When bullets riddled Imran Khan on the legs last week in Pakistan, it brought back reminders to many of us who were teenagers in the 1960s about the history of bullet politics in the country. Mercifully, Khan did not get the bullets in his heart or in the head. Had that happened, Pakistan would now be in a terrible situation, beyond and above what it is now going through.
Those bullets and the resultant outcry have seen Imran Khan's popularity scale new heights in Pakistan. His supporters have emerged on the streets not only to express their love for him but also to damage and torch everything before them. The police retaliated in the usual way -- by lobbing tear-gas shells into the crowds.
Drama has generally been a staple of politics in Pakistan as also in so many other countries yet to graduate to a stable democratic order. Take the instance of the shooting of Pakistan's first prime minister Liaquat Ali Khan in October 1951. He was shot as he addressed a public rally in Rawalpindi. It did not take long for the crowd, or part of it, to lynch his killer.
To this day, however, questions have persisted about that lynching. Was the man who killed Liaquat deliberately set upon by elements unwilling to have the truth behind the assassination unearthed? Was the murder part of a wider intrigue?
No one will know, as no one will ever plumb the depths of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, in that very same spot in Rawalpindi, in 2007. Benazir Bhutto ought not to have risen from her vehicle through the roof hatch and then get killed. But then, there is something called destiny.
That said, the fact remains that fingers have been pointed at a number of actors, the principal one being General Pervez Musharraf, as being responsible for Benazir's killing. Musharraf, Pakistan's president at the time, has been accused of either complicity in the assassination or not ensuring enough security for the former prime minister.
Besides bullets piercing the corporeal bodies of powerful or influential leaders, there have been other mysteries related to political killings in Pakistan. No one knows, or will ever know, who planned the murder of the dictator Ziaul Haq in August 1988.
Zia and everyone else with him on that C-130 aircraft simply crashed and blew up, to a point where bodies lay burned or scattered in bits and pieces. It is said that Zia's remains were confirmed by his teeth and his Terry Thomas-like moustache.
Politics in our part of the world often tends to slide into emotionalism and displays of bravado. ZA Bhutto was a master in this area of political drama. During the election campaign in 1970, his procession in Sanghar, Sindh came under attack, allegedly by followers of Pir Pagaro, whose family was representative of feudalism and right-wing regressive politics in the country.
As the bullets began to fly, Bhutto leapt from his open jeep, bared his chest, and dared his assailants to shoot him. Of course, no one shot him. Curiously enough, all the bullets whizzed past him, leaving him unscathed. But Bhutto had made his point. In Sanghar, according to his supporters, he had proved how brave a leader he was, ready to shed his blood in defense of his people.
It was vintage Bhutto at work. Having newly taken to socialism as a tenet of his political party, he was keen to demonstrate to Pakistanis that he was the man who would not only defend their rights but also shape a whole new economic future for themselves. It was a mirage. And a mirage hardly ever translates into reality.
In November 1968, as a popular uprising began to build up against President Ayub Khan in both wings of Pakistan, the self-styled field marshal travelled to Peshawar. While he was speaking at a public meeting there, a young man sitting in the front row among the audience aimed a pistol at the president and fired.
The bullet missed Ayub, for the distance between the would-be assassin and the president was quite considerable. But that act by the young man was an early warning to Ayub Khan of the impending end of his presidency. No one knows, though, what happened to that young shooter. Censorship pushed things under the rug.
The renowned Baloch leader Abdus Samad Achakzai, a progressive man whose politics mirrored that of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Sindh's GM Syed, was assassinated in Quetta in December 1973. Achakzai was a formidable figure, seeing that besides politics he was deeply interested in literature. Known for his command of Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Balochi, and English, he translated a good number of works into his native Pashto.
In the 1960s, Malik Amir Mohammad Khan, also known as the Nawab of Kalabagh, served as governor of West Pakistan with all the ferocity he could command. Appointed to the position by Ayub Khan, he was instrumental in suppressing any opposition to the president.
At one point, however, with differences growing between him and Ayub, he was eased out of the governor's office. Not long after, he was killed by one of his sons over what has been regarded as a family feud. The wheels of justice did not come into play. Feudalism, a common social trait, ensured silence over the circumstances of the murder.
The murder of Murtaza Bhutto, elder son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at a time when his sister Benazir served as Pakistan's prime minister, remains an unsolved mystery. By the time of his death, which occurred when gunmen opened fire on him only a few feet away from his Karachi home, Murtaza had established a reputation as an outspoken critic of his sister's government and her husband Asif Zardari.
No investigation of the assassination ever took place. His immediate family has always suspected Zardari's involvement, without evidence, in the tragedy. Murtaza Bhutto's daughter Fatima Bhutto is a renowned writer these days.
Salman Taseer, a Pakistan People's Party stalwart serving as governor of Punjab in 2011, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards in Islamabad. Author of a good number of books, Taseer was a vocal critic of blasphemy laws and spoke out against the treatment of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman who had been convicted by the courts of being blasphemous toward Islam.
All said and done, the current state of political volatility in Pakistan does not rule out increasing violence in the coming days. The attempt on Imran Khan's life is an embarrassing sign of the speed with which politics has been sliding into intolerance. The intolerance is not confined to Khan's foes. His own statements have added fuel to fire in recent months.
That has pushed Pakistan to the brink, again.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is a journalist and biographer.