New Delhi: Pakistan’s run of controversial politics has a new face at its centre—Bushra Bibi, wife of former prime minister Imran Khan.
Bushra Bibi, who was convicted and sentenced to jail along with Khan in a graft case, is in the spotlight after an article in The Economist claimed that she exercised extraordinary spiritual and personal influence, not only over Khan during his tenure as Pakistan PM from 2018 to 2022, but also on key government decisions.
Even Pakistan’s incumbent Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir had reportedly tried to warn Khan against her during his short-lived tenure as chief of the nation’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but Khan instead fired him.
The article published Friday, titled ‘The mystic, the cricketer and the spy: Pakistan’s game of thrones’, written by Owen Bennett Jones and Bushra Taskeen, states that, according to those in the know, Bushra Bibi used black magic and religious tactics to influence Khan and even relayed messages on behalf of the ISI.
The article quotes those in the close circle of the couple to say that Bushra Bibi had a say in decision-making of Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), state appointments and even day-to-day functioning and held immense sway over her husband who could not see beyond her “spiritual halo”.
“For those inclined to this way of thinking, Bushra Bibi fits the mould perfectly: a sorceress bewitching the nation’s hero and bending him to her will. But there is another theory about Bushra Bibi’s influence which has less to do with magic. In this version of events, her hold over Khan is the result of Machiavellian string-pulling, orchestrated by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s feared spy agency,” it states.
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‘Game of thrones’
The article then cites a series of events that expose the alleged extent of her influence.
According to Awn Chaudry, Khan’s long-time political aide, he was barred from attending Khan’s 2018 oath-taking ceremony after receiving a text message from Khan himself where he wrote: “Bushra begum has had a dream last night… she cannot go to the ceremony tomorrow if u are there”. Chaudry was dismissed the next day.
Others said Khan sought her guidance for official appointments, sometimes sending her photographs of potential candidates because she claimed to be able to “read faces”. One relative recounted that Khan delayed a flight for four hours because Bushra Bibi told him the timing was not spiritually favourable for his travel.
Faisal Vawda, then a member of Khan’s cabinet, is quoted as saying that he was frustrated to see Bushra Bibi present or involved in discussions at the highest levels. He said he had heard of one meeting with the then army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, in which “she spoke more than either of them”.
One former cabinet member told the magazine that “her interference was absolute”.
The article further alleged that some officers within the ISI shared information with Bushra Bibi, which she would then relay to Khan as purported spiritual insight. The claims form part of a broader narrative describing her as a powerful and controversial figure inside the former prime minister’s household and, by extension, within the government.
Political backlash
The report has set off a political backlash. According to Dawn, the PTI Saturday termed the report as “recycled propaganda masquerading as foreign commentary”. Party officials said they were considering legal action unless The Economist issued a public apology.
The statement criticised the report for focusing on Khan’s personal life while ignoring what the party described as widespread human-rights violations, constitutional breaches, and electoral manipulation since Khan’s ouster. It also accused one of the report’s contributors of longstanding bias against the PTI.
“There is no mention of rigged elections, political persecution, or unfair trials,” the party said, arguing that the coverage distracted from Pakistan’s “real crises”.
On the other end, leaders from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) endorsed the article. Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari called the reporting “accurate and aligned with the facts”, arguing that it exposed what she described as a pseudo-spiritual apparatus surrounding Khan, according to media reports.
Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain described the piece as a layered examination of “power dynamics, superstition, black magic, and manipulation”, calling it an “eye-opener”.
“It is Sex and The City marrying Game of Thrones and Harry Potter in one go,” he wrote on X.
Former ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, referred to the criticism to the article and said on X that “when Khan Sahib’s article was published in The Economist, these same devotees wouldn’t tire of touting the magazine’s importance. Now they’re ready to badmouth it and dismiss it as insignificant”.
In all of it, one line from the article summed up the country: “Pakistani politics has the quality of a Netflix series.”
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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