HVK Archives: The troubles of Imran Khan
The troubles of Imran Khan - The Asian Age
M J Akbar
()
5 January 1997
Title : The troubles of Imran Khan
Author : M J Akbar
Publication : The Asian Age
Date : January 5, 1997
The good news for Prime Minister-in-Waiting Imran Khan is that he must
be doing well in the election campaign, or he would never have invited
such venom as he is currently facing: professional politicians do not
generally open up their cache of poisoned weapons unless they feel
genuinely threatened. The bad news for Imran Khan is that he has begun
to bleed. He needs a good doctor urgently. A spin doctor will do.
The cricket-cancer star has his share of problems. He is playing not
just against one team but two: he has taken on both the entrenched
political establishments, the Pakistan People's Party on the one side
and the Muslim League variations on the other. Both Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif have a vested interest in destroying the one asset he
possess which they do not: the credibility which derives from innocence
of experience. Since you cannot blame Imran Khan for ruining Pakistan in
the past, you have to hold him guilty of destroying Pakistan in the
future. How? The first strategy was to allege that he was part of some
grand Jewish conspiracy.
In cricket terms this was a long hop which Imran Khan was ready to send
to the boundary. It is true that he could do better in Islamic Pakistan
than have a Jewish father-in-law, but Imran Khan went into his marriage
with his eyes open and flanks protected. The ulema could not go at him
for marrying a Jew as it is perfectly legitimate in Islamic law to do
so, provided the bride is converted to Islam, which Imran ensured under
international gaze. His wife Jemima further soft-pedalled the fact that
her billionaire father is a Jew by stressing that her mother was a
true-blue Christian, and she was personally closer to the church than
the synagogue. Jemima has also reassured Pakistan's trickly electorate
that their son, named after two prophets rather than merely one,
Suleiman Isa (translated into English, this would stand for Solomon
Jesus) would be brought up as a true child of the nation and taught Urdu
before he dared to utter a word of English. Rather than be embarrassed
by his father-in-law, Imran Khan most sensibly decided to flaunt him:
his campaign is being financed by a five-million-pound contribution from
Sir James Goldsmith. In politics, if you hide anything it becomes a
scandal, if you leave it out in the courtyard no one notices. His
donation, substantial in rupee terms and a pittance for daddy who has
made billions out of margarine, also reinforced Imran Khan's claim of
fiscal integrity. The only vested interest behind his campaign was
paternal.
The second charge against him, however, is a far more dangerous googly,
because this ball is going to turn in the opposite direction no matter
which way Imran Khan decides to play it. This is the revival of an old
accusation, published in an English newspaper which has played its part
in the evolution of contemporary Pakistan's politics, the Sunday
Express, that Imran Khan sired a daughter out of wedlock through another
lady of the European nobility, Sita White, daughter of another tycoon,
Lord "Gordy" White a few years before he became involved with Jemima.
The story, seized by hungry British tabloids, surfaced around the time
of Imran's marriage and has returned to trouble the superstar. Unlike
the Jewish conspiracy charge, this one is going to bleed Imran, for more
than one reason.
The first is that he has made a mistake by denying paternity. He should
have simply refused to react, or ignored questions on the subject with a
worldly-wise smile that might indeed have won him a few extra votes from
the he-man crowd in Lahore. No one in his right senses believed that
Imran Khan was a virgin when he got married; indeed, there may be a
question or two about whether Jemima was a virgin at wedlock. If there
was an unintended consequence in his past, so be it. Pakistan's
electorate would not have damaged his future because of his past. But
the moment he denied paternity he awoke dormant passions. Shakespeare,
whose experience was clearly concentrated on English women if not
totally limited to them, knew what he was saying when he wrote hell hath
known no fury like a woman scorned. Sita White has responded by taking
the gloves off (her own words). She is determined now to prove
paternity in the courts: and it is not a Pakistani court she is talking
of, but an English one, with blood taken from Imran and her daughter by
her doctors. The lady is serious. She told the newspapers that she
never asked a penny for child support because she was a gentlewoman, but
she was now going to make him pay up. When an English woman asks you to
pay up she means business.
Why did Imran fall into the trap of denial, or continued controversy,
when indifference before February 3 would have paid better dividends?
This columnist has an unusual suspicion. He could have been rattled not
so much by the child but by the mother, particularly by the name of the
mother. She is called Sita.
This is not a name which Lord "Gordy" White gave his daughter; it is one
she adopted clearly while infatuated by the Indian subcontinent. If she
had given herself a Muslim name, Imran Khan might not have bothered as
much, but to be called the father of Sita's child... now that is going
to catch attention in a Muslim country separated from Hindu India. An
election campaign is, unfortunately, not controlled by libel laws, so
one call visualise an orator really rolling it over when lie dwells on
Sita's child. All the orator has to do is rename Imran Imran, and he
could have the audiences dancing on his fingers. Imran: it is a name
which could stick, with the aid of Sita. This columnist speaks from the
experience of his fortunately brief dalliance with politics. The main
charge of an opponent in Kishanganj who prayed five times a day but had
never heard of the Quranic injunction that it was a sin to tell lies,
was that yours truly was not a Muslim but a Parsi. When told that Akbar
was a perfectly Muslim name, lie would reply that Parsis also used Akbar
as a surname. We refused to honour the charge by rebuttal, and carried
on pleasantly towards victory in 1989, helped quite possibly by some
extremist Hindu voters who were delighted to be told that I was not a
Muslim after all. There are compensations even from lies.
In politics if you hit above the belt you are dismissed as an ass.
Every one is pleasant and sanctimonious above the belt. It is under the
belt that the real activity goes on. Imran Khan is discovering this.
That his opponents are professional is beyond doubt. They did not waste
such ammunition early, but kept it for the heat of the campaign, firing
their volleys with four weeks of the campaign left, enough time for the
story to reach all the small towns and villages. They know they cannot
accuse Imran Khan of villainy; and they do not know how to damn him with
faint praise; their only weapon is personal ridicule. Imran Khan, on
the offensive ever since he went public, has suddenly gone on the
defensive. If he survives the ridicule he could surprise both Pakistan
and his father-in-law. If not, he always has his cancer hospital to
return to.
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