Imran Khan Posts

Imran Khan: Memoir ( Jan 2012, BusinessWorld online)

Imran Khan: Memoir ( Jan 2012, BusinessWorld online)


This review was published on 20 Jan 2012 in BusinessWorld online. The original link is: http://www.businessworld.in/en/storypage/-/bw/on-a-very-sticky-wicket/379203.0/page/0

As Pakistan is all set to face yet another political tempest, reading the memoirs of one of the key players in the drama — cricketing legend Imran Khan — is worth the effort. In Pakistan: A Personal History, Khan reflects upon the watershed moments in his life. The memoir addresses Pakistani youth — befuddled by existential questions pertaining to their state and their identity — and issues concerning the war on terror — when and how will it end? Are there any solutions? And this memoir is just that. Khan barely dwells upon the magnificent career he had as a sportsman, except to have an account of the memorable and miraculous 1992 World Cup Victory in Australia. He does mention his nine-year-old marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, the birth of his sons and the slander campaign that was instituted against his wife for being a Jew, insinuating that this marriage was the first step in the establishment of a Zionist state in Pakistan. But details of his personal life, except for those relevant to his political career including his growing identity as a Muslim, are relegated to the background. He does not spend too much time discussing Indo-Pak relations either, but he is clear that political dialogue can settle disputes.

For a man who belongs to the elite in Pakistan, with a Western upbringing, educated at Aitchison College, the English-medium public school in Lahore, followed by the Royal Grammar School in Worcester and Keble College, Oxford, and later a successful and legendary cricketer, to enter politics was a major turning point in his life. He established his party, Tehreek-e-Insaaf, nearly fifteen years ago. He decided to set up the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Lahore to provide free care to the very poor. It required seed money of $ 22 million, apart from other funds to sustain it. During the long process of fund raising, the man who was considered powerful and invincible had to face funding fatigue, and learn humility, when the poorest of the poor, came forward and donated small sums of money.

Imran Khan also dwells upon Pakistan’s damaging relationship with US, especially the aid that it is given. “The greatest danger that we face today is if we keep pursuing the current strategy of taking aid from the US and bombing our own people, we could be pushing our army towards rebellion.” He is quite appalled by the impact that this financial lifeline has had on Pakistan. For him, post 9/11, Pakistan is “a country that has fought the US’s war for the last eight years when we had nothing to do with 9/11. Pakistan has over 34,000 people dead (including 6,000 soldiers), has lost over $68 billion (while the total aid coming into the country amounted to $20 billion) and has over half a million people from our tribal areas internally displaced, and with 50 per cent facing unprecedented poverty (while 140,000 Pakistani soldiers were deployed all along our border).” For him a turning point in the political history of Pakistan was 2 May 2011, the killing of Osama bin Laden by the Americans in Abbotabad, a mere 50 kilometres away from Islamabad, and a mile from Pakistan’s Military Academy.

He does not spend too much time discussing Indo-Pak relations, but he is very clear that the Pakistani “foreign policy has to be sovereign and needs to be reviewed with all our neighbours – especially India. All our disputes with India should be settled through political dialogue, and the activities of the intelligence agencies — of both countries — must be curtailed.” In fact, the book was recalled within a week of its release in London as the Partition-time map shows ‘Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir’ shaded in the same colour as that of Pakistan. According to the press release that was issued by the publishers, “the mistake was made by the publishers as the map included in the book was not the one provided to them by Mr Khan”.

Pakistan: A Personal History is a memoir that reads like an election manifesto. It concludes with these lines, where Imran Khan is very sure about his political future. “Fifteen years after forming the party, I feel that my party and I are not only ready, but that mine is the only party that can get Pakistan out of its current desperate crisis. After fourteen years of the most difficult struggle in my life, my party is finally taking off, spreading like wildfire across the country, so that today it is the first choice of 70 per cent of Pakistanis under the age of thirty. … For the first time, I feel Tehree-e-Insaaf is the idea whose time has come.” It is not surprising that this book has been published in 2011, on the eve of elections that are being planned in Pakistan.

