice had come as a fruit of his historic Long March. IK, with his oft-repeated slogan of a march on Islamabad may well be close to snatching his final victory in close identity of spirit with the shining tradition of the ‘Great Helmsman.’ - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)