Capitals are called “Pai-takht” in Persaian, meaning the seat of power; from which emanates the authority to make changes towards good or bad. As power generates its abuse; it is despised, but wished for. In everyday politics; which might have turned sophisticated with the passage of time; due to development of an industrial society and an intruding state structure; the mechanics of power remain primitive. A dialogue from the Shayam Benegal movie on 1857 Junoon encapsulates the reality; where a Muslim warrior is promised the hand in marriage of an English girl; provided the warrior enters Delhi as an occupier. Control of the capital ensures victory; political or military, even in the modern world.
Coming back to the real life scenarios; in Pakistani politics; the storming of the capital; through parliamentary democracy; through street power and lastly through palace coups, has been the norm all political parties follow in one way or another. Most recently, the guessing game over the dissolution of two assemblies; Punjab and KPK is also geared towards the same objective. In their pursuits for political power; which sometimes bear favourable results and sometimes might fall short of the intended target, there is always a crop of comrades and activists who are ignored, not awarded or are simply bestowed the title of the ‘unsung heroes’ of the struggle, no matter how crucial their sacrifice.
Given the fact that the politics in Pakistan has never taken the revolutionary road; it has always trod a path set by the established order, or in plain words the military leadership of the day. With that aspect decided, it has never been a right thing for the activists to risk their life, honour and property beyond a self-drawn red line. Most of the political activism; whether it has been student politics, political workmanship or media personnel sympathetic to a particular political ideology or creed, has tried to stay clear of that.
For Pakistan, solutions might not be rooted in he vs him. A broader discourse is needed to reach the benchmarks. In the absence of which, the road to change will never be that road, rather a road to Pai-takht, the altar for power grab; which feeds on blood and sweat, unappreciated. It is high time that the basic assumptions of politics change with the intervention of a mature middle strata leadership; able to link with cause, then a personality. Until then, much blood and honour will be lost in vain.
The Junejo government, too decent by Pakistani standards, the post-1988 political governments resumed that crossing of the red lines pertaining to the sphere of human rights abuses. The 1990 ouster of the first post-Zia PPP government opened the floodgates of human rights abuse. The caretaker Jam Sadiq Ali Sindh government, whose hold was formalized in the subsequent 1990 elections, had the reputation of no hold barred repression of PPP cadre. The Shah Bandar point blank range killing of alleged Al -ulfiqar militants was the start of that campaign. That was followed by the brutal repression of female activists of the Peoples Students Federation in the Saddar CIA centre. In fall 1991, and an alleged molesting of a close friend of the then PPP leader Late Benazir Bhutto in Karachi DHA during the same period. These were the instances when human rights abuses were pushed to its limits.
When the PPP opted for a long march against the PML(N) government in November 1992 with tacit support from parts of the established order, the police in the largest province, Punjab, unleashed abuse on student activists and senior leaders alike. One PSF activist was so brutally beaten that he almost lost his ability to cohabit and procreate. Likewise a senior leader who decades later rose to be Governor of the same province; was exposed to ‘roller’; a form of torture by the police; where the victim’s body is pressed with heavy rollers. Not to ignore the record fumes of tear gas the deceased leader of PPP, Benazir Bhutto, had to inhale in the Islamabad police blockade.
These were the instances which were recorded by the human rights organizations; notably the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The following period, when the Musharraf coup in 1999 gave way to a renewed political process in the aftermath of the 2002 elections was relatively free of big incidents. At that time the law enforcing agenies were more engrossed in the anti-terror/ Al Qaeda/Taliban business than to lay their hand on any political activist. The only untoward incident; that of the current Interior minister and then PML(N) activist, was subject to indecent behavioru by Intelligence sleuths.
The period between 2008 to 2018 was relatively free of any human rights abuses against political activists. However, journalists were subject to torture and even killing; the extra judicial murder; with broken ‘rib cage’ of Syed Saleem Shahzad in May 2011, whose linkages with the War On Terror were the reason; the very reason journalist bodies looked the other way; for obvious reasons.
The period after 2018 has been marked by greater regimentation of civil society. The automatic impact of that state of affairs has been the greatest number of journalists going off the air, if not actually killed in mysterious circumstances. That same period also gave birth to the corps of fifth-generation warriors; journalists with limited capabilities like remote controlled drones seconding for full-fledged combat aircraft in the pursuit of completing a task.
The breakup of April 2022 between the established order and its pushed political trend, the PTI, created a situation similar to the breakup of 1981 in Iran after the ouster of moderate President Bani Sadr by the clerical establishment or that of fundamentalist Ikhwan (not to be confused with Egyptian IM or the Ibn Saud tribe. It opened the gate to a better-armed opponent to do what it wanted to. Pakistan has been previously subjected to political victimization where the worker, student or journalists were subjected to state intimidation. However, the sanctity of life and honour has been always maintained in one way or another.
The events after April 2022, included pointed torture episodes of political victimization, hounding of journalists to the point of actually killing one; pressurizing media houses to economically strangulate journalists who were not in line with the established order. In one instance, one journalist had to lose his life in mysterious circumstances in a foreign land; a treatment usually reserved for what the established order marks as persons with anti-state credentials; the likes of slain brother of BB, Mir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, who was killed in France, July 1985 and many Baloch separatists in Western destinations.
As things stand, the so-called agitation launched by Imran Khan is near dead for all practical purposes. The party somersaults with each step from the establishment, its unwillingness to act radical and find support from within the system, all backfired effectively in the favour of the established order. However, what is unresolved for many are the lost jobs, lost honour and the irreparable loss of the dear ones.
In the backdrop of these incidents; where competent professionals, opinion makers and common men made sacrifices in the hope of real change, the actual on-ground reality turned out to be ‘politics as usual’; it is a painful reality to live with.
In a society where individual life and honour are subjected to peril; where the whole system;s good or bad behaviour hangs on the whims of a single person understanding or otherwise of the ground reality; movements for change need to be rooted in intellectual foundations and not based on individuals. Societies based in intellectual discourse have been able to find the right leadership in due course of time and led the way to overturning the ‘old regime’.
For Pakistan, solutions might not be rooted in he vs him. A broader discourse is needed to reach the benchmarks. In the absence of which, the road to change will never be that road, rather a road to Pai-takht, the altar for power grab; which feeds on blood and sweat, unappreciated. It is high time that the basic assumptions of politics change with the intervention of a mature middle strata leadership; able to link with cause, then a personality. Until then, much blood and honour will be lost in vain.
