I Admire Imran. But Cannot Support His Politics.

Posted on June 1, 2009
Filed Under >Aqil Sajjad, People, Politics
105 Comments
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Aqil Sajjad

Like many Pakistanis, I admire Imran Khan and his sincerity. But supporting him politically is a different matter. He and his party – Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) – have some serious soul searching to do before people give it their political support.

Imran Khan is one of the few principled politicians we have. There is no doubt that he truly cares about the country. His bold stance on May 12 and his consistent support for the restoration of the judiciary was unmatched by any other prominent politician. His cancer hospital and the projects he has started in the field of education have been praised even by many of his critics.

Someone like myself, who is dissatisfied with the politics and corruption of the leading parties, is naturally attracted to Imran Khan who talks about principles and accountability. However, as much as I like Imran for his honesty and devotion to the country, I have some concerns about him and can not help agreeing with Shafqat Mahmood’s statement that Imran never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Being politically inclined, I have even considered joining PTI at times, but reservations about his politics prevent me from doing so.

Imran Khan has been in politics for 13 years, and this is a long enough period to develop the party into a vibrant, democratic entity. Unfortunately, PTI still comes across more like an Imran Khan fan club rather than a democratic political party. For the most part, there is an absence of grass roots forums that meet regularly where any party member can raise issues and be heard, and the party line almost completely comes from the top.

Secondly, Imran does not realize that politics requires an appropriate mix of idealism and pragmatism and confuses this balancing act with opportunism. If he wants to serve the people of Pakistan by coming into power, then his decisions should be geared towards that goal. He had an excellent opportunity to launch himself when Nawaz Sharif offered him 20 odd seats in 1997 and again when Musharraf was willing to help him become the prime minister. Instead of spurning these offers, he should have taken a few ministries and worked hard on demonstrating through performance that he was someone who could truly deliver if given a chance. This could have provided him with the impetus needed to launch PTI into a force capable of getting elected into power on its own and then implement its reform agenda.

This unwillingness to balance idealism and pragmatism also creates doubts about his ability to deliver even if he came into power some day. It makes one wonder whether he would really take a practical approach towards addressing the country’s problems.

On top of all this, Imran Khan has a very confused stance on the Taliban where he still falls well short of fully condemning them.

He has been very consistently and forcefully bashing the Americans in recent years but the same kind of condemnation for the Taliban has not been forthcoming. This sharp contrast, when the Taliban have killed many more Pakistanis than the American drones, and when they are directly trying to destroy the state structure to establish their own rule, is hard to understand. It has taken some strong criticism for Imran Khan to finally make a few “too little too late” statements criticizing the Taliban, whereas what one expects from a good leader is the ability to clearly identify and point out a problem well ahead of time.

His stance on the current situation in Swat has again left a lot to be desired. He first vehemently opposed the military operation but did not explain what the government should do when the Taliban break a peace agreement and keep on expanding into neighbouring districts as they blatantly did after the Swat deal. Only after coming under regular fire has he finally accepted that a military operation can also be an option. He rightly says that bombings should be avoided and the operation should be carefully targeted, but the national debate could have been more focused on discussing how military action can be carried out in a way that minimizes civilian suffering if he and others had not been creating confusion by insisting that there should never be an operation.

In yet another example of muddled thinking, he now argues that before sending the army, a group of politicians should have been allowed to go and try to convince the Taliban to abide by the Swat peace deal. This makes one wonder why he did not publically propose this in the days leading up to the operation and what he is trying to accomplish by undermining the military’s efforts now that the time for this idea has clearly passed.

I really admire Imran Khan for his sincerity, but these are some of the serious issues that he and his party have to come to grips with, before PTI can make serious headway in realizing its full potential.

105 responses to “I Admire Imran. But Cannot Support His Politics.”

  1. Aamir Ali says:

    @Qasim

    You and Quddus both keep avoiding the most urgent need to confront the militants and stop their activities. That is not achieved by searching for some grand unified conspiracy, hiding in the past, or imagining some fantastic and perfect military operation.

    Since 2001, the governments of Pakistan have tried everything, from negotiations, to peace treaties, to jirgas, to limited military operations, to leaving it all upto the police, to bribes to militants to stop operating, to outright denial that militants even exist. None of those strategies worked. So now we try the only remaining strategy, that of sustained military operations to cleanse an area of militants and start over.

    Imran Khan however is still following failed and unfeasible plans to tackle militancy as deep down, he doesn’t care. Its just politics for him to keep his name and party in the news.

