Deadly Bouncers

akistan’s prime minister aspirant, Imran Khan, has been called many things—isi agent, Zionist lobbyist, Taliban Khan. After he turned down an invitation to attend an event in New Delhi where he’d have had to share the dais with Salman Rushdie, the former cricketer and leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) earned himself another epithet: ‘chicken’. While many applauded his boycott of Rushdie, others asked why he couldn’t have been brave enough to present his views on neutral ground? Rushdie used the occasion to full advantage to take on Imran. He said he resembled Muammar Gaddafi, was a dictator-in-waiting, and would do better to speak of the “immeasurable hurt” caused by fanatics like those who killed Aatish Taseer’s father.

Imran kept avoiding journalists in Pakistan, saying he wouldn’t dignify Rushdie with a response. But caught unawares by Hamid Mir in a live TV interview on an entirely different subject, he responded, with an embarrassed grin: “India Today had said they’d send a special plane, and I agreed. They at no point informed me that Rushdie would also be participating. I came to know through the media and decided not to attend. This point of freedom of expression is really taking it too far. I want to ask whether sitting in England, Rushdie would talk about the Holocaust. He suffers from double standards. I do not want to give him importance by commenting on his remarks. I will never go anywhere where he is present.”

“Whatever little I thought of him, a brain, an intellectual...his remarks on me reflect the mind of a small man.”
—Imran Khan. (Photograph by AFP, From Outlook, April 02, 2012)

The explanation did not convince all. “He’s a reactionary,” Pakistani commentator Nadeem F. Paracha wrote in the Economic Times. “I’ve known a number of staunch and pious Muslims who, instead of boycotting their ‘enemies’, have actually gone on to intellectually confront them in seminars, through TV debates, at conferences.”

Defending Imran, PTI’s Shireen Mazari said, “It is Rushdie’s prerogative to use abuse and hysterical rants against whomsoever he chooses; it neither improves his literary standing or capabilities. Just to set the record straight, Mr Khan was the first Pakistani leader to issue a strong-worded condemnation of Governor Taseer’s murder. Nor has he ever supported terrorism. Mr Rushdie is not only confused but ill-informed.”

When Outlook asked Imran about his Taliban Khan image, he said, “To all my detractors, I want to state simply that my vision for a reborn Pakistan, my belief in the people of Pakistan and my unflinching faith in God will ensure a new Pakistan: independent, sovereign and a modern Islamic welfare state. By definition it will be Islamic because we will ensure that no law is repugnant to Islam.”

Imran’s real worry is that the Islamists have enough political ammunition that they’ll use closer to the elections, and he’ll not want to be seen taking on the Taliban or the jehadis. “Politicians like JUI(F)’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman are already making it tough for Imran in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa,” says analyst Nusrat Javeed. “Rehman’s asked how as Muslims he and Jemima can after a divorce stay under one roof, with Imran even staying with his mother-in-law in London. In Islam, committing murtard (abandoning Islam) is punishable by death.”

Veteran columnist and PTI member Shafqat Mehmood feels Imran is being misunderstood: “He does not subscribe to the ideology of Islamic extremists. He says they should not be thrown out of the political process, otherwise they will pick up the gun.” That, he adds, is what happened in Balochistan.

However, as Javeed puts it, “It’s all about elections. Even Zulfiqar Bhutto prohibited alcohol and banned Ahmadiyyas. What choice does Imran have?”