Islamabad:
Before the digital era, the epistolary history is full of personal and open letters, serving as a crucial window on its life and its socio-political events of that time.
From the biggest poet in Ourdou Mirza Ghalib to the first Muslim chief Bahadur Yar Jung and to the social rights activist Martin Luther King, JR to the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, their letters transmitted all kinds of banal information to life and have highlighted their point of view on social and political problems, injustice and needs for reforms.
Some of these letters are always considered the best or the most influential because they reveal who were the writers and what they were going through at that time. Quick advance until the present, last week in Pakistan can rightly be called “Letters Week” while the former Prime Minister imprisoned Imran Khan revived the old tradition by writing open letters consecutive to the Head of State -Major of the army (COAS) Gen Syed Asim Munnir.
While highlighting Imran’s concerns concerning the alleged election manipulation, these letters accused the establishment of allowing “corrupt” politicians to return to power and warned the growth of the public against the institution. Khan has also described the difficult conditions for his imprisonment, in particular solitary isolation and restricted access to a legal advisor, among others.
However, the response of the military and the government was disdainful. The army chief said he had neither received nor the intention to read any letter from Khan, stressing that such communication would be sent to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif instead.
Meanwhile, PM’s political advisor Rana Sanaullah would have accused Khan of using letters as a political tool to spread anti-military propaganda. The Prime Minister’s assistant argued that rather than asking for a dialogue, Khan tried to manipulate the public’s perception against the army by making the letters known.
Some political experts consider these letters to be a strategic decision to keep his political story alive despite their prison. By addressing COAS directly, they support, Khan tried to highlight the influence of the military in politics while rallying his supporters.
However, they note, the disdainful response of the army highlights its reluctance to engage with Khan on political questions, at least for the moment, and could “annoy the chief”.
“These letters are nothing more than a communication strategy and a low risk company to remain relevant in the game,” said the president of the Pakistani Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat), Ahmed Bilal Mehboob. “The content of the letters is such that they will further annoy the chief, so that reconciliation becomes even more difficult, if there was a chance,” he added.
In response to several questions about intention and impact, Mehboob said that “these letters are also intended to send a message to the military personnel who looks, I tried several times to reconcile”.
On the response of the army, he said: “I think that the chief’s reaction to the question on letters could have been better. A simple” no comment “would have been enough.”
Professor Tahir Naeem Malik of NUML University estimated that Imran’s letters show his repeated position that he only wanted to speak to the real powerful actors – a desire that is often criticized by government ministers.
After the failure of the Government-PTI talks, the professor said Khan tried to openly settle his story and put pressure on the powerful stakeholders to respond to his requests.
Thanks to the letters, said Professor Malik, Khan also tried to highlight the difficulties he met in prison. “By writing letters, he [Imran] wants to document your case and reset your story. “”
Commenting on the response of the army, Malik said that Khan wrote open letters to the Coas so that “the company in general could be involved in his opinion”.
Malik concluded that Khan had not only tried to put pressure on powerful stakeholders, but also tried to build and present his case before the people. However, he supported Mehboob saying that Khan seems to have further annoyed the army leader by opening the letters. “It caused dissatisfaction,” he said.
Some political commentators also see Khan’s letters as a sign of despair and an attempt to repair links with the establishment, while others interpret them as an effort calculated to expose the alleged role of the military in political engineering and influence on the political charter.
