Islamabad:
What do Imran Khan and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar have in common? Perhaps nothing very much on the face of it but Imran Khan, who believes he will be Pakistan's next Prime Minister says, he has been tracking the Bihar chief minister's political career. Speaking to NDTV in Islamabad, the cricketer-turned-politician says he and his party have learnt a lot from Nitish's political mantras. Imran Khan also says Osama Bin Laden should have been put on trial in much the same way that Saddam Hussain was. Shooting him, he argues, has only made Bin Laden a martyr for some people. If Ajmal Kasab could get a legal trial, says Imran, why not Osama bin Laden?
Here's the full transcript of the interview:
NDTV: If you read the headlines, the international headlines, it seems as if in Pakistan there is a new uncertainty every day, but if the politics of Pakistan are confusing and unpredictable there is one political leader who is beginning to sound more and more certain about his future and his country's future and that's Imran Khan. Over the last few interviews that we have done with him in Pakistan he has repeated again and again that he is set to be the country's future, he has statistics to back that up and every recently popular poll has actually shown a surge in popularity. Once again here in Islamabad we are talking to Imran Khan.
It sounds at this moment that like almost everything is going your way, but people analyse reasons for that very differently. Some say it's not so much what you have decided to do, but more than almost everybody else in mainstream politics has failed, that you are riding on a wave of public disaffection here, is that how you see it?
Imran Khan: Well that's one of the main reasons. People are sick of the old political parties. They have taken turns over the last 25 years and they have taken turns to fall to the depths of bad governance. The whole thing hinges on governance. I was reading about Nitish Kumar in Bihar and the secret of success is that you provide good governance, provide enabling environment for investment, prosperity, people are happy. Here we have the worst ever governance in our history, a side effect of that of course is lawlessness, terrorism and everything. Now people are tired, four-and-a-half years of misery, worst ever economic conditions, unemployment, load shedding there is hardly any electricity and then they have no ability to cope with this growing radicalisation and extremism and terrorism.
NDTV: It's interesting that you quote the example of the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, because in India he is widely seen to be so successful because he is basically focused on a development and governance platform, and he is not really into identity politics, whether of religion or region, it's been an economic and development oriented platform. Yet your critics and even other commentators who give you credit for creating this very popular movement that's following you, sometimes describe you as a radical and sometimes describe you as a conservative. They don't see you as somebody who is delivering on a development or a governance oriented programme platform. What would you say to that?
Imran Khan: But you know when I came into politics this whole thing about radicalisation or being radical, this is only recent, this is since the war on terror that I took a stand firmly that we should not have military operations. We cannot beat terrorism through military operations. I always felt that it's winning the people over to your side, it's a heart and mind war, it's isolating the terrorist rather than the insanity where we have military operations, collateral damage and we created the Pakistani Taliban, there were no Taliban in Pakistan before. Today after eight years of military operations we have lost over 40 thousand lives, we, the country, just in the last four years it has cost the country $50 billion and are we winning the war? There is more extremism in Pakistan today than ever in our history. People like us have to think twice before we make a single statement, because we are scared of fanatics now which are created by this war. But my main platform, when I came into politics, was governance. I came in on an anti-corruption platform. So actually it goes back to Nitish Kumar, because we just unveiled our economic agenda, we had three months of deliberation. It is very similar to what Nitish Kumar did in Bihar because when I read his book, exactly the same steps were taken which we intend to take.
NDTV: So you sense parallels in a sense there and you do see yourself as forming your politics around an anti-corruption, pro-economic development platform essentially?
Imran Khan: Well corruption is a symptom of poor governance. So basically if you fix your government system, actually the difference between developed world and the third world is governance. Switzerland is a classic example, no resources, nothing but prosperous, Singapore, in front of us, we saw Singapore in last 40 years going from right down to up there because Lee Kuan Yew gave them good governance. So Nitish Kumar's success was clean government and transparency. We are the only party in Pakistan where all our central executive members have declared their assets and we put them on our website and that's what Nitish Kumar did.
NDTV: It's interesting that you said even politicians like yourself are scared of making statements out of fear of how it will be deconstructed, misinterpreted, misused by the fanatics. Then what is the future of Pakistan?
Imran Khan: I have no fears. It is this that you have to be very careful, because the polarisation in the society, it has grown with such a pace with this war, because basically it has been perceived amongst majority as a war against Islam. So once it is war against Islam there is no dearth of people willing to die for their religion. And unfortunately some of those include the least educated people and their interpretation of Islam is black and white and anything they can misconstrue. Which actually could be cultural but they would make it anti-religious. So the reason I objected to this war was that I always thought this would create fanaticism and extremism. And unfortunately the way we have conducted this war, the ruling elite first taking money from elite to create jihadis and mujahidin as a hero, when Soviet's occupied Afghanistan, and you take money from the US and again you take dollars from the US to kill the same mujahidins. Now they are terrorists because the US is occupying Afghanistan. It's terrorism but when Soviets were occupying it, it was jihad and therefore you were heroes. This U-turn has created a schism in the society, the same people who were patronised by CIA and ISI they turned against both, so anyway what we are facing in Pakistan is a desperate situation. You need a credible government to get out of this and to get out of this you need to get out of war. We are no longer fighting the US war, make it our war and disengage from the US. Unless we do it they will always consider it jihad and jihad means suicide, the people who kill themselves, they think they will go to heaven because they are martyrs. So only when you dis-associate yourselves, disengage, jihad finishes, then only you can try and isolate ideological terrorists.
NDTV: Now you were planning a march in Waziristan in extension of everything what you have said. But the headlines are already grabbed by the fact that you have received a death threat from a Taliban spokesperson. He later seemed to take back a little bit of his statement but he wasn't clear enough whether that death threat was being withdrawn. So isn't this ironic because your critics dubbed you the Taliban Khan and here Taliban issuing a death threat? But liberals are arguing that see this is the Taliban you wanted to defend and now they are turning around and attacking you. In an interview to me you had called liberals in Pakistan as the scum of the society.
Imran Khan: These liberals who back bombing of villages and where innocent women and children get killed, they call it collateral damage, I call them the scum. No liberal can be pro-war. Who are these people in Pakistan who call themselves liberal and sanction bombing of villages? I mean, people in the West and even in India, you don't know what's happening. Here are these villages, militants in villages because these are old areas. There are no tanks, there are no artillery positions, there are no bunkers, and these people are wandering around in villages amongst the villagers. And the government is using helicopter gunships, F16s, drone attacks by the Americans, artillery from 10 km away on the villages and guess what happens, are they trying to tell us when the bomb explodes only a militant gets killed. So the moment this collateral damages any member of the family, then goes and joins the militants. Hence, we are creating militants. This war is creating militants. So my recipe from day one, for which I was called pro-Taliban, was it to win the war, to win the people of the tribal areas to your side.
NDTV: But the Americans just recently said that they got a major Haqqani group leader because of these drone attacks?
Imran Khan: How many times have we heard about a major target been killed by drone attacks. Major target was Osama-bin-Laden, what difference has it made? Have they won the war?
NDTV: So you are saying that killing of Osama-bin-Laden has made absolutely no difference to the extremism, to the fanaticism, to in fact the men who are ready to take up arms and die for it? There is no difference?
Imran Khan: In fact where Osama-bin-Laden was killed he's become a martyr to certain section of people. So he's probably more an inspiration. Look, if I was them I would have actually done what they did with Saddam Hussain. Put him on trial just like they did with the Nazis, who was responsible for some 50 million deaths, they still put them on a trial in Nuremberg. This is what civilised societies do. I would have put him on trial, put charges on him and demystified the whole thing.
NDTV: You are saying that the US SEALs should not have killed Osama-bin-Laden?
Imran Khan: I do not believe in extra judicial killing I believe in the due process of law, my party is called movement for justice.
NDTV: But the accounts suggest that he was armed.
Imran Khan: Have you read the latest account where they shot through the window and then he was lying.
NDTV: He was still the mastermind of God knows how many deaths and how many mass murders and 9/11 and all of that. Do you really want mercy for Osama-bin-Laden?
