THERE is no running away from Imran Khan, not as yet when some of the important people around have just acknowledged his presence.

The prime minister, a veteran politician in the old school who had initially refused to be drawn into discussing the Imran option, or even his jalsa, finally spoke on the subject last week. As did indeed Mian Nawaz Sharif, who was away while the agents of change got together to hold a big anti-Sharif rally in the heart of the Sharifs’ Lahore.

Since he has just been taken real notice of, the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) chief has now entered a phase where his opinion is urgently sought on sensitive subjects such as the ISI, who the army chief owes his allegiance to and the controversial blasphemy law.

He is under watch for each step he takes, each word he utters and any sign of his old impatient, even self-righteous, self he may betray.

Not only Imran Khan’s own gestures but also the moves of his party men are being closely followed for any giveaway that could come in handy later. The large numbers that are behind him are right now all too willing to ignore any PTI slips as teething problems for a born-again party of a born-again someone.

Thus the talk about a complaining senior PTI member who suddenly finds a television studio in Lahore too small for his expanding ambitions does not rise above a whisper.

Imran Khan’s own rather curt — typical? — reaction to a television anchor, who was discourteous enough to cut him short while he was giving his opinion on the cricketers’ conviction in London, also goes unchallenged in a manner that is so atypical of our media. The anchor is constrained to murmur an apology and allow the leader of change in Pakistan to speak his truth.

The truth from Imran Khan’s side that has emerged so far portrays a polarised country that allows one set of people to persecute and prey on another on the basis of belief and the law.

In the PTI chief’s opinion, the British introduced the blasphemy law to ensure harmony in society and it is our indigenous invention — the current polarisation — that exposes someone like Salmaan Taseer or Shahbaz Bhatti to the assassin’s gun. Pressed by the interviewer, a non-Pakistani, he eventually concedes that reform may be in order — which prevents misuse of the law.

A procedural change in the blasphemy law is perhaps what Imran Khan is willing to concede, something which Gen Musharraf has attempted and what the current PPP-led government had at least promised.

If this amounts to skirting the issue then the PTI chief appears to be doing it as well and as skilfully as any other politician around. But obviously now is not the time to raise such questions for fear of being cast by Imran lovers as the perpetrators of the status quo.

Imran Khan says he is different. His proclaimed strength lies in his high morals and his promised ability to better execute what others can at best support in theory. He reacts strongly to suggestions that he is being propped up by the ISI, taking on Mian Nawaz Sharif over his statement about the new PTI being a creation of the agencies.

He is quite frank in pointing out how Nawaz Sharif’s remarks about the agencies’ backing for PTI had resulted in a further swelling of PTI ranks. “The PML-Nawaz is the only party created by agencies” in Pakistan, he says, before he tells everyone that only those with a corruption record would be susceptible to bowing to the ISI’s wishes.

The ISI’s reputation is not in question here. The target of the growing public tirade are the politicians who have failed to deliver after they were installed in power, something that according to the general belief cannot be done without the agencies. There is surely another way of looking at the situation, but who wants that in the excitement of a new Pakistan dawning on its deprived people.

If it has taken Imran Khan 15 years to mature as a popular politician, it has taken Nawaz Sharif double that time to recognise his potential as an anti-establishment politician.

And it has taken the PPP, not exactly a novice in the field of wheeling and dealing, much longer to unabashedly clarify that the agencies were on its side.

This is an interesting sequence: Imran Khan says the ISI went after only corrupt and moral-less politicians; Nawaz Sharif accuses him of being the agencies’ stooge and Imran Khan reciprocates in kind; Yousuf Raza Gilani, the ultimate believer in parliament’s supremacy, happily claims to be saddled by the agencies. All three have been heard speaking of reform.

It is fine to be critical of weak-kneed, corrupt politicians who cannot stand up to the agencies. It is also okay for a politician calling for change to be pushing his credentials as an incorruptible and strong alternative to past and present rulers.

That true reform would mean taking the ISI off the politicians’ back is a thought that perhaps doesn’t occur to the PTI ‘supremo’ who boasts that no one can control him.

The crucial question is, how can an agency be allowed to gather dirt on politicians and then how does it use these dossiers of misdeeds to discredit and then dismiss the politicians?

No one is asking Imran Khan this question at the moment. All embarrassing queries are directed at the poor souls who have set the stage for an awakening.

How can the so-called democrat in Prime Minister Gilani allow himself to be flaunting the agencies’ support? How can Nawaz Sharif deny someone else what he has himself enjoyed for so long?

If not a new Pakistan, a large number in this country right now are wedded to the idea of a new cast in Pakistan. That, the word goes around, will be a huge relief in itself.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.