تو کون ہے اے ابن آدم، کہاں ہے تیرا گھر بار

بیک وقت ماضی مستقبل حال، تیرے چہرے ہزار

ان دیکھی منزل کی آس، راستے بے شمار

خاموش  لب، نگاہوں کی پکار

زمانےکے غم، رہی خوشی سے تکرار

تنہا رہے ہم، ہر محفل بنی تیری یادگار

by: Taha Siddiqui

dekh kar aaj yeh haal-e-zameen,
dil toh chaahta hai ke tujh se hojaa’oon judaa…
par khayaal yeh khatak’taa hai us lamhe,
kho’kar yeh sab kuch, haasil agar ho kuch na…

kal ke liye jo khwaab dekh rahaa hoon,
kiya neend se khud ko ab karloon baidaar…
abhee tak taa’biir dhoond rahee hain nazarein,
sach aur jhoot kee jang ka manzar hai har baar…

aaj aur kal mein buss farq itnaa hai,
jo aaj hai woh kal nahii, jo kal hoga woh aaj nahii…
kitaab-e-zindagii ko bhardiyaa na jaane kitne afsaano se,
jab maazi ke auraaq paltay to kuch milaa hee nahii…

The Green Starvation

Nowadays the most favorite conversations most people indulge in are the talks about Pakistan’s survival..

But a more interesting spin to these sofa intellectualist convos is whether or not Pakistan is a nation to begin with..

I personally have always held a high regard for nationalistic values but suddenly or perhaps as far as my observations are concerned, the mindset of a nation, a homeland, a federation of Pakistani people is fading away..

Pakistan is fast acquiring the status of states within a country and on its way to becoming a house-land rather than a homeland for many.

After all, burning the Pakistani flag, banning the national anthem at schools is at one extreme of the disappearing national ideology in Balochistan, while on the other is the fight for making Pakistan the true Shariah based Islamic Republic in NWFP.. Punjab and Sindh’s people are in the middle path, between these two extremes, but their docile attitude and numbness towards these issues is willingly forcing many out of the equilibrium and pushing them to a more provincial based nationalistic thought process and at times a radical Islamic Mullah revolution.

As far as provincial autonomy is concerned, founder of Pakistan – Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah at numerous occasions highly objected to the idea of provincialism. But that idea has been lost in years of politics by the “leaders” (read feudals) that came after Jinnah, just so that these sardars, chaudries, waderas and the likes could enjoy a following on the basis of ethnic/racial divide.

On the other hand, coming back to the ‘mullah’ philosophy behind the creation of Pakisatn.. It is true that many today strongly advocate the reason for Pakistan’s independence was based on creating an Islamic state.. But if we study it closely, it seems like a disputed idea – Was Pakistan created on the grounds of an Islamic Ideology? If yes, why don’t we see any evidence of it in our present system- Our governing bodies follow the british model, our legal system is still dominated by the british law.. To top it off, recently Pervez Musharraf, the ex army dictator in a TV interview to CNN said that even the Pakistani army is an inheritance of the British army. So when so many british influenced systems still dominate the lives of Pakistanis what truth lies in the claims that Pakistan’s identity is based on Shariah.

So what is Shariah.. It is nothing more than living by the principles the last Prophet preached. But the recent talk of ‘Shariah’ highlights another carefully masterminded conspiracy hatched to distort its concept, I believe.

Today, Shariah has been calculatedly tainted with the blood of sacrifices made under a false pretext.. Shariah practiced or preached by the Taliban has been lashed by majority of the Muslim scholars gatherings..

But why have these scholars suddenly woken up? Where were they when people were taking over in the name of Shariah? Only when things get out of control, our Maulvis of Today come out and speak in opposition..

It is a nexus of these maulvis, separatists, and feudals, that is eating away the pillars of the principles Pakistan should stand upon.. This coupled with ethnic divides, sectarian intolerance, and racist discrimination has slowly eroded most of what I always have believed our country existed for..

A national identity…

13th May, 2011

Friday morning, many journalists while heading to work would have thought how the in camera session would be the big news – perhaps it was. With the military chief, the ISI head and the air and naval forces commanders present, it was serious business.

And even though there was no press allowed, the news channels kept going red telling its viewers that it was really important. What was going to be discussed – ‘The Abbotabad operation and its aftermath’.

Parliamentarians would ask the intelligence and defense agencies why they failed to capture the most wanted man, why they were unaware of the US raid, and when it happened – why was it not countered?

But while all the preparation was going on in the morning as to who would be a good analyst on this developing story, another significant story came in – a twin suicide blast in a city not so known called ‘Shabqadar’ in the District of Charsadda, located in KPK province.

More than 80 people died in that tragic attack majority of who were security officials. Yet we saw news channels covering the ‘Osama Bin Laden aftermath’ for more than half an hour on prime time. Although I will like to further dwell on that but for now, I feel I have made my point about the insensitivity of news organizations clear enough.

As mentioned earlier, the act of terrorism in Shabqadar – was claimed by the Taliban – and they audaciously called it revenge for OBL’s killing. These Taliban are very same force that thrived due to our government and intelligence agencies support in the first place but that is another debate.

Coming back to the news inflow… And as if a message from this militant attack was not enough for the nation, the public got another message, this time from our ‘other’ close ally – the United States of America in the form a drone strike in the FATA region.

What can one say about a country that has invasions on all fronts? It is being accused of harboring Osama, it is being targeted by terrorists looking for revenge, yet it continues to allow drone attacks and has been fighting the insurgents in numerous locations.

In its fight against terrorism, Pakistan has lost more than thirty five thousand lives. The US lost only 3000 people in the 9/11 incident… But we still continue to debate if it is our war or not. Our people are dying… Is that not a proof enough?

Amidst all this, the country is going towards a financial collapse with a staggering loan of more than 60 billion dollars to international lenders, Pakistan is in trouble from all angles.

It is a country at war with itself without realizing it. A war of ideologies that has no foreseeable end. We live in a state of a paradox, an oxymoron, a chaos…

All this is a mocking reality check for those who were present on Friday’s parliament in camera session devising a strategy for Pakistan’s future.

So what did they do?

They passed a resolution…

By Taha Siddiqui

On the road below, I could see a rioting crowd chanting anti-government slogans. The fire they had lit in the middle of the road was high enough to be seen for miles. I could smell burnt rubber, and wood. As I stood there looking at those shabbily dressed men and children, a small boy walked up to me and asked me what time it was?

It was 1 am, I told him. He began to count something on his hands. And a moment later he said to me, “Humaaray mohalle mein dus ghante se bijlee nahii hai…”

I had nothing to offer him. He turned his head around and saw some oncoming traffic. Without saying a word to me, he ran off along with others to pick up stones and rocks, and started pelting them at the cars, motorcycles, and trucks coming their way.

Many cars were hit. I could hear glass smashing, and then the front car braked, nearly hitting the one coming right behind it. Hurriedly, I saw all the vehicles turning around.

The protestors were ecstatic. They seemed to be rejoicing at successfully scaring away the oncoming traffic. I wondered why there were no police or signs telling people not to come on this road. After all, it was on an express way that had no exits up till the point where we stood. So the traffic police could have stopped the traffic at the entrance. And as I was wondering where the police was, I saw red and blue lights flashing in the distance.

It was a police mobile with sirens blaring loudly, and the crowd at first was taken aback…

But one of the elders shouted out loud, “Aaj hum nahi darein ge, maarna hai toh maardo..” and that seemed to energize the crowd and they began to charge towards the police mobile. In seconds, the police vehicle was surrounded by men and children slapping their hands, making loud thumping sound on its doors, windows, and the rest. The police seemed to have no choice but to react. Yet they fled from the scene.