Imran Khan: Not mercy, justice. You have mass murders, why do you put them on trial, why not lynch them? So, therefore, as a civilised society, this is the difference between barbarians and the civilised society. Everyone must go through a due process of law. You have done this with Kasab, he went through a due process of law. Well people have accepted it. Imagine if you had sort of just lynched him. There was so much anger.
NDTV: But he could have been killed in that encounter?
Imran Khan: In an encounter if people die it's a different thing, but imagine if you had caught him and he was in prison and there was so much anger in Mumbai and they would have lynched him. All I'm saying is India followed a due process of law it's the way to do it.
NDTV: Taliban's threat, the irony of that. How do you see it?
Imran Khan: It doesn't worry me because basically I don't fear death, my only thing is that the people, the huge convoy that is going with me and there are foreigners coming, there are anti-war activists, there are human right organisations from western countries that are coming with me, there are this international media I'm taking with me, because basically we want to tell the Western media this propaganda that drones only killed militants has to be dispelled by actually journalist interviewing people who are affected in the drone attack. So, what needs to be understood by the Western media is that they are counterproductive. In Wikileaks, the former Ambassador of USA in Pakistan Anne Patterson, in Wikileaks she was telling the State Department that this is counterproductive. So, I don't understand, what are they achieving out of this because if surely this warfare was the way of winning the war, then we should be winning it.
NDTV: But you say that threat from the Taliban doesn't worry you, but does it disillusion you because you have, before anybody else advocated, that the dialogue is necessary and at that time you were virtually trashed by the sections of your own society for saying that. Today the trilateral process of that dialogue is gone with the Afghani Taliban. Now they are threatening you?
Imran Khan: Look, first of all you must remember there is not one Taliban, there are 17 Taliban groups. The motivation of every group is different. When people say you are pro-Taliban, what do the people mean by that. Are they talking about the ideology, because if you talk about the ideological Taliban, in my opinion, it's not 3-4 per cent of the militants, because if the ideology was that strong when Taliban were in power in Afghanistan in 1996 to 2001 they should have been the Taliban in the tribal areas, because it's adjacent, but there was no Taliban here. So, it is clearly these people are fighting in reaction. These people are fighting because of collateral damage, because of anti-Americanism, because they have always fought with every foreigner, I mean from Russians to the British to the Mughals. If you have understood that, then the way to win this war is winning the people of the tribal areas to your side. The reason why I'm confident that we will be safe is because I have been invited by the tribes, the biggest tribe is Massod, the South Waziristan and then the Wazir tribe, both tribes have invited me. Once they invite you because I know the tribal areas you have complete protection.
NDTV: You have been criticised by many here in Pakistan and even internationally for your policy of engagement with all. That is how you have often even explained for example members of your party sharing a platform with Difa-e-Pakistan which includes the Lashkar, which includes the group that Hafiz Saeed belongs to. In many interviews including mine you have said well I am engaging, I'm not endorsing. Isn't that a very thin line?
Imran Khan: Look under normal circumstances if Pakistan was a country under normal conditions, yes, I think I would, there are certain people who would have such an extreme ideology of hatred that I would not engage with them. Today Pakistan is a fractured society, it has been divided as we speak, the killing of Shias in Pakistan, I mean I as a Pakistani feel ashamed, embarrassed and pained by it, because I have been in Gilgit where some 40 people surrounded these buses, took out Shia members, read their ID cards and shot them in the forehead. This sort of thing never happened before.
NDTV: But would you engage with the people who did this to Shias? That will be my question.
Imran Khan: The point I'm trying to say is the country has reached a level which never existed before and this is not just Shia-Sunni, in Karachi Pashto fighting Urdu speaking, fighting Sindhi speaking, in Balochistan there is Balochistan Liberation Army which is killing people which is a terrorist organisation. Now if I wanted to stabilise Pakistan, I have to have a period where there is truth and reconciliation. I must have to get everyone together and on some sort of a common agenda and you have to try that. Then of course you find that there are certain people who still remain outside, you can then isolate them.
NDTV: But why should these people not be punished as part of the truth and reconciliation? For example those who indulge in genocide of Shias or other sects, why they should not be punished on severest terms, or for example, or for example as an Indian many would say to you why should Hafiz Saeed not be behind bars? Surely justice is to come before truth and reconciliation?
Imran Khan: Truth and reconciliation means overall all the sort of divisive groups moving away, different organisations. All of them must be brought under one umbrella. What you're actually telling about is completely different people who commit crime, who kill people, who murder people, they must be brought to justice. They are two different things. I'm talking about organisations. Anyone who has been in war, I'm talking about particular people who have been in war. Truth and reconciliation doesn't mean that you forgive murders.
NDTV: But what happens to them? I mean, you spoke about due process to Ajmal Kasab. He wasn't lynched, his case has been decided by the highest court of India. Now Indians are wondering why is Hafiz Saeed roaming around free? The Lashker is associated to Difa-e-Pakistan. Your party members have shared a stage with them. You have been loved in India, you know India well, you have so many Indian friends. Mumbai is a city you know so well. Don't you feel the paradox?
Imran Khan: Are you trying to say that just because our member attended the DPC, well you're only talking about 2-3 organisations, there were lot of other organisations who are not, you know, considered militants or terrorists, so it was a broad based organisation, and to put it in context, the only our representative attended only two meetings, we are not part of the DPC, the DPC is an organisation of a lot of various factions, we are not part of them. They only attended two and after that because there was a group associated which is sectarian we did not attend any of the DPC after that. So I mean, just to put it in context, but as far as I am concerned you know your talking about someone involved against India, you keep naming Hafiz Saeed, the thing with Hafiz Saeed is that as long as the Pakistani courts do not convict him, and remember people in this country trust the Supreme Court. Now unless he is convicted in the court of law you got to give him the benefit of the doubt, because how can I say, just because he's been accused by India, it doesn't mean that I should immediately then say he should be jailed or he should be sentenced. Should I not say that he should be, as I said, the due process of law but does that make me anti-Indian. I mean I have known India better than probably any other Pakistani and I probably been loved by more Indians then probably any Pakistani.
NDTV: That's why I'm repeatedly asking you.
Imran Khan: I understand India better than other Pakistanis, let me tell you it's in their interest that anyone you know, you're talking about Hafiz Saeed or anyone, do not let them become martyrs. The worst thing you can do is not follow the due process of law, someone becomes a martyr and then other people then follow and want to become martyrs too.
NDTV: So are you saying with Hillary Clinton, for example announces a bounty for information that could lead to the arrest of Hafiz Saeed, that makes him a hero?
Imran Khan: Hillary Clinton when she announces a bounty on Hafiz Saeed is actually ruining the cause. I mean she's making it difficult for Pakistan government to take action on Hafiz Saeed, because people will think that it's on behest of the Americans and remember the latest poll, 74% of Pakistanis now, from last year which was 66%, 74% now think that America is an enemy. So you have people who would just immediately look things as black and white, America is an enemy so Hafiz Saeed is a hero.
NDTV: But you know you spoke about the judiciary but the world also sees headlines coming up on Pakistan, where a little child said to have Down Syndrome is put behind bars for blasphemy, and now of course subsequently many of those charges are found to be, you know they were fabricated, the person who did this has also been arrested, but that does not change the fact that in Pakistan as you have said, sometimes it's almost impossible to just stand up and speak just truth. You have said to me that seven years ago what happened to Salman Taseer would not have even been a headline, and today it's completely different, no one can have a sane conversation for blasphemy, little children are going to jail for blasphemy, so when we see this happening, when we as Indians for example see this happening, can we invest faith in the due process?
Imran Khan: No but, they are two different things. One is it's this issue of this 11 year-old-girl, I feel embarrassed, it hurts me as a Pakistani to see this thing, mockery of law, this is a total mockery of any law. I mean no law in the world would do this to an 11 year-old-girl and then add to it, even if she would not have Down Syndrome, you would not do that. So it is a total abusive law and I am glad that there's actually been a reaction and now the cleric who actually did he's in trouble himself. But look what has happened in Pakistan, it is a collapse of the rule of law, when the rule of law collapses then I am afraid all laws are abused. When Asif Zardari can become the President of Pakistan, the biggest criminal, so what do you expect. I mean when law means everyone is equal before law this whole drama going on in the Supreme Court today is Asif Zardari's 60 million dollars need to be protected in Switzerland, and so he's trying to destroy the Supreme Court to protect his money, so rule of law means everyone is equal. The reason why it works in the west is no Prime Minister can abuse law, but here the thing is it's a privilege to abuse law, that means that people who are strong are above law and masses have no access to justice.
