Everyone saw and heard what Qasim Suri said to Imran Khan during the last hours of the Haqeeqi March in Islamabad. And everyone saw how quickly Khan conceived an idea, and everyone heard how Khan executed what Suri said. To be honest, it didn’t land too well.
PTI is probably in a fight for their lives. The party is going through a tough time. It’s reaping time for everything they sowed during the past 25 years of this party. They are putting into use all that they have. And Imran, honestly, is struggling to hold on to whatever comes within his reach. Like the video above.
The idea itself, the transferring, and the execution, there are 3 parts of this play.
The idea:
To be honest, it sounds and looks very cunning. Like a wickedly genius marketeer or an advertiser plotting a script for a national level product with only money at the back of their minds. What’s different here is, that it’s not being done for the money, it’s being done to obtain a position of power.
Also, everyone knows that religion would probably be the most sensitive issue in this land of the pure. To be knowing that, and to be using it for a short-term gain (motivating marchers to keep going) is what makes it look bad. But in a country where there exist parties that identify themselves as religious political parties, this bad taste becomes a bit less bitter.
We have parties thriving on orphan Maddarssa students. Orphan Maddarssa students who are given shelter, food, and education only to become the fuel of some Mulana sb’s political ambitions.
But come to think of it, is giving a crowd or event an ‘Islami touch’ a good thing or a bad thing? In my opinion, it cannot be a bad thing. In fact not doing so would be taken as an inferiority complex. Where does this stem from? I see a lot of students, in universities, reading/carrying books of quotes written by Paulo Coelho. They like discussing his philosophy of life and his wonderful lines.
One friend was gracious enough to gift a book to me which I went through only to find that his lines were just old quotes said by someone else way before his time, and in a better way. That guy spoke about more issues than Paulo, his quotes were more wisdom packed, more timeless, way more diverse and I could relate to him more because we shared the same name. It felt like home. The book was Nahj al–Balagha.
If people who we try to mirror get a hold of a copy of what we have in our trunks, they would never go back to Paulo Coelho.
So giving an example not based on merit or something that people can not relate to is just stupid in our subject of mass communication. If Khan starts saying quotes of Paulo in a Jalsa, do you think it would fit? and should it?
The transfer of idea and the ‘Hot-mic’:
This is where it gets worse. Giving an ‘Islami touch’ is like saying the obvious out loud. Like manifestation of culture. It’s not ssaid out loud, it makes its own way. Enforcing it makes it look weird.
Like desi parents ordering their children to shake hands or say salaam to guests when the kid is already in the process. The parents know their kids are already shaking hands, but they just say it out loud so the guests can hear it. Why?
Why did Qasim Suri feel the urge of saying this? You have a leader who is already trying to make his battle war between the good and the evil, having a tasbeeh in his hand, conducting Shab-e-dua and what not, how much more Islamic do you want it to be? This, I take as boot polishing, cherry blossom, as Khan likes saying it.
Khan on the other hand was cautious of the ‘hot-mic’ in his hand. A hot-mic is a mic that is connected and live, people can hear what is been said even when there is no speech going on.
Khan, being a superstar all his life, was well aware of a hot-mic and the damages it’s done to celebrities abroad.
So as Qasim started advising Khan he panned the mic away so the crowd doesn’t hear it. But the crowd did hear it and this is not the first time its happened.
Just this week we have had two cases of hot-mics, both involving PTI and in both Khan was seen trying hard the mic doesn’t catch any sound.
During that famous mysterious call moments before the presser which announced the Haqeeqi march, Khan was struggling to explain to Qureshi to hang up the call.
Khan kept asking Qureshi to hang up the phone. He went to the extent of pointing towards the mic and said ‘log disturb hongay’, but he actually meant to say ‘you’re being recorded hang up the phone.’
The Execution:
This ruined it completely. Instead of giving the crowd an ‘Islami touch’, Khan gave himself an Islamic touch which landed ugly on screens.
These were one of those moments where Khan looked goofed up. Moments like his oath taking, moments like him fumbling out name of the country which he thought was conspiring against him in his address to the nation etc. This also goes on to show how desperate Khan is at the moment. Using everything he can get his hands on.
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All advises coming from everywhere is being taken in and thought upon, and most of them are being used without giving a second thought.
He is a Pakistani journalist, documentary producer and teaches journalism at various universities in Lahore. He is a silver medalist in MPhil Mass communication and has reported and edited for a number of English print media organizations in Pakistan.
