Khan in the Dark |
Photograph Source: Voice of America – Public Domain
The persistent rumours that imprisoned Pakistani politician Imran Khan is dead have been crackling away like Lahore firecrackers these past few weeks. They feel less like revelations than the arrival of something long predicted. Or are they just the manifestations of an over-inventive public and mistrusted military?
Khan, if still alive, has come to resemble Julian Assange when Assange was in confinement. He is not so much an Assange-like selfless warrior as a nonetheless remarkable human being living only a parallel existence to the rest of us. He has become, in the public imagination at least, a man shimmering darkly from his prison cell like a character in a gothic novel.
And to think that Imran Khan was remarkable even before politics propelled him into this other light—now darkness—of a country that never seems truly at ease with itself. Remember, Pakistan emerged through a combination of Jinnah’s political leadership, British colonial decision-making, and the wider politics of Indian nationalism, communal angst, and the snuffing out of empire.
Imran Khan—at the risk of this sounding like his obituary—was born into an affluent Pashtun family in Lahore’s well-heeled Zaman Park. This was 73 years ago. He attended the city’s exclusive Aitchison College, then the Royal Grammar School in Worcester, England. According to one former English schoolfriend, Khan was big on South Asian music as well as cricket: “We’d often find our tape recorder had gone missing—invariably into his room. He’d play Mohammed Rafi on repeat.” Khan then studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford, an unoriginal but often influential choice for aspiring politicians. But it was cricket—and a well-publicised social life beyond music—which consumed not only Khan but the diary sections of every British tabloid newspaper.
In 1983, a few weeks before I........