By now some protestors had come to the road where I was standing and started putting barriers on it too… Some one brought an old rucksack, and kerosene. A match was lit, and just a few feet away from me, another road was torched.

The men and children seemed to be getting tired, even blocking this road for over 2 hours; they had not achieved anything. A teenager walked up to me and started talking to me. He told me how he had sick parents at home. He added, “… Hum har maheenay apna bijlee ka bill time par daitein hain, mera baap bemaar hai aur mein akelaa kamaane waala hoon, merii bardaasht khatam hoti ja rahii hai…”

I told him to do what he felt was the right thing to do. He replied, “…saab koii faayeda nahii… kaun danga fasaad chaahta hain, laikin iss ke alaawa haamare paas koii chaara bhee nahii…”

He pointed towards the other direction, and at some distant I saw some more people coming out on the road, and blocking it from another spot.

As we continued to talk about his tales of hardship, I heard a loud screeching of tires, followed by a crashing sound. I looked up and saw man rolling on the road. His bike sliding away to the other side. A speeding motorcyclist who had not seen the barriers had fallen.

He was bleeding from all over. Someone shouted, “Ambulance ko bulaao…”

I went closer and saw the man breathing heavily. He was in his mid twenties. And I could tell that with the blood he was losing, he needed to be at the hospital fast.

Someone shouted police, and pointed to an approaching police van and ran towards it.

Suddenly the crowd was not acting violent. A few of them carried the critically injured biker and put him in the police van, that sped away to a hospital.

This seemed to have put off the crowd, and some policemen who had gotten of the mobile that had just left walked up to the elders trying to assure them that their electricity will be restored soon. They had spoken to the authorities, the police claimed.

The elders went to a side and I followed them. I overheard them saying, “.. Humaarii waja se woh biker bhee gir gaya, chalo bhaaii aise ehtijaaj ka kya faaida.. jiss mein hum kisee aur kee zindagee se khelein.. “

They were suddenly talking sense… And I saw them telling others to back off. But the young ones’ wouldnt listen. Lengthy negotiations went on with the police personnel and eventually it was decided that they will block the road partly. And sit on one side till electricity was restored.

They sat there for another 6 hours. The total black out was for more than 16 hours…

Welcome to Karachi, once known as the city of lights…

By Taha S Siddiqui

The recent heated debate between the federal and provincial government over a cleanup operation in south Punjab worries me. I am worried about how the government is portraying the image of Punjab, the province known always for its congenial, hardworking folk, now recognisable only as the heartland of the Punjabi Taliban. While it’s true that the origins of banned outfits like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Sipah-e-Sahaba have been traced there, the rural Punjab I visited seemed a world away from these imaginings.

My trip there — my first incidentally — was for a documentary I was producing on local household alcohol production. I was tipped off to travel to interior Punjab, some 200 kilometres outside Lahore. My co-worker, whose ancestral home was there, had set up my co-ordinates without disclosing the location of my destination. It all sounded a bit dodgy, and I was skeptical to begin with that alcohol producers would be flourishing amongst madrassahs spewing out extremists in just that vicinity.

After a journey of two hours, my co-worker met me at a nondescript spot where I was told to follow the car. We drove down a narrow road flanked by fields on either side, and in time, came to another parked car — a white 96 Corolla. There was a hefty looking gentleman at the wheel whom I was informed was the contact. We followed him for another ten minutes till we reached a deserted doorway. He drove in and we followed.

This was his ‘dera’, I was told. Made of mud bricks, two rooms and a dusty sitting area, the place looked haunted even in broad daylight. After being seated, I was introduced to the man from the Corolla. He was the ex-mayor of the village and was from a prominent political party in the province. And he was going to take us to the alcohol producer-cum-vendor.

“What will you do with this story?” he asked me.

