Going it Alone

Sabahat Zakariya went to independent candidate Saira Dar's corner meeting and ended up musing about middle class morality and the meaning of these elections

My worn Nokia handset peeled its trademark tune on a drowsy Sunday afternoon. A quick peek identified the caller as one Ms. Saira Dar. Bracing myself to hear the worst from a friend who had been a colleague at Aitchison several years ago and with whom the extent of my relationship ever since has been an accidental run-in at the local cinema, I hit the answer button. A call from a friend long missing usually means one thing, divorce-validation - a service divorcees provide as preliminary counselors and water-testers for those contemplating the plunge. Her monumental news, however, turned out to be of a variety I had not anticipated-a breathless announcement of her candidature from my constituency, NA-125. Full marks on the surprise factor. I have lived in NA-125 for the past 17 years but confusion over voter registration and polling stations has meant I have never cast my vote. This year, with an upgraded NADRA infrastructure, calls for registration well within time and a savvy technological network of verification I am finally in a position to take my politics off twitter and into the polling booth. But getting ambushed by an independent candidate wasn't quite how I had envisaged spending my first precious vote. If personal relations be the criteria then my cousin, the PML-N candidate from my constituency, would be the default choice, but my virgin vote was a responsibility I was taking seriously and I had no intentions of casting it away flippantly.

What she lacked in shrewd political planning, she made up for in sincerity of purpose and the ability to deliver a rousing speech

But vote or no, Saira, the former art teacher-turned politician's is an interesting story. Often in our zeal to talk about the more tangible oppression of rural women, the moral niceties that chain the women of the middle class are overlooked with a swift brandishing of their MA degree as incontrovertible proof of their liberation. Those with any insight know the truth to be far more complicated. The unstated expectations of middle class morality are often as binding as feudalistic and overtly religious expressions of absolute forbiddance. To be a wife and mother who is neither the poor worker nor the Birkin-toting daughter of a rich feudal is to swim in a murky netherland of wifely duties and structured expectations that are incompatible with the fluid energy of political life. The allegiance to the middle class code of conduct is threatened by the personal ambitions of a woman with neither the excuse of avenging her father's death nor the luxury of her family's minions conducting her election campaign for her. Saira told me that her intent was initially met with great resistance by her husband and son, on the pretext that she would end up making a fool of herself, but she persisted -from what I could tell once I met up with her - with considerable personal cost to herself. With her poise and refined convent-girl air it was hard for me to imagine her as a hard-boiled candidate who could get down and dirty in Pakistan's murky political arena, but her story intrigued me, and I decided, out of rather selfish reasons - the need to find out more about my constituency and to make an informed decision about my vote - to follow her on her campaign trail.

The next day I rang the bell of Saira's mother's austere house in a shaded old street of DHA Phase 1. One dupatta-clad woman and the candidate herself ushered me into an echoingly empty house. Her mother was away visiting her son in Dubai, providing Saira with 'a room of one's own' to conduct her affairs away from the domestic pressures and naysaying of her husband's place. Piled into her Cultus we set off for Nishat Colony, one of the poorer neighbourhoods of NA-125, where an old family painter of hers had organized a corner meeting. Poking fun at her own lack of resources Saira felt her low budget would be the key to capturing the people's love and trust. Just as I inwardly scoffed a little at her naivette she made a small joke that illustrated her point well:

'I used to have a Suzuki FX a few years ago and this beggar was constantly bothering me with solicitations for money. A huge Prado stood right next to my car, so I asked her why she didn't go beg from them instead, "Magar baaji ghareebaan nu hee ghareebaan daa dard honda ae na" (but sister, only those who are poor themselves can understand the pain of the poor) came the beggar's reply'. Laughing over this anecdote Saira expressed the hope that a similar kindling of solidarity with the poor would propel her to victory in the elections.

By this time (end of April) she still didn't have any pamphlets or posters and the ones she had ordered were sepia; coloured ones being too expensive to afford. She felt that the only areas she could possibly cover were those with some family or friends of her domestic staff and didn't even hope to attempt to visit her whole constituency. No seasoned political journalist myself, even I could tell that this amount of effort was not enough to win a national assembly seat, but here we were passing through the labyrinthine streets of Nishat Colony, festooned mainly with PML-N candidate Kh. Saad Rafique's banners, going to a poor man's house who apparently had enough faith in the woman to have put together a corner meeting for her. Soon we reached the painter's dimly lit, single-roomed quarters in the middle of a narrow alley. A slightly torn poster of Christ plastered on one wall, a couple of chairs and a charpoy neatly placed beside another, and a verandah with cracked cement floors where a couple dozen relatives and neighbours had converged to hear Saira speak. What she lacked in shrewd political planning she made up for in sincerity of purpose and the ability to deliver a rousing speech without becoming a caricature of the dais-thumping politician. The poor people she had come to address seemed swayed by her ideas that centered on working for the welfare of the poor, providing them with education and the vague but effective promise of returning their dignity to them. Obviously pleased and honoured by her visit, most of the women present immediately pledged their vote; female solidarity, something in her manner or the fact that she had 'honoured' them with her presence being enough to convince them to pledge allegiance, making me marvel at the arbitrary nature of these decisions, amongst the poor as well as the educated middle classes who pride themselves on casting their vote on rational and logical bases but often whose own conclusions are no less instinctive and emotional.

A few of those gathered admitted that PML-N's Saad Rafique had helped build the streets around their area but that they still did not want to vote for him since he hadn't 'shown his face' to them in the past five years. As Saira spoke about the need for universal education a man piped up to say that the young lad standing next to him had completed his BA but could not find a job anywhere. The quagmire of degrees but no jobs, streets but no exit from grinding poverty, suddenly seemed too overwhelming and complex to navigate and I couldn't escape the oppressive feeling that to change anything fundamental for these people is a nigh impossible task.

Poorly thought through as it may be, the candidature of someone like Saira Dar is demonstrative of the impetus PTI's emergence as a viable force has given to individuals from normally apathetic, educated urban middle class backgrounds. Suddenly in Pakistan, politics is no longer a dirty word associated with feudals and industrialists alone, independents like Jibran Nasir in Karachi and Saira Dar in Lahore are placing their faith in a system that so far those of their background had considered too broken to even attempt to fix. And there is some hope in just that fact.

Though, in an unguarded moment while talking to me, Dar told me had she felt a sense of empowerment and genuine respect in teaching she might not have taken the political route, a sad reflection on how far we still need to go for the emergence of a genuinely naya Pakistan, one that will emerge from an attitudinal change within ourselves, not just a cosmetic change of leadership.

Published in The Friday Times May 10-16, 2013

Where's the change?

At noon I stood at a deserted Liberty roundabout with two other friends who had come along with me for the ride, both jalsa virgins there to absorb the atmosphere. But there was no atmosphere (or too much of just the atmosphere) to be had at this early hour so we did what any self respecting PTI-supporter would do in such a situation, we drove down to Espresso; can't undervalue the need for a hearty breakfast on one's march towards inqilaab.

I had been an inadvertent and spontaneous attendee at the last PTI rally in Lahore and the joyous spirit of that day and the unique way in which I experienced my city was enough to goad me to return, as reporter, observer and latent hopeful for change. Wearing an Imran Khan t-shirt that I was coaxed into by a PTI-jiyaala friend who has been volunteering for the party from early morning to midnight for the past two weeks, I constantly shifted gears between laughing along with my politically skeptic friend, there just for the anthropological experiment, and my passionately devoted, single mindedly inqilaabi pal.

Around 1 the roundabout began stirring with some burger activity (not talking about the food any longer) and a truck and few jeeps laden with the usual chest-thumping Insafians went off to Defence to gather greater momentum while the eight of us piled into two cars and made our way directly to Minar-e-Pakistan. The streets were nearly deserted in comparison with the 30th October rally that had clogged the Mall Road, which meant that we reached the Government College roundabout in no time, near where we parked our cars to walk all the way to the Yaadgaar (as Minar-e-Pakistan is known in Lahorispeak). I remember many, many more women on the streets walking towards the ground last time and men shouting at others to pave way for them. I also recall an atmosphere much more festive and considerably more inclusive, a spontaneous overflow of people from all walks of life instinctively coming together for a change that at that very moment they were helping shape into a viable and vibrant possibility. This rally in comparison was a more hard-nosed affair with an assortment of political workers, loiterers and party-goers making up the bulk of the crowd.

Compared with the last one, this was a more hard-nosed affair with an assortment of political workers, loiterers and party-goers making up the bulk of the crowd

Outside Minar-e-Pakistan chaos reigned and we (seven men and one woman) were directed to the 'family entrance' (family in Pakistan being a loose term for any kind of group containing a woman), choked with men of all variety trying to push their way in as the police tried to push back from the other direction. Calling my reporter's wit into action I sandwiched myself between two of my friends and using them and my PTI flag and stick as protective shields staved off pinches and gropes to finally be able to thrust myself past the beeping gate into the Minar-e-Pakistan ground. This being the price a Pakistani woman has to pay for wanting to participate in public life.

Once inside, the scenes in the ground also seemed more anarchic to me than last time. In the vast 'family enclosure' that we found ourselves in there was the usual variety of young, affluent PTI supporters but less flag-waving, sunglasses toting Defence aunties than before. Religious slogans came fast and thick from the loudspeakers with a recording of Imran Khan reciting a chunk from Surah Fateha a particular favourite, only to be interrupted for azaan break with the following impassioned plea for respect from the emcee, 'after all, all of us here are Muslims', the irony of the jalsa ground being a stone's throw away from the accursed Joseph Colony completely lost on him (and a crowd drunk on the rhetoric of change).

Imran spent the first fifteen minutes cementing his Islamic credentials

Once I felt I had absorbed enough of the crowd around me I decided to go forth on my own and make my way to the elevated press box to capture an aerial view of the crowd, something I hadn't been able to do last time. Almost everyone readily made way as I brandished my press card in front of me and threaded my way through the crowd only to be confronted with barbed wires and a long alternate route from outside the gates to legitimately get to the press container. Loath to get anywhere near the gates again, and that too alone, I agreed to be led by two men who took me safely through a complex maze of trampled wires and enterprising short routes to the press container, once again safely through to my destination thanks to the benevolence of men.

The ocean of people and flags that I witnessed from above was well worth the effort. If this crowd was not any bigger than last time's then it was certainly not any smaller. From my elevated vantage point I could see hundreds and thousands of people amongst a sea of thumping flags stretching out as far as the eye could go, with the grand Badshahi Mosque sprawling in the background and the lit Minar-e-Pakistan rising high in front of me. It was a sight. But a sight woefully marred by the messages that emanated from the political stage. Abrar-ul-Haq's 'new' song for the occasion, 'Imran Khan de jalsay tea ajj mera nachnay nu ji karda ae' sung to the tune of an Indian Punjabi number 'Saun di jhari de vich teray naal nachnay nu ji karda ae' proved to be the best metaphor of the night for me -tweaking a few words to an old tune does not a new and original song make.

The change Imran Khan talks about never addresses any of my concerns as a secular, female citizen of this country

There was a parallel to be drawn between Abrar passing off someone else's song as his or watching Salman Ahmed set the same old Junoon riffs to repeated chants of InshAllah and Shah Mehmood Qureshi's desperate and thoroughly cynical attempts at rousing the crowd with anti-India and anti-Bangladesh (a new low even for him) rhetoric. In every aspect of this year's rally it was visible that the idealism of a year and a half ago had been replaced with manipulative attempts at realpoiltik, spearheaded by old hands like Qureshi who think that they can win popular support by moving the crowd's basest metals, all a far cry from Strings' Mayn Tau DekhooN Ga whose sincerity had drawn even cynics like me to go misty eyed at the last Lahore rally. Instead this political gathering delivered spent old musicians trying to revive their careers through political injections and out of touch old politicians falling back on rhetoric from the '80s that sounds hopelessly outdated post widespread mainstream and social media attempts at people-to-people harmony.

Imran Khan, whose sincerity I trust but whose political vision I fear, came on to the stage when a real downpour was beginning to look imminent. According to my PTI friend that prompted him to mutilate his speech which would otherwise have focused on hardcore agenda issues first rather than the rhetorical 'promises' all of us were subjected to. He spent the first fifteen minutes cementing his Islamic credentials, something he found of greater import than the actual manifesto PTI was meant to unveil that day. In an uplifting moment during his speech, though, the breeze picked up and people instinctively raised their flags to the wind creating a soaring ocean of stiff flags fluttering strongly against the gust, but soon the drops began to fall. Imran Khan is perhaps the only public figure in the country who can inspire people to stand in the pouring rain to listen to him finish his speech but after 10 minutes the rain became so hard and driving people inevitably fled for their lives.

Perched atop a steel container with the freezing wind and rain slapping me hard across the face I scrambled to find the makeshift steps in the dark that would get me one step nearer to exiting the grounds. Someone thrust a cardboard container into my hand as they saw me shivering in the cold and in a futile attempt at staving off the cold I wrapped it around myself while I blindly made my way in the dark. Yet again a man came to my rescue, guiding me safely out of the grounds in an otherwise menacing atmosphere full of testosterone and frustrated energy let loose. In the following days I read that a lot of women had not been quite as lucky as I, facing severe sexual harassment at the hands of fellow ringers of change.

That is the strongest impression I took away from the whole experience, that the change Imran Khan talks about never addresses any of my concerns as a secular, female citizen of this country, as a woman who wants to experience public space without fear, an individual who wants the business of religion and state to be separated or at least not have self-righteous religiosity thrust upon me as the one-size-fits-all panacea for all human beings. I desperately wanted to believe in the change, I really did, for myself, for the country, for the sake of friends with immense faith in Imran Khan, but too much at this jalsa pushed me in the opposite direction.

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Published in The Friday Times (March 29 - April 4)

MayN tau DekhooN Ga

A fellow-volunteer at TCF (The Citizens Foundation) asked me yesterday if I was going to the PTI rally. My first reaction was to laugh, and then wonder, 'Women go to political rallies?' Perhaps what I really thought was 'Do women like us go to political rallies?' 'Us' being 'shareef' and middle class, belonging to families who may have acquired almost-elite status over time, but whose middle class values dictate that the arena for women's political participation be the family's television lounge, not the uncertain grounds of Minar-e-Pakistan.

By the morning the momentum was clearly palpable on my Twitter timeline. I have always been ambivalent about Khan's politics but I am also a sucker for a 'mela' and this was promising to be a carnival like no other. Despite trepidation at braving such crowds on my own, I went out driving alone and joined the PTI caravan at Kalma Chowk, buoyed by the hope that harassment of women might figure low on the agenda of willing attendees of a rally for change. The optimism wasn't misplaced, for the most part. The Lawyer's Movement had brought the burger crowd to the streets before, but this felt different. For many of those following the caravan from Defence and Model Town, just going to Minar-e-Pakistan was an act of immersion and solidarity with the general populace, and a form of political awakening. Jeans and maila kurtas all powering forth in one direction.

Encroaching on PPP territory?

It was certain by this time that the gathering was going to be huge. People around me made victory signs atop buses belonging to private local colleges. Cars played Amanat Ali Khan's 'Ae Watan Pyaare Watan' but the most ubiquitous song remained 'Jazba Junoon', blared constantly from the leading truck in the procession. I wondered if other political rallies ever use music from a Pakistani rock band, and whether I was imbuing this act with too much meaning. But to children of Zia's era even small signs of 'progressiveness' are cause for some celebration and relief. This pop music motif continued till the end, an obviously deliberate attempt to soften the 'Taliban Khan' image and to keep PTI's strong youth base harnessed.

Not exactly voting age

I saw many of my Aitchison students along the way, most of whom will turn 18 next year. This means none of them is a potential voter because they are not eligible for vote registration yet. They couldn't have formed even one percent of the total number in the rally, but their presence did reinforce the Zohair Toru stereotype in my mind, possibly because I knew most of them personally. A democracy, however, for good or for bad, does not differentiate between a Zohair Toru and an Ardeshir Cowasjee

Aitchison's most illustrious son?

Upon reaching Oriental College, Punjab University, I parked my car inside (privileges of being the ex-Principal's daughter) and joined some friends in theirs. It was their first time at such a rally and the three middle-aged sisters had much of the well-intentioned, wide-eyed political naivette that seems to be the hallmark of the PTI supporter. Traffic was so choked by the time we reached Karbala Gamay Shah that we had to walk the last mile to Minar-e-Pakistan, carried along by the crowd's thrust. Some boys in front of me made suggestive thumkas and burst into raucous laughter at their own cleverness. On the other side men danced and marched to the beat of dhols while we weaved our way through the crowd amidst shouts of 'Let the ladies pass!'

Marching on to Minar-e-Pakistan

Once we reached the ground and had squeezed our way through to a decent position, it became impossible to see a panoramic view of the crowd, so it was not possible to make any kind of guess as to crowd numbers or even to take it all in in one sweep. One could only tell that there were thousands of chanting people on every side and Manto Park was so full that it was not possible for anyone to try and squeeze their way out of the stadium.

The crowd around me was impatient with the speeches of 'irrelevant' PTI leaders and its only interest lay in hearing Imran Khan, constantly chanting his name to urge him along. While this one-man-show has often been touted as a major drawback in Imran Khan's chances, I don't see it as a particular hurdle in a country where the politics of personality cult ensures people vote for Bhutto even thirty years after his death. Where the populace does not know the names of the candidates but votes for 'teer' or 'sher'.

Strings came on for one song to boost sagging morales. Half-way through 'Mayn tau dekhooN ga' I fished for the PTI flag someone had thrust in my hand earlier and I had promptly discarded under my chair, and waved it in thumping rhythm to Strings' lyrics; for that moment one with the crowd and just as starry-eyed and hopeful as them. For who so hard-hearted that can resist the adrenaline-pumped optimism of thousands of people singing along to 'Woh din phir aae ga jab aisa ho ga Pakistan', 'jab roti sasti ho gi aur mehngi ho gi jaan', 'jo duur gae thay bhoolay se, lotayN ge phir watan ko aek shaam' (this last one particularly makes me misty-eyed).

Here's my rather dizzying capture of the above with an extremely basic digital camera. If you make it to the end please also pardon my out of tune singing along.

Imran Khan finally took to the stage at around 7 in the evening by which time the crowd was getting increasingly agitated and several women and children were trying to unsuccessfully make their way out. The crowd, however, was too thick to allow anyone to pass through. Imran took the mike amid a deafening roar. His cricket analogies prompted gleeful high fives from the boys in front of me while those at my back chanted 'Jab tak sooraj chaand rahay ga / DJ Butt tera naam rahay ga' upon Imran's mentions of DJ Butt--again I suspect, a deliberate attempt to identify with a youthful, pop-oriented figure. Sound strategy, I feel, of juxtaposing Islamic rhetoric with identifiably popular elements of youth culture.

Mehmood-o-Ayaz

The speech was full of feel-good optimism as was expected and required. Talk of corruption, delivering rights to the poorest in the society and anti-Zardari sentiment elicited the most visible roars of approval. Personally speaking, I was disappointed at his resorting to lies about Hussain Haqqani's nationality but heartened by his passing mention of minority and women's rights.

The Lit Minar

I came away feeling that Imran's never-say-die philosophy seems to be paying off once again. I made yet another mental note to get my vote registered the next day. If I manage that, I will be voting in the next elections for the first time in my 33 years. And that right there is a victory for Imran Khan.


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The Faces

ET bloggers?

Aunties still have it for him

What's a third world anti-Imperialist revolution without its own Che?

Could that be the enigmatic @Kaalakawaa in a Stanford tee?

The new poster-boy for PTI
(Our dear @TheRealYLH turns lota)

Also published at the Express Tribune blogs

Let the Taliban take over

I just returned from a protest outside the Lahore Press Club against the assassination of Pakistani Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti. He was killed today in Islamabad by what are believed to be members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistan. There have been reports that pamphlets were strewn around his body defending the blasphemy law, a colonial era law often misused in Pakistan, but defended vociferously by most of its population.

I reached the protest at exactly 3 O'Clock so there weren't a whole lot of protesters there then. Just about 50 odd. At first glance most protesters seemed to belong to the Christian minority, an understandable fact, since the slain minister was not only a defender of minority rights in Pakistan, he was a Christian himself. Many carried long red crosses above their heads and a few women in white uniform stood at the front, probably students from some missionary institution in Lahore.

Just standing in the middle of a busy road holding aloft crosses seems a fairly bold thing to do these days. But not too long ago in this country very middle class, conservative parents sent their children to Christian missionary schools without pondering too much over its 'effects', more concerned with the upward social mobility that these schools provided at a low cost than with fear of Christian indoctrination. The polarization between religions was, at least apparently, not as visible or divisive as it is today. I cannot recall a single girl in my whole school with the Arabic-looking headscarf that is in vogue these days, if you covered your head, a plain dupatta was considered sufficient. Anti India sentiment was rampant but it had yet not manifested itself in a fixation with the Arabization of everything. 'Allah Hafiz' 'Jazaak Allah' and other such phrases had still not been forced into everyday langauge to make the speaker sound pious and holy. Although, even back then, deep seated ideas about class and superiority made the Muslim kids silently condescend to the Christian ones for having darker complexions and less flashy possessions. But despite it being a so-called Christian school, its Muslim majority environment had the Christian kids firmly placed at the bottom of the social hierarchy. But the silent discourse of exclusion at that time was less about religion and more about 'class'. Other kids like me with unbranded surnames and hardworking professors as parents were, if not equally, then at least nearly, as much part of the struggle for acceptance.

Today we have separate 'Islamic' schools where the head scarf is a part of the uniform and my 5 year-old cousin's daughter says 'Alhamdulillah' each time she skips down a step. There may seem nothing wrong in that to cultural relativists who may accuse me of being ashamed of my own religious heritage, but as far as I know that is not my heritage to begin with. My naani who was certainly a Muslim, that too from a small Punjabi village, usually just wore a chiffon dupatta on her head and did not feel the need to make any greater show of her piety. But my born again Muslim cousin lets out a deep guttural sigh each time she talks of her grandmother, and prays for her 'maghfirat' (forgiveness of her souls) with fervent smugness.

At the recent TEDx Kinnaird a Christian girl, Elaine Alam, spoke about the trials and tribulations of being a Pakistani Christian. The immediate reaction of a typically defensive Muslim Pakistani friend behind me was 'What is she talking about? She is from my school, The Convent of Jesus and Mary. What discrimination could she face at a Christian school?' Apart from the fact that Elaine never once mentioned her school and talked mainly about her neighbourhood, this complete blindness to what kind of discrimination a Christian faces in a missionary school is emblematic of the apathy that the 'silent majority' is part of. I am sure this girl considers herself a 'moderate', but is completely oblivious to the role she is playing in perpetuating oppression, by refusing to even acknowledge its existence. Despite the silence in the hall i turned around and chided her, trying to explain with gestures and loud whispers that what she was saying was utterly wrong and tantamount to condoning bigotry and oppression. Needless to say, it wasn't really possible to get one's point across in those circumstances.

This girl's reaction was not unique, my students also routinely react this way when I first broach the subject of minorities in Pakistan. Many of them give examples of how well Christians are 'treated' in the country, the usage itself automatically placing them above the minority, creating a discourse of a kind master and a grateful servant

I severely doubt Shahbaz Bhatti's death will have any profound impact on people who choose to delude themselves in this manner. They will continue saying that Christians and other minorities in Pakistan are 'treated well', or else that they should not be so bold as to assert themselves and 'blaspheme'. They will continue feeling that a Christian man had no right to be made the head of a committee comprised to discuss the Blasphemy Law. They will continue radicalizing the country till such time as this becomes worse than Afghanistan. And for the long term interests of this region, I say let that happen. Until and unless we don't actually get to live under the tyranny of such men our romantic notions about this 'Muslim' state will never die. Once people are whipped for 50 years and taken back to the stone age is when a real revolution will take place around here. For any true change to come these religious forces will have to take over and break the idealism of both middle class conservatives and elite apologists. Only then can this nation rise from its ashes and build something anew.

Aesay dastoor ko mayn naheen maanta, mayn naheen jaanta

Yes, Jalib was quoted ad-nauseum during the Lawyers' Movement. But that doesn't lessen the greatness and universal appeal of his poems like 'Dastoor' and 'Musheer'. Where is this kind of Pakistani liberal intellectual today? Not designer clad party-liberal, or born-in-privilege-NGO-working or English press-editing-liberal, or the one sitting-abroad-and-comfortably-advocating-change liberal. Just somebody who seems rooted in the majority of this country. Talks like them, dresses like them, comes from them and could lead an organic change, or could at least have some claim to speaking for the 'silent majority'.

Winds of Change?

The candelight vigil for Salman Taseer held outside the Governor House in Lahore can perhaps be deemed a success, depending on your perspective. Blogger Raza Rumi claims on Twitter that around 2000 people attended, that figure leaves me entirely surprised. I didn't do a head count but surely it seemed much less than 2000. The last protest i attended after the Swat flogging video was released had a far greater number of people participating and they also seemed to be from a wider cross-section. Today it was the usual suspects. LGS Principals, NGO aunties and other fashionable members of civil society who have now (understandably) diverted paths with the lawyers they stood up for a short while back. The biggest turnout you saw from the civil society was during the Lawyers movement, the vigil for Salman Taseer came nowhere near that.

I don't say NGO aunty or the 'fashionable' in a necessarily derisive way, it is just that a handful of these people, many of whom must have personally known the slain Governor aren't really representative of any fictionary 'silent majority'. The only scarf I saw was on the very left wing head of Daily Times op-ed Mehmal Sarfraz. The rest were all streaked. Don't mind the over simplification, but I just point out the obvious physical appearances to drive home a point. While 'Mulla gardee naheen chalay gi' on the top of my lungs helped me vent some of my pent up frustration at being a citizen of a state where my religion will always be the business of everyone else, it didn't really do anything to increase my hope in the prospect of a budding liberal Pakistan.

I know enough of the mindset of the majority to be certain that jeans clad, streaked, English spewing lads and ladies will be immediately dismissed as 'dehriyay' and 'laa-deen'. Once one is dismissed as that there is no further room for another nuanced analysis. It is a class thing, and today's vigil, though an extremely essential step, whether or not it has any far reaching implications, is ultimately just another exercise in Pakistani class differences. There were of course PPP workers as well, but where was the vast majority of the 'average' man. Half of those condemn the act of killing but would never be able to raise their voices to the chant 'Mazhab ke naam pe siyaasat band karo'. (Stop politics in the name of religion), while the other half is busy throwing flowers at a ruthless murderer.

I must add, though, that I WAS heartened at the number of women present.

I wish the vigil had been held at the Liberty Market roundabout, though, for at least that would have helped in creating greater nuisance value.

Perhaps a better assessment of the general public's views was to be had from two pedestrians who were marvelling at the 'be-hayaaee' of those participating in the vigil.

The biggest show of bravery I saw, interestingly, was not outside the Governor's House. I rushed from the vigil to pick my son up from a classfellow's birthday and on my way to Defence I saw this car. I am sure this person did not participate in the vigil, so it was nice to see that similar sentiments were being expressed elsewhere as well

But, the most heartening part of the day was neither of the above events, it was what I saw in the morning that truly delighted me. I saw two young girls riding a motorcycle bang in the middle of Gulberg, a little nervous, yes, but for the most part quite confident. They did not look like they were from the privileged set who can get away with most anything, but the one sitting behind was wearing a black coat and trousers while the one driving was in more traditional clothes. It was quite a sight to behold. Most men around them seemed too stunned to even try to harass them. As luck would have it, i was driving, so I was unable to get a clear picture. But perhaps it is just as well that you cannot see their faces and can just sense their joy. (I really hope, for the sake of my romantic imagination that they reached home looking just as happy).

