The Judicial Commission and Imran Khan

Random thoughts
After six months of protests in Islamabad, the PTI and the government agreed to form a Judicial Commission tasked to determine whether or not there had been planned rigging in the 2013 elections and, consequently, whether the Nawaz Sharif government was legal or not.
The chief justice and two of his honourable colleagues deliberated for more than two months, scrutinising records, interviewing witnesses from the PTI, the PML-N and some other parties. Imran Khan had accused all and sundry of rigging. He had named the former chief justice, Election Commission members, provincial election commissions, Returning Officers and even the then caretaker chief minister, noted and respected journalist Najam Sethi.
Imran had also accused the Election Commission of printing a large number of extra ballot papers. Ishaq Dar of the PML-N and Shah Mahmood Qureshi of the PTI hammered out an agreement to form this Judicial Commission. This was a face-saving option for Imran Khan as six months of protests, rallies and nasty verbal attacks had proved fruitless. How he could ever have felt (misplaced) confidence that he could bring down the elected government is the million dollar question.
Every day we heard that the PM was about to resign and that new elections were just around the corner; while one ultimatum after the other was issued. Meanwhile, Dr Tahirul Qadri called all state institutions illegal and continued to ask for the scalp of the PM. Since his followers were most totally subservient to his orders, he was the bigger of the two nuisances that plagued the country at the same time. Shaikh Rashid Ahmad and the Chaudhry brothers did not hesitate to jump on the bandwagon.
These two ‘public’ leaders did not face the same hardships that their followers did. Dr Qadri had an air-conditioned container, rumoured to contain both bed and bathroom, while Imran Khan went back to his comfortable bungalow after delivering his speeches. The poor public was taken for a ride and left to sit out in the rain, cold, bad weather. They really believed their ‘leaders’ were going to deliver. Young people found it entertaining to go to D-Chowk every evening to scream, shout and dance to the music played by DJ Butt. After some time we saw Dr Tahirul Qadri vanish on the pretext of ill health, thus leaving Imran Khan in the lurch. It came as a shock to him that he had not been taken into confidence and some of the air ran out of his bubble of confidence.
Senior and respected and upright politician, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi, parted ways with the PTI due to Imran Khan’s rather arrogant and erratic approach. More recently, senior sober legal wizard, Justice Wajihuddin Ahmad, once the PTI presidential candidate, was shown the door. The next to go will probably be Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Asad Umar. The party is now more or less a one-man-show. Shaikh Rashid Ahmad and the Chaudhry brothers saw their dream come to naught.
This whole, sometimes violent, exercise in futility resulted in colossal losses to the national economy. Islamabad businessmen suffered the most. It is estimated that, in the six months of agitation, about 108 million man-hours (12 hours per day) were lost. Students wasted valuable study time and paid for it with bad marks and adverse reports. Just imagine the result of these 108 million man-hours had they been productively used in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to clean/beautify cities, plant trees and in other activities beneficial to the public. KP would have been a better place and Imran Khan would have reaped the benefits in the next elections.
What is sad here is that, despite so many years in politics, Imran Khan does not seem to have matured. He and his senior colleagues adopted a confrontational policy to take the government by force. As was to be expected, it was an exercise in futility. When one looks at the demands and forecasts made by Imran Khan, one sees that not a single demand was accepted by the government or the army and not a single forecast came true. When he had exhausted his fire, our expert, outspoken bowler/batsman was clean bowled by a reverse swing from Nawaz Sharif.
Contrary to Imran Khan’s (unjustified and overly optimistic) expectation, the Judicial Commission, in its report, cleared Nawaz Sharif of any rigging or influencing the 2013 elections or stealing Imran Khan’s mandate. The commission admitted that some irregularities had taken place and attributed these to lack of experience on the part of the ECP officials and Returning Officers and advised the Election Commission to correct/improve those weak points. Now Imran Khan has no choice but to wait until 2018. If he does not deliver in KP in the meantime, his chances will be minimal.
The trouble with humans is that they consider themselves to be wise and others to be stupid. Imran Khan should learn not to be too emotional and/or aggressive in his public speeches. Present the main issues clearly and forcefully, but not stick to the microphone like a child hanging on to its toy. He shouldn’t annoy his own experienced, senior colleagues or listen to unrealistic advice. Shaikh Saadi once said that he never repented keeping silent while he did sometimes repent speaking unnecessarily.
The indomitable Rumi, in his Masnavi, told the story of Hazrat Musa and Firaun. Musa invited Firaun to accept the existence of God Almighty as the one and only Sovereign and Creator of everything and also to accept the existence of his prophets, including Musa. Firaun was inclined to accept and asked his wife, Hazrat Aasia, for advice. She told him to accept as the invitation was a blessing from the Almighty and that, in accepting, all his wrongdoing would be overlooked.
Firaun then went to his prime minister and chief advisor, Haman, who created an enormous fuss and used bad language against Hazrat Musa. He advised (more or less forced) Firaun not to listen to Musa who, unfortunately, accepted this wrong advice. Upon his refusal to accept Hazrat Musa’s invitation, the latter said: “We tried to show the right path but you listened to your unwise advisor. It was your destiny to live (and die) in darkness.”
In the present situation it appears that, should Imran Khan not listen to his senior colleagues and change his techniques, he will end up losing the sympathy and support of many people and will, consequently, fare badly in the elections of 2018.
Email: dr.a.quadeer.khan@gmail.com