(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 30-01-2012)

Lunch with FT: 52 Classic interviews

Lunch with FT: 52 Classic interviews

Lunch with FT: 52 Classic interviews published by the Financial Times and Penguin Books to celebrate 125 years of the paper. It consists of interviews with legendary people who have had lunch with the FT from 1994. Lunch with the FT was conceived by Max Wilkinson, editor of the Weekend FT. He thought the new interview format would provide a ‘ray of sunshine’ in the paper. The rules were straightforward. The guest/interview would choose the restaurant, and the FT would foot the bill. The interviews were conducted by the FT’s global network of columnists and correspondents.

The book consists of interviews with an international list of Who’s Who — Michael Caine, Angelina Jolie, Jeff Bezos, Mo Ibrahim, George Soros, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, Jennifer Paterson, Saif Gaddafi, Angela Merkel, Vaclav Havel, Jacques Attali, Imran Khan and James Watson to name a few. It is the kind of book you dip into, to learn about the human side of a person who happens to be influential in their sphere of work. We tend to put achievers on a pedestal but a freewheeling conversation over a good lunch can make a person reveal aspects of their personality that are otherwise well concealed under their professional demeanour. For instance the conversation with James Watson, the man who discovered DNA, has to be one of the most controversial ones. From the interview, I quote:

” From universal DNA fingerprinting to bizarre manipulations of animal DNA, Watson is prepared to endorse a range of uses for the technology that make make liberals blanch, ‘If everyone’s genetic fingerprint were taken,’ he observes, ‘it would take away from our liberty to commit crime.’
More controversial still, Watson argues that if technology permits it, women should be able to abort homosexual foetuses. ‘Most women want grandchildren and do not say with glee that their son is homosexual,’ he says.
This kind of full frontal assault on political correctness has got Watson into hot water in the past. IT is easy to see how his willingness to discuss the ethical vanishing point of genetics has sometimes obscured a genuinely humanitarian desire to limit human suffering.”

As the interviewer goes on to add, “Watson’s impatience to make genetics practical was heightened by the illness of his son, Rufus, who suffers from autism thought to be epilepsy of the thalamus. It was around the time of his son’s diagnosis in 1986 that Watson was installed as the chief cartographer in charge of mapping the human genome. On the subject of his son, who is now in hospital, the ever-effusive scientist starts to clam up. ‘I do not see the need for immortality. But I do have a sick son in hospital. If we knew enough science we could help him. Fame is irrelevant.’ ”

According to the editor, Lionel Barber some excellent interviews that failed to make the cut. These were Paulo Coelho talking about prostitutes and the Pope with fellow author A.N.Wilson or Roger Waters of Pink Floyd comparing himself to Shakespeare and Woody Guthrie — and ordering a piece of GBP75 piece of gravadlax. To the list I would also add the interview with Robert Silvers, editor, NYRB ( http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/091ba1b6-6576-11e2-a3db-00144feab49a.html#axzz2OfbxeZqs ) that was conducted in Jan 2013. Probably too late to be included in the commemorative volume.

For some more about these lunches read FT columnist Matthew Engel on the 18th anniversary of the lunch: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/930857a0-8d3d-11e1-8b49-00144feab49a.html#axzz2Ol2aaFE8 . In India, the only paper that I know of doing a similar series of interviews is the Hindu.

Verdict: I liked reading this book, probably one of those volumes that will remain in my personal library since it captures a moment in time well. As for instance the interview with a young Jeff Bezos or the conversation with Mo Ibrahim, soon after he had sold his telecom business and was on the verge of setting up the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, which awards a $5 million initial payment, and a $200,000 annual payment for life to African heads of state who deliver security, health, education and economic development to their constituents and democratically transfer power to their successors. My only grouse is that there is not a single date printed of when the interview was conducted or published.

2 April 2013

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