Ishtiaq Ahmed and the Lahore massacres

I have thought about it quite frequently since the attack on Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, but after the Daata Darbar massacre it has taken even more concrete shape in my mind. Ishtiaq Ahmed has a role to play in the mindset that perpetuates such killings.Who is Ishtiaq Ahmed? Maybe the handful of readers of this blog who (i presume) have mostly been raised on English and American influences will never have heard of him, but I am sure some of the slightly older readership will have come across his novels some time or the other. When I was a child of about 9 and 10 they were all the rage in circles that read even a little bit of Urdu. Our chief pleasure used to be the exchange of Ishtiaq Ahmed novels that appeared with the frequency of four a month but in our meagre pocket money, my friend and I could afford only one each between us. Devouring our own first we would immediately move on to the other’s.
Ishtiaq Ahmed novels were, loosely speaking, the equivalent of Hardy Boys. Adventurous and fast-paced, they were gripping enough to keep countless young pre-teen and teens enthralled. Over time though, they started moving from being subtle indoctrinations to full-blown hate-preaching. The pleasure that was once to be had in the kicks, punches, quirks and witty repartee of the characters was employed to brainwash youth into thinking about Ahmed’s Wahabist ideologies. India was perpetually demonized of course, his novel ‘Langra Inteqaam’ fully endorsing all the text-book versions of what happened in Bangladesh, and he constantly pushed the ideal of religion before country (the kind of thinking that Musharraf later tried to overturn with his ‘Sab se Pehlay Pakistan’ campaign).

Somewhere in the early 90s, Ahmed started a campaign in his prefaces. He claimed that in an upcoming novel he would shock all his readers into running to a specific corner of their houses. This was typical Ishtiaq Ahmed marketing, the creation of suspense to sell his books. It intrigued the young me greatly, who was a perpetual lagger when it came to solving anything before the last page. This ‘marketing gimmick’ turned out to be something far more sinister as it unfolded. Ahmed wrote an out-and-out novel against people who visit Sufi shrines, replete with ahaadees to back him up. Ahmedis and Sufi followers became the constant target of his poisonous pen that had previously only indulged in nodding passes to ‘muslamaanyat’ and barely veiled antagonism towards India. Now it turned inwards and sought to destroy any semblance of tolerance within the country itself.

Ahmedis, particularly, came under great fire. The idea that every dissenter is ‘vaajib-ul-qatal’ (liable to be killed) came to me the first time through the writings of Ishtiaq Ahmed. Make no mistake about it, his circle of influence wasn’t small. True, that none of the girls in my elitist-ish school were reading him but boys from equivalent schools certainly were, and we know those are the ones whom brainwashing affects directly (though it is not any less hazardous in women). My brother, i remember, once asked me to give him my collections of Ishtiaq Ahmed novels to take to America for a homesick friend of his. His influence ranged far and wide.

Already having read cartoon series version of Muhammad Bin Qasim, Tariq Bin Ziyaad and Mahmood Ghazni’s ‘heroic’ conquests in Taleem-o-Tarbiat I was fertile grounds for hatred against Ahmedis and any kind of non-wahaabi Muslims. Today I wonder, if someone like me could be affected thus, who was on the other hand taking in copious amounts of toyroom tea parties and English boarding schools in Enid Blyton, then where is the surprise in so many brainwashed suicide bombers that keep getting thrown up by the dozen. At that tender age of 12 or 13, being physically fearless by nature and not being a particular family favourite, I could easily have become a suicide bomber I am sure. Later on in life, teaching at Aitchison, I learned the same lesson--there is an immense amount of hardliners amongst the ‘creme de la creme’ (to repeat a phrase that an odious old teacher repeated ad nauseum) of the country. Madrassaas are not the only breeding ground for terrorists in Pakistan. ‘Elite’ schools with self serving Principals and text books that preach nothing but hatred and intolerance are just as bad. It is only at the all girls LGS that I currently teach at (kudos and a totally humble bow to its Principal Nasreen Shah) that there is a concerted effort to make the girls think in the right direction, in order to nullify the effects of some of their text book education as well as the insidious influences of ‘fashion’ and partying and other forms of empty headedness.

The ‘pe dar pe hamlay’on Lahore, as Ishtiaq Ahmed himself would put it, made me think incessantly of the man and whether any of the attackers (or those who control them) could ever have read him at some point, and derived moral justification for their convictions from his evil simplification of things. It isn’t too great a stretch.