NDTV: You said to me the last time I was here that you believe that the age of the military coup is now permanently over, you didn't see that ever happening again, but most people continue to believe that military in Pakistan continue to exercise a disproportionate amount of influence on the elected governments. You have been quoted as saying that, that would change if you were to lead this country. How would it change?
Imran Khan: Let me give a cricketing example, there are two captains, both have in the constitution same amount of powers, yet one captain is completely powerful and he doesn't allow any interference in the team, he's all powerful, and yet there is another captain you know, who no one listens to, the selectors impose their own team, the chairman interferes, the team you know, he doesn't, he can't even stand up to the team, so similarly with two Prime Ministers there is one Prime Minister who we have right now, well we have this new guy now Pervez Ashraf, no one listens to him, you have another Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a Prime Minister he was all powerful. Constitution gave both the same amount of powers so the difference is the moral authority, physical authority is the weakest, if a Prime Minister comes with the moral authority, where he is performing, we have the classic case of Erdogan in Turkey, well look at him now, Turkey's military was much more powerful than Pakistan, they actually hung a Prime Minister, there were several coups, who would have thought that the top generals are being court martialed for interfering in politics now, and just because there's a Prime Minister who's performed people are behind him, he has the moral authority.
NDTV: So you are saying that moral authority drives and diminishes the influence of the military in Pakistan if they were a leader.
Imran Khan: Now Barkha simply the moment you lose moral authority the Army has the physical authority, you can't compete with their physical authority.
NDTV: Your critics here in Pakistan repeatedly say that in some ways you are the Army's candidate, I know, I know what you are going to say, so we are going to go beyond that, you are going to say that when General Musharraf was here he couldn't command the kind of crowds that you can. So why do they call you army's candidate?
Imran Khan: Because they are petrified of this tsunami, they are petrified they have no answers to it, they have tried everything, they can't understand this revolution. Well Nawaz Sharif particularly, he was manufactured by the Army, General Gilani picked this businessman up and actually made him, I mean never has an army manufactured a politician as Nawaz Sharif was, General Zia and of course picked him up and made him, not because of his abilities, because he was pliable and then ISI gave him funds for which the case is now lying in the Supreme Court. They actually in 1990 gave him funds you know to contest elections, he was given money by the ISI so he thinks since he was made by the Army so he cannot understand this tsunami, so he thinks that the Army is backing me too, but let me just say one thing I mean Army right now across the board everyone is backing PTI. We have crossed 10 million members, 10 million, its unheard of. The only other party which has conducted a membership campaign is PML(N), they've got hundred thousand, you know a party which is been going on for God knows for how many years, they've just managed hundred thousand, so 10 million members, so this is a unique movement in Pakistan and my prediction is it has not even reached 40% of its potential. Closer to the elections of course, I hope you'll be covering it, you will see the full force of this, this it will sweep, it will destroy all the old power houses.
NDTV: What do you think should be the Army's case in Pakistan's politics?
Imran Khan: Like army anywhere, like in India. I think Pakistan has, I keep telling you has changed completely, given the performance this is the worst performance in the last four years of any government in our history. Had it been in the good old days we would have had a general sitting there and saying I've come to save the country. It didn't happen this time and believe me if the Army interfered, there'd be celebrations on the streets.
NDTV: Well it's been described as a judicial coup by those who believe that the judiciary is trying to oust a democratically elected leader?
Imran Khan: This has been orchestrated by those people sitting in power, who do not want an independence justice system. What is the fault of Chaudhry Iftikhar. What is his fault? He has had the gall to challenge the powerful who have been never been challenge before.
NDTV: And now he has been dragged into a controversy with his son and in a cynical environment everybody would say we do know who to believe, what to trust anymore.
Imran Khan: Well the government is trying to implicate him, the whole Zardari camp trying to make out that Chaudhry Iftikhar and his son is involved in some sort of a corruption. But I'm surprised that this kind of a government should start worrying about corruption, because corruption has broken all records. So clearly it's not because of them wanting to curtail corruption, it's because they wanted to blackmail the Chief Justice.
NDTV: And you believe that in a few months from now, when elections are held, this government will be history?
Imran Khan: If you believe in democracy, therefore, you must surely look at the opinion polls. Never has anyone been so hated in this country as Asif Zardari. You look at his rating in the opinion polls, never has someone fallen that low. Now if its democracy, how is he going to win the elections unless they are rigged?
NDTV: You sound so confident, that your former wife and partner Jemima Khan said that it was like the time when Pakistan won the World Cup, and you kept saying that we are going to win and nobody would believe you, and the odds at that time was obviously not as stacked in your favour as they are today, at least at your own estimation. Is it sort of like that, is that something you would compare this moment to?
Imran Khan: When I first said that we will sweep the elections, that's when it was the odds were the same as the World Cup, not now. Now it's the more the semi-finals stage, where everyone thought we had an even chance but then because I'm the only politician who was amongst the public and I saw this mood change about three years back. I saw the young people suddenly become politicised and then there were few rallies I did in the smaller areas, towns and I went to various universities and colleges and I knew the time had come. So, since then things have just snowballed, but the moment the caretaker set up comes in, that's when you will see the full force of Tehreek-e-Insaf.
NDTV: Talk a little bit about your personal journey to this point. The last few times I have met you, you seemed completely consumed, as if this is, in a sense, your mission in life. I have read somewhere that the fortune teller once told you that if you want to join politics, you could have actually been assassinated, and the reason that I am bringing that up is that in the Pakistan we know today, people are actually paying with their lives. Does that cross your mind because you have children, they don't live here, but you are also a parent? There are also other attachments in your life, you live in a volatile country, you are outspoken.
Imran Khan: That fortune teller told me something about 30 years back or 25 years back.
NDTV: Did you believe him?
Imran Khan: But then I was not even thinking of coming into politics and of course then I did not have faith. In Islam, in our holy book, it is very clear that the time of your death is in God's hands, so when he decides, neither can you bring it one minute forward or one minute later. It's in his hands. So, once you have complete faith your fear of death disappears so, therefore, I don't really worry about that. The only thing I worry about is my two children, but apart from that I have no fear at all.
NDTV: What do they think about you being in politics?
Imran Khan: Well, naturally, I mean, you know...
NDTV: I mean to say, do they ask you questions, do they tell you don't do this, we would rather you do something else?
Imran Khan: The younger one is a bit too young, but the older one, of course he worries, but then if you have no control about dying then why to worry about it. Remember, I have faith, but secondly I saw this right in front of my eyes when I sat at the cancer hospital. When we opened the cancer hospital my office was there, and I was there for five years and in these five years I used to see two of my own friends, healthy people arrive and six months later they were gone, and so we don't realize the fragility of life and death. We somehow think we will always live forever. There are million ways of dying so if you have to die you might as well die for a cause.
NDTV: Do you believe that politics have changed you? And I ask you that because interestingly Michelle Obama, in a completely different context, said politics doesn't change a man, it only reveals to public who he is, but in your case, if one were to map your life, I have read your memoirs, followed your life quiet closely, as have so many other people, they could be identified as watershed moments, you could have been one thing earlier become another thing. You went from being a student at Oxford who idealized Karl Marx and Mick Jagger together, which is an odd combination, to now being this politician who now is often described as a conservative, I mean in England, you would probably be a Tory.
Imran Khan: I mean, see, I'm not a conservative, I'm a liberal. That's one thing Taliban's said he's a liberal so he...
NDTV: They did not say that? It's funny, because you have attacked liberals and liberals have attacked you, and the Taliban is now calling you a liberal.
Imran Khan: But I'm a genuine liberal. I believe in life, I'm anti-war, I believe in freedom of expression, I believe in freedom of religion, I believe in the dignity of human beings and I don't believe in, I believe in freedom, I do not believe in those people who curtail other people's freedom, that's why I call myself a liberal. And by the way this is what my great idol, my role model, ideological role model Iqbal was. If you read Iqbal he was the ultimate liberal, and yet you know where you have to be conservative. There are certain things that have permanence, there are certain eternal principals that you have to follow. The problem with what happened in the 1960s, sex, drugs and rock and roll revolution was that, there are certain things you do not, no matter what happens, but there are eternal principals which you follow. So anyway that's not the debate. But I always think of myself as a liberal. When you say, you said something very interesting about politics. The only thing that changes you is a belief system, faith, that changes you because the belief system tells you that this is what you are doing on earth and this will happen when you will die. So it's the only thing that actually changes you, because you are accountable to God. So you think you can get away with things because no one is watching but when you become accountable to God, you change.
NDTV: When did that happen to you?
Imran Khan: 25 years back. But now I come, to you know, where she says that politics reveal, you reveal yourself. I disagree with that, I think what actually happens is that a human being evolves with challenges, so your objectives change you. To achieve a certain objective you have to change yourself. I could never even ask my father for money. I, even as a child, used to feel, somehow loss of respect even to ask my father for money. Yet when I started the cancer hospital, I had to go to the streets in Pakistan to collect money. So it was the objective that changed me. Similarly when you go to the politics, you know the idea of asking for votes for someone like me was so bizarre, you know asking people for votes. But actually for a certain objective you actually do change yourself.
NDTV: So how different is today's Imran from the Imran 30 years ago? What is the biggest difference?
Imran Khan: Very tolerant, very patient.
NDTV: So you were short tempered earlier?
Imran Khan: I wasn't very patient and yes I used to be short- tempered. Short tempered no, I was shy, if I felt someone was rude to me, I would react, I would react aggressively. I learnt to control that and actually I became very tolerant. Very rarely can people get me angry.
NDTV: What would drive you to anger?
Imran Khan: I do find rudeness, I find, when someone is abusive or rude I find always that difficult to handle. I find wrong allegations, my opponents have made lots of wrong allegations against me...
NDTV: Including of corruption, including of cancer hospital, you have sent a defamation notice.
Imran Khan: Which is why I am taking someone to court. Actually it's PML they always attack me on two fronts. My personal life and secondly, they attacked the cancer hospital and this time I decided to take them court. You know, we have a lot of evidence of corruption against both Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. Rather than answering those allegations they attacked me, but I have never been in government. So the only thing they could have said that I made money from the cancer hospital and that's why I took him to court.
NDTV: So when you look back at your life, and I know that you have written about this, you have written about years of hedonism and pleasure seeking, that changed for you and you are now different person. When you look back at that life, do you regret it or do you see that as a rites of passage?
Imran Khan: I have no regrets in life.
NDTV: None? No mistakes made, no regrets, none?
Imran Khan: Mistakes, so many mistakes but you know we are human beings, we make mistakes, but you know I had this. During my cricketing days I use to have this quality that at the end of the day's play, I would never sleep until I analysed my whole day's play, what I could have done differently. So before going to sleep I always use to do this exercise which remained with me throughout. So I always used to analyse my mistakes. Mistakes, is there anyone who can't make mistakes? But actually it's the ability to analyse your mistakes and you move forward, that's how you move forward in life. Regrets, no.
NDTV: None?
Imran Khan: No regrets.
NDTV: You sleep well at night?
Imran Khan: Despite all outer turbulence there is inner peace, I sleep very well.
NDTV: Now you are so sure that you are going to be the future of Pakistan, now I have to ask you, what would that mean for India? What would Imran Khan's India's policy be?
Imran Khan: What has to be done is that people of India and Pakistan need to understand the dividends of peace. I need to sell this and I will sell it to my people. Time has come for us to move forward. It doesn't mean that we don't have differences. Kashmir will always be the core issue, but there are ways of dealing with core issues. You don't have to have military means or militancy. You can deal with it in a civilised way. But we must understand that the greatest number of poor people live in this sub-continent. Our biggest duty must be to the suffering, to poor people and to the people of sub-continent and also on a positive side, this is probably the greatest opportunity for us to move ahead, provided this tension goes, this hostility goes. The benefits of peace are so enormous that you know the whole sub-continent will take off. Here we are sitting, Pakistan one side, India one side, China the other. India needs Pakistan; all the energy corridors are through Pakistan. India needs energy to become an economic giant. Pakistan-India markets I mean, there is so much, the benefits of peace.
NDTV: You said in the past that Kashmir, despite denials, did come pretty close to being, well, tantalizingly close to being well, resolved, not solved, but resolved.
Imran Khan: Well there are three ex-foreign ministers in my party, all three were involved in Kashmir negotiations and I was amazed that behind the doors, the back channels, the sort of progress that was made on Kashmir, I was amazed because we weren't told about this, how close we came. At one point I thought it could never be resolved after listening, taking the private briefing because some of the things, because people need to be prepared before you go to them, before you put these plans to them. But actually it is solvable. It is not impossible.
NDTV: We have come very close to it? And you have this almost from the horse's mouth?
Imran Khan: And we came very close to it and therefore you do need to have strong leadership. The whole thing about leadership as opposed to a manager, is that a leader shows people a vision. We have got to show the people of subcontinent a vision of what can happen if we are at peace. Believe me this is limitless.
NDTV: And we can play cricket again. Is that good or bad? One has to ask?
Imran Khan: It's a good thing. Sunny was a bit apprehensive about it. I don't know why people should think that someone from Pakistan would have endorsed Mumbai. Believe me everyone I spoke to was horrified by it. All human beings feel the same. How can you see innocent people being killed and not be horrified. Therefore to blame a whole country for Mumbai is wrong. Unless we claim it. For instance, Taliban and some militants when they kill someone they take credit for it. In Pakistan everyone condemned it. By the way I saw anger in India that's understandable. In the end you can't hold people responsible who have nothing to do with it and did not endorse it.
NDTV: So you don't want the cricket linked to Mumbai?
Imran Khan: No, I...
NDTV: Which is what I think Sunil Gavaskar spoke about...
Imran Khan: I think cricket links must be restored, you know there was a point when there was a peak in our relationship was actually when...
NDTV: No, so I am saying that don't link the cricket playing with what's happening in Mumbai trial.
Imran Khan: We should not link them, In fact everything should be delinked from Mumbai. We should understand that it was a tragedy which people of Pakistan did not endorse. We condemned it as much as and feel the pain of people.
NDTV: And as we end, last words for Sachin Tendulkar.
Imran Khan: What do I say about Sachin, such a great player but I can only say if I were in his position, I would want to leave on a high and my greatest worry was that I should never be at the mercy of the selectors.
NDTV: You actually feel that someone like Sachin could be at the mercy of the selectors?
Imran Khan: No, but you know, why put yourself in such position? I mean Sachin, what a brilliant record he has. Would he not want to, again I put myself in that position, my greatest worry was that I would not be able to perform to my abilities, so people will remember me not for, at my peak, but when I was leaving cricket.
NDTV: But you had General Zia asking you to come out of the retirement.
Imran Khan: But the reason I retired is that I did not want to be at the mercy of the selectors. I wanted to go out at my peak. The only reason I kept playing was then actually for the cancer hospital. The board of governance told me that if you get out of cricket you won't be able to collect money. That's the only reason for which I kept playing. But my fear always was that I did not want to, you know, having seen those heights, I just did not want to be at the mercy of selectors or people saying it's the time you should leave. That's why I respect Sunil Gavaskar, he left, he could have gone on. Sunil had one of the best defensive techniques I have ever seen in a batsman. Given that technique he could have gone on but he left at the peak when people said...
NDTV: So you don't think Sachin should continue, in other words in a polite way, that's what you are saying?
Imran Khan: I think Sachin is such a great player and people are emotionally attached. I can understand the Indian public who have been watching him for 23 years. They can't imagine life without Sachin. But from Sachin's point of view, knowing that the kind of pride that he takes in his cricket, there must be a time when he should decide that, you know, this is the right time to leave.
NDTV: What's tougher for you cricket or politics? If you look back at your life what has been a tougher ride?
Imran Khan: I felt that's a stepping stone. I mean if I hadn't gone through the cricket struggle, I would have not been able to build a hospital. Building a hospital was much tougher than cricket and then politics was more tougher than hospital. So basically every struggle, every milestone prepares you for a bigger struggle.
NDTV: I think you are at the cusp of another big shift, a tectonics shift in your life and your country's life. Thank you so much.
Imran Khan: Thank you.
Here's the full transcript of the interview:
NDTV: If you read the headlines, the international headlines, it seems as if in Pakistan there is a new uncertainty every day, but if the politics of Pakistan are confusing and unpredictable there is one political leader who is beginning to sound more and more certain about his future and his country's future and that's Imran Khan. Over the last few interviews that we have done with him in Pakistan he has repeated again and again that he is set to be the country's future, he has statistics to back that up and every recently popular poll has actually shown a surge in popularity. Once again here in Islamabad we are talking to Imran Khan.
It sounds at this moment that like almost everything is going your way, but people analyse reasons for that very differently. Some say it's not so much what you have decided to do, but more than almost everybody else in mainstream politics has failed, that you are riding on a wave of public disaffection here, is that how you see it?
Imran Khan: Well that's one of the main reasons. People are sick of the old political parties. They have taken turns over the last 25 years and they have taken turns to fall to the depths of bad governance. The whole thing hinges on governance. I was reading about Nitish Kumar in Bihar and the secret of success is that you provide good governance, provide enabling environment for investment, prosperity, people are happy. Here we have the worst ever governance in our history, a side effect of that of course is lawlessness, terrorism and everything. Now people are tired, four-and-a-half years of misery, worst ever economic conditions, unemployment, load shedding there is hardly any electricity and then they have no ability to cope with this growing radicalisation and extremism and terrorism.
NDTV: It's interesting that you quote the example of the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, because in India he is widely seen to be so successful because he is basically focused on a development and governance platform, and he is not really into identity politics, whether of religion or region, it's been an economic and development oriented platform. Yet your critics and even other commentators who give you credit for creating this very popular movement that's following you, sometimes describe you as a radical and sometimes describe you as a conservative. They don't see you as somebody who is delivering on a development or a governance oriented programme platform. What would you say to that?
Imran Khan: But you know when I came into politics this whole thing about radicalisation or being radical, this is only recent, this is since the war on terror that I took a stand firmly that we should not have military operations. We cannot beat terrorism through military operations. I always felt that it's winning the people over to your side, it's a heart and mind war, it's isolating the terrorist rather than the insanity where we have military operations, collateral damage and we created the Pakistani Taliban, there were no Taliban in Pakistan before. Today after eight years of military operations we have lost over 40 thousand lives, we, the country, just in the last four years it has cost the country $50 billion and are we winning the war? There is more extremism in Pakistan today than ever in our history. People like us have to think twice before we make a single statement, because we are scared of fanatics now which are created by this war. But my main platform, when I came into politics, was governance. I came in on an anti-corruption platform. So actually it goes back to Nitish Kumar, because we just unveiled our economic agenda, we had three months of deliberation. It is very similar to what Nitish Kumar did in Bihar because when I read his book, exactly the same steps were taken which we intend to take.
NDTV: So you sense parallels in a sense there and you do see yourself as forming your politics around an anti-corruption, pro-economic development platform essentially?
Imran Khan: Well corruption is a symptom of poor governance. So basically if you fix your government system, actually the difference between developed world and the third world is governance. Switzerland is a classic example, no resources, nothing but prosperous, Singapore, in front of us, we saw Singapore in last 40 years going from right down to up there because Lee Kuan Yew gave them good governance. So Nitish Kumar's success was clean government and transparency. We are the only party in Pakistan where all our central executive members have declared their assets and we put them on our website and that's what Nitish Kumar did.
NDTV: It's interesting that you said even politicians like yourself are scared of making statements out of fear of how it will be deconstructed, misinterpreted, misused by the fanatics. Then what is the future of Pakistan?
Imran Khan: I have no fears. It is this that you have to be very careful, because the polarisation in the society, it has grown with such a pace with this war, because basically it has been perceived amongst majority as a war against Islam. So once it is war against Islam there is no dearth of people willing to die for their religion. And unfortunately some of those include the least educated people and their interpretation of Islam is black and white and anything they can misconstrue. Which actually could be cultural but they would make it anti-religious. So the reason I objected to this war was that I always thought this would create fanaticism and extremism. And unfortunately the way we have conducted this war, the ruling elite first taking money from elite to create jihadis and mujahidin as a hero, when Soviet's occupied Afghanistan, and you take money from the US and again you take dollars from the US to kill the same mujahidins. Now they are terrorists because the US is occupying Afghanistan. It's terrorism but when Soviets were occupying it, it was jihad and therefore you were heroes. This U-turn has created a schism in the society, the same people who were patronised by CIA and ISI they turned against both, so anyway what we are facing in Pakistan is a desperate situation. You need a credible government to get out of this and to get out of this you need to get out of war. We are no longer fighting the US war, make it our war and disengage from the US. Unless we do it they will always consider it jihad and jihad means suicide, the people who kill themselves, they think they will go to heaven because they are martyrs. So only when you dis-associate yourselves, disengage, jihad finishes, then only you can try and isolate ideological terrorists.
NDTV: Now you were planning a march in Waziristan in extension of everything what you have said. But the headlines are already grabbed by the fact that you have received a death threat from a Taliban spokesperson. He later seemed to take back a little bit of his statement but he wasn't clear enough whether that death threat was being withdrawn. So isn't this ironic because your critics dubbed you the Taliban Khan and here Taliban issuing a death threat? But liberals are arguing that see this is the Taliban you wanted to defend and now they are turning around and attacking you. In an interview to me you had called liberals in Pakistan as the scum of the society.
Imran Khan: These liberals who back bombing of villages and where innocent women and children get killed, they call it collateral damage, I call them the scum. No liberal can be pro-war. Who are these people in Pakistan who call themselves liberal and sanction bombing of villages? I mean, people in the West and even in India, you don't know what's happening. Here are these villages, militants in villages because these are old areas. There are no tanks, there are no artillery positions, there are no bunkers, and these people are wandering around in villages amongst the villagers. And the government is using helicopter gunships, F16s, drone attacks by the Americans, artillery from 10 km away on the villages and guess what happens, are they trying to tell us when the bomb explodes only a militant gets killed. So the moment this collateral damages any member of the family, then goes and joins the militants. Hence, we are creating militants. This war is creating militants. So my recipe from day one, for which I was called pro-Taliban, was it to win the war, to win the people of the tribal areas to your side.
NDTV: But the Americans just recently said that they got a major Haqqani group leader because of these drone attacks?
Imran Khan: How many times have we heard about a major target been killed by drone attacks. Major target was Osama-bin-Laden, what difference has it made? Have they won the war?
NDTV: So you are saying that killing of Osama-bin-Laden has made absolutely no difference to the extremism, to the fanaticism, to in fact the men who are ready to take up arms and die for it? There is no difference?
Imran Khan: In fact where Osama-bin-Laden was killed he's become a martyr to certain section of people. So he's probably more an inspiration. Look, if I was them I would have actually done what they did with Saddam Hussain. Put him on trial just like they did with the Nazis, who was responsible for some 50 million deaths, they still put them on a trial in Nuremberg. This is what civilised societies do. I would have put him on trial, put charges on him and demystified the whole thing.
NDTV: You are saying that the US SEALs should not have killed Osama-bin-Laden?
Imran Khan: I do not believe in extra judicial killing I believe in the due process of law, my party is called movement for justice.
NDTV: But the accounts suggest that he was armed.
Imran Khan: Have you read the latest account where they shot through the window and then he was lying.
NDTV: He was still the mastermind of God knows how many deaths and how many mass murders and 9/11 and all of that. Do you really want mercy for Osama-bin-Laden?
Imran Khan: Not mercy, justice. You have mass murders, why do you put them on trial, why not lynch them? So, therefore, as a civilised society, this is the difference between barbarians and the civilised society. Everyone must go through a due process of law. You have done this with Kasab, he went through a due process of law. Well people have accepted it. Imagine if you had sort of just lynched him. There was so much anger.
NDTV: But he could have been killed in that encounter?