I told him that I had set out to change Pakistan’s image and show people that it wasn’t all terrorism, like the government and foreign media seemed to think. He nodded and signalled to his servants to bring refreshments.  After a hospitable round of lassi, we were asked to follow him in our cars. At the end of a long winding road, we came to a red-bricked locality. He parked in front of a house and got out, telling us to follow him into the gate. When we entered, we were seated on two charpoys. Presently, a man in his late thirties came out of the house and greeted us. He was introduced as the head of operations, and he welcomed us into his house and introduced us to his wife and five children, who seemed quite fascinated by our arrival.

Getting straight down to business, the distiller asked us to join him in his kitchen, which doubled as his production room, where he kept the matka-distillation machine. At the bottom of the machine was a gas oven, above which was a matka filled with water. The middle matka contained the alcohol mix, and the top bowl was filled with cold water.

“The process is quite simple,” he said. “All you need is a good mixture that readies in two weeks. How the mixture is made I will explain later, but for now let me take you through the process of condensation.” Pointing to the middle mud plate, he added, “When we light the oven, the alcohol will condense and drop out of the pipe that is sticking out.”

After explaining the method, he took some pre-made mixture and, like a science teacher, went through the condensation process. The mixture was of three basic ingredients, water, brown sugar (gurh), and a tree known as kikar’s bark.

“Add all three ingredients into the matka, with kilos of gurh increasing in proportion to the litres of alcohol required,” he explained, “and then bury the matka in a field for two weeks.”

A customer turned up while he was speaking to us, at which point the gentleman excused himself to attend to business. Distiller and buyer nipped into a room and two minutes later, one happy customer left the house with a plastic bag filled with alcohol. The transaction cost three hundred rupees.

When asked if the illegality of his operations troubled him, the distiller replied that this was his livelihood which more than justified doing it. He laughingly added, “I have been caught by the police, and was kept in custody for over a month very recently.”

“So how did you get out?” I inquired.

He took out the notes he had just been handed by the buyer and said, “Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad.”

After bidding farewell to the alcohol businessman as he called himself, we headed out. Our next stop was the fields where the matkas are buried. After driving for a bit, we were asked to park in front of a path leading right into the heart of a plantation. I got out and followed. A mud house appeared before us, and out came a farmer, who, after a chat, told me to follow him behind the house, where we found a pile of cow dung. The farmer started digging into the manure with his bare hands and pulled out a matka covered with a lid. It had been fermenting for 10 days so it had a fairly pronounced odour. I asked him how clean this method was to which he replied that he’d been at it for some 15 years and no one’s health had been tainted by it yet.

We were told that this matka was for the farmer’s personal consumption. There were numerous households in this village that preferred to brew alcohol in their backyards.

We bid farewell to him and headed out of the fields.

“Is there anything rare about this alcohol?” I asked my local contact.

“Not as such. The sugar cane for the gurh is homegrown so it’s not a problem, and water is ample in supply owing to the village’s large canal network.”

“So is it the tree that is a scarce resource?” I inquired.

To prove that it was not he took me to a nearby canal tributary and both sides of which were lined with trees of this particular kind.

“The kikar tree grows throughout Punjab’’, he told me.

We had seen it all and it was time to go back. Jokingly I asked one of the locals about the presence of the Taliban in these areas, to which he smiled and said, “There are no extremists here in our community. Didn’t you notice? We are just a bunch of farmers having fun…’’

Published in The Express Tribune, June 27^th, 2010.

by Taha S. Siddiqui

Shehroz and his driver... At the morgue.

“Gun shot in Keamari!” Shehroz shouted to his colleague as he hurriedly yanked off his Edhi jacket from the wall hanger. I had just entered the Edhi office and before I could even talk to him we were on our way, speeding to Keamari, accompanied by the blaring of a siren and the indistinct chatter on the radio set.

Wanting to investigate violence in Karachi, I had planned on spending time with Shehroz, an 18-year-old emergency professional, at the Edhi centre in Tower, II Chundrigar Road. The city was going through a spell of target killings, just after the by-elections of PS-94. In the absence of law enforcement agencies, spending a few days with an Edhi worker was the best way to visit sensitive areas.

