Imran Khan is in jail. Why does no one seem to care?

Pakistan has a new prime minister (PM). And the world has barely noticed.

Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, a member of the Balochistan Awami Party considered extremely close to the military establishment, is the caretaker PM who will preside over the next elections. But the headlines that stand out from the dystopian churn in Pakistan are very different.

The images of churches under assault and the plaintive pleas from bishops are top of the mind, followed by the Pakistan Cricket Board’s attempt to erase Imran Khan from its promotional videos. Social media outrage, including from cricketers such as Wasim Akram, led to the reluctant reinstatement of Khan. But the controversy is an apt metaphor for the rise and fall of Khan, probably the Pakistani known to more Indians than anyone else across generations.

So, why is there no great sympathy for Khan?

By all accounts, if elections were to be held today, Khan would win.

In fact, irrespective of where you stand on the charges against him — he has been convicted for profiteering from State gifts — it’s clear that his rivals, both in the army and politics, want him out of the way to block his participation in the polls.

His supporter, Salman Ahmed, the Junoon musician, told me, “They will poison him in jail, he has been placed in a death cell... He has not been allowed food or water from home...”

In any other country, this would sound like random hyperbole; in Pakistan, this is entirely plausible. And yet, the world, fatigued perhaps from Pakistan’s perennial internal drama, isn’t overly exercised.

There could be two reasons for this.

The obvious one: Every Pakistan watcher knows that in post-coup Pakistan, the military has it better than ever before. No longer do you need to be vilified as the dictator who grabbed power from the representatives of the people. It is much easier to be in the shadows, remain wealthy, influential and in command.

Despite widespread street support for leaders who take on the deep State, the Pakistan military has perfected the art of presenting a civilian facade, while holding the reins of power. The world has come to understand that despite the courage of ordinary political activists, for the foreseeable future, electoral democracy cannot grow roots in the country.

The second, and less obvious reason, for Khan’s isolation? He has been devoured by all that he stood and advocated for when he was in a position of power.

Khan built his reputation and street cred by playing a dangerous populist game. He pivoted from Casanova to conservative, playboy to pious, in a breathtaking flip. More staggering than his born-again orthodoxy was his refusal to endorse basic liberal political values. I will never forget interviewing him on a reporting assignment to Pakistan, when he said scornfully, “Liberals are the scum of Pakistan... They are fascists, I don’t know these liberals because these liberals back the bombing of villages. They back drone attacks. They have criticised me because I opposed this war on terror. I opposed this criminal bombing, aerial bombing of villages, women and children getting killed. And these people were applauding it. These are not liberals. This is the scum of Pakistan who call themselves liberals...”

The former PM, once baited with the moniker of ‘Taliban Khan’, built his politics on the back of over-simplistic hyperbole, a flirtation with religious extremism and styling himself as the poster boy of the Pakistan army. Now that he is on the other side, all the ideas and people he lashed out at when he was more influential are hardly going to spring to his support.

Much as his fans lament how Khan is being treated in prison, in his earlier avatar, Khan did the same to his bete noire, Nawaz Sharif. In 2019, he vowed that Sharif, then the anti-establishment voice, wanted it too easy in jail. “Nawaz Sharif wants food from home in jail, he wants air conditioning in jail. But in a country where half the population has no air conditioning or TV, what kind of punishment is this?” he asked.

Today, Sharif tells the story of when his wife Kulsoom Nawaz was dying, jail authorities under Khan’s regime were so hostile that they did not allow him a phone call or a meeting. The 12-hour parole he got was after she had died. Khan is, thus, hardly in a position to expect better than what he was willing to offer his opponents.

And fittingly, the two choices he may have today are the same that were before Sharif — go into exile or face action under the Army Act, which could mean a lifetime in prison or even a death sentence.

In Pakistan, it is only the actors that change, never the plot or the script.

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist. The views expressed are personal