Daily Times 09/04/2010

Book review: In tune with history —by Sabahat Zakariya

Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution
By Salman Ahmad Free Press; Pp 226

Salman Ahmad’s Rock & Roll Jihad takes off from the time when he returns to Pakistan as a gawky American teenager who gets beaten up one evening while trying to make his doctor classmates rock to his music. As his hard-bought Les Paul is smashed across the marble floor, Ahmad — in a manner that should resonate with Pakistani students from government universities — watches impotently, rapidly establishing the book’s themes of music, cultural conflict and the desire for reconciliation. It marks the beginning of a personal narrative that is inextricably tied to the collective history of the country of his birth, and lends the book its essential readability.

The grand sweep of Pakistani history — immortalised in the story of Paki-Pop — is captured here by someone who has actually helped shape that history. From the hushed, underground music scene of the Zia era to the heady and hopeful days of democracy, culminating in hormone-marred pop concerts, Ahmad brings Pakistan’s fascinatingly critical cultural evolution to life with a deeply personal recounting. As Ahmad transitions from Vital Signs to Junoon, the country moves from dictatorship to democracy. He captures the romance of Benazir’s return to Pakistan, but is equally brutal in recording the failures of her terms in office. But it is Nawaz Sharif who bears the brunt of Ahmad’s most scathing criticism. Ahmad retells the story of a first class match in which he was the then chief minister’s partner at the crease. Mian sahib’s princely antics on the cricket field are a part of urban Lahori legend, and Ahmad adds to the cannon with relish. Rather irksome, though, is his blind eulogising of the almost-militant Imran Khan. It is as if Ahmad refuses to take off the rose-tinted glasses from his childhood through which he has always chosen to see Imran Khan, his hero. He readily forgives all Imran Khan’s sins purely because he once raised a shiny trophy on a cricket field. His rather cursory yet flattering mention of Musharraf also comes across as intellectually dishonest, particularly in view of his personal views on the man, witnessed in his heated (albeit private) epistolary exchange with the General’s son. His glossing over of Musharraf’s many failures, then, seems more a way of appeasing his friend Bilal Musharraf than an honest assessment of his views on the ‘benevolent dictator’.

Little anecdotes about Salman’s encounters with well-known South Asian and international figures enliven the book and alleviate the preaching that occasionally threatens to defeat the narrative. Waheed Murad giving him passes to his film as a young child, Imran Khan’s scepticism about the young guitarist’s love life, Madam Noor Jehan lunging angrily at a guest on the day of his wedding, and touring Sri Lanka with Wasim Akram and other superstars of the Pakistani cricket team make the book an enjoyably brisk read.

The gem among the anecdotes is about Salman Ahmad taking Mick Jagger on a visit to Lahore’s Red Light area. A series of hilarious events unfold as a 16-year-old courtesan smirks at the very idea of the geriatric-looking Jagger being a famous entertainer in the Western world. This irks Jagger so much he decides to show her what his artistic talents are made of. Dancing together to the beat of live tablas and harmoniums, the two set the night on fire in a little squalid corner of Lahore. The lesson of cultural harmony derived from this incident is the most poignant in the book, far more so than some of the contrived ones about Ahmad’s own work with the UN.

But undoubtedly the grand star of the book is his wife. The stark white page in the beginning relieved by only two words, ‘For Samina’, seems to be a visual representation of the role his spouse has played in his life. Salman and Samina’s story is written as a breathtaking testimony to the power of love. There is love at first glimpse, dramatic twists and turns and difficulties in the path-to-forever punctuated with laugh-out-loud humour — all of which makes one fervently hope there was no ghostwriter involved in the process.

Despite the book’s other merits, the accusation that Ahmad is writing primarily with a Western audience in mind does have validity. This mild irritant could have been disregarded had he not decided to sprinkle the text with tedious translations of each local term, which, apart from breaking up the flow, serves to remind Pakistani readers that they are not the book’s intended audience. A glossary in the end would have been more practical — and less insulting.

His detractors may decry Ahmad’s pomposity, but that is not necessarily a disability here. Ahmad’s sense of his own importance in the world drives the story, making it, for the most part, a lyrical and poignant read. It is certainly difficult to escape Ahmad’s mildly overweening sense of his own importance, which permeates all corners of his narrative as he talks about being the ambassador of peace from the subcontinent who took the UN General Assembly and the Nobel Prize ceremony by storm. But autobiography, by its very nature, is a self-indulgent genre. To expect the author to write with self-effacing humbleness — particularly about pop, which is driven by precisely the opposite forces — is to ask for a dull book. Yet it is in places where Ahmad fades into the background and allows his music to take centre stage — the portions that explain the local change wrought by Paki-Pop — that the book is at its best.

Sabahat Zakariya is a staff member at Daily Times.