LAHORE: By not coming out of his luxurious Bani Gala residence even once between October 27 and November 1 to rescue hundreds of his diehard workers fighting against the fully charged-up Punjab police and Frontier Constabulary, PTI Chairman Imran Khan has literally shattered the trust of many of his loyalists who have participated in various sit-ins and over a dozen rallies in recent past by him since October 30, 2011.
The PTI workers are also disappointed with other key leaders of their party, who had opted to flank their boss Imran Khan in his regular press briefings in front of the TV cameras instead of facing the tear-gas and batons or consoling their fellow party workers at the mercy of the law-enforcement agencies.
Although one expects a good gathering yet again at PTI’s rally in Islamabad’s Parade Ground today (Wednesday), it can safely be assumed that Imran Khan’s workers are tiring out now. In fact, many of them must already be worn-out both physically and mentally - given the sharp and inexplicable U-turns taken by their leader quite often.
Having stood by their leader at all testing times and despite his embarrassing U-turns during the last three years or so, many of these PTI supporters might toe the line of their like-minded colleagues who keep expressing their viewpoints on social media untiringly.
While women still constitute a good chunk of the hyperactive PTI workers, the number of families endorsing Imran Khan’s slogan of change is surely decreasing and might never be close to what the whole nation had seen on October 30, 2011 at Minar-e-Pakistan Lahore.
As far as PML-N is concerned, it is supported by the second or third generation of people who had bought Nawaz Sharif’s ideology in 1985 when he was Punjab’s chief minister. And then, since the Sharifs have been in power for over 30 years, they have visibly obliged hundreds, if not thousands, of their followers by ensuring jobs, promotions and prosperity for them.
In Imran’s case, the results of future ballot exercises will shed light on his performance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since May 2013. With every U-turn, Imran may surely have lost innumerable supporters, well-wishers and voters.
Let us view a few of Imran Khan’s famous U-turns during the last six or seven years: Both print and electronic media archives reveal that in 2009, Imran had claimed the MQM was his natural ally and was getting very close to it ideologically. Later, he had branded the MQM stalwarts and their chief Altaf Hussain as killers, terrorists and extortionists.
Remember, it was the same Imran Khan, who had visited the MQM Headquarters at 90 - Azizabad in the Federal B. Area of Karachi on December 16, 1996 to condole the murders of Altaf Hussain’s elder brother
Nasir Hussain and nephew Arif Hussain, whose badly mutilated corpses were found in an isolated area of port city’s Gadap Town on December 9, 1995.
Interestingly, during his December 16, 1996 visit to Altaf’s residence, Imran had opined: “Altaf Hussain is a real patriot”.
In 2013, Imran had accused Altaf of orchestrating the murder of one of his woman activists Zehra Shahid in Karachi.
Less than a year before that, on August 7, 2012, a key MQM leader Farooq Sattar had invited Imran Khan to visit Nine Zero once again, following his Zaman Park Lahore meeting with leaders of the PTI.
Imran had once shown great respect, sincerity and admiration for the likes of former president Pervez Musharraf, ex-chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and ex-chief election commissioner Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim (retd), but had later criticized all of them in harshest possible manner.
During his famous 126-day long 2014 sit-in at Islamabad, Imran had demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, but had instead ended up resigning with colleagues from the National Assembly. After some time, Imran and his cronies were again witnessed sitting in the same National Assembly, which they had called bogus and a product of electoral rigging.
By the way, while Imran and his men had resigned from the National Assembly in 2014, they had never thought of dissolving the KP provincial assembly where they were calling shots!
The theory of electoral rigging didn’t surprisingly apply in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Once Imran was the worst political foe of the Chaudhries of Gujarat, who happen to be his allies against the Nawaz Sharif regime today.
Actually, since the inception of the PTI in 1996, Imran has been busy trading allegations with most of his political rivals and contemporaries, and then embracing a few of his own choice when it suited him. Imran was once a fan of blasphemous author Salman Rushdie as well!
In 2012, the PTI Secretary General Dr Arif Alvi had put up a message on his Facebook page clarifying Imran’s position in this context. Imran should know by now that attracting crowds can just as a psychological tool temporarily unnerve and rattle one’s political opponents. The number of people in rallies and public gatherings do not always play a decisive role in toppling regimes at all because people listen to everybody and attend all rallies, but actually believe very few leaders.
Imran is actually inspired by the “Arab Spring” crowds in the Middle East and North Africa, where a few sitting rulers were sent packing by enraged mobs.
Or, he has memories of the 1977 PNA movement against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan.
If you ask Imran, he would say that mobs and resultant riots, often dubbed revolts, uprisings or revolutions throughout the world have always had the potential to oust even the most powerful of sitting regimes and have succeeded in triggering eventful political changes in societies since the start of the 20th Century.
But then the jobless, desperate and hopeless youth have also rioted in France, Greece, Belgium, the US, the UK, Sweden and Denmark etc, but they have failed to bring about any changes in their respective regimes.
However, it goes without saying that most politicians within and outside Pakistan are habitual when it comes to taking abrupt U-turns, so one cannot solely blame Imran for changing his posts, goals and positions regularly.
The ‘Charter of Democracy’ inked between Nawaz Sharif and his worst political adversary Benazir Bhutto in 2007 serves as the most candid example of U-turns till date. Both Nawaz and Benazir were daggers drawn for decades.
Just to cite one more example, following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007, her spouse Asif Ali Zardari had used the term “Qatil League” for the PML-Q in the heat of the moment. But within a couple of years, the same Zardari had appointed the PML-Q lynchpin Pervaiz Elahi as the deputy prime minister of the country. The “need-based” romance between the PPP and the PML-Q in those days was a great spectacle indeed.