The Imran Khan Phenomenon

Imran Khan was ousted as the Prime Minister.  His strong rhetoric backfired since it was coupled with a lack of wisdom in handling matters.

A few weeks into Imran Khan’s premiership, he inaugurated the luxury Jinnah Express train from Karachi to Lahore.  PTI’s federal minister of railways, Shaikh Rasheed exerted a  lot of effort in improving the railways.

I boarded that train, in 2019, expecting a pleasant train journey.  The train was due to reach Lahore in 17 hours, stopping at only four junctions.  However, the train stopped at every junction arriving four hours late in Lahore hence.  This was not all, as the train stopped near a huge trash pile, claiming mechanical failure, which would take a few hours to repair.  The majority disembarked, hauling their luggage across smelly trash to avail Careem rides.  The train then restarted and we arrived at the Lahore cantonment station in exactly ten minutes.

The Pakistan railways’ lower cadre sabotaged a new railway initiative by the Imran Khan government.

In 2021, I sent a parcel of books via Pakistan post from Karachi to Skardu.  A majority of the books were stolen by a rude postal clerk named Ashraf.   Imran Khan had put in place a WhatsApp complaint number, where the postal staff were bound to reach complaint resolution in 21 days.

My complaint led to the postal staff misbehaving with me at all levels, including Mariam, the Divisional Superintendent, and the PostMaster General (PMG) Karachi, Bhuttio.

I reached out to the Federal Minister of Communication, Murad Saeed.  The minister acted upon my complaint and dutifully sent my file to the ministry.  I then approached Mr Khalid Javed, Chairman of Pakistan Post and requested him to take punitive action against theft and misbehaviour.  However, no action was taken as PMG Bhuttio blatantly lied.  Failing in his trust as a public servant, Bhuttio insolently ensured that no postal employee was punished for inexcusable behavior.

 The fact of the matter is that both Federal ministers Shaikh Rasheed and Murad Saeed diligently performed their duty.  However, the employees of the state in the railways and the postal department lacked integrity and found ways to steal, obstruct justice and impede progress.

Zia-ul-Haq and his proteges the Sharifs, as well as the Bhuttos and Zardari, all encouraged unethical conduct.  They defeated merit and punished hard work.  They rewarded laziness, theft, envy, oppression and mutual hatred on ethnic, racial and sectarian grounds.  They embedded corruption into the fabric of the body politic.

The poorest possible work ethic of public sector employees has destroyed the machinery of the state.

This spread nationwide, and things are worse in the private sector.  Priyantha Diyawadana, the Srilankan General Manager of Rajco Industries, Sialkot, was lynched because he pressured the employees to work hard and adopt a superior work ethic.  They ganged up to brutally kill him.

As Shehbaz Sharif took oath as the PM, his son Hamza Shahbaz engaged in hooliganism in the provincial assembly.  The nation watched on TV when Hamza ordered a violent attack on Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, a senior citizen and a veteran politician.  Hamza’s attack broke Pervez Elahi’s arm-even as Elahi had acted as a benevolent caretaker of Hamza in his youth when the Sharifs were ousted in 1999.

Photographs circulated on social media of Hamza Shahbaz with his sycophants bowing to kiss his hand.   Posts also went viral on how each person in the present parliament is out on bail, along with highlights of the specific cases of massive corruption pending against him/her.

Each of these bolstered Imran’s status as a hero, mainly because of the degenerate alternative.

Public sentiment is against the Sharifs and the Zardaris.  Social media chatter has made the masses join the tide to act as dutiful citizens.  The urbane citizenry is hence siding with good (Khan) over evil (Sharif and Zardari).

The military is wisely gauging the public mood and has pledged support to Khan.

The million-dollar question is will Imran Khan be able to change Pakistan’s fortunes the second time around and will he be able to do damage repair vizaviz diplomacy?

Imran Khan’s real failure lay in his naivete and his egotistical ways.    Imran Khan relied on the state apparatus to self-regulate and deliver.  He failed to see that state employees were beneficiaries of plunder, with no desire to reform hence.

The only way to combat public sector corruption is through brainstorming by all stakeholders to devise a unique strategy.  This time around, Khan needs a strategy to combat corruption within the upper and lower bureaucracy.

The sellouts are the most prominent in our judiciary, which emerges as the main villain, in this high adrenaline drama.  The Pakistani judiciary moves to oust those who try to repair the corrupt system.  The judiciary took to the streets to oust Musharraf in 2008.  It convened a midnight session to oust Imran Khan in 2022.  Both heads of state had one thing in common, that they were honest in their dealings and did not support corruption.

Imran Khan’s core team lacks wisdom and experience.  He has also shown egotistical tendencies and relied on rhetoric too often.  He has not shown the strength and wisdom needed to tackle the hardcore looters out on bail and to put effective mechanisms in place to root out corruption.  He needs wise counsel this time and the humility to act upon it.

Imran Khan lost the military’s support due to his gaffes and follies in diplomacy.  Not only did he overestimate his stature in the world, but he has also misunderstood the motivations of nations and failed to learn effective management of state relations.   Imran rallied for Kashmir against India at an inopportune time.  Not only is the Indian diaspora significant in the world, but being a US ally in QUAD, and a rising economic power, Arab states and other Islamic states are increasingly partial towards India.  Imran Khan hoped to see an idealistic religious unity triumph over economic and diplomatic interests.  This is a juvenile approach, unbecoming of a head of state.

He needs to channel his massive popularity to exert public pressure upon the judiciary.  Public pressure alone can make the judiciary act in the public interest, and persecute the thieves of the state.  The judiciary is not above the head of state to topple the honest ones, by flexing their muscle in a show of power, as it has done twice in its history.

The judiciary needs to get up to speed in persecuting the thieves of state such as the Sharif and Bhutto-Zardari clans, Yusuf Raza Gillani, and all the respective henchmen.  If the judiciary fails to do so, there should be a lethal provision devised in the constitution to persecute those who obstruct justice when appointed as the chief dispenser of Justice.

The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist. She can be reached at aliya1924@gmail.com.