Daily Times

Imran Khan is instrumental, charismatic and influential. He has a heart that truly beats for and with the people. But he is in a wrong business with wrong people. Imran Khan is above Pakistani fashioned politics. He is meant for something else, something more humanistic and grandeur. If only Imran Khan had not stepped into Pakistani politics, he would have been the immortal hero this the country had ever begotten. Imran Khan is a man of stature to stand with Mandela and Mother Teresa but he is in a wrong business with wrong people. An apolitical Imran Khan would have controlled the politics of this country with the swipe of his fingertips. But here he is surrounded by the people of the ‘entrenched’ groups.

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) which Imran Khan hatched decades ago is long dead and what is left of the earlier version is only the sincere incantations of change and reform spelled by its leader. A hypothesis is formed that if Imran Khan had continued with the same bunch of commoners that his party started up with, he would have one day been successful in persuading the people to his version of politics and that day would have been the day our both destination and destiny could have changed. The sad departure of the original people who created the PTI and brought it into political existence transformed the philosophy and ideology of the party in the tattoo. Should IK have kept along the original version of {TI, it would have taken the time and considerable time but time is not such a significant factor in transforming the status quo and breaking through it. Sadly, the passage of original PTI replaced by the modern version is only change of face in the shape of Man atop, the downward rank and file stand the same and the similar. Haste makes waste.

The Davos Breakfast brought out the inner of the IK. Stating that how difficult it was for his party to create room in a two-party political system, he bravely used the connotation of the other two status quo political parties as being wholly ‘entrenched’ into the political system of the country. A critical assessment of this narrative would indicate that while IK believes he has made a standing in the system through his party, he merely is incognizant that his party with his individual exception is but a mixture of the other two parties which IK has associated with entrenchment. Looking down upon the PTI with its cabinet, core committee and other functional formations, one would acquaint with the faces which were glaring in PPP and PML-N/Q in the past. These were the minds and brains which were instrumental in those political parties and here they are again chattering around in Tehree-i-Insaaf once more, a party which claims to be the third political party in a bi-party political system. It makes up a hybrid of the two status quo political parties and can work only as a buffer political party as it is teamed up with people of the earlier versions.

An apolitical Imran Khan would have controlled the politics of this country with the swipe of his fingertips

Even otherwise, another interesting scenario for the type of person as is IK, politics and then Pakistani politics does not behoove his stature and potential. Had he lived up to his aspiration of serving the people through social work, the politics would be kneeling down to his charisma. The social work regime was one such field which would have brought immense influence and power to IK as much power as he could shake and shape the socio political and economic scenario of the country for improving the utterly lowly lives of the people of Pakistan. The notion that power rests in politics is no more an acceptable hypothesis. Power can rest outside the political regime and power has this strange dynamics that it controls from afar the original field of circumstances and happenings. Imagine if Abdul Sattar Edhi was into Pakistani politics and contesting elections for national or provincial seat from Karachi what would have been the scenario like? The human god whom we glorify in the person of Edhi would have been the center of all scandals and political pestilence. He was wise enough he did not switch to politics. The intentions garnered by IK are in complete synch with those pampered by Edhi but the instrument adopted by IK is wrong.

Pakistani politics is not only bad, it is obnoxious too. Someone doing politics with the intention to alter or transform it is but in a wild goose chase. This status quo has reached to the abysmal roots of our country. To change it is not the right term; however it can be corrected through some controls. IK is a personality who if had remained on his track of social work, would have been the a second most influential leader of the country only after the father of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam.

The writer is civil servant based in Quetta