Imran Khan: In an encounter if people die it's a different thing, but imagine if you had caught him and he was in prison and there was so much anger in Mumbai and they would have lynched him. All I'm saying is India followed a due process of law it's the way to do it.
NDTV: Taliban's threat, the irony of that. How do you see it?
Imran Khan: It doesn't worry me because basically I don't fear death, my only thing is that the people, the huge convoy that is going with me and there are foreigners coming, there are anti-war activists, there are human right organisations from western countries that are coming with me, there are this international media I'm taking with me, because basically we want to tell the Western media this propaganda that drones only killed militants has to be dispelled by actually journalist interviewing people who are affected in the drone attack. So, what needs to be understood by the Western media is that they are counterproductive. In Wikileaks, the former Ambassador of USA in Pakistan Anne Patterson, in Wikileaks she was telling the State Department that this is counterproductive. So, I don't understand, what are they achieving out of this because if surely this warfare was the way of winning the war, then we should be winning it.
NDTV: But you say that threat from the Taliban doesn't worry you, but does it disillusion you because you have, before anybody else advocated, that the dialogue is necessary and at that time you were virtually trashed by the sections of your own society for saying that. Today the trilateral process of that dialogue is gone with the Afghani Taliban. Now they are threatening you?
Imran Khan: Look, first of all you must remember there is not one Taliban, there are 17 Taliban groups. The motivation of every group is different. When people say you are pro-Taliban, what do the people mean by that. Are they talking about the ideology, because if you talk about the ideological Taliban, in my opinion, it's not 3-4 per cent of the militants, because if the ideology was that strong when Taliban were in power in Afghanistan in 1996 to 2001 they should have been the Taliban in the tribal areas, because it's adjacent, but there was no Taliban here. So, it is clearly these people are fighting in reaction. These people are fighting because of collateral damage, because of anti-Americanism, because they have always fought with every foreigner, I mean from Russians to the British to the Mughals. If you have understood that, then the way to win this war is winning the people of the tribal areas to your side. The reason why I'm confident that we will be safe is because I have been invited by the tribes, the biggest tribe is Massod, the South Waziristan and then the Wazir tribe, both tribes have invited me. Once they invite you because I know the tribal areas you have complete protection.
NDTV: You have been criticised by many here in Pakistan and even internationally for your policy of engagement with all. That is how you have often even explained for example members of your party sharing a platform with Difa-e-Pakistan which includes the Lashkar, which includes the group that Hafiz Saeed belongs to. In many interviews including mine you have said well I am engaging, I'm not endorsing. Isn't that a very thin line?
Imran Khan: Look under normal circumstances if Pakistan was a country under normal conditions, yes, I think I would, there are certain people who would have such an extreme ideology of hatred that I would not engage with them. Today Pakistan is a fractured society, it has been divided as we speak, the killing of Shias in Pakistan, I mean I as a Pakistani feel ashamed, embarrassed and pained by it, because I have been in Gilgit where some 40 people surrounded these buses, took out Shia members, read their ID cards and shot them in the forehead. This sort of thing never happened before.
NDTV: But would you engage with the people who did this to Shias? That will be my question.
Imran Khan: The point I'm trying to say is the country has reached a level which never existed before and this is not just Shia-Sunni, in Karachi Pashto fighting Urdu speaking, fighting Sindhi speaking, in Balochistan there is Balochistan Liberation Army which is killing people which is a terrorist organisation. Now if I wanted to stabilise Pakistan, I have to have a period where there is truth and reconciliation. I must have to get everyone together and on some sort of a common agenda and you have to try that. Then of course you find that there are certain people who still remain outside, you can then isolate them.
NDTV: But why should these people not be punished as part of the truth and reconciliation? For example those who indulge in genocide of Shias or other sects, why they should not be punished on severest terms, or for example, or for example as an Indian many would say to you why should Hafiz Saeed not be behind bars? Surely justice is to come before truth and reconciliation?
Imran Khan: Truth and reconciliation means overall all the sort of divisive groups moving away, different organisations. All of them must be brought under one umbrella. What you're actually telling about is completely different people who commit crime, who kill people, who murder people, they must be brought to justice. They are two different things. I'm talking about organisations. Anyone who has been in war, I'm talking about particular people who have been in war. Truth and reconciliation doesn't mean that you forgive murders.
NDTV: But what happens to them? I mean, you spoke about due process to Ajmal Kasab. He wasn't lynched, his case has been decided by the highest court of India. Now Indians are wondering why is Hafiz Saeed roaming around free? The Lashker is associated to Difa-e-Pakistan. Your party members have shared a stage with them. You have been loved in India, you know India well, you have so many Indian friends. Mumbai is a city you know so well. Don't you feel the paradox?
Imran Khan: Are you trying to say that just because our member attended the DPC, well you're only talking about 2-3 organisations, there were lot of other organisations who are not, you know, considered militants or terrorists, so it was a broad based organisation, and to put it in context, the only our representative attended only two meetings, we are not part of the DPC, the DPC is an organisation of a lot of various factions, we are not part of them. They only attended two and after that because there was a group associated which is sectarian we did not attend any of the DPC after that. So I mean, just to put it in context, but as far as I am concerned you know your talking about someone involved against India, you keep naming Hafiz Saeed, the thing with Hafiz Saeed is that as long as the Pakistani courts do not convict him, and remember people in this country trust the Supreme Court. Now unless he is convicted in the court of law you got to give him the benefit of the doubt, because how can I say, just because he's been accused by India, it doesn't mean that I should immediately then say he should be jailed or he should be sentenced. Should I not say that he should be, as I said, the due process of law but does that make me anti-Indian. I mean I have known India better than probably any other Pakistani and I probably been loved by more Indians then probably any Pakistani.
NDTV: That's why I'm repeatedly asking you.
Imran Khan: I understand India better than other Pakistanis, let me tell you it's in their interest that anyone you know, you're talking about Hafiz Saeed or anyone, do not let them become martyrs. The worst thing you can do is not follow the due process of law, someone becomes a martyr and then other people then follow and want to become martyrs too.
NDTV: So are you saying with Hillary Clinton, for example announces a bounty for information that could lead to the arrest of Hafiz Saeed, that makes him a hero?
Imran Khan: Hillary Clinton when she announces a bounty on Hafiz Saeed is actually ruining the cause. I mean she's making it difficult for Pakistan government to take action on Hafiz Saeed, because people will think that it's on behest of the Americans and remember the latest poll, 74% of Pakistanis now, from last year which was 66%, 74% now think that America is an enemy. So you have people who would just immediately look things as black and white, America is an enemy so Hafiz Saeed is a hero.
NDTV: But you know you spoke about the judiciary but the world also sees headlines coming up on Pakistan, where a little child said to have Down Syndrome is put behind bars for blasphemy, and now of course subsequently many of those charges are found to be, you know they were fabricated, the person who did this has also been arrested, but that does not change the fact that in Pakistan as you have said, sometimes it's almost impossible to just stand up and speak just truth. You have said to me that seven years ago what happened to Salman Taseer would not have even been a headline, and today it's completely different, no one can have a sane conversation for blasphemy, little children are going to jail for blasphemy, so when we see this happening, when we as Indians for example see this happening, can we invest faith in the due process?
Imran Khan: No but, they are two different things. One is it's this issue of this 11 year-old-girl, I feel embarrassed, it hurts me as a Pakistani to see this thing, mockery of law, this is a total mockery of any law. I mean no law in the world would do this to an 11 year-old-girl and then add to it, even if she would not have Down Syndrome, you would not do that. So it is a total abusive law and I am glad that there's actually been a reaction and now the cleric who actually did he's in trouble himself. But look what has happened in Pakistan, it is a collapse of the rule of law, when the rule of law collapses then I am afraid all laws are abused. When Asif Zardari can become the President of Pakistan, the biggest criminal, so what do you expect. I mean when law means everyone is equal before law this whole drama going on in the Supreme Court today is Asif Zardari's 60 million dollars need to be protected in Switzerland, and so he's trying to destroy the Supreme Court to protect his money, so rule of law means everyone is equal. The reason why it works in the west is no Prime Minister can abuse law, but here the thing is it's a privilege to abuse law, that means that people who are strong are above law and masses have no access to justice.
