Imran Khan

Imran Khan

PTI

Imran Khan Chairman PTI

History Of Imran Khan

Imran Khan Niazi (Urdu: عمران خان نیازی; born 25 November 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former Pakistani cricketer, playing international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century. After retiring, he entered politics. Currently, besides his political activism, Khan is also a philanthropist, cricket commentator and Chancellor of the University of Bradford and Founder and Chairman Board of Governors of Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre.

Khan played for the Pakistani cricket team from 1971 to 1992 and served as its captain intermittently throughout 1982-1992. After retiring from cricket at the end of the 1987 World Cup, he was called back to join the team in 1988. At 39, Khan led his teammates to Pakistan's first and only World Cup victory in 1992. He has a record of 3807 runs and 362 wickets in Test cricket, making him one of eight world cricketers to have achieved an 'All-rounder's Triple' in Test matches. On 14 July 2010, Khan was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

In April 1996, Khan founded and became the chairman of a political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice). He represented Mianwali as a member of the National Assembly from November 2002 to October 2007.

Khan, through worldwide fundraising, has also help establish the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre in 1996 and Mianwali's Namal College in 2008.

Imran Khan with His Family

Family, education, and personal life    

Imran Khan was born to Shaukat Khanum (Burki)^[5] and Ikramullah Khan Niazi, a civil engineer, in Lahore. A quiet and shy boy in his youth, Khan grew up in an upper middle-class Niazi Pathan family with four sisters, he being the only son of his parents.^[6] Settled in Punjab, Khan's father descended from the Pashtun (Pathan) Niazi Shermankhel tribe of Mianwali in Punjab.^[7] Imran's Mother Shaukat Khanum (Burki's) family includes successful hockey players^[5] and cricketers such as Javed Burki and Majid Khan.^[7] Khan was educated at Aitchison College, the Cathedral School in Lahore, and the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he excelled at cricket. In 1972, he enrolled to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Keble College, Oxford, where he graduated with a second-class degree in Politics and a third in Economics.^[8]

Marriage to Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith

On 16 May 1995, Khan married Jemima Goldsmith, in an Islamic ceremony in Paris. A month later, on 21 June, they were married again in a civil ceremony at the Richmond register office in England, followed by a reception at the Goldsmiths' house in Surrey. The marriage, described as "tough" by Khan, produced two sons, Sulaiman Isa (born 18 November 1996) and Kasim (born 10 April 1999). As an agreement of his marriage, Khan spent four months a year in England. On 22 June 2004, it was announced that the Khans had divorced because it was "difficult for Jemima to adapt to life in Pakistan". The marriage ended amicably. Imran has regular access to his children and his relationship with his ex-wife is friendly. Khan now resides in Bani Gala, Islamabad, where he built a farmhouse with the money he gained from selling his London flat. He grows fruit trees, wheat, and keeps cows, while also maintaining a cricket ground for his two sons, who visit during their holidays.

Imran khan with Jemima

Political work     

In 1996, Khan founded a political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), which emphasized on anti-corruption policies. The newly formed party was unable to win a seat during the 1997 Pakistani general election. Khan supported General Pervez Musharraf's military coup in 1999, believing Musharraf would "end corruption, clear out the political mafias". According to Khan, he was Musharraf's choice of prime minister in 2002 but turned down the offer. The 2002 Pakistani general election were held in October across 272 constituencies. Khan anticipated doing well in the elections and was prepared to form a coalition if his party did not get a majority of the vote. He was elected from the NA-71 constituency of Mianwali and being the only party member to have secured a seat, PTI won only 0.8% of the popular vote. Khan, who was sworn in as an MP on 16 November, remained part of the Standing Committees on Kashmir and Public Accounts, and expressed legislative interest in Foreign Affairs, Education and Justice.

On 6 May 2005, Khan became one of the first Muslim figures to criticise a 300-word Newsweek story about the alleged desecration of the Qur'an in a U.S. military prison at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Khan held a press conference to denounce the article and demanded that Gen. Pervez Musharraf secure an apology from the American president George W. Bush for the incident. In 2006, he exclaimed, "Musharraf is sitting here, and he licks George Bush’s shoes!" Criticizing Muslim leaders supportive of the Bush administration, he added, "They are the puppets sitting on the Muslim world. We want a sovereign Pakistan. We do not want a president to be a poodle of George Bush." During George W. Bush's visit to Pakistan in March 2006, Khan was placed under house arrest in Islamabad after his threats of organising a protest. In June 2007, the federal Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr. Sher Afghan Khan Niazi and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party filed separate ineligibility references against Khan, asking for his disqualification as member of the National Assembly on grounds of immorality. Both references, filed on the basis of articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution of Pakistan, were rejected on 5 September.