Speeding into a lane ahead of Keamari, Shehroz picked up the hand set on the radio set.

“Confirm location, confirm location. I’m in Keamari,” he said.

“You’re in the right area. Please search; there’s no confirmed location.” A voice replied from the other side.

Shehroz went from one lane to another with his designated driver, Nadeem, looking for the victim but the search was futile. It had been a false alarm.

Shehroz called off the search and Nadeem turned the ambulance around. We were on our way back to the centre.

“Does this happen a lot?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he replied. “But we have to check all calls — that’s our job.”

“How many calls did you attend to today?”

“I don’t keep an exact count, but on an average, I go for five to six calls a day,” he replied. “It totally depends on the city’s situation. Today, for example, I had to go to the same locality in Lyari quite a few times to collect different parts of the same body. We found the head first, then the torso and later the arms and legs.”

Shehroz took out his mobile phone and handed it to me. On the screen was a snapshot of the body parts he had collected earlier in the day. I had barely asked if he had more such photos when he eagerly started showing me other albums of his assignments. I stared at the unspeakable horror and gore, repulsed yet fascinated.

As midnight approached, we waited for more calls.

“How’d you land up with this job?” I asked him.

“I came in as a call centre operator but now I do everything here,” he said.

A couple of hours had gone by without any calls. There were reports of killings in different parts of the city. The death toll had gone up to 12 in the last 10 hours. The total body count was over 50 now. Meanwhile, Shehroz and I chatted about the politics of ethnic-sectarian violence, about area holdings, “bhatta” and the extortion business.

As his duty hours drew to a close, Shehroz suggested that we visit the morgue and see the bodies he had picked up that day. He was interested in showing me the body parts he had collected and which had now been sewn up at the Edhi morgue near Super Highway.

At the morgue, the stench was unbearable — a sharp metallic smell, the stale stench of congealed blood. In the cold storage area were the uncovered heads, open eyes and empty gazes of the dead.

Day 2

The next day, October 18, the city wore a different air. I called Shehroz as he was getting ready to go to work, asking him if the city was violent. Surprisingly, he said it wasn’t. The PPP was out in full force to mark the Karsaz bombings and the arrival of Benazir Bhutto three years ago. The city was peaceful because the leaders of PPP were making sure that the police stayed vigilant.

Day 3

It was around 7 pm when I heard from Shehroz. News had come in that there was a massacre at the Shershah market, with at least 12 people dead. Meanwhile, I was at a product launch, invited by the fashion doyenne Frieha Altaf. As we were leaving the fashion show, my phone rang and on the other end was Shehroz. He was in a hurry.

“Taha, get to Civil [Hospital]. I’ve just picked up three gunshot victims from near Radio Pakistan,” he shouted.

As I drove on the empty streets of Karachi, the city seemed paralysed. It felt as if it was late in the night though it was just 8 pm.

At the hospital, I went up to an Edhi official and asked for Shehroz. He appeared a few minutes later and asked me to follow him inside the mortuary.

“I picked up three bodies just half an hour ago,” he said. “They were lying on top of each other on the side of the road.”

There was the same metallic smell and dried blood on the floor that we walked on. Around the bodies was a bunch of men (police officers, I was told later) inspecting the bodies and taking notes. The victims had all been men in their early thirties.

“Taha, look at this one,”  said Shehroz, touching the forehead of a victim. “He’s been shot in the head at close range… “

Right in the middle of the forehead, there was a bullet hole.

“Aren’t you bothered with all this violence?” I asked Shehroz.

“I am used to it,” he shrugged.

There was emergency at Edhi that day, and he had gotten instructions from his head office to stand by at the hospital since there was a strong possibility that they would have to pick up more bodies. The death toll for that day stood at 17 in the last 12 hours.

I decided to stay with Shehroz and soon we were off to Malir where there was an exchange of fire between two groups and casualties were expected.

