Kaptaan and his billions

Imran Khan has made history yet again by declining the biggest lifafa ever offered in Pakistan. We are not surprised that the great Khan refused to take the envelope containing crisp notes of Rs10 billion offered to him by Hamza Shahbaz Sharif through a friend of Khan’s friend. What surprises us is the Sharifs’ tactlessness despite remaining in the business of distributing lifafas for almost half a century.

To the Insafians, the episode has once again proved the greatness of their leader that merits yet another round of applause. Here is another miracle to watch with wonder and awe. To those cursed with devious, sceptical minds, it reveals Imran Khan’s innocent and lovable nature. Isn’t it adorable to see a national leader behaving like a chaste woman whose favourite talk revolves around stories of men who proposition her?

Imran Khan’s chastity, in financial matters at least, is no secret. Millions of people in Pakistan and around the world donate billions of rupees for charitable causes to him. They have confidence that every rupee that he receives for a cause will be spent well and Imran Khan has never breached their trust. Using the currency of this trust, he has built the wonderful Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and the NUML University.

Businessmen are admired for their command over mathematics. How did the Sharifs forget to do their sums? Let’s look at two simple facts. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is being ruled by Imran Khan’s PTI, has a budget of Rs505 billion. If Imran Khan was in need of money, he might have sent an SOS to his chief minister in the province instead of waiting for an offer of support from the scion of a rival dynasty.

Despite his timeless mojo, Imran Khan is in a ripe old age. Unless you are a compulsive thief, you do not steal for yourself in the latter part of your life; you steal for your children. We know that thanks to their grandfather, Sir James Goldsmith, Imran’s children are born billionaires and they don’t need a penny from their father. They are, in fact, in a positon to support their father much like the Sharif children are supporting their elders.

If this friend of a friend is not lying or playing a prank, the Sharifs believe that money is the only real motivation in human affairs. Nothing can be far from truth. Money is only one of the major motives in human affairs. Christian theologians often speak of the unholy trinity of money, sex and power. The very same aphorism is expressed in Pakistan using the term “zar, zan and zameen” (wealth, women and land). Zameen in this saying does not stand for land as an asset alone only but also a symbol of power and prestige.

As my favourite sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has outlined, capital can take different forms and can also be transferred from one form to another. During every election, thousands of landholders in Punjab pauperise themselves by selling their lands to try their luck as candidates.  In Bourdieu’s terminology, they are trying to convert material capital (lands) into symbolic capital (title of a legislator). Not all of them are dishonest and think of making money by getting into the parliament.

By taking money as the sole indicator to analyse public affairs, we overlook the role played by power in human affairs. Power, perhaps, is the strongest motivation in human affairs. There is hardly any social space that does not double as an arena for power. You can start counting from the household and go up to the international relations. Our fantasies of future relations between planets and galaxies are also focused on the struggle for power. If you know a single senior government servant, you will be well aware that 80 percent of the time of the Pakistani civil servant is consumed in some sort of power struggle and power politics.

The worst crimes and worst atrocities in human affairs have not been committed for the sake of money but for the sake of power.  As Ghengis Khan put it: “A man’s greatest pleasure is to defeat his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them that which they possessed, to see those whom they cherished in tears, to ride their horses, and to hold their wives and daughters in his arms”.

Even if Sharifs did not know it, the friend’s friend was well aware that the arena of power cannot be reduced to forex exchange. That is why he withheld the information of the offer from Imran Khan for many days. Perhaps, he also feared that Imran Khan would shout from the rooftop as soon as the offer was conveyed.  Now his fears have turned into reality.

If the Sharifs think everyone has a price, they are not very off the mark. However, if they think that this price is paid only in the form of currency notes, they have no clue of human psychology. According to Pervez Musharraf, Imran Khan wanted the positon of prime minister in exchange for his support for the dictator and their relations deteriorated only after Musharraf did not deliver the coveted positon to the great man.

This is a price that the Sharifs cannot pay without committing suicide and we know that they are not very fond of becoming martyrs. For two decades, Imran Khan thought that the gate to the throne was guarded by the umpire’s men. I think he has realised that the Colosseum now belongs to the rabble.

Naivety and innocence are lovable characteristics. At times, they can be scary as well. What if a friend of Modi’s nephew informs a friend of the prime minister Imran Khan that India intends to launch a nuclear attack on Pakistan? Will the prime minister immediately ask one of his friends to tell a friend of Pakistan’s army chief to launch a pre-emptive strike? Frankly, I will feel very afraid of an honest driver who does not believe in looking at the side mirrors or the back mirror before taking a turn. His honesty, I am sure will not be enough to save your limbs.

At the end of the column, I must tell my dear reader that I also received an offer from the widow of Colonel Qaddafi recently who wanted to share half of her fortune with me only if I helped her in the management of her assets. This offer was not sent through a friend of a friend but the lady took the trouble of writing to me directly through an email. I am sure she must have read these columns and felt terribly impressed. By sending her less than a thousand dollars to cover the banking charges, I could have become as rich as Jahangir Tareen. However, I spurned the offer without a second thought. Dear Insafians, won’t you clap for me? How cruel!

The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan