Islamabad, November 06: The writer is a familiar fact in India, not only as a superb cricketer, but as a participant in many seminars and conferences where he comes across as an articulate and suave person.
Indians have followed Imran’s political career with polite interest, no doubt because he did not seem to be getting anywhere with his Tehreek-e-Insaf — it’s not even a blip on the radar screen. For the record, the party boycotted the 2008 election to the National Assembly, but it is doubtful whether it would have made any difference had it participated.
Imran the politician, however, has had a fairly long innings and he has paid his dues in terms of the knocks he got and the price he has paid for being a gadfly of sorts against the Pakistani political establishment dominated by the Bhuttos and the Sharifs. Everything changed last week with his massive rally at the Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore.
Observers say that it reflects the disenchantment of the young with the existing political formations — principally the PPP and PML. Imran is said to be the new favourite of the Army.
Imran sees himself as a creature of destiny. He also has a strong sense of his Pakhtun identity and this is what has shaped his opposition to Washington’s “war and terror”, specifically the drone attacks, which have had a severe impact on Pakhtun-populated regions in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
What the future holds for Imran in a country and polity like Pakistan is not clear. He has gained a great deal of popularity, but coming as it does at this time, it could well be the poisoned chalice. In his political meanderings he has associated with parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and characters like the former ISI chief Hamil Gul.
It needs to be pointed out, though, that anti-Americanism or a critique of American policy in the tribal regions is not necessarily the hallmark of a Taliban supporter.
Indeed, wide cross-sections of the country, including the liberals, are one with the mullahs in denouncing the American drone war in the region.
The most interesting aspect of the book is not about Imran’s cricketing life, his politics or his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, but his journey from being a carefree and handsome cricketer, the darling of the international jetset, to a committed Muslim, though of a Sufi variety, rather than of the Deobandi or neo- Wahabi versions of the faith favoured by his Pakhtun cousins of the Taliban.
The journey began, as he notes, in the Zia era with its forced Islamisation, which he says only turned him off. His early acknowledgment of God came through the luck, good or bad, that is a feature of the game of cricket. But it came in the wake of his shin-bone fracture that kept him away from cricket for two years and a half.
His mother, who died of cancer in 1984 and in whose memory he built the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, was a huge influence shaping his spiritual journey.
“The sense of achievement I was to feel when this hospital opened was far great than anything I had achieved in cricket,” Imran writes.
After a couple of incidents, typical in South Asia, with clairvoyants and savants, Imran had his epiphany when he met Mian Bashir, who became the cricketer- politician spiritual guide till his death in 2005.
But the connect between religion and politics came through Imran’s own readings and what he learnt of the philosophy of the founding sage of Pakistan, Mohammad Iqbal.
No doubt Imran’s autobiography is his coming of age statement in politics.
It coincides with the surge of popular support he is getting.
But the aim of the book is also to convince western audiences that Islam is not about violence and destruction, but social service, humanitarianism and an inward effort to become a better person.
What the future holds for Imran in a country like Pakistan is not clear. He has gained a great deal of popularity, but it comes at a time when it could well be the poisoned chalice.
By Manoj Joshi
Courtesy: Mailtoday.in