New Delhi needs to clearly understand that Imran Khan, hoisted to power by the Pakistan Army, will do what the Generals ask him to, particularly when it comes to Kashmir
Fatima Bhutto cites two horrific incidents in a searing piece titled, ‘Imran Khan is only a player in the circus run by Pakistan’s military’ in The Guardian of July 24, 2018. On July 17, supporters of his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), “tied a donkey to a pole and punched its face till its jaw broke, ripped open its nostrils, and drove a car into its body, leaving the animal to collapse, having been beaten to an inch of its life. Before they left, they wrote ‘Nawaz’ (the name of the former prime minister) into its flesh, seemingly inspired by their leader, Imran Khan, who has taunted Pakistan Muslim league-Nawaz (PMl-N) workers as ghadday or donkeys. The donkey was rescued by the ACF Animal Rescue Team, a private organization, who noted that, even days later, it could not stand up on its own because of the ferocity of its torture. It soon succumbed to its injuries, an innocent creature beaten to death for entertainment.”
Bhutto further states in the article that another donkey was mercilessly attacked the day after. In her words, “the skin on its face was ripped off, the flesh on its forehead was ripped apart till all that remained between its eyes was a pulpy, bloody hole. The RCF did not say whether the animal was a victim of the same party but, in a landscape of venomous online trolling, people are afraid to say very much these days.”
One had expected Pakistan’s playboy cricketing icon, now set to become the Prime Minister, to at least come out with a strident, public condemnation of the savage torture of the two donkeys and remove the culprits from his party. There is no indication that he has done either or both. Any argument that compassion for animals, and anger over cruelty to them, are personal attributes and have nothing to do with governance will not wash. Compassion and sensitivity to cruelty are indivisible. The overwhelming majority of those who are kind to animals are also kind to humans and vice-versa. Compassion for the poor and suffering and anger over cruel suppression of the rights of people and legitimate, peaceful protest, is central both to the ethos of a liberal, democratic society, and the framing of policies that define a just and fair Government. Compassion for trees — sentient living beings — is important to the protection of forests, which is a critical component of efforts to save the environment. Not surprisingly, Ar-ticle 51-A(g) of the Constitution of India, states in the context of the Fundamental Duties of citizens, “It shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures.”
If Imran Khan has not acted severely against those who have savagely tortured the two donkeys, then the fact underlines the allegation by many that he is utterly insensitive person who is not moved to anger by savage, wanton cruelty. The incident provides an equally damning commentary on his followers’ characters. A large section of them clearly comprises the dregs of Pakistan’s society. The question is: How does this country deal with a person like him, particularly given the kind of supporters he hasij
While the dregs have played a significant role in Imran Khan’s rise to power the others who have contributed include members of Pakistan’s urban middle class with their hope for a cleaner politics and better governance, fundamentalist Islamist organisations to which he has been pandering over the years, and pious Muslim moved by the growing religiosity that he has been publicly displaying.
The enabling, over-arching support has, of course, been the Army which did everything it could to ensure PTI’s victory. The process began long before the elections. The Army manipulated the movement launched by three fundamentalist organisations — Tehreek-i-labaik Pakistan, Tehreek-i-Khatm-i-Nabuwwat and Sunni Tehreek Pakistan — demanding the dismissal of Pakistan’s law Minister, Jahid Hamid, holding him responsible for alleged changes in Pakistan’s Election Act 2017 altering the Khatm-i-Nabuwwat (Finality of Prophethood) oath compulsory for electoral candidates. They were not moved by the Governments attribution of the change to a “clerical error” and amendment of the Act to remove it. Finally, the Government had to surrender following a three-week siege of Islamabad and other cities; Hamid resigned on November 27, 2018. The Army’s role became clear when, despite being ordered by the Interior Ministry to restore law and order, the Army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, suggested peaceful handling of the protestors. After Hamid’s resignation, the labaik chief, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, thanked General Bajwa’s for his help in ending the stand-off.
Earlier, the Army had played a dubious role in relation to the movement accompanying the “Azadi March” which lasted from August 14 to December 17, 2014. The march was a synchronized campaign, albeit with different agendas, by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Muhammad Tariq-ul-Qadri’s Pakistan Awami Tehreek, for the removal of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. It led to much violence before Imran Khan called it off on December 17, 2014, following Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan’s attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar on December 16, which had caused 141 deaths, 132 of which were of school children. The Army’s role had become clear almost at the very beginning of the march when it had issued a statement calling for restraint by the police. There was no condemnation of the agitation which sought to remove an elected prime minister, whose party, the Pakistan Muslim league (Nawaz) had won 190 of the 342 seats in Pakistan’s parliament in the 2013 General Elections, through street upheavals.
As the July 25 parliamentary elections approached, a number of measures like Nawaz Sharif’s disqualification from holding political office, his and his daughter’s arrest, intimidation of his party’s candidates into not contesting or changing sides, and massive, intimidatory Army presence on election day, were part of an all-out effort to defeat PMl-N and ensure Imran Khan’s victory.
Imran, who, in 2014, demanded Nawaz Sharif’s resignation on the ground that the latter had become Prime Minister by wholesale rigging of the 2013 elections, has now become Prime Minister on the basis of an election widely considered rigged. While this, the underlying irony is engaging, critically important for India is that he has been put in office by the Pakistan Army and will do its bidding on all issues, particularly ties with India and Kashmir.
(The writer is Consultant Editor, The Pioneer, and an author)
