(This piece was written before Imran Khan's victory speech)
Over the seventy years of its existence, Pakistan has faced
many problems. Those problems were not simple ones in fact, they were hydra
headed. The biggest of them all was and is national unity. We have already lost
our eastern wing to this infighting. For a prosperous and strong Pakistan, we
need a strong federation. One of the root causes of this problem is that we
always lacked good political leadership; a political leader that enjoys national
affection and respect could have been instrumental in solving many of the
problems that Pakistan has faced in the past, is facing now and will face in
the future.
After the loss of
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, only Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was someone who
showed some promise. Other than him, Pakistan lacked a leader who had any
national appeal to him and has supporters in all the four corners of the
country. This attribute itself gave birth to many problems. First of them all
is that the federation of Pakistan is not as strong as one wishes it to be and
secondly, there is no one who can play a bridge between the smaller and the big
province. So, every time we have to listen to the unending cries of “us and
they”. That vacuum, that gulf is widening and we are putting band aids on a
wound that require stiches. Lately, Imran Khan has emerged as someone who can
be our answer to this problem. He has national appeal and followers who are
present in every nook and corner of the country. However, at times he acts not
like the national leader that he is. His contempt for the workers of opposing
political parties and his choice of words for them is downright disrespectful.
He should know that they are like his own party workers, are political workers.
They do not get paid; they do not get party tickets because like Imran others
also think that they do not know how elections are fought. Political parties
here lack any ideology, what they have is leaders, family names and symbols.
They relate with it, they identify with it. There is a long way to go for us to
achieve a place where electorate votes for ideologies and issues. Hopefully, we
will reach their but Khan Saa’hib with your attitude the destination looks a
bit more distant.
Imran Khan should understand that once he becomes the prime
minister, he would not be the prime minister of PTI but of Pakistan- of each
& every citizen, of those who voted for him or against him. Calling the
workers of a political party "gudha" will only push them closer to
their political leadership. Contempt & ridicule brings no good & no
respect. Khan should refrain from such politics of us and them. If he wants to
be the messiah, then he should act & rise above any political, religious or
ideological division.
It is imperative that the amount of respect that Khan
Saa’hib has for his own party workers should be replicated for workers of other
political parties too. We already have a lot of fault lines; we cannot afford a
new one.
