Apropos the article ‘Looking for heroes’ (Dec 1) by Irfan Husain. Whenever the writer writes about Imran Khan, in particular, he is invariably found wanting in treating him fairly.

On the other hand, he never gets tired of admiring Benazir Bhutto for one reason or the other. This is exactly what he has done in the article mentioned above.

He has summed up Benazir Bhutto, despite all her flaws, as ‘the genuine heroine of Pakistan’. On the contrary, he has described Imran Khan a politician who compromised his high ideals for the sake of power.

In fact, there is no comparison between Benazir and Prime Minister Imran Khan as far as their respective roles in politics are concerned. As we know, after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death, Benazir inherited the then biggest political party of Pakistan founded by her late father, while Imran Khan started his political journey from scratch.

Neither his parents nor any of his distant relatives had ventured into politics before him. He formed his own political party and struggled hard for more than two decades before the people of Pakistan voted him to power. Had he been power hungry, he would have attained it much earlier. Furthermore, he won many laurels for Pakistan in the field of sports, built the first state-of-the-art cancer hospital, and set up a university here all single-handedly.

There is no such thing to the credit of Benazir. Rather she got power twice and was ousted on serious charges of corruption. All along these years, the personal integrity of Imran Khan has been the hallmark of his personality.

Imran Khan has inspired the youth of this country in practical terms, stating that if one is well-intentioned and has the capacity to work hard, he can even achieve the unachievable. So, the real hero if Pakistan has ever had one, is Imran Khan.

Rafat Mahmood Ansari
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2018