Imran Khan’s views are closest to the views of Pakistan’s anti-West, anti-India Islamic nationalists than any other civilian prime minister.
Celebrities often hang out with other celebrities. In the subcontinent, the two most important categories of stars are those from the world of cricket and those from Bollywood. No wonder Imran Khan’s selection as Pakistan Prime Minister has received considerable positive attention from Bollywood luminaries and India’s cricketers.
On Twitter, Bollywood wallahs from Ayushmann Khurrana to Raveena Tandon and Simi Garewal gushed about the rise to power of Pakistan’s dashing, handsome cricket star. Former cricketer, television personality, and politician Navjot Singh Sidhu became the only high-profile Indian to show up for Khan’s swearing-in ceremony.
A hug for Sidhu from Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Bajwa, got more attention than a serious analysis of Khan’s likely policies towards India – a country often painted as ‘an existential threat to Pakistan’ by its establishment.
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Sidhu did nothing wrong in accepting Khan’s invitation nor was he wrong in being his effusive self while in Pakistan. It is important for Indians and Pakistanis to interact and to communicate the desire for peace across the border. But Sidhu cannot be an authority on the policy direction of the Khan government after a short visit.
Similarly, Ayushmann Khurrana, Raveena Tandon, and Simi Garewal cannot be treated as authorities on the complexities of India-Pakistan relations just as experienced diplomats and analysts should not be expected to perform better than professional actors in different roles in front of a camera.
In the end, India’s official response to Khan will be determined by foreign policy considerations, not his celebrity status or admiration from fellow celebrities.
He could surprise us all by taking a complete U-turn but until he does, examining his previous statements is the only way to determine what Khan’s policy orientation might be.
Also read: In Imran Khan’s new Pakistan, most disturbing thing is misuse of religion: Reham Khan
Ahsan Butt, a brilliant young professor at George Mason University in the United States, recently addressed the question, “To what extent can one reasonably characterise Khan as an Islamist or religious extremist?” for Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper.
Butt found that “Khan’s ideology and beliefs on a host of dimensions are indistinguishable from the religious hard-Right” even as he conceded that most voters probably voted for Khan on the issue of corruption, not hardline Islamism.
“Similar to Republicans in the United States, who are loathe to countenance that they elected a racist,” wrote Butt, “many of Khan’s voters would scoff at the notion that they elected a religious extremist. Rather, they are likelier to point to their vote being motivated by a combination of distaste for dynastic politics at the centre of the erstwhile hegemonic parties (Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz), a willingness to try something or someone new, and Khan’s charisma or personality.”
Butt’s examination of Khan’s statements and speeches since his entry into politics revealed “Two decades of Right-wing religiosity.” He cited the Sunday Times, London, which described his 1997 election campaign being marked by “quasi-religious sermons attacking feminism, atheists, politicians, ‘evil’ Western values, and the ‘brown sahibs’ or those Pakistani elites who aped their former colonial masters.”
Once Khan was elected as a member of parliament in 2002, he identified with Islamists more than with liberal reformers. He joined mullahs in opposing the Protection of (Criminal Laws Amendment) Women Act in 2006, which would have reversed “draconian and anti-women” Hudood Ordinances.
Butt reminds us that the laws imposed by General Zia ul-Haq included injunctions that “required a woman to present four male witnesses when reporting a rape lest she be accused of adultery”. That Khan was the only parliamentarian other than those belonging to Pakistan’s obscurantist religious parties to oppose the reform bill tells us a lot about his political orientation.
Also read: Pakistan’s future boils down to PM Imran Khan’s India policy
Khan has also politicked on the issue of blasphemy, which as Butt notes, is “a highly charged issue resulting in high-profile assassinations, mob violence, vigilante killings, and riots”.
Khan’s sympathy for the Taliban and his opposition to Pakistan’s anti-terrorism alliance with the United States is well known as is his nickname ‘Taliban Khan’. He made no distinction between Afghan and Pakistan Taliban and, in Butt’s words, “consistently portrayed the Taliban as valiantly resisting occupation, despite there being no American forces in Pakistan.”
Khan took to describing those demanding military action against terrorists as “dollar khors” or people seeking US dollars, and insisted that “the Taliban were not terrorists, but fundamentalists”.
If Khan is an honest, non-politician who says “what he thinks and truly believes,” then his statements must be seen as a reflection of his worldview. Notwithstanding his past or present lifestyle, he clearly shares the religious-nationalist beliefs of Pakistan’s religious political parties. That view includes a deep-seated antipathy towards the West and India.
