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Pakistan’s future first lady had a dream one night. Bushra Maneka deals with dreams and the future. She is a female priest. Fans call her Pinky Peerni. He has many followers outside his hometown of Lahore. In 2015, Maneka’s dream partner also joined her fan base. The fan’s name is Imran Khan – the legendary cricketer. Imran Khan wrote in his autobiography, “Millions of people in Pakistan, especially in rural areas follow him for advice on issues ranging from religion to daily life.”
Cricket Legend Hero
Imran Khan was born in 1952 into an aristocratic family in Lahore. His cricket career began in the late 1970s. He became an almost mythical figure when he led England to the World Cup in 1992. With long hair and bare chest, Imran Khan heroically joined the “gentleman’s game” of cricket. His blend of sports, attractiveness and politics made him an icon of his generation. His biographer Christopher Sanford wrote: “Imran may not be the first to have a following. But he almost single-handedly made this male-dominated, bull-faced game attractive.”
Imran Khan is handsome and educated at Oxford University. Despite having a third-class degree, the doors of the British aristocracy are open to him. Mark Shand is the brother of Camilla Parker (now Duchess of Cornwall) and a close friend of Imran. He is very popular among women. Yusuf Salahuddin, a close friend of Imran, said: “I have seen girls from 6 to 66 years old go crazy for him.” However, in 1995, at the age of 43, he married Jemima Goldsmith, the daughter of billionaire Jimmy Goldsmith.
In the mid-1990s, Khan’s fortunes were cloudless. He won the World Cup, married a very wealthy beauty, and built a cancer hospital in memory of his mother. Amid all these achievements, what else could a woman from a small town in Pakistan expect? The short answer: politics.
The insatiable hero
Many prominent politicians and military chiefs tried to win him over. Eventually, Khan formed his own party in 1996. It was called Tehreek-e-Insaf, which means the Movement for Justice, or PTI. The party did not win any seats in the first election. He won the next election only in his own seat. In 2013, when his personal popularity was at its peak, PTI won only 35 seats. For 20 years, he used to tell his friends, “Next time you come to this country, you will see me as the prime minister.” Four elections passed and two marriages broke up, but the hope of becoming prime minister remained slim.
It was at this time that Bushra Maneka realized his dream.
Imran Khan desperately sought spiritual guidance from Pinky Peer at this time. The next part is a surreal story that resonated with Pakistanis. Maneka denied all these stories, but who blocked people’s faces! A voice in Maneka’s dream said that if Imran Khan wanted to become prime minister, he had to marry the right woman. The right woman means someone from Maneka’s family. Another version of the story says that Maneka first proposed to her sister. Another story is about his own daughter. Imran rejected both proposals. Maneka dreamed again. This time there was no sign. In the dream, he found out that the wife Imran needed was himself. Maneka, a mother of five children, was ready. Her customs officer husband also agreed to an amicable divorce.
Imran Khan wields his sword both ways on social issues. He fired a minister who made intolerant remarks about Pakistani Hindus. He also fired a member of his economic advisory council who was from the Ahmadiyya community. On a plane to China, when fellow passenger Ali Zafar Khan, a pop singer, asked him about his right-wing bias, he responded, “Our society is sensitive about certain issues. It is dangerous to talk about them openly. … I am a liberal. I have friends in India and I have friends among nonbelievers. But here there is no choice but to be careful.”
Surprise wedding like Arvya Rajini
The cricketer and the dreamer got married in a small family ceremony among close friends in February 2018. Six months later, Imran Khan became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Pinky Pirni is the First Lady of Pakistan.
Imran was popular as prime minister. There was nothing particularly different about him from neighbouring Modi, Turkey’s Erdogan or Brazil’s Bolsonaro. He promised to revive South Asia’s slowest economy by bringing back money laundered from foreign banks. But reality told him he was a pure elitist man. More elitist than those who opposed him. In a 2002 article in Arab News, he recounted how he became a brown-skinned pakka sahib. His own version of the story was that he was able to leave this sahib and come to the people.
Imran Khan is good at making his presence known wherever he goes, and has even become accustomed to it. And what he lacks in political wisdom, he overcomes with his popularity and words. His cricket teammate Wasim Akram said: “There are two types of people: followers and leaders. There is no doubt that Imran Khan belongs to the category of leaders. Not only in cricket, but in all fields. Imran’s second wife Reham said: “You can say he is inefficient, you can also say he is a hypocrite, he has absolutely no economic knowledge. “He has no academic skills. But he knows how to win you over. Whether it is cricket or politics, Imran has no hesitation in reading people. He skillfully transforms the popularity of sportsmanship into the role of a liberator.
