( The Friday Column ) Good days shall return

An old saying has it that “when you dance with the devil, the devil doesn’t change. The devil changes you.” In this country, it is almost impossible to trace evil in the singular. It is always in multiples that one discovers it and its gruesome destruction. Simultaneously, one is amazed at the finesse and dexterity with which evil schemes are planned and executed, leaving little to no trace behind.

The act of tracking such crimes is made even more difficult because of the often open and blatant support the state apparatus provides to protect evil and its doers. It even goes on to reward them with nothing less than putting them in seats of power to continue playing their dastardly games as may please their whims. The camaraderie between the evildoers and their protectors and promoters is close and has lasted through decades, only with ignorable occasions of rupture.

But it is also true that the evildoers and their orchestrators were never so vividly exposed as they are now. I don’t think they could even have imagined that such an occasion would arise when they would stand stark naked in the court of the people. It is also true that the animus people now harbour for the planners and executers of such evil plans is unbridgeable and the possibility of this relationship changing for the better is depleting with time. With it are also disappearing the chances of revival of the bond of traditional affection that had transcended some tragic events in the past.

With old bonds having wilted under the weight of the people's power, a general perception pervades the environment that a constitutional and sustainable approach should be adopted. But those who wield power through a gravely rigged electoral process are resisting the drive with every instrument at their disposal as also the brazen support of the power-wielders. They understand that once they relinquish charge and give way to the induction of an honest breed of rulers who would advance the interests of the state and its people in preference to fattening their coffers with illicitly earned billions, their chances of any revival in power would become extinct.

This is an eventuality they remain unwilling to contend with. So, they are using the weapons of barbarity and fascism to prolong the night of agony for the state and its people with the former teetering on the brink of capitulation and the latter surviving on the fringes of life, eternally struggling for two measly meals a day.

But it is also unnatural that such a state would continue indefinitely. It is bound to unravel. This realization is sinking in with time, thus generating a feeling of fear among the power-wielders who have been used to controlling the levers of authority with their jumping jacks acting as their proxies to carry forth the work of domestic colonization.

Having successfully dealt with the likes of Sharifs and Zardaris by employing the trick of kicking out one to bring in the other and then kicking the second out to bring back the first, they could not fathom the immensity of challenges they would encounter if they were to deal with a man of character with an immeasurable stock of grit, resolve and perseverance. When Imran Khan became the prime minister after winning the 2018 elections, they were simply not prepared to deal with his integrity and character.

So, they started conspiring to oust him from the very beginning. It took them over three years of partnership with a bunch of criminals from the Sharif and Zardari clans, and billions in cash distributed to wean his assembly members away from him before they could see his back. They celebrated their ‘victory’ by plonking their erstwhile corrupt partners back in seats of power.

They did not stop there. Instead of capitulating, when Khan showed signs of resistance, they took to playing their evil tricks. They first tried to render him politically irrelevant. Then was the turn to eliminate him physically. Having failed in both attempts, they implicated him in fake, frivolous and fraudulent cases. They incarcerated Khan in three cases for a total of 31 years. They did not spare his wife either who has been imprisoned in one case.

But here they were in store for a challenge that continues to grow. An incarcerated Khan has become a mightier persona for the power-wielders than the one who was a free man. His size and stature have kept growing as he commands the hearts of the people who gave him a thumping majority in the delayed elections which were finally held on February 8. But the people’s mandate was stolen in the thick of the night when winners were made to lose and those who had been humiliated in the initial vote count emerged victorious when the day dawned on February 9. The conspirators and their cohorts thought that they had finally won the day and Khan would be a forgotten story. They did not realize that they were in store for an even bigger shock.

A vast variety of adversities heaped upon the person of Khan has neither dampened his spirit nor diluted the resolve of his followers. Khan’s popularity cycle has not flattened. It continues to grow. A man the conspirators thought would be easily dumped has grown in stature beyond their wildest speculations. Today, he sits in his small cell at Adiala, holding the key to the fate of the country. He resonates in the dreams of people across the length and breadth of the country who are eager to obey every command he gives.

Repeated setbacks should have brought the dance of the devil to an end. Good sense beginning with respecting people’s mandate should have been accessed to find a way out of the horrible impasse the country is stuck in. But the power-wielders and their criminal partners still believe that they must continue using terror as a weapon to subdue the spirit and resolve of Khan and his followers.

That has not been and that will not be. The one they are trying to weaken continues to grow stronger. His strength does not come from brandishing weapons. It resides in the hearts of the people who repose an unflinching faith in his commitment to their cause.

With him gaining unstoppable strength, his adversaries grow weaker. It is only a bloated ego that stalls the path into the future. But it shall clear. Khan shall be back to steer the ship. And with him, good days shall return to the fold.

The writer is the information secretary of the PTI, and a

fellow at King’s College London. He tweets/posts @RaoofHasan