Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be justified in conferring India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, on Imran Khan. Last Sunday at the PTI rally in Islamabad Imran threatened to shut down Lahore on December 4, Faisalabad on December 8, Karachi on December 12, and, finally all of Pakistan by December 16 if his demands were not met. The Bharat Ratna was instituted in 1954, and, in the 60 years since then it has been conferred on only two foreigners – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) in 1987 and Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) in 1990. Mother Teresa (1910-1997) also received the honour in 1980 but she had become a naturalised citizen of India. However, Imran Khan stands out in a category by himself in promoting India’s national security and foreign policy priorities. His container-top rhetorical outburst in Islamabad on November 30 was one of the many outlandish statements that Imran is in the habit of making. The next day the vice chairman of the PTI, former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, told the media that the Lahore event had been postponed to December 15 and countrywide demonstrations would now be held on December 18. He was also at pains to explain that by ‘shut down’ Imran Khan had never meant that the major cities and the entire country would come to a grinding halt. What had been planned were massive rallies on the thoroughfares of important urban centres and business transactions would not be disrupted. In the rough and tumble of politics, leaders sometimes say and do absurd things. Shah Mahmood Qureshi is particularly adept in making notoriously inaccurate statements. His claim that commercial life will not be interrupted by the huge PTI demonstrations in the major cities of Pakistan defies logic. But Qureshi has always been a dreamer and his imagination often runs riot because of his inability to think things through rationally. Subsequently, he told the media on Tuesday that the PTI could consider postponing the launch of countrywide protests if the government agreed to resume the stalled negotiations on his party’s demands. Though this has been readily conceded it is far from certain what the eventual outcome will be. Imran Khan has probably realised that he was carried away by his own rhetoric. He has admittedly galvanised massive public support as was evident from the unprecedented turnout at the rally in Islamabad. But it is just not possible for the PTI alone to paralyse the entire country, or, for that matter even the major cities. Imran has bitten off more than he can possibly chew, and this is what has prompted the offer of negotiations with the government. Politics is a game of snakes and ladders where the main players are serpents. The Pakistani variety is particularly deadly and will go to any extent to reach the top even if this implies damaging national interests and disgracing the country before foreigners. Last week Imran Khan proudly told thousands of his supporters:
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 03:06:47 +0000
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