Daily Times

Maybe the story of Imran Khan’s divorce did not deserve as much media attention as it has received. Maybe the news regarding the ongoing operation in North Waziristan, terrorist attacks in Balochistan or the international alliance against Islamic State (IS) needed to be highlighted more. And maybe, instead of exploiting the personal tragedy of the couple, private television channels should have taken into account the delicacy of the situation but they did not of course. Instead, the way they dealt with the separation of the leader of the PTI and the television anchor was both disappointing and infuriating, none of which has shocked me nor should it come as a surprise to you. We should have gotten used to the low standards of the industry by now. After all, it has more than one decade of experience in doing such a bad job! Trust me, if there were an international award of recognition for poor reporting and sensationalism, our media would be shortlisted for the top spot.

A few years ago, the rat race to break news first (even if the news was not worth broadcasting) and the media’s profound unprofessionalism used to shoot my blood pressure up through the roof as I was hoping that it would reverse its course one day. However, from their coverage of the marriage of Sania Mirza with Shoaib Malik to the reporting of the money laundering scandal of Ayyan Ali and now the divorce, the media has stooped to new levels of vulgarity and crassness every time, proving me wrong year after year.

That being said, can we exonerate the couple from making their private lives so public? After all, Imran spends most of his life on television. Whether it is a chat about ‘35 punctures’, a case against election rigging, a sit-in in the red zone or discussion about his personal ambitions, he does not shy away from the media. In the history of Pakistan, no one ever has, I believe, appeared in personal interviews as many times as he has. His total number of hours on television might have surpassed Tariq Aziz, the host of Neelam Ghar, who conducted the show for decades. If we count them all and include his press conferences too, you will be surprised how much time he could have spent in building a ‘new Pakistan’ instead of putting up a personal cult.

In contrast, how many interviews have you seen of Mian Nawaz Sharif with his wife, Kalsoom Nawaz? Maybe one, after the restoration of the judiciary in a children’s show when his popularity rating had skyrocketed. Do you also recall any appearance by Kalsoom Nawaz on her own even after the PML-N won the general elections of 2013? Probably not. The case with Shahbaz Sharif and his family calls for even extra care. Although the stories regarding the number of marriages of the Chief Minister (CM) of Punjab run wild, we, in fact, do not know how many times Shahbaz Sharif has tied the knot and who he lives with nowadays. Does that mean we should start poking into his marital life and make it public? Absolutely not. We must respect his privacy. However, if his wife begins her own television show, starts attending the official meetings of the party or delivers speeches in election rallies, then the marriage would not stay personal, no matter how hard he tried to keep it that way.

The same thing can be said about most leaders, including Asif Ali Zardari. After the death of Benazir Bhutto, he has tried to keep his private life away from the public eye. Asfandyar Wali, Altaf Hussain, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and the Chaudhry brothers all follow the same pattern. Let me also remind you that it was not Chaudhry Pervez Elahi who threatened his wife on television with divorce if she asked for an expensive bag, it was our beloved former cricket captain. When he made that glaring comment, while laughing at it as if it were a joke, we knew where the chips would eventually fall.

Simply put, if you do not want (or like) people to talk about your personal life, keep it personal; do not make it public. Do not appear every other day on a news channel with your spouse for an hour-long interview answering absurd questions. What purpose does it serve? After all, how many times can a couple answer the same stupid question over and over again? Imran knows better that entering public life is a one-way street. You can enter it of your own will but leaving it most of the time is not in your hands. It is in the hands of the people and them alone.

Another reason for the media hype, which again did not come across as a personal issue, was regarding the future of Reham and whether it should be political or stay apolitical. Imran wanted to use her as a face to show to the world a glamorous celebrity that can be idealised from a distance for her looks and beauty, or a career woman pursuing her own goals and establishing her own identity outside the realm of politics. On the contrary, bhabhi ji was more interested in politics. While working for the BBC and later on in the Pakistani media, she had enjoyed both celebrity status and an aspiring career for quite sometime; she did not need Imran for that. What she needed him for was political office, a pedestal on which she could launch her own career.

After the divorce, she has lost that opportunity. It does not mean that her will has been subdued. Whether the saga of Reham will continue and how many beans she can spill depends on how their wedding has ended or how much she knew about the internal dealings of the party. How much will she share with the world and, above all, how keen will rival political parties who Imran has cursed every day be to exploit the situation?

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com