NDTV: You said to me the last time I was here that you believe that the age of the military coup is now permanently over, you didn't see that ever happening again, but most people continue to believe that military in Pakistan continue to exercise a disproportionate amount of influence on the elected governments. You have been quoted as saying that, that would change if you were to lead this country. How would it change?
Imran Khan: Let me give a cricketing example, there are two captains, both have in the constitution same amount of powers, yet one captain is completely powerful and he doesn't allow any interference in the team, he's all powerful, and yet there is another captain you know, who no one listens to, the selectors impose their own team, the chairman interferes, the team you know, he doesn't, he can't even stand up to the team, so similarly with two Prime Ministers there is one Prime Minister who we have right now, well we have this new guy now Pervez Ashraf, no one listens to him, you have another Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a Prime Minister he was all powerful. Constitution gave both the same amount of powers so the difference is the moral authority, physical authority is the weakest, if a Prime Minister comes with the moral authority, where he is performing, we have the classic case of Erdogan in Turkey, well look at him now, Turkey's military was much more powerful than Pakistan, they actually hung a Prime Minister, there were several coups, who would have thought that the top generals are being court martialed for interfering in politics now, and just because there's a Prime Minister who's performed people are behind him, he has the moral authority.
NDTV: So you are saying that moral authority drives and diminishes the influence of the military in Pakistan if they were a leader.
Imran Khan: Now Barkha simply the moment you lose moral authority the Army has the physical authority, you can't compete with their physical authority.
NDTV: Your critics here in Pakistan repeatedly say that in some ways you are the Army's candidate, I know, I know what you are going to say, so we are going to go beyond that, you are going to say that when General Musharraf was here he couldn't command the kind of crowds that you can. So why do they call you army's candidate?
Imran Khan: Because they are petrified of this tsunami, they are petrified they have no answers to it, they have tried everything, they can't understand this revolution. Well Nawaz Sharif particularly, he was manufactured by the Army, General Gilani picked this businessman up and actually made him, I mean never has an army manufactured a politician as Nawaz Sharif was, General Zia and of course picked him up and made him, not because of his abilities, because he was pliable and then ISI gave him funds for which the case is now lying in the Supreme Court. They actually in 1990 gave him funds you know to contest elections, he was given money by the ISI so he thinks since he was made by the Army so he cannot understand this tsunami, so he thinks that the Army is backing me too, but let me just say one thing I mean Army right now across the board everyone is backing PTI. We have crossed 10 million members, 10 million, its unheard of. The only other party which has conducted a membership campaign is PML(N), they've got hundred thousand, you know a party which is been going on for God knows for how many years, they've just managed hundred thousand, so 10 million members, so this is a unique movement in Pakistan and my prediction is it has not even reached 40% of its potential. Closer to the elections of course, I hope you'll be covering it, you will see the full force of this, this it will sweep, it will destroy all the old power houses.
NDTV: What do you think should be the Army's case in Pakistan's politics?
Imran Khan: Like army anywhere, like in India. I think Pakistan has, I keep telling you has changed completely, given the performance this is the worst performance in the last four years of any government in our history. Had it been in the good old days we would have had a general sitting there and saying I've come to save the country. It didn't happen this time and believe me if the Army interfered, there'd be celebrations on the streets.
NDTV: Well it's been described as a judicial coup by those who believe that the judiciary is trying to oust a democratically elected leader?
Imran Khan: This has been orchestrated by those people sitting in power, who do not want an independence justice system. What is the fault of Chaudhry Iftikhar. What is his fault? He has had the gall to challenge the powerful who have been never been challenge before.
NDTV: And now he has been dragged into a controversy with his son and in a cynical environment everybody would say we do know who to believe, what to trust anymore.
Imran Khan: Well the government is trying to implicate him, the whole Zardari camp trying to make out that Chaudhry Iftikhar and his son is involved in some sort of a corruption. But I'm surprised that this kind of a government should start worrying about corruption, because corruption has broken all records. So clearly it's not because of them wanting to curtail corruption, it's because they wanted to blackmail the Chief Justice.
NDTV: And you believe that in a few months from now, when elections are held, this government will be history?
Imran Khan: If you believe in democracy, therefore, you must surely look at the opinion polls. Never has anyone been so hated in this country as Asif Zardari. You look at his rating in the opinion polls, never has someone fallen that low. Now if its democracy, how is he going to win the elections unless they are rigged?
NDTV: You sound so confident, that your former wife and partner Jemima Khan said that it was like the time when Pakistan won the World Cup, and you kept saying that we are going to win and nobody would believe you, and the odds at that time was obviously not as stacked in your favour as they are today, at least at your own estimation. Is it sort of like that, is that something you would compare this moment to?
Imran Khan: When I first said that we will sweep the elections, that's when it was the odds were the same as the World Cup, not now. Now it's the more the semi-finals stage, where everyone thought we had an even chance but then because I'm the only politician who was amongst the public and I saw this mood change about three years back. I saw the young people suddenly become politicised and then there were few rallies I did in the smaller areas, towns and I went to various universities and colleges and I knew the time had come. So, since then things have just snowballed, but the moment the caretaker set up comes in, that's when you will see the full force of Tehreek-e-Insaf.
NDTV: Talk a little bit about your personal journey to this point. The last few times I have met you, you seemed completely consumed, as if this is, in a sense, your mission in life. I have read somewhere that the fortune teller once told you that if you want to join politics, you could have actually been assassinated, and the reason that I am bringing that up is that in the Pakistan we know today, people are actually paying with their lives. Does that cross your mind because you have children, they don't live here, but you are also a parent? There are also other attachments in your life, you live in a volatile country, you are outspoken.
Imran Khan: That fortune teller told me something about 30 years back or 25 years back.
NDTV: Did you believe him?
Imran Khan: But then I was not even thinking of coming into politics and of course then I did not have faith. In Islam, in our holy book, it is very clear that the time of your death is in God's hands, so when he decides, neither can you bring it one minute forward or one minute later. It's in his hands. So, once you have complete faith your fear of death disappears so, therefore, I don't really worry about that. The only thing I worry about is my two children, but apart from that I have no fear at all.
NDTV: What do they think about you being in politics?
Imran Khan: Well, naturally, I mean, you know...
NDTV: I mean to say, do they ask you questions, do they tell you don't do this, we would rather you do something else?
Imran Khan: The younger one is a bit too young, but the older one, of course he worries, but then if you have no control about dying then why to worry about it. Remember, I have faith, but secondly I saw this right in front of my eyes when I sat at the cancer hospital. When we opened the cancer hospital my office was there, and I was there for five years and in these five years I used to see two of my own friends, healthy people arrive and six months later they were gone, and so we don't realize the fragility of life and death. We somehow think we will always live forever. There are million ways of dying so if you have to die you might as well die for a cause.
NDTV: Do you believe that politics have changed you? And I ask you that because interestingly Michelle Obama, in a completely different context, said politics doesn't change a man, it only reveals to public who he is, but in your case, if one were to map your life, I have read your memoirs, followed your life quiet closely, as have so many other people, they could be identified as watershed moments, you could have been one thing earlier become another thing. You went from being a student at Oxford who idealized Karl Marx and Mick Jagger together, which is an odd combination, to now being this politician who now is often described as a conservative, I mean in England, you would probably be a Tory.
Imran Khan: I mean, see, I'm not a conservative, I'm a liberal. That's one thing Taliban's said he's a liberal so he...
NDTV: They did not say that? It's funny, because you have attacked liberals and liberals have attacked you, and the Taliban is now calling you a liberal.
Imran Khan: But I'm a genuine liberal. I believe in life, I'm anti-war, I believe in freedom of expression, I believe in freedom of religion, I believe in the dignity of human beings and I don't believe in, I believe in freedom, I do not believe in those people who curtail other people's freedom, that's why I call myself a liberal. And by the way this is what my great idol, my role model, ideological role model Iqbal was. If you read Iqbal he was the ultimate liberal, and yet you know where you have to be conservative. There are certain things that have permanence, there are certain eternal principals that you have to follow. The problem with what happened in the 1960s, sex, drugs and rock and roll revolution was that, there are certain things you do not, no matter what happens, but there are eternal principals which you follow. So anyway that's not the debate. But I always think of myself as a liberal. When you say, you said something very interesting about politics. The only thing that changes you is a belief system, faith, that changes you because the belief system tells you that this is what you are doing on earth and this will happen when you will die. So it's the only thing that actually changes you, because you are accountable to God. So you think you can get away with things because no one is watching but when you become accountable to God, you change.
