After the recent announcement by Imran Khan that his wife, Reham Khan, has the right to join politics and has already crossed that rubicon quietly some unspecified time ago, many are beginning to believe that an intervention is in order. Imagine Imran Khan as your brother or a friend who is destroying himself in front of your very eyes. Usually Pakistani siblings, and brothers especially, are very protective and assertive. A Pakistani elder brother will usually resort to harsh measures to ‘save’ a wayward sibling who gets involved in shady activities.
Not that Imran Khan is involved in a particularly shady activity (at the moment). Problem is, Imran Khan, after all these years, is making childish mistakes and at a time when so much is invested in him. People have given their votes, time, money, and even their whole careers to Imran Khan and his party, and since Imran Khan is the focal point of PTI, if he falls, everyone loses all their bets. Someone should be assigned to talk to him in a stern manner and make him realize the gravity of the situation.
“Look Imran. You need to snap out of it. You are not a teenager and you are not in love. You will not cut your veins and you will not jump off the roof. Reham was not elected your wife by your party, marrying her was your personal decision. You need to keep your personal life out of politics. She should not speak for the party, she should not make appearances for it, she should not hold meetings. If someone can marry into the PTI then you can just repaint the sign on the top of your shop to say Mom and Pop Party. In your party she shouldn’t cut the queue just because shes your wife. That is not the PTI that people support or believe they voted for. If you have finally decided to deceive the people and ‘do whatever it takes’ then you, my bro, have joined the Dark Side. You are Darth Vader.
If PTI is to be “what the ex-cricketer Imran Khan does for fun after retirement” then just announce it on the TV because you had said “I promise I will never lie to you” in front of thousands who had wasted their evening and had come out to support you.
“To this day people try to defend your Dharna and the whole hullabaloo with Tahirul Qadri. What was that? It was a screw-up, wasn’t it? Now almost one year after the Dharna, with all the information we have at our disposal, we can look back and imagine what happened outside and inside the containers in those days. The Dharna was enough till day 3 and, if we can be honest to God like we need to be, you were played like a fiddle. You have faced obstacles in the past few years and at every point you have caved. Given in to temptation.
“You have not even created a team that will have a lasting impact on the politics of the country for decades to come, like we had imagined. All the people you have surrounded yourself with are available for rent, they were with someone else, now they are with you, and tomorrow they will be with someone else. A great leader creates leaders, and you have not even done that. Get rid of all the drama and start working. If PTI is to be “what the ex-Cricketer Imran Khan does for fun after retirement” then just announce it on the TV because you had said “I promise I will never lie to you” in front of millions who had wasted their evenings and had come out to support you. If your word is still worth anything.”
Of course none of Imran Khan’s current courtiers will say these things to him. And PTI’s old members dare not say such things because these are harsh words and saying them is a huge risk. What if it takes Khan away from them and closer to the shiny, new, and rich electable in the party? Imran Khan, at his age, needs an elder brother who can smack some sense into him. That is the most unfortunate part.
