For quite some time, I was looking for an answer to why the people around me, whom I respect immensely, genuine people who care for the country and its people, support Imran Khan. They are so much in love with him that they are willing to endanger their relationship for him.
Through its continuous propaganda, Pakistan’s establishment has very successfully turned many people against the politicians. The establishment started doing this right after the independence and even targeted Quaid-e-Azam’s family. His sister, Fatima Jinnah, was termed a traitor and made to lose the 1965 presidential elections against Ayub Khan.
All the dictators, be it Ayub Khan (and Yahya Khan), Zia ul Haq or Musharaf, ruled Pakistan year after year by telling the people that the politicians were corrupt and not loyal to their country. Recently, Mr Mubashir Luqman said in a TV show that the journalists were told and believed that Asif Ali Zardari’s horses drink milk and eat marmalade; now he knows that horses do not drink milk or eat marmalade.
The result of this strategy of defaming politicians was that on the one hand, people started doubting, rather, hating their true representatives. On the other hand, they started looking up to the military establishment as saviours. Since a military leader cannot be a political leader, these people withdrew themselves from the political process, forgot the benefits of democracy for the common people and even supported dictators and their Martial Law.
When the establishment presented Imran Khan as a clean, honest and true patriotic politician, these people found their long-awaited political leader and immediately fell in love with him. For them, he represented their bright future, and they imagined their dreams coming true and life becoming easier. Imran Khan was the hope for them.
Imran Khan raised the slogan of change. He promised the people to get Pakistan rid of the menace of corruption impeding Pakistan’s growth and development. Since all the other parties were “proven” to be corrupt, Imran Khan’s PTI was given the power, obviously, to end corruption. Let’s call back his government’s memories and see how corruption-free it was.
A report on the Peshawar BRT, a Rs 67.8 billion mega mass transit system funded by the Asian Development Bank, said, “Havoc has been played with the public money through faulty planning & designing, negligence in execution of work, and poor management of the project”. The report revealed grave technical problems that resulted in the cost of the BRT project increasing from an initial estimate of Rs 41 billion to over Rs 70 billion. (Khan I., 2019)
A point worth mentioning here is that in 2018, the JUI-F leader filed a writ petition in the Peshawar High Court alleging massive corruption in the project. The court directed the NAB to investigate the project. The provincial government, however, approached the Supreme Court of Pakistan to stop the NAB from investigating the case. NAB has now started the investigation into corruption allegations in this project. (Kakakhel, 2022)
The showcase project of PTI’s KP government, the Billion Trees Tsunami project, was launched in 2014. Rs 14.32 billion was spent on the project by the Forest Department. The NAB had taken notice of reported irregularities and started an investigation. The Bureau detected a loss of Rs 462 million to the public exchequer in an initial inquiry. (Kakakhel, 2022)
Sugar mill owners plundered billions out of the pockets of civilians during the last three years of PTI’s government. According to an official report, Jahangir Tareen’s owned JDW group’s share in the total national production is 19.97 per cent, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar’s brother Omer Sheryar ‘s RYK group share is 12.24 per cent. (Durrani, 2020) The sugar prices started increasing when the PTI government allowed (against the advice of the relevant authorities) the sugar mills’ owners to export the sugar. Not only that, but the government also approved subsidies worth billions. Jahangir Tareen enjoyed 22.7% of the subsidy, whereas Khusro Bakhtiar’s family received 18.31% of the subsidy granted by PTI’s government. (Minute Mirror, 2021)
During a federal cabinet meeting in 2019, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Accountability Shahzad Akbar presented a “non-agenda item”. He had a sealed envelope that contained a non-disclosure agreement, if opened, would pose implications for national security, and the UK government also had reservations. It pertained to a multi-million-pound settlement that the UK-based National Crime Agency (NCA) had arrived at with Malik Riaz. The NCA was investigating Malik Riaz for money laundering. By cutting this deal with the British government, he washed the dirt off his black money. He got it transparently repatriated to Pakistan, which was then used to pay off part of the fine imposed on Malik Riaz by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The matter was swept under the carpet on the pretext of the non-disclosure agreement (Ali, 2021). So, instead of £190 million being transferred to the State Exchequer, it was used to pay Malik Riaz’s fine. (Ghori, 2019)
A report released in November 2021 by the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) claimed that financial irregularities in cash intended for Pakistan’s coronavirus response amounted to 40 billion rupees. The report showed irregularities in procurement, payments to ineligible beneficiaries, cash withdrawal through fake biometrics and the procurement of substandard goods by the state-owned Utility Stores Corporation of Pakistan (Khan, 2021).