Many lives in one life
Many people call Imran Khan hypocritical for his own life, words and actions. But he has lived so many different lives in his lifetime that it is difficult to reconcile them all. In order to make his current life acceptable, he has to deny his past lives. “This man has a Jekyll and Hyde problem,” said Hina Rabbani Kher, former Pakistani foreign minister. He is actually two people at the same time.
Politics in Pakistan means putting someone in power and then making people laugh. There are multiple forces at work here. The powerful military and feudal lords control most of the rural votes. They control almost all institutions in Pakistan by manipulating each other. Imran himself is a staunch opponent of General Musharraf. Currently, ten ministers from the Musharraf era are still in his government.
Critics sometimes call him “Taliban Khan.” He sometimes seems sympathetic to religious extremists. Shortly after a Peshawar church bombing killed 81 people, he invited the Taliban to open a political office in Pakistan. His government has made generous donations to religious institutions. Among them is the organization of Mullah Omar, the founder of the Afghan Taliban. While he is wary of Western criticism, he is less cautious when it comes to religious extremism.
Imran Khan’s personal life is indeed fascinating. He has taken so many turns in his life. And each turn has brought success. At least that’s what it seems so far. But this surprise in his life actually reflects all the dualities of his society. This duality of Imran’s life and politics did not emerge out of nowhere. These are what make Imran Khan. This is perhaps a true reflection of his country’s society.
Know what to oppose
Like most populist leaders, Khan is more clear about what he stands for than what he is against. His speeches often criticize the ruling elite. Although he himself belongs to that class. He could not have come to power without the goodwill and support of this class. He once again criticized Turkish politician Kemal Ataturk. Because, in his view, if Western systems were imposed from the outside, it would make the country backward.
Criticisms of this gaudy modernity may not go unnoticed. But the West is nothing more than consumerism – that is also an oversimplification. And those achievements that cannot be excluded, he wants to digest as contributions to his own culture.
Imran Khan’s past history of transformation has generated a great deal of public interest. His interest came to light when his second wife, Reham Khan, wrote a revealing book after the breakdown of their 10-month marriage. Not to mention how vindictive the book is, there is a person who was gradually isolated in the violent forest of politics. Reham claims that she did many things during that time that could have led to the fall of the current Imran Khan. Friends at that time could never return to Imran’s side.
In 2013, after years of military rule, Pakistan saw the unthinkable – a peaceful transfer of power. It was a threat to the military. Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, said an unholy alliance had formed between the Pakistani establishment and Imran Khan. But there was a popular form of this alliance. In 2014, Imran launched a movement to overthrow the elected government. He named it “Dharna”. In August 2014, during that movement, a medical student named Farhan Virk wrote a story. In Farhan’s words, the events went like this:
“The police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. Everyone else ran away. But Imran Khan was still standing there! I thought, if this person can still stand like this, it means something different.”
Critics believe these supporters are Imran’s greatest strength.
The General and the People: Whose People Are You?
What could be better in the eyes of the generals! The ostensibly democratic government will remain in power. Many of the country’s problems can be blamed on that government. The generals who come after will continue to run the country as before. Despite not listening to his critics, Imran still faces a huge challenge. The debt-ridden country should be pulled out of its economic depression. To do this, he is seeking a $6 billion bailout from the IMF; he is strongly opposed to seeking a “handout” from the IMF.
The era of all popular leaders in the world is now underway. It is no exaggeration to say that Imran Khan is a member of this group. Pakistani British writer Mohsin Hamid said that such leaders embody our desire to believe. They do the same thing again and again. They think they know better than the army and end up playing into their hands.
But Imran Khan is still called Kaptan by the people of his country. He fought hard to become the Prime Minister. After many disappointments for nearly 22 years, he is back. Even the most powerful have some weaknesses. There is a child in her heart who wants to comfort, care. At that time, maybe a woman in a small town gave him such assurance. A few days ago, there were rumors that Maneka and Khan’s relationship was not going well. Imran Khan then issued a statement that he would be with Maneka “until his last breath”. On the other hand, a statement was also received from the visionary Maneka that “only Imran Khan can bring about change”. But change takes time.
The first part of Pinky Pirni’s prophecy came true. Let’s see what happens to the rest.
Based on Vanity Fair magazine
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