Whatever he might’ve done as a cricketer, former England captain and commentator Michael Atherton will now be remembered as the one who internationalised the fate of Imran Khan. While the Pakistani Establishment (E capitalised deliberately, always) has spent 75 years trying to internationalise Kashmir, this is one they wanted to become a cross-border talking point least of all. It has drawn Australian Pat Cummins to add his voice as well. He’s the first serving captain to do so.
Atherton, therefore, deserves the highest award that may exist anywhere for building pan-national solidarity in sports. This is for interviewing Imran’s sons Kasim and Sulaiman in the Lord’s Long Room. Then Sky Sports broadcast it during lunch hour on day-1 of the Lord’s Test.
This, despite the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) threat to boycott the match. The PCB is led by a man formidable for other reasons. Mohsin Naqvi, of the Asia Cup trophy fame, is Pakistan’s interior minister, most favourite Sancho Panza to Donald Trump’s favourite Field Marshal. Sky Sports risked losing the rest of the telecast; Atherton his future Pakistan visas; and the English Cricket Board their goodwill with Pakistan.
Between the risks taken by all three, they shifted the debate over Imran’s fate from Pakistan’s bloody domestic politics to international cricket. This is one thing the Pakistani Establishment never wanted to ‘cricketise’. Twenty-one former cricket captains, including three from India, had signed a joint letter seeking humane treatment for Imran. That was easy for Pakistan to dismiss as has-beens’ nostalgia. This has changed. Obviously, one Test match lunch-hour is a long time in Pakistani politics.
Now, you had Imran’s sons from his first wife Jemima (Bushra Bibi, his third, is also imprisoned). Both sons are articulate, exude sincerity, love and concern. The cricketing world is watching them, including in Pakistan. Pakistan’s most embarrassing secret is now a global issue. At least global in the world that plays cricket. So far the ruling junta was comforted by two thoughts. One, powers that matter to them strategically, the US, China and West Asia don’t care about cricket. But cricket is the next important thing in Pakistan after whatever the regime of the day picks as the first—usually Kashmir and India.
Was Atherton driven by old-boys clubbiness? Unlikely. It was probably sensitivity to the obvious victimisation, and slow-assassination of one of the greatest cricketing icons of three generations. Three, because Imran’s cricketing fame didn’t end with his retirement. It continued on television commentary. At Indian media conclaves he drew top speaker fee. He made headlines by pulling out of the 2012 India Today Conclave protesting Salman Rushdie’s participation.
Atherton didn’t particularly play against Imran Khan-led Pakistan. He made his international debut in 1989 and Imran retired in 1992. Atherton also didn’t have the “pleasure” of getting out to Imran. He’s now playing for Imran.
Also Read: Munir’s latest power grab is proof of his paranoia. Dictatorship and delusion go together
From day one of his troubles with his army, Imran knew he could have a comfortable life if he gave up politics and returned to the lucrative world of television. The default option of all political figures who fall foul of the army is still available to him, a wealthy exile. But Imran has surprised all, most of all his furious army, with his unbreakable spirit.
The harsh truth is, he played the same game when it suited him. He conspired with the army to get an elected prime minister (Nawaz Sharif) removed, jailed and exiled on account of not being “sadiq and ameen” (Islamic concept of being truthful and trustworthy) for a misdemeanour that looks like a parking ticket.
Then he used the army to steal an election and build him a majority through a Pakistan Army equivalent of ‘Operation Kamal’. And when he took on the same army, they did what they do once an elected leader becomes “difficult”. Imran started messing with top army appointments, including the ISI chief’s. He forgot that prime ministers of Pakistan don’t have such powers. Further, he had become prime minister at his army’s sufferance.
Back to his jail sentences. Some 14 plus 3 plus 14 years for non-disclosure of gifts received as prime minister and what’s called Al-Qadir Trust scam are frightfully excessive. And the legal process is shambolic, more like an ‘off with their heads’ from Pakistan’s current ‘king of hearts’.
When Imran emerged as the first Pakistani politician to actively defy his army for elected politicians’ autonomy and civilian supremacy, millions in Pakistan were roused. He was using the street against the GHQ. I also argued more than once that the Pakistan Army was facing its first challenge from a popular politician with street power. A most prominent Pakistani intellectual whom I’ve known since 1985 cautioned me. “Hold your horses partner,” he said, “As in a casino, the House always wins.” The House is winning so far. But it also knows that Imran is doughtier than other politicians it has finished as yet, and the most popular. If Imran comes out without a deal, Asim Munir will eventually have to make the same choice: jail or exile. This is a winner-takes-all system.
Also Read: India doesn’t give walkovers to Pakistan in war. Here’s why it shouldn’t do it in cricket either
Given how arrogant and self-loving Imran is, I’m not sure he’s capable of introspection even in the isolation of Adiala jail. For many, including this writer who’ve known him from his cricketing years, his hard Islamic turn to near-fundamentalism was a surprise. Given the kind of life he had lived, from Britain to Bombay, it was a textbook case of ‘nau sau choohe kha ke billi hajj ko chali’ (the cat going for pilgrimage after devouring 900 rats).
When did a global citizen buy into the Riyasat-e-Madina fantasy? Many Imran watchers, and his second wife Reham Khan would attribute it to the influence of Bushra Bibi. She brought to the table not just the most conservative Islam but also what’s anathema to it, occult and black magic. Reham has written in detail about many of the black magic ideas Imran apparently followed. If it landed both him and his spouse-cum-religious guide in jail, it’s a poor advertisement for occult. It’s also a blow for rationalism.
The turn in Imran’s life shocked anybody who knows his past. He was the most prominent face of Lahore’s self-made post-Partition elite. His mother Shaukat Khanum came from the famous Burki family, originally from Jalandhar. Her brother Lt-Gen Wajid Ali Khan Burki was head of Army Medical Corps and also the first Field Marshal Mohammed Ayub Khan’s closest aide.
That helped the family with the gift of the sprawling Zaman Park estate by the canal in Lahore. A son, Javed Burki, and two nephews, Majid Khan and Imran Khan, captained Pakistan. Majid’s father Jahangir Khan played for India in its first Test outing in England in 1932. Another first cousin in Zaman Park, Khaled Ahmed, became Pakistan’s pre-eminent editor and columnist. He was the first Pakistani I came to know. Here’s the obituary I wrote of him.
Post-retirement Imran mostly thought cricket. I had many conversations with him, including the 1994 interview in London for India Today where he said ‘everybody has been ball tampering’. It got him a defamation suit from Allan Lamb and Ian Botham. I wrote about it here. There was more that I will write about when the context is more relevant.
I brought in his privileged past only because I’m still intrigued by the philosophical, religious and ideological turn he made. His view on India or Kashmir, for example, was no different from Munir’s. And yet it didn’t save him from Munir’s wrath. If his cricketing celebrity helps him now, it will be a happier irony.
Postscript: Pakistan’s most storied family, Imran’s has another claim to cricketing immortality. The “Lord’s Sparrow” incident. Playing for Cambridge University against MCC in 1936, one of Jahangir Khan’s deliveries struck and killed a sparrow in midflight. The stuffed bird is displayed at Lord’s.
Also Read: Im, not so dim: Why it had to be a reckless Imran Khan to threaten Pakistan’s Establishment