When Khawaja Asif, foreign minister in the previous Pakistan Muslim League (N) government, declared that militant groups operating out of Pakistan were a ‘liability’ and sought international support to act against them, Imran Khan described it as an attempt to “undermine national security”.
“With such a FM, who needs enemies?” Khan tweeted, accusing Asif of “targeting” the armed forces “without having any concern for sacrifices rendered by the people of Pakistan”. He alleged that the minister was doing it only to appease India and the United States.
Asif had, of course, only stressed the need for Pakistan to put its own house in order before expecting the international community to relent in its criticism of Pakistan over terrorism. But Khan attributed it to “Indo-US appeasement”.
Some of Khan’s celebrity and cricket fan apologists might try to explain away his campaign rhetoric about Nawaz Sharif being ‘Modi ka Yaar’ as targeted only at Sharif and Modi. Doing so would be to ignore 20 years’ evidence of Khan’s extremist beliefs, including an ideological aversion to normal India-Pakistan relations.
Khan’s education at Oxford, a career in cricket, an early reputation as a playboy, and his status as a celebrity-politician should not distract anyone from his clearly stated Weltanschauung (worldview). It is closest to the views of Pakistan’s anti-West, anti-India Islamic nationalists than any civilian to ever become Pakistan’s prime minister.
Imran Khan can, and hopefully will, moderate his views and when he does, he must get due credit. But until that happens, let the onus for manifesting that change be on him. His foreign fans should not try to deny or erase what he has repeatedly said on the record.
Husain Haqqani, director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C., was Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2008-11. His latest book is ‘Reimagining Pakistan.
Khan aka Imm the dim is well known for his anti west and anti India stance. He will find it difficult to suddenly change his stance. Khan seems to think he knows India well just because he played cricket there and slept with some Bollywood babes!
Well, he is in for a shock. Today’s India is Modi’s India and does not take kindly to the fact that Pakistan has not only failed to prosecute the perpetrators of Mumbai attacks but is also busy mainstreaming them in politics.
While India is moving fast economically Pakistan seems to be stagnating with high loans, little investments and lowering exports.
Pak Army is already calling the shots. Paki political puppet s are busy chalking out yet another plan for Kashmir.
Writing on the wall is clear. Forget Kashmir and talk trade if Pakistan wants to save itself.
As for as Pakistan is concerned Hussain Haqqani is a traitor, he has testified to US Senate against Pakistan Red warrants out for his arrest. He has no love lost for Pakistan as he dances to his paymasters tunes. Therefore anything Haqqani says can be ignored without paying any attention to it.
Imran Khan has made Positive moves toward the U.S., India and Afghanistan but Mr. Haqqani only sees the opposite through his coloured glasses.
We can trust Mr. Haqqani to never miss an opportunity for spreading misinformation and alarm about Pakistan, in this case about ‘Pakistan’s reputation as a terrorist safe haven or how he (Imran Khan) might face the country’s relative global isolation’. IS, ISIS, al-Qaeda, Jund Ullah, BLA and all the other real terrorist outfits operating in Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are neither created nor supported by Pakistan. It is the same with Naxalites, Nagas, ULFA, NDFB, Khlistan Army, etc.
Looking at the issue from a different perspective, terrorism worldwide kills only a fraction of the number of people that are killed in road accidents or because of opioid overdosing. Wars waged in the name of fighting terrorism on the other hand have killed millions and rendered many more millions homeless. In Afghanistan alone deaths since 2001 under ongoing war and occupation-imposed deprivation amount to around three million people, about 900,000 of whom are infants under the age of five (see Professor Gideon Polya at La Trobe University in Melbourne book, ‘Body Count: Global Avoidable Mortality Since 1950’ and Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility study: http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf). Turning a blind eye against this horrendous holocaust and endlessly harping on the myth of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan is dishonest at best.
PM Imran Khan has been consistent in his view that better relations between Pakistan and India, including trade – it is too early to think of investments – would help both nations address their shared problem of poverty. His equation with the military is part of Pakistan’s internal political dynamic over which India has no control. His religious beliefs are a matter of personal conviction, perhaps not untinged by an assessment of what will advance his political career. One cannot picture him in a henna dyed beard … On Afghanistan, when nothing seems to be going right for America after seventeen years, perhaps his approach needs to be considered. A single leader on either side – think of Vajpayeeji – cannot transform the relationship but we should be in no hurry to write off the promise of PM Imran Khan.