The streets were quiet and it looked as if someone had sucked the life out of the city. After reaching a point in the lair of streets in a neighborhood, the ambulance driver stopped next to a police mobile.

“We can’t go any further,” he said to me.

Curiosity is a dangerous trait, I decided to scout the area. I walked up to a lone police mobile standing in one corner and asked one of the policemen what was going on.

“There’s firing ahead, sir. Don’t go,” he said.

“What seems to be the problem?” I asked him.

“Sir, we’re waiting for orders, we may have to carry out an operation,” he said.

Right then, my phone rang. It was Shehroz.

“We have a gunshot case in Korangi. We are moving there,” he said.

“Okay, I’m coming,” I replied and hung up.

As we sped to Korangi, the details started pouring in. There had been firing at a camp for flood victims and three people were reported to be injured. We were in Korangi in 20 minutes or so, but as we were about to enter the lane where the incident had taken place, we saw ambulances driving out of the area.

The injured had already been taken to the hospital. One of the victims had succumbed to injuries and residents of the camp were protesting with the body. An Edhi ambulance already accompanied the protestors so Shehroz decided not to go. He called in at the headquarters and was told to go back to Malir.

We reached the spot we were at earlier and Shehroz got a call from the HQ informing him about a body that had been brought to the police station nearby. We went to Al Falah Police Station, where the call had come from.

The victim was a boy in his late teens. Shehroz checked the body and showed me the bullet wound. The boy had been shot in the chest, close to the heart. Shehroz and his helpers loaded the body onto the ambulance and minutes later we were speeding to the hospital.

At Jinnah’s emergency ward 20 minutes later, the doctor on duty declared the victim dead and referred us to the nearby morgue. A little while later, the father of the dead boy arrived. Inside the morgue, I could smell the same metallic stench of blood and hear the cries of the father.

At 3 am, Shehroz called it a day, and invited me to dinner with his family the next day.

DAY 4

I reached Shehroz’s locality around 5 pm. Lyari is one the most notorious neighborhoods in Karachi and Shehroz came outside on the main road to receive me. Through a labyrinth of narrow lanes, we came to a four-storey building where Shehroz lived.

He introduced his parents and his two younger siblings, a 16-year -ld sister and a 14-year-old brother. His mother went to make tea for us while his father started chatting.

After a round of tea, I asked his father about his son’s work. “Do you like what he does at his age?” I inquired.

“Yes and no,” He said. “We need the money so he has to work.” “But I have no words for the kind of work he does,” he added.

“So what was your reaction the first time he came home and told you about picking a dead body?” I asked.

“We were shocked. We wanted to tell him how scared we were, but if we’d done that, our son would have been shattered.”

Later, I had a talk with his sister. “It is scary but someone has to do the job,” she said about her brother. “Shehroz shows me the pictures every time he comes home.”

It was almost night fall when Shehroz’s phone started ringing again. There was an emergency in the city once again and they were calling him to work.

Minutes later Shehroz was on his way.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2010.

