In Imran Khan’s Naya Pakistan, will Nawaz Sharif have to die to prove he is actually ill?

From accusing him of eating nahari to being in perfect health, Imran Khan’s PTI leaders have mocked Nawaz Sharif’s illness as drama.

Nawaz Sharif with Maryam Nawaz | @asmashirazi/Twitter

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was last week admitted to the hospital after his platelet count decreased alarmingly. He still remains in a precarious condition and his personal doctor Adnan Khan says, “Nawaz Sharif is fighting the battle for his health & life.”

Sharif, 69, is a heart patient with multiple problems of blood pressure, diabetes and kidney issues. He was removed from office by Pakistan’s Supreme Court in 2017 following his conviction in a corruption case resulting from the leaks of Panama Papers. In July last year, he returned home with his daughter Maryam Nawaz and has since been serving jail time and facing other trials.

Former PM #NawazSharif, critically unwell, is fighting the battle for his health & life.
Thrombocytopenia (Low Platelet Count) & NSTEMI (Heart Attack) is further complicated by deteriorating Kidney functions. Poor Blood Sugar & Blood Pressure control is taking its toll.
1/2

— Dr. Adnan Khan (@Dr_Khan) October 29, 2019

 

Nawaz Sharif’s family and the leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) have long accused the Imran Khan government of non-seriousness toward Sharif’s health concerns and depriving him of medical care in prison — an accusation that the government now finds hard to wash away given its leaders’ uncouth attitude and commentary on Sharif’s illness.

Khan’s personal vendetta

When Prime Minister Imran Khan talks about his political opponent Nawaz Sharif, he sounds as if he has some personal animosity against him. He alleges that Sharif gets home-cooked food inside the prison and then rattles off about ensuring “criminals” won’t get any facilities. “I am going to go back and make sure there is no AC, no TV for Nawaz Sharif (in jail). Maryam Bibi will make some noise, but I say to her, return the money,” he had told a Pakistani gathering during his official tour to the US in July.

So now when PM Khan says that he cannot give a guarantee about anyone’s life, he surely should be asked why he has been behaving like he does control his opponent’s life. His continuous rhetoric of not giving National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO, which grants amnesty to politicians) to opposition leaders even if they all put up a joint front is cringy. Everyone knows he has no power to strike deals especially with the Azadi March protest that he is now facing.

Sharif has put up an anti-establishment resistance in the last couple of years, including the 14 months he has spent in jail. His refusal to bow down has had the Khan regime in a tizzy. In one of the court outings, he told PML-N supporters: “(They can) take me to Guantanamo Bay or Kala Pani (Andaman Islands) but it will never make me bow down.”

Following last week’s hospitalisation of Nawaz Sharif, PM Imran Khan’s special advisor Firdous Ashiq Awan played down Sharif’s health scare, saying that the PML-N leader reached the hospital in a very active mood and was waving hands, adding that this film shooting will continue for some time. On the platelet count, she mocked the former premier saying he was still eating nihari and hareesa and refuses to change his habits.

PTI leaders lack all empathy

Throughout the year, ministers went on downplaying his health with statements like Fawad Chaudhry: “There is nothing in his heart except the desire of an NRO.” Fayyazul Hassan Chohan: “Nawaz Sharif is in perfect health. After all, he has made this health after looting us for forty years.” They have also been insensitive towards the grievances of the Sharif family.

It might be callous but it is also the expected ruthlessness in the behaviour of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders, which trickles down to its followers. There is a history to it and the PTI leaders don’t want to learn any lesson.

They had called it a drama when Kalsoom, Nawaz Sharif’s wife, was on deathbed in London. Repeatedly, we were told that she was not sick and that Nawaz was using his wife’s so-called illness to avoid jail in Pakistan. So much so that one PTI supporter barged into the London clinic to unearth this theory. We were told they want to cash in on her illness for the election. When she passed away in September last year, they said, “Oh well, she was already dead and they now want to politicise her death to gain sympathy.

بیگم کلثوم نواز( مرحومہ) کی بیماری کا۔مزاق اڑانے والے کون کون لوگ تھے
حکومتی اعلی عہدوں پر
لیکن پھر بیگم کلثوم نواز کو مر کر ہی اپنی بیماری کا ثبوت دینا پڑا
کتنے ظالم تھے ہہ لوگ
اقتدار کے نشے میں اقدار بھلا بیٹھے pic.twitter.com/GbASwoHXGP

— سپین کی چڑیا (@AlarmaDita) October 23, 2019

Even Sharif’s open-heart surgery in 2016 was called a drama by PTI leaders. Naeemul Haq, now spokesperson of PM Khan, alleged that Sharif had lied about his illness: “There was no doctor’s name and no open-heart surgery.”

It is one thing to expect them to show empathy but it is alarming that in Imran Khan’s Naya Pakistan, people have to die to prove they are actually ill. Unless, of course, you are a former military ruler Pervez Musharraf – then your health is neither a drama for the Imran Khan government nor will you be accused of not facing a trial because you have struck a deal.

Learn from Nawaz

Nawaz Sharif is not the only prisoner suffering. Former President Asif Ali Zardari has also been denied basic medical care by the government. His family says that there is not even a fridge in his prison to keep the insulin. Another former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, whose health condition isn’t as serious as Nawaz or Zaradri, is languishing in jail with no formal case filed against him yet. Although Abbasi’s health too has deteriorated and doctors have advised shifting him to a hospital.

In Pakistani political culture, attending to a sick opponent or offering condolences is considered the most compassionate thing that rivals can do. When Imran Khan’s father Ikram Ullah Niazi passed away in 2008, Sharif visited Khan in Lahore to offer condolences. In the 2013 elections, when Khan fell and injured himself during the campaign, Sharif once again visited him in the hospital. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary then but it does now, given how polarised Pakistan and its politics have become under Imran Khan.

The author is a freelance journalist from Pakistan. Her Twitter handle is @nailainayat. Views are personal.