  2. Quddus Wazirzada says:

    Whatever Imran’s position in the present situation maybe a bit difficult to comprehend for some…but there are very few people who are bold and sincere enough to say what he says…All that has been alleged in terms of opportunities and pragmatism is to say the least controversial by itself…would it be prudent to take Nawaz Sharif’s or Musharraf’s offer? Politically, that may have been even worse for him. Now he has the moral high ground to say the truth as he has rejected every enticement that was thrown his way….by corrupt and morally bankrupt regimes.

    I feel that most of us a very confused when it comes to understanding the current situation that we are in. Most of the people go along with the hype in the media and do not have their own point of view…because it is certainly not a simple thing to analyze so, the easy way out is go along with beating of the drums, the rhetoric and the emotional pitch created by the media….let’s go and kill them all…they are savages and they are destroying our country….Army is our saviors and we will now be rid of all extremism. I wish it had been so simple. First of all an insurgency can never be eliminated by using heavy artillery and use of aerial bombing. The US and NATO with all their air power has failed to do so. Now the Taliban did force the hand of the government by defying the writ of the government and by their ascending criminal activities. The government should have used the well known counter insurgency techniques…Use your Intelligence…..find out who are they…how they are operating and then go for their leaders. Also, find out who is sponsoring them….cut their supply channels and funding. What we have achieved now is 3 million people who are living in their own country as refugees…we can say that we have cleared the Taliban from Swat…although that is debatable; even if we have…can we allow the IDPs to go back? most probably the Taliban are hiding in the mountains and will come back as soon as we look the other way….as the army cannot possibly perform this duty for ever. Any sensible person would agree that a long term counter insurgency strategy must be put in place coupled with discussions with the local people of the area; developing the area and encouraging the people to help in making the place secure from the Taliban.

    Having said that I would also say that the reason we all are in this situation is mainly because of our self inflicted wounds and stigmas. This is what makes the whole situation complex. We have been supporting, financing and arming the Mujahidin, Janisars and Talibans for many years. As long as they were fighting armies, carrying out suicide bombings and killing and maiming people in some other country it was OK. Now these same Islamic militants have taken arms against its own sponsors as they see an opportunity; a corrupt system, a weak government out of touch with realities and out of touch with its own people, absence of a fair and just system and a government subservient to foreign masters. Then we have educated people in walks of life believing in many aspects of obscurantism and extremism; e.g the role of women in the society; some members of the parliament have openly defended honor killings.

    Secondly, we are generally very intolerant in our opinions; we are inflexible in religious interpretations and if someone disagrees with us we will immediately declare him a Kafir. This

  3. Qasim says:

    Alot of Pakistan’s problems seem to emanate from Waziristan, and there’s some truth in what you say Aamir. My point was that there are deeper root causes of which the militants are a symptom.

    If you look at the ground reality, it’s a fact that certain international conglomerates of similar interests and overlapping objectives, train, supply, aid and abbett these militants. Some people take a very simplistic view of the whole situation, and feel that these militants are against Pakistan because we’re too ‘modern’ for them – that they bomb and butcher innocent people because they want to bring some puritanical version of Islam. But in reality, the ‘puritanical’ version of Islam is very far from what these militants project themselves to be, in Islam if you kill one innocent person it’s as if you’ve killed all humanity. These militants have other goals. They bomb mosques, kidnap girls to “marry”, kill parents by hammering nails in their heads if they refuse.

    They get heavy weaponry, night-vision goggles, anti-personnel mines and rockets from somewhere… it takes alot of food rations to feed five thousand people three times a day, that comes from somewhere. You need a constant supply of ammo. *Alot* is needed in an active conflict. If any of these things are missing, these militants wouldn’t be able to fight. That’s the deeper root of the problem. Deal with the people who pull the strings all these puppets and you solve the problem. Keep going after individual puppets, and newer ones keep propping up, now in Waziristan, then in Baluchistan, Karachi, Lahore, etc.

    This is what I’m talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOpaFY37Qgg

  4. ali m.m. khan says:

    Imran is really inspirational and a great patriot. Thank God he did not follow the pragmatism that Adil sajjad talks about. One can never be part of a system that one has opined to change. This is also the example that we get from the prohets (pbuh) dealings with the qureish……They too had offered kingship to the the prohet (PBUH) if he would only tone his rhetoric down a bit…..and we all know what his reply was “even if you offer me the moon on one hand and ………”

  5. lida says:

    I think Imran Khan has morals and principles which he cannot compromise. If he had made a deal with musharaf who I greatly admire then Imran Khan would have chastized for supporting a dictator.

    If he had supported Nawaz Sharif than his political career would have been over because Musharaf would have banned him from politics. I think PTI has emerged as an independent and unscathed party and its all because of Imran Khan.

    We all know that to get elected in Pakistan you have to be cozy with the US. Imran Khan refuses that interference and he should be admired politically for that.

    Thats my take and everyone is entitled to their opinion!!!!

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