link: http://tribune.com.pk/story/79341/the-death-hunters/

By Taha S Siddiqui

Driving back from work through the city’s busy roads the other day, I was faced with a unique challenge. Trying my best to make it in time before the neighbourhood barber closed shop at 8pm, I was very disappointed when, upon my arrival, I saw the shutters were down and the shop was closed. With a sigh, I put the car in reverse, cursing the 8pm deadline for all markets, when I saw someone running towards my car. As he came closer, I recognised him as one of the boys from the barbershop. I rolled down my window, expecting to hear apologies, but to my surprise, he asked me to park and follow him. Not knowing what was going on, I followed him into the lane next to the barbershop. A few feet away, I saw him knocking on a rather shady-looking door. I asked him if this was safe. In return, he only smiled, and disappeared into the doorway entrance. I followed and before I knew it, I was inside the very shop, the glass front door covered with the shutters. But business went on as usual. If anyone feels that the recent improvement in the electricity distribution has to do anything with the energy conservation plan, to the best of my knowledge, there is no conservation. So have the masses totally ignored the steps recommended by the energy conference that took place a few weeks ago? As far as I know, there are a few reasons why the energy conference was useless. Firstly, the conference itself lacked seriousness. I remember seeing Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, the four chief ministers, the prime minister, and other prominent figures telling us that the way to get out of this energy crisis is to ‘conserve’. But even more clearly, I remember the jokes this high-profiled elected lot cracked in the middle of the conference. At one instance, when ‘Raja Jee’ was asked to give a deadline for ending load shedding, he broke into laughter along with his other (elected) team members. Later, a local news channel ran a report on this lack of soberness. It is alarming to see this lack of seriousness over a serious crisis, and that too in those very people who have been put in office to get us out of this mess. Maybe that is why we saw no serious change in the load-shedding pattern following the energy conference. To top it off, even where the government has a direct writ – public offices, there is no change. Just as we have shuttered-down shops with business as usual, the 11 am deadline for ACs in government offices is hardly being followed. A recent report aired by a private TV channel had a government employee claiming he had to switch on the AC by 9am since the officer in charge did not like to sit in a room that had not been chilled in advance. He added that the in charge did not come in until noon anyway, but the air-conditioners were to be switched on before his arrival. And when the reporter asked him about the violation of the government notification, he admitted that while he had heard about it on TV, the notification had never come through. For weeks now, waiting for the measures implemented by the government to bear fruit, I failed to see any improvement in my ‘candle-lit evenings’. Just as I was about to give up hope, a blessing in disguise came in the form of the mercury dropping. But just wait until the temperatures rise again! And they will. The decision to render Lahore dead after eight has done nothing but add to the miseries of the public, who have to rush back from work and (hopefully) make it back in time for a short trip to a shopping centre. And whenever I travel through this shuttered-down town, there is only darkness as far as the eye can see. The only lights on – a grim reminder of what the city used to be – are headlights.

Link to article on Daily Times

By Taha S Siddiqui

People say Lahore is rich with cultural treasures and that if one starts digging into the past, every street, lane and neighbourhood in this city contains in it a whole new chapter of history. And that is exactly what I felt after watching Dara, a play by Ajoka Theatre that has revisited the Lahore Arts Council. Written and directed by Shahid Nadeem, the play is about the power struggle between Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan’s two sons, the elder Dara Shikoh – the humble prince who is locked in a battle for the throne of India with his younger brother Aurangzeb – the emperor. But the play is not just about a power struggle or a family feud; it is also about the religious ideologies that have clashed in the subcontinent over centuries. It looks deeper into the disputes between the Salafi and Sufi forms of Islam, a fight that continues in this region even today. It is about the extremist mullah ideology that, even today, overshadows the religion of peace – Islam. The play tries to highlight a part of our history long forgotten by current generations. It explores how the course of history may have been altered if Dara Shikoh had ascended to the throne, as per the wishes of Shah Jahan. The play not only has a compelling storyline, but the production is also crisp and uniform. With elements ranging from live musical performances of Amir Khusro’s poetry to beautifully choreographed dances, there is theatrical perfection in every scene. As the scenes change, the audience is treated to a performance by colorfully dressed dancers, and the sounds of qawaalis echoes across the auditorium, mesmerizing the crowd. The main characters of the play include Shah Jahan’s four offspring – Aurangzaib, Dara Shikoh, and their two sisters – one lives with the emperor Aurangzaib, and Badshah Begum, who lives with her father in Agra where he has been sent by Aurangzeb to live out his last days. Finally, there is Hazrat Sarmad, a saint that walks the streets half naked, who is a close associate of Dara. The play captures the essence of the power struggle between the two brothers on an ideological basis. Aurangzaib is shown as the fanatic Islamist who wants to impose his strict interpretation of Shariah on the subcontinent, whereas Dara is the benevolent prince who wants to dwell in the hearts of public by bringing about inter-faith harmony. The play focuses on how the mullahs of Aurangzeb’s court were schemers, just like the mullahs of today. There is an ironic similarity between them and the Zia regime where we saw Pakistan being forced once again into an abyss of extremism, the consequences of which still reverberate though our society today. Even 400 years ago, the mullahs succeeded in silencing a man who wanted to spread Islam through peaceful means. Dara Shikoh is beheaded, and his scholaship on the subject of inter-faith harmony is twisted by the mullahs to make him look like someone who advocated blasphemy. Perhaps the best-produced part of the play, this scene features angels flying around the stage with blood-red sheets symbolising what is happening as the prince is beheaded. After the beheading, Shah Jahan receives a gift from Aurangzeb – it is the head of Dara Shikoh. He screams upon looking at it, and cries to God to take away his eyesight. Suddenly, the Taj Mahal, which is projected onto the background in all of Shah Jahan’s scenes, disappears, declaring his blindness to the audience. The projected images, in fact, lend an extra element of ‘place’ to each scene, and are used to beautiful effect throughout the play. Sarmad’s character is also very thought-provoking. His conversations with the people, his poetic interjections, his conversation with the emperor Aurangzeb all have an admirable depth. The striking thing about his character is his half-naked appearance, which is also the cause of his execution. In a discussion with Aurangzeb, Sarmad is asked to justify his clothing and there is a debate about liberation and nudity, which is scripted masterfully. Concise yet hard-hitting, Sarmad defends his appearance and the king, frustrated by his defeat, orders his execution. The critically acclaimed play concluded its three-day run at the Alhamra Arts Council on Sunday.