In March 2020, Pakistan Young Pharmacist Association (PYPA) submitted an application to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in which it alleged that 20 million face masks were smuggled out of the country by an aide of Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Deputy Director DRAP and Dr Zafar Mirza, Special Assistant to Prime Minister (Aftab, 2020).
PTI’s government was under fire over alleged foul play in the oil industry. The Inquiry Commission, established under a court order, found that the Petroleum Ministry had created an “artificial shortage” of oil in June 2020 when global prices were falling as the Covid-19 pandemic pounded global demand. The supply chain mechanism, the report claimed, was manipulated to help escalate oil prices in the country and pass the burden of over 8 billion rupees ($50 million) on to consumers in early June, when the price of oil fell over 50% on international markets. The commission also unearthed US$1.5 billion worth of related oil smuggling over the Pakistan-Iran border at Taftan in Balochistan province. (Shakil, 2020)
I have not even touched on medicine, wheat and real estate scandals. Now, the corruption scandals involving his family members have also surfaced. If everyone around him is corrupt, what does that say about him? “A man is known by the company he keeps”. Imran Khan has put up this clean-man facade to trick people. If his intentions were sincere, why didn’t he do anything about all the corrupt people around him when he was in power? He had full support from the establishment. He used his position and this corruption mantra only to victimize his opponents.
Let’s put corruption aside and discuss other aspects of his personality and politics. Mannerism that’s the first thing all parents try to inculcate in their children. The way Imran Khan talks about his political opponents, the name calling, disrespect and even mimicry, we are taught not to talk even to our enemies like that. His indirect training results in his followers having no regard for their relationship with the people they are conversing with. I want my children to have the same manners and etiquette as my leader. Can the people following Imran Khan say that?
One of the most important traits of a leader is empathy. His lack of empathy towards the Hazara community, victims of the Sahiwal incident and many other instances is mind-boggling. Unfortunate incidents happen, we all understand that but the least a leader can do is stand with the grieved people in their testing times. Before Imran Khan’s tenure, it was considered a moral duty of the PM/CM to share the pain of victimized people.
Imran Khan brought a new trend in society where victims are blamed. During a TV interview, when the anchor told the then-PM that people are committing suicide because they have nothing to eat or to feed their children, our PM responded, “tou main kya kar sakta hoon”. Should these be the words of a PM who promised progress and a bright future to the nation?
Misogyny is another characteristic found in Imran Khan. The leader of a nation should stand behind the marginalized segments of society. Working women in Pakistan are already facing hardships. In such conditions, a leader says I saw hoors in the nurses, what do you think must be the reaction of nurses and their family members, let side the behaviour IK is reinforcing in other pervert men?
Imran Khan is on record saying nasty things about his female colleagues in the Parliament. Now think about the high percentage of fathers who are already sceptic about educating their daughters or sending them to workplaces. Not just that, women are facing sexual violence, and the leader of a political party says that it’s their fault. I do not understand why even a single woman supports Imran Khan.
There are so many more things to point out, foreign funding case, curbing the freedom of expression, ceding the political space to the military, lack of vision, nepotism and governance issues. I can go on further, but the article is already long enough. I leave it to the readers to decide whether Imran Khan is the saviour they were waiting for, whether he has brought the change he promised, or they were given false hope.
References
(2021, September 14). Retrieved from Minute Mirror: https://minutemirror.com.pk/sugar-mill-owners-profit-mongered-rs248b-under-pti-regime-1848
Abbasi, A. (2021, November 06). Retrieved from The News International: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/906445-is-sugar-mafia-winning-against-govt
Aftab, N. (2020, March 14). Retrieved from The News International: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/629028-20-million-face-masks-smuggled-out-of-country
Ali, N. S. (2021, April 17). Retrieved from Dawn: https://www.dawn.com/news/1618221
Durrani, F. (2020, April 08). Retrieved from The News International: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/641207-sugar-crisis-hike-in-sugar-prices-cost-whooping-rs86-billion-to-consumers
Ghori, K. K. (2019, December 13). Retrieved from Pakistan Link: https://pakistanlink.org/Opinion/2019/Dec19/13/01-1.HTM
Kakakhel, S. F. (2022, May 01). Retrieved from The News International: https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/954323-an-illusion-of-transparency
Khan, I. (2019, April 03). Retrieved from Dawn: https://www.dawn.com/news/1473563
Khan, S. (2021, December 10). Retrieved from Deutsche Welle: https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-where-did-billions-of-rupees-in-covid-aid-go/a-60084630
Shakil, F. M. (2020, December 21). Retrieved from Asia Times: https://asiatimes.com/2020/12/another-day-another-price-scandal-in-pakistan/
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