On 2 October 2007, as part of the All Parties Democratic Movement, Khan joined 85 other MPs to resign from Parliament in protest of the Presidential election scheduled for 6 October, which General Musharraf was contesting without resigning as army chief. On 3 November 2007, Khan was put under house arrest at his father's home hours after President Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan. Khan had demanded the death penalty for Musharraf after the imposition of emergency rule, which he equated to "committing treason". The next day, on 4 November, Khan escaped and went into peripatetic hiding. He eventually came out of hiding on 14 November to join a student protest at the University of the Punjab. At the rally, Khan was captured by students from the Jamaat-i-Islami political party, who claimed that Khan was an uninvited nuisance at the rally, and they handed him over to the police, who charged him under the Anti-terrorism act for allegedly inciting people to pick up arms, calling for civil disobedience, and for spreading hatred. Incarcerated in the Dera Ghazi Khan Jail, Khan's relatives had access to him and were able to meet him to deliver goods during his week-long stay in jail. On 19 November, Khan let out the word through PTI members and his family that he had begun a hunger strike but the Deputy Superintendent of Dera Ghazi Khan Jail denied this news, saying that Khan had bread, eggs and fruit for breakfast. Khan was one of the 3,000 political prisoners released from imprisonment on 21 November 2007.

Ideology

Khan's proclaimed political platform and declarations include: Islamic values, to which he rededicated himself in the 1990s; liberal economics, with the promise of deregulating the economy and creating a welfare state; decreased bureaucracy and anti-corruption laws, to create and ensure a clean government; the establishment of an independent judiciary; overhaul of the country's police system; and an anti-militant vision for a democratic Pakistan.

Khan told Britain's Daily Telegraph, "I want Pakistan to be a welfare state and a genuine democracy with a rule of law and an independent judiciary." Other ideas he has presented include a requirement of all students to spend a year after graduation teaching in the countryside and cutting down the over-staffed bureaucracy in order to send them to teach too.. "We need decentralisation, empowering people at the grass roots," he has said.

Criticism

During the 1970s and 1980s, Khan became known as a socialite due to his "non-stop partying" at London nightclubs such as Annabel's and Tramp. though he claims to have hated English pubs and never drank alcohol.He also gained notoriety in London gossip columns for romancing young debutantes such as Susannah Constantine, Lady Liza Campbell and the artist Emma Sergeant.

Khan is often dismissed as a political lightweight and a celebrity outsider in Pakistan, where national newspapers also refer to him as a "spoiler politician".The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, has asserted that Khan is "a sick person who has been a total failure in politics and is alive just because of the media coverage". Political observers say the crowds he draws are attracted by his cricketing celebrity, and the public has been reported to view him as a figure of entertainment rather than a serious political authority.

Declan Walsh in The Guardian newspaper in England in 2005 described Khan as a "miserable politician," observing that, "Khan's ideas and affiliations since entering politics in 1996 have swerved and skidded like a rickshaw in a rainshower... He preaches democracy one day but gives a vote to reactionary mullahs the next." The charge constantly raised against Khan is that of hypocrisy and opportunism, including what has been called his life's "playboy to puritan U-turn." Political commentator Najam Sethi, stated that, "A lot of the Imran Khan story is about backtracking on a lot of things he said earlier, which is why this doesn’t inspire people."

In 2008, as part of the Hall of Shame awards for 2007, Pakistan's Newsline magazine gave Khan the "Paris Hilton award for being the most undeserving media darling." The 'citation' for Khan read: "He is the leader of a party that is the proud holder of one National Assembly seat (and) gets media coverage inversely proportional to his political influence." The Guardian has described the coverage garnered by Khan's post-retirement activities in England, where he made his name as a cricket star and a night-club regular, as "terrible tosh, with danger attached. It turns a great (and greatly miserable) Third World nation into a gossip-column annexe. We may all choke on such frivolity." After the 2008 general elections, political columnist Azam Khalil addressed Khan as one of the "utter failures in Pakistani politics".

Imran Khan with His Wife and Son

Imran Khan

Legendry Imran Khan

Imran Khan

PTI