7/27/2018 26 Years After Winning World, Imran Wins Pak - The Times Of India - Bangalore, 2018-07-27

26 Years After Winning World, Imran Wins

Pak
Will Former Capt Be The Poster Boy For Change For Country &
Neighbourhood?
Avijit.Ghosh@timesgroup.com

When Imran Khan led Pakistan to World Cup triumph in 1992, he became a national demigod. Two years
later, when he set up a non-profit cancer hospital in Lahore, millions of disadvantaged saw him as a
ferishta, an angel.

Yet in 1996, when Imran formed Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaaf (PTI), most felt he wasn’t cut out for the hard
road of South Asian politics. Friends and fans feared he would be swallowed by the quicksand of
Pakistan’s power play. After all, the Oxford-educated cricketer came from an entitled background,
relished the glam life and was known to change lovers like pyjamas. But as Wednesday’s election proved
conclusively, there is more to Imran Khan.

Imran may have led his country to triumph in the 50-overs version, but it’s his appreciation of the long
game of the Test that has stood him in good stead. He never took his eyes off the ball, despite the odds and
adversities. In the 2002 general elections, his party won only one seat. Many major backers left him. But
he held on.

As captain, Imran led from the front. When Pakistan crushed India 3-0 in 1982-83, the paceman, then at
his unplayable worst, took 40 wickets. Under him, Pakistan never lost a Test to India. He had a knack for
spotting the right players — Wasim Akram and Inzamam-ul-Haq to name two -— and backing them. He
was also a team man. But as the leader of PTI, Imran has been a one-man army. Just watch the election
videos: PTI rode on his charisma.

As a politician, Imran cleverly balances seeming contradictions. He blends anti-Americanism, a vision for
economic development and extreme social conservatism into a saleable cocktail. The young, it seems,
have largely voted for him as he signifies a break from the past and offers something new and hopeful. But
he also has the backing of Pakistan’s permanent power centre: the Army.

“He is their puppet,” political scientist C Christine Fair told New York Times, “He is where he is now
because of the army and ISI.” Imran has “supported the blasphemy law, which urges the death penalty be
imposed on anyone found insulting Islam or the Prophet Muhammad.” PTI’s position on the 2014
Peshawar school attack was also controversial. The night-clubber of the past is hardly a paragon of
progressiveness today.

In this general election, psephologists had predicted a tight contest between PML(N) and PTI, with PPP
emerging as a possible kingmaker. They were proved wrong. PTI’s red-and-green flag is fluttering all over
Pakistan and Imran is within touching distance of the prime minister’s seat. A paean posted on the PTI
website seems true today: “Sabka maan Imran tum hi ho/ desh ki jaan Imran tum hi ho/ Pakistan Imran

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7/27/2018 26 Years After Winning World, Imran Wins Pak - The Times Of India - Bangalore, 2018-07-27

tum hi ho.” And the last line of the book, “Pakistan: A Personal History” (June 2011), written by him, has
come true, “... Tehreek-e-Insaf is the idea whose time has come.”

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7/27/2018 26 Years After Winning World, Imran Wins Pak - The Times Of India - Bangalore, 2018-07-27

SIGN OF TIMES: For youth, Imran symbolises a break from

the past

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