The Pakistan Tragedy: Imran Khan Arrested

The image that shocked me out of an inert state was Imran Khan, beaten and locked up by the Jamiat Students on the Punjab University Campus on 14 November. He was yelling at the cameras, ‘its not about me, it’s your future’. The police later arrested him. The next clip was of a student saying, ‘He (Imran) did not have the permission to be there’. These couple of reel minutes painted a distressing classic tragedy. Tragedy a literary genre, demands a work must have fear and pity as its intrinsic qualities for it to qualify as a part of it. The Pakistani political scenario has both of the ingredients plus all the gore, deceit, betrayal and utter disregard of any ethics of any sort.

The question is not whether you agree with Imran Khan’s idealogy or not. It is the way he was treated by an organisation which is an offshoot of a party with which his party Tehrik-e-Insaaf, was considering an alliance. Further more an eminent Jamat-e-Islami leader was present on location but was unable to stop this event from taking place. On the other hand I am sure Imran Khan’s naivety has been shattered and his idealism rubbished.

When the President made it clear on television, his was a choice between saving the country or democracy, thereby imposing emergency and gagging the media, it only added insult to injury. I wonder what qualifies him to be the knight in shinning armour to come save our ‘failed state’, in the first place. Or rather how could our country be inching towards this grave state if his ministers were singing all is well in la la land and the past eight years have been the golden years of our history? Suddenly, why is Pakistan dangling by a thread for dear life? The fact is for the past eight years the President ruled the country with unquestionable authority, without any power sharing. If the country went awry during this tenure he alone should take the blame for it. The people who are being thrashed on the streets and put into jails were hardly the ones who exercised any control over policy matters.

The problem is who is the President accountable to? By holding a mock referendum, removing the Chief Justice of Pakistan and subsequently swapping judges of the Supreme Court according to his whims and pulling the plug on the media he has effectively trampled on every voice that could question him. All the mentioned actions were deemed crucial to an effective war on terror. I think the age old proverb needs to be updated to ‘all is fair in love and in the war of terror’.

I am dumbfounded when some of my fellow countrymen condone the state of emergency; a state which suspends one’s right to know, to work, to create unions and organisations, and to peacefully hold rallies which are the very basics of a liberal society. Nodding to emergency is like consenting to the law of the jungle. Anyone can be picked up from their house and tortured, no questioned asked. If a government cannot uphold the highest code of conduct of our country the constitution of Pakistan, then why is the media being forced to sign a code of conduct? Is not the war of terror a fight to protect a society and a rule of law that stands for fundamental rights to be given to its members? Or is it bigotry in its worst form?

Now let’s return to the beginning of the article. Most of the people never got to see the clips I mentioned above. They will probably read about the incident in the next day’s paper. The gravity of the incident will indeed lessen with time. The exact result the government is hoping to achieve. In the digital age you cannot expect Pakistani people to be stupid; seeing the opposition and government representatives answering singeing questions on one channel and seeing a man in a burqa echoing the opinion of an over zealous anchor on state-owned television, and not being able to chose what to believe. It’s hard to believe that in today’s age the government believes the people want to see the puppet ministers having tea and biscuits in their mansion and be content.

If the regime is corrupt and has stifled the judiciary and the media’s dissenting voices there is still the voice of the people. Repeatedly journalists and analysts have asked the question about the common man not coming on the streets. The commonest answer we hear is the absence of a charismatic leader who could manoeuvre the might of public opinion in an uprising against the present regime. All the politicians have been tried and tested. Another answer is that the common man is too busy in his individual life to pay attention. The affluent are smug in their living rooms whereas the not so well-to-do would rather earn a day’s living than to stand in the sun with a placard.

It does not matter which class you belong to or with which party your loyalties lie. If we the people, do not voice our opinion today our future will suffer. It has been so long that either an element of our society becomes the abettor of the abuser or just sits and watches. How long will we watch as people will be put into jails for writing or speaking their opinion? Or do we still need more torture and blood to spur into action. I refuse to believe this country is or can ever be a ‘failed state’. It may have brought on the worst time of our history but this emergency has exposed backstabbers, turncoats, dictators and liars at the same time. It is the time to learn.