An open letter to Imran Khan, Chairman PTI

Sheema Mehkar

Dear Mr. Khan,

Before I pro­ceed, please hon­or my request to call you Khan Sb like major­i­ty does. Khan Sb, with­out any hes­i­ta­tion I declare to be a proud sup­port­er of PTI. On May 11, 2013, I cast­ed my first ever vote to Imran Khan; for believ­ing in all what PTI made me dreamt. Khan Sb, I accept, I haven’t done any­thing sub­stan­tive for PTI to prove my ado­ra­tion and respect for you. I might be stand­ing far away from real­i­ty, with the most igno­rant mind and incom­pe­tent soul. I am oblig­at­ed to admit it here because many would ques­tion my right to say what­ev­er I am going to say. Oth­ers might com­ment as if you don’t know and (Ah!) it is easy said than done. Khan Sb, I also seek par­don in advance as I nev­er talked to any­one big like your­self. All this may sound gushy non­sen­si­cal rhetoric and prob­a­bly no one on this plan­et would ever under­stand it. But, Khan Sb, you sure­ly will under­stand. I am very sure of that.

Unlike many, Khan Sb, I am priv­i­leged to reside in the safest zone of Islam­abad. I am blessed not to expe­ri­ence any loss of my dear ones in any ter­ror blasts. Oth­er night, a mere thun­der made me fell off the bed sub­con­scious­ly imag­in­ing if it’s a bomb blast out­side and I am about to die. Khan Sb, we have reached at a verge of ‘agony’. Pak­istan is sink­ing in the flood of ter­ror­ism and extrem­ism; you know more than I do that where we are head­ing to. So, let me jump to the con­clu­sion. Khan Sb, pri­or to the elec­tions PTI claimed to be the only par­ty well armed with ‘Counter Ter­ror­ism Pol­i­cy’. Con­dem­na­tions are becom­ing futile. Sym­pa­thies now get scars deep­en and breed more hatred. Peo­ple now pre­fer politi­cians to stay mute instead of utter­ing cal­lous state­ments and mak­ing fake promis­es; they have stopped believ­ing, Khan Sb. With huge dis­ap­point­ment, the same con­demn­ing state­ments are drag­ging PTI in par­al­lel to the oth­er par­ties and sig­nif­i­cant­ly your kind self to oth­er politi­cians. The lat­er aspect is a big­ger woe as peo­ple real­ly want to believe in you, Khan Sb. But, if the course remains the same; I wor­ry, it might not last long, Khan Sb. For a sec­ond, I, like mil­lion oth­ers, can’t doubt your inten­tion and integri­ty. But, Khan Sb, time is very cru­el. It does­n’t weigh one as who has good inten­tions, but, who ‘did’ and who ‘did­n’t’. The ques­tion is not that you don’t want or you can’t or you will not, but, when??

What if APC for yet anoth­er time will prove a fias­co? What if COAS will not agree in hold­ing ‘closed-door-meet­ings’ with you? What if truth will nev­er be told to you? What if Gov­ern­ment will not come up with any strat­e­gy? That means we should stop hop­ing that some­body will save us? A deep-seat­ed con­fu­sion per­sists on the sub­ject mat­ter, dri­ving every­one’s head go spun. Khan Sb, I tell you, peo­ple vouch for your words. So, are you sure you are as clear on it as you are on the issues like rig­ging and gov­er­nance in KPK?, I dare to ask. Peo­ple are least con­cerned as whose war is this, what ‘behind the stage’ is going on and how com­pli­cat­ed things are; they want one thing, ‘a solu­tion’. They are ready to sleep with emp­ty bel­lies, but, not with emp­ty homes. Yes, I sec­ond, unless the com­plete truth is known strate­gies can’t be made. If noth­ing else, bring to us the pol­i­cy that PTI claimed to have. Begin it with “as per the avail­able infor­ma­tion and truth…”, we will under­stand, Khan Sb. All this is not for a polit­i­cal six­er, but, those search­ing for a clue and direc­tion may take guid­ance from it; even if it is of minute help.

Khan Sb, you made us believe in “Iyya­ka Na’budu Wa Iyya­ka Nas­ta’een”, ‘will’ we can wit­ness, clear­ly, your bona fide demeanor is a tes­ti­mo­ny to that. Now a ‘sub­stan­tive strug­gle’ beyond ‘…we strong­ly con­demn’ rhetoric is await­ed. I strong­ly wish some extra­or­di­nary upshot from the Gov­ern­ment, but, all the expec­ta­tions are decay­ing with each pass­ing day. Khan Sb, peo­ple look up to you as their last hope and hopes bond­ed to you are too strong to die. But, there exists a fact: emo­tions are indi­gent of phys­i­cal achieve­ments. The clock is tick­ing and we are dying. Khan Sb, please save us!

(Sheema Mehkar is a Busi­ness Grad­u­ate from Quaid-i-Azam Uni­ver­si­ty, Islam­abad. Cur­rent­ly she is work­ing in an edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tion as a Fac­ul­ty Devel­op­ment Pro­gram Offi­cer.)

Also pub­lished in The Fron­tier Post