Imran Khan as Pakistan’s savior?

S P SETH

At times it would appear that Pakistan is being torn apart by internal warfare. Its most disturbing manifestation is a string of attacks on military installations for which the Tehreek-i-Taliban has often claimed responsibility to avenge the killings of Osama bin Laden and its other icons. The most recent target was the Kamra airbase off Islamabad. The ease with which such attacks have been mounted on some of the most secure military installations would suggest some internal help from extremist elements within the force. Indeed, there were reports of this when Mehran naval base in Karachi was attacked in May last year. 

If the Taliban have infiltrated the armed forces, directly or indirectly, the country is in a lot of trouble. In that case, the extremists would have succeeded in capturing the state from within. Pakistan’s other institutions like the government of the day and judiciary will hardly be able to stem the slide into a Taliban-dominated state. The only other example of this is Afghanistan under the Taliban rule, hardly a shining example. It might be worse in Pakistan, which is a large country of an estimated 180 million people. And if a Taliban-run state in Pakistan were to use or allow the country to be used for al Qaeda kind of activities, as the Taliban did in Afghanistan, the world would be a very scary place with tremendous destructive potential for Pakistan and its people.

Another highly disturbing development is the regularity with which the Shias are being targeted and killed in different parts of the country, with the state apparently unable or unwilling to do much about it for all sorts of reasons. How much of a nexus there is between extremist Sunni groups and the Taliban behind these killings isn’t all that clear but it is all part of the culture of violence that is permeating the country. This kind of pattern of killings tends to reinforce the view that the state is almost ceasing to exist in a climate of mindless violence.

It is against this backdrop that Imran Khan (and his Tehreek-e-Insaf) has staked his claim as the country’s possible savior. Judging from the attendance at his rallies around the country, he appears to be Pakistan’s most popular political leader. There have to be some plausible reasons for such. One reason, of course, is that the country is in such a parlous state that people are desperately looking for a savior. With their self-serving politicking, Pakistan’s corrupt political leaders are compounding the situation. No wonder the Taliban and other extremist elements are growing stronger. And here comes Imran Khan with his simple message. Which is that he will be able to reconcile all competing, contending and conflicting forces in the country by simply opening a dialogue with them, particularly with the Taliban. Though Khan says that he doesn’t approve of the Taliban violence, he is however understanding of it as a reactive response to the army’s anti-terror strategy which targets them.

And why is the Taliban being targeted? Here he taps into the widespread anti-American rage in Pakistan across the spectrum that has become even more entrenched after the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US raid. As Khan told Steve Coll of the New Yorker, “ The so-called ‘liberals’ [in Pakistan] treat the Taliban as if there were only one way to deal with them--- through the military.” He added, “They are cut off from the rest of Pakistan. They look at Pakistan through Western lenses. They actually don’t know what Pakistan is.” This is an extraordinary statement to make that tends to absolve the Taliban of any responsibility for the virtual orgy of terrorist violence enveloping the country. And he promises to end terrorism in Pakistan through negotiations with the Taliban within 90 days.

By keeping his message simple and hopeful, Imran Khan is either being terribly naïve or politically smart to bank on his people’s desperation to vote him into power as a messiah waving a magic wand. We know that there is no such thing as a magic wand, even with Khan as the magician. His naivety is on display when asked how he will deal with the Pakistani military that is used to running the country directly or indirectly? He answered that he would discipline them the way he did his cricket team as their captain. They simply will have to fall in line like every other institution in the country, if he were to become the prime minister. In his own words, “…You have to tell them, ‘Look, this is the way it it’s going to run now’.”

One wonders why nobody else in Pakistan thought of such a simple and straightforward solution. While Khan talks of running the army like his cricket team, there is considerable speculation in Pakistan that Khan himself, as a politician, is a creation of the ISI. In other words, it remains an open question if Khan will do the military’s bidding or the other way around?

And in the larger scheme of the country’s economic development, it is even a bigger challenge of raising enough, indeed huge, resources. But Imran Khan doesn’t see it that way. His solution is again very simple. He will simply ensure that the rich will pay their taxes. Even if it were feasible to make rich and everyone else into an honest citizen (though it hasn’t happened anywhere else in the world), Pakistan will still need massive resources to make a credible start in lifting the country’s economy. This will require considerable foreign aid and investment that is unlikely to materialize on the scale required without relative peace and stability in Pakistan. But Khan is already set against any US aid regarding it as a “curse”, causing dependency. He might, therefore, be thinking of tapping into aid and investments from Saudi Arabia and other rich Middle Eastern countries, as well as China, but that still will be exchanging one dependency for another.

The point is that Imran Khan has no blueprint on any of the issues facing his country. What he has is a list of simple and pious wishes that will somehow be translated into action as he did with his cricket team, or in his charity work. But a country as complex as Pakistan with its continuing terrorist violence and an overlay of sectarian and ethnic conflicts, cannot be equated with a cricket team or a charity event.  May be Khan will surprise everyone, if he becomes Pakistan’s prime minister in the next election, beyond the reach of human experience!    

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.