NDTV: When did that happen to you?
Imran Khan: 25 years back. But now I come, to you know, where she says that politics reveal, you reveal yourself. I disagree with that, I think what actually happens is that a human being evolves with challenges, so your objectives change you. To achieve a certain objective you have to change yourself. I could never even ask my father for money. I, even as a child, used to feel, somehow loss of respect even to ask my father for money. Yet when I started the cancer hospital, I had to go to the streets in Pakistan to collect money. So it was the objective that changed me. Similarly when you go to the politics, you know the idea of asking for votes for someone like me was so bizarre, you know asking people for votes. But actually for a certain objective you actually do change yourself.
NDTV: So how different is today's Imran from the Imran 30 years ago? What is the biggest difference?
Imran Khan: Very tolerant, very patient.
NDTV: So you were short tempered earlier?
Imran Khan: I wasn't very patient and yes I used to be short- tempered. Short tempered no, I was shy, if I felt someone was rude to me, I would react, I would react aggressively. I learnt to control that and actually I became very tolerant. Very rarely can people get me angry.
NDTV: What would drive you to anger?
Imran Khan: I do find rudeness, I find, when someone is abusive or rude I find always that difficult to handle. I find wrong allegations, my opponents have made lots of wrong allegations against me...
NDTV: Including of corruption, including of cancer hospital, you have sent a defamation notice.
Imran Khan: Which is why I am taking someone to court. Actually it's PML they always attack me on two fronts. My personal life and secondly, they attacked the cancer hospital and this time I decided to take them court. You know, we have a lot of evidence of corruption against both Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. Rather than answering those allegations they attacked me, but I have never been in government. So the only thing they could have said that I made money from the cancer hospital and that's why I took him to court.
NDTV: So when you look back at your life, and I know that you have written about this, you have written about years of hedonism and pleasure seeking, that changed for you and you are now different person. When you look back at that life, do you regret it or do you see that as a rites of passage?
Imran Khan: I have no regrets in life.
NDTV: None? No mistakes made, no regrets, none?
Imran Khan: Mistakes, so many mistakes but you know we are human beings, we make mistakes, but you know I had this. During my cricketing days I use to have this quality that at the end of the day's play, I would never sleep until I analysed my whole day's play, what I could have done differently. So before going to sleep I always use to do this exercise which remained with me throughout. So I always used to analyse my mistakes. Mistakes, is there anyone who can't make mistakes? But actually it's the ability to analyse your mistakes and you move forward, that's how you move forward in life. Regrets, no.
NDTV: None?
Imran Khan: No regrets.
NDTV: You sleep well at night?
Imran Khan: Despite all outer turbulence there is inner peace, I sleep very well.
NDTV: Now you are so sure that you are going to be the future of Pakistan, now I have to ask you, what would that mean for India? What would Imran Khan's India's policy be?
Imran Khan: What has to be done is that people of India and Pakistan need to understand the dividends of peace. I need to sell this and I will sell it to my people. Time has come for us to move forward. It doesn't mean that we don't have differences. Kashmir will always be the core issue, but there are ways of dealing with core issues. You don't have to have military means or militancy. You can deal with it in a civilised way. But we must understand that the greatest number of poor people live in this sub-continent. Our biggest duty must be to the suffering, to poor people and to the people of sub-continent and also on a positive side, this is probably the greatest opportunity for us to move ahead, provided this tension goes, this hostility goes. The benefits of peace are so enormous that you know the whole sub-continent will take off. Here we are sitting, Pakistan one side, India one side, China the other. India needs Pakistan; all the energy corridors are through Pakistan. India needs energy to become an economic giant. Pakistan-India markets I mean, there is so much, the benefits of peace.
NDTV: You said in the past that Kashmir, despite denials, did come pretty close to being, well, tantalizingly close to being well, resolved, not solved, but resolved.
Imran Khan: Well there are three ex-foreign ministers in my party, all three were involved in Kashmir negotiations and I was amazed that behind the doors, the back channels, the sort of progress that was made on Kashmir, I was amazed because we weren't told about this, how close we came. At one point I thought it could never be resolved after listening, taking the private briefing because some of the things, because people need to be prepared before you go to them, before you put these plans to them. But actually it is solvable. It is not impossible.
NDTV: We have come very close to it? And you have this almost from the horse's mouth?
Imran Khan: And we came very close to it and therefore you do need to have strong leadership. The whole thing about leadership as opposed to a manager, is that a leader shows people a vision. We have got to show the people of subcontinent a vision of what can happen if we are at peace. Believe me this is limitless.
NDTV: And we can play cricket again. Is that good or bad? One has to ask?
Imran Khan: It's a good thing. Sunny was a bit apprehensive about it. I don't know why people should think that someone from Pakistan would have endorsed Mumbai. Believe me everyone I spoke to was horrified by it. All human beings feel the same. How can you see innocent people being killed and not be horrified. Therefore to blame a whole country for Mumbai is wrong. Unless we claim it. For instance, Taliban and some militants when they kill someone they take credit for it. In Pakistan everyone condemned it. By the way I saw anger in India that's understandable. In the end you can't hold people responsible who have nothing to do with it and did not endorse it.
NDTV: So you don't want the cricket linked to Mumbai?
Imran Khan: No, I...
NDTV: Which is what I think Sunil Gavaskar spoke about...
Imran Khan: I think cricket links must be restored, you know there was a point when there was a peak in our relationship was actually when...
NDTV: No, so I am saying that don't link the cricket playing with what's happening in Mumbai trial.
Imran Khan: We should not link them, In fact everything should be delinked from Mumbai. We should understand that it was a tragedy which people of Pakistan did not endorse. We condemned it as much as and feel the pain of people.
NDTV: And as we end, last words for Sachin Tendulkar.
Imran Khan: What do I say about Sachin, such a great player but I can only say if I were in his position, I would want to leave on a high and my greatest worry was that I should never be at the mercy of the selectors.
NDTV: You actually feel that someone like Sachin could be at the mercy of the selectors?
Imran Khan: No, but you know, why put yourself in such position? I mean Sachin, what a brilliant record he has. Would he not want to, again I put myself in that position, my greatest worry was that I would not be able to perform to my abilities, so people will remember me not for, at my peak, but when I was leaving cricket.
NDTV: But you had General Zia asking you to come out of the retirement.
Imran Khan: But the reason I retired is that I did not want to be at the mercy of the selectors. I wanted to go out at my peak. The only reason I kept playing was then actually for the cancer hospital. The board of governance told me that if you get out of cricket you won't be able to collect money. That's the only reason for which I kept playing. But my fear always was that I did not want to, you know, having seen those heights, I just did not want to be at the mercy of selectors or people saying it's the time you should leave. That's why I respect Sunil Gavaskar, he left, he could have gone on. Sunil had one of the best defensive techniques I have ever seen in a batsman. Given that technique he could have gone on but he left at the peak when people said...
NDTV: So you don't think Sachin should continue, in other words in a polite way, that's what you are saying?
Imran Khan: I think Sachin is such a great player and people are emotionally attached. I can understand the Indian public who have been watching him for 23 years. They can't imagine life without Sachin. But from Sachin's point of view, knowing that the kind of pride that he takes in his cricket, there must be a time when he should decide that, you know, this is the right time to leave.
NDTV: What's tougher for you cricket or politics? If you look back at your life what has been a tougher ride?
Imran Khan: I felt that's a stepping stone. I mean if I hadn't gone through the cricket struggle, I would have not been able to build a hospital. Building a hospital was much tougher than cricket and then politics was more tougher than hospital. So basically every struggle, every milestone prepares you for a bigger struggle.
NDTV: I think you are at the cusp of another big shift, a tectonics shift in your life and your country's life. Thank you so much.
Imran Khan: Thank you.
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