Link to article on Daily Times

Justice (Retd) Wajeehuddin Ahmed was speaking today at an event which I happened to cover.

He is the person who had refused to take the oath of allegiance to a provisional constitution order (PCO) in 2001 under Pakistan’s military ruler President General (Retd) Musharraf who resigned a few months back and is now living a retired life and writing his second book.

Justice (Retd) Wajeehuddin Ahmed was also the presidential nomination by the lawyer’s community on October 6th, 2007 against Musharraf.

While addressing the audience, he said that there is no future for Pakistan if we do not have the Rule of Law.

So what is the Rule of Law?

I have studied a few law courses at school.

Law I believe is twisted, and that is because with a different presentation of facts and arguments you have the power to send an innocent man to jail.

But that debate is a different debate. Here we are talking about the comparison between what is in the law books and what is applied. 

In Pakistan, on the streets the reality of the Rule of Law is much different. There is no understanding or sense of law. No body respects the law-enforcers neither does anyone abide by any law. And even in the corridors of power, within their closer doors, there is no weight given to law. And this government or the previous are in no way any different – even today the man who committed heinous crimes and violation human rights is sitting in the country and thinking about joining politics after he gets done with his house building project. Musharraf should be tried but no one except a few seem to be pursuing that story.

The Rule of Law has miserably failed in Pakistan over a number of occasions.

The Rule of Law in Pakistan has failed because our judiciary gave death sentences to leaders like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and while a man who has set a precedent for generations to come to have no respect for law is comfortably living in freedom. The judiciary sided with the military and beauracrats every time there was a moment of leadership crisis.

So then when the hierarchy reflects a total disrepect for law, with a few exceptions of course, why then should we feel that rule of law will bring change?

And what is that change we are talking about?

An end to violation of our borders? An end to inflation? An end to the energy crisis? An end to the economic meltdown of the country? An end to poverty? An end to ignorance?

So are we justified in asking for establishing the rule of law to get rid of the above mentioned problems? Will law bring such a promised change?

I do not believe so. 

Being just is not an inspiration one needs to derive from institutions. Its a mental check one needs to perform.

And that is missing from the people of Pakistan today.

We live in a country where every man is enjoying the lawlessness but complains about it when he is asked about it.

Our problem is not lawlessness.

It is being comfortably numb within the lawlessness.