The messiah and his mask

Has the mask finally fallen off the face of the messiah, exposing him as just another leper in need of a cure? Or is it yet another miracle from the one who can turn water into wine and raise the dead from their eternal slumber? The answer does not depend on the new or old evidence you may have in front of you, but what you already believe in.

The sceptics among us, particularly the grey haired, had believed all along that Imran Khan is no messiah but a very naughty boy. Of course, there are no injunctions stating that naughty boys cannot turn into messiahs. For believers, this transformation is a miracle in itself. But unfortunately we witnessed him doing those naughty things and it was too late for us to change our minds. That is why the generation that cheered him as a cricketing hero never voted for him, and he had to wait in the desert for a new generation to grow up into his devotees.

We, the non-believers, grew up watching con artists doing their tricks at street corners and each of us had a story to tell. We knew how authentic they could look, how passionately they could speak and what incredible tales they could tell of Zanzibar and Timbuktu. Yet by the end of the show, we would lose those precious coins that our mothers had given us to buy groceries.

Nawaz Sharif was never seen as a messiah or even a great leader. He started by representing certain interests; then he fiddled with the Punjabi ethnicity, claimed to inherit Ziaul Haq’s legacy and finally became the rallying point for the anti-Bhutto vote bank. However, he became a real heartthrob when he appeared as a challenger to the hegemony of the military-bureaucratic establishment.

Throughout the 1980s and for much of the 1990s, Nawaz Sharif was considered a ‘bhola badshah’, a simpleton who, according to his followers, had made his fortune through special blessings by the Almighty. One of the most popular slogans amongst the PML-N followers during that time was: ‘Khuda nawaz raha hai tujhay Nawaz Sharif’ (Nawaz Sharif! The Almighty is showering his blessings upon you). However, this slogan was as always delivered and received with a smile.

BB, on the other hand, was seen as a larger-than-life figure from the beginning as she inherited her father’s charisma and led the struggle against Zia’s dictatorship. Both BB and Sharif left no stone unturned in proving each other corrupt and both had substantial evidence to back their claims. Corruption charges were also used to throw out both from the government one after the other.

Imran Khan, however, started by declaring that he was the promised messiah for whom the nation had waited so avidly for such a long time. He claimed that that he knew the nation’s path to salvation because he was the most truthful and the most pious leader – not historically pious but more thoroughly pious as a born again Muslim.

Even Imran Khan’s weaknesses are seen as a sign of authenticity by his followers – including his never-ending repetition of a hundred bullet points, lack of familiarity with sophisticated ideas and his unpolished speech. He has used his claim to personal integrity to baptise the whole political class in mud. Only those people can escape the mandatory mud bath who promptly declare their faith in him. That’s how the revelations about his own offshore company can harm him more than Nawaz Sharif – because he is being soiled by his own mud.

While the Sharifs’ story about their offshore companies and ownership of Mayfair flats is full of gaps, Imran Khan’s statements about his offshore company are also riddled with holes. Investigative journalists have found discrepancies in the records submitted by both leaders to the Election Commission; these can potentially cost them their political careers. It appears that Imran Khan not only failed to declare his offshore company to the Election Commission but he also benefitted from a tax amnesty scheme when he declared ownership of his flat to Pakistani tax authorities.

As Imran Khan states, he set up his offshore company for the purpose of tax avoidance – not tax evasion – which is perfectly legal but immoral. Unfortunately, all of his explanations are incompatible with his earlier statements condemning offshore companies and tax amnesty schemes. His arguments sound like reiterations of statements made earlier by Hussain Nawaz. Something has to be wrong when the difference between a messiah and a leper is in the technical details – and needs a lot of explanation.

Both Hussain Nawaz and Imran Khan are true in saying that they set up these companies to avoid British taxes, particularly the inheritance tax and the capital gain tax, and that their purpose was not to dodge Pakistani authorities. Every wealthy person knows that Pakistan is a far safer destination for dubious money than any offshore destination. For example, for two decades, Pakistan remained at the centre of heroin smuggling. No heroin smuggler has ever set up an offshore company. They cannot even be identified today because our economy has absorbed their wealth and they have been mainstreamed into Pakistan’s ruling elite. Some of them may be part of Imran Khan’s revolution today.

We know how the Sharifs made their wealth. It was not through kickbacks and commissions. They are too smart to soil their hands with that kind of small change, which brings widespread disrepute and erodes the authority to govern. They made their empire through crony capitalism like almost every other notable businessman in the country. However, they got an extra advantage as they were both the government and the business. But crony capitalism is the only way to do business at scale in this country and it is the crony sectors that are most thriving.

While tax authorities all over the world have leapt into action in the wake of the Panama leaks, Pakistan’s FBR is still snoozing. We can be confident that the parliamentary committee formed to prepare ToRs for the Panama leaks investigations would not like to go into the details of the problem of tax evasion in Pakistan because the revolutionaries are as shy of paying taxes as the ‘thieves’ wallowing in mud.

Everyone is bound to lose if this mudslinging match ends in a draw. The PTI’s world is a world of belief where faith cannot be trumped with facts. However, the core of the personality cult is not wide enough to upset the political applecart in the country, unless the umpire blows the whistle and shows the red card to some leading players. While the Panama scandal has hurt the PML-N, it is also eroding the PTI’s capacity to attract more voters by 2018.

If Imran Khan wants to be a real messiah, he must put the mud basket aside and focus on the larger problem associated with the Panama leaks, including a fair and forward-looking mechanism for making public officeholders accountable, severing the link between business and politics and ending tax evasion. We need to create conditions where people set up offshore companies to hide their wealth from Pakistani authorities and to avoid Pakistani taxes, not British ones.

The writer is a social anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan