"Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Dilemma of Khan Inside and Out"

Wasatullah Khan

Ahadah, Journalist and Analyst

November 28, 2024

You can make fun of the outcome of PTI's 'final call'. Spend a few more days on Gandapur and Bushra Bibi's disappearance, leaving behind the leaders and then the workers. Make more fun of the party's confused leadership and Imran Khan's natural emotionality.

Make fun of the thousands of forgotten people whom any actor can dream up and get behind him. You can also consider yourself invincible for now. But will this solve the basic problem?

You can say that despite the passage of so many years and enduring so much state pressure for the last two years, the PTI still lacks political maturity. But then what kind of Rustam are you who, since February 8, even if a leaf is shaken, the winds start blowing.

Given the current lack of leadership within the PTI, even if it had been given reserved seats as per the Supreme Court’s decision, how much doom would have come?

What fear forced you to pass the 26th Constitutional Amendment in record time or before that, you incited it overnight to make fortified amendments to the Election Act 2017? Or why are you having to pull rope after rope, case after case?

You were also afraid of Qazi Faez Isa that you don’t know what he will do after becoming the head of the judiciary, so you filed a reference against him in the Supreme Judicial Council in advance so that he doesn’t have to become the Chief Justice. But what kind of things did he shake when he became the Chief Justice?

If Mansoor Ali Shah had become the Chief Justice, what would have happened at most?

But as they say, when you have a hammer in your hand, every problem looks like a nail.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the federally appointed Chief Secretary currently has more powers than the Chief Minister. Except for the 2014 Ashirwadi sit-in, all the attempts made by the PTI to establish itself in Islamabad have failed.

What intelligence reports were there this time in the light of which you turned not only the capital but also the entire Punjab into a ‘containeristan’? You called in the police of three provinces. You closed the Peshawar to Multan motorways. You imposed a voluntary blockade of Lahore. You suspended train services. You disrupted internet services in half the country.

Why are you more worried about ‘digital terrorism’ and VPN misbehavior than the continuous operations of the banned Taliban in the settled areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the fire in Kurram district and the day-to-day unrest in Balochistan?

Even when Imran Khan was outside, there was a problem. Now he is inside, there is a problem.

Sindh was left, so you caught him by saying the new conflict of the Cholistan Canal, why are you sitting quietly?

When the economy showed signs of improving a little due to the efforts of the demanding government, you spent the profits that were supposed to come in the next three years in advance in just two weeks by closing roads, hammering e-commerce and containerizing governance.

Yet you have blind faith that Pakistanis living abroad, international business institutions and Gulf sheikhs are desperately eager to invest their capital in Pakistan. While the situation is that no land grabber is ready to buy an elephant like PIA at the bid price.

It is funny that the creature called ‘common man’ is completely out of this whole game. His vote has never been valued. Now his share in the economy has also been limited to paying taxes and utility bills. For a long time, education, health and employment have been turned into the pitfalls that every politician uses to make him dance like a monkey.

The resources that were supposed to change the fate of this unfortunate person are now being snatched away by the powerful elite. But who knows how stubborn the soil of this country is that despite such a sloppy approach, the resources that bear the burden of the selfish and egotistical elite are being left behind.

Against this backdrop, the desire to accumulate more and more powers, the desperate efforts to make parliament, democracy, governance, constitutional positions, judiciary, media and even show business more submissive.

Suppose you conquer all this and perhaps you have done so. So now what will you do with this mountain, becoming the Himalayas of powers?

Will any single problem be resolved properly? Will law and order at least be such that the wheels of the economy will turn? Will the political stability of your intention come? Let alone the enemies, will even friendly countries learn to trust you as before?

Tell me something, what goal will you achieve or want to achieve by becoming the power watchtower of Faisalabad that no one but you understands.

At this time, why am I reminded of that beloved child who tortures the lives of his loved ones to get every toy and when he has hundreds of favorite toys, then he does not understand what to do with them now?

Related Topics

#Pakistan_Muslim_League #Pakistan_Tehreek_e_Insaf #Pakistan #Politics #Imran_Khan #Protest