A peculiar background.

The Grenade Tree at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi.

 

This line, from a recent Supreme Court order on voter verification, is all kinds of genius:

Karachi has a peculiar background, which includes a serious law & order situation

While I am puzzled at the ‘peculiar background’ bit – the words remind me of a matchmaker looking into a family’s lineage – what the line is more indicative of is is a failure to understand what is happening in the city.

I recently went to the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry to hear a bench of judges take on pretty much every high ranking officer there is in town – save for those who really run the city, the Tappis and Ibrahims and Khan saabs of the world – and the entire exercise left me with an acute pain in the legs [Really, courtrooms, is it so difficult to arrange seating for the press corps?] and rather bemused. The discussion seemed like it was happening where Karachi was being compared to a parallel, utopian universe, everything should be right, but much to the judges’ chagrin, it was not.

The failure to understand Karachi isn’t just because there is very little context in press reporting these days – no one has the time or patience, and Karachi journalists assume that everyone knows what they’re taking about – but also because there is little comprehension on just how vast the city is. I’ve lived here 17 years, in seven neighbourhoods, and there are parts of the city I’ve never been to and the ones I lived in have changed beyond recognition in the past two decades. So have the actors there, and they keep changing, and there are warring militias and influential groups everywhere.

Everything in Karachi gets branded a ‘law and order problem’, thrown into a convenient barrel of ‘security situation’ and ‘politicization’ and mixed up for good measure. As the wise Ramesh*, a man with whom many of Karachi’s privileged are familiar, says:

Aap news walay to sirf khabr ki talash mai hote hain. Shehr mai sab theek hai.

The state of ‘theek’ is precisely what the city is in. We are used to a certain number of deaths, a certain amount of violence, and a certain amount of uncertainty. But what is surprising is that even in all these years, the ideas, policies for and analyses of Karachi cling to the familiar wrapping of law and order.

Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A journalist’s phone never stops ringing. Its an endless series of texts touting political statements, invitations to “urgent” press conferences where a minister will repeat the same thing he’s been saying for the past year, and the odd bit of gossip. Or someone offering a discount on bulls and goats for “media friends” [true story].

There’s also the delightful beep that isn’t call waiting. I once almost smashed my phone into the wall because the beeping and incessant call drops were enough to make one go insane. Its the oh-so-comfortable feeling that you’re bugged. [Thankfully, I'm never going to be important enough to have this be a daily feature and no one wants to hear an endless series of conversations with the few family members and friends I have about how I'll be late for breakfast/lunch/dinner/tea/birthdays/anniversaries/funerals]

So its rather comforting to know that the government is finally institutionalising the whole business. After all, the military’s been tapping phones since time immemorial. Why should the civilians be left behind?

Disconnected.

Congratulations, Pakistanis.

The country has been saved. So has Islam. There is now no one calling for independence from this wretched state. No one has been picked up in the middle of the night. No one from any sect, religion or profession has been killed for the virtue of what they do and believe in. No one has been kidnapped, mugged, threatened, injured. No one has claimed moral superiority. There has been no massacre.

–

The state’s move to block cellphone services in Pakistan is perhaps not just one of the most misguided, unintelligent and inane moves there is, but is inhumane on a level I cannot even begin to fathom.

Imagine the plight of someone today trying to get in touch with family members to know if they are safe. Imagine someone who doesn’t have a landline trying to call the police, an ambulance service, a doctor – for assistance of any kind. And while those behind this decision may have the assurance of an army at their disposal, none of the citizens of this state rest at night knowing they are secure.

In the absence of a phone, they will leave their house. They will be mugged, violated of their dignity and possessions. They will be harassed by the hordes of men, but won’t be able to call someone to complain. They will approach the police, who will shrug it off. Even if the police tries to help, they’ll be told not to waste their time. VIP duty hai na sir. They will be detained, go missing, and won’t be able to be traced via a cell phone. They will be killed, and no one will know where they are.

This happens every day. Ask the wife who has no idea where her children’s father is. Ask the mourner whose loved ones were shot dead for their faith and then the attackers celebrated their death. Its available on YouTube, you know. Ask the father whose son’s body has appeared at his doorstep. Ask the young girl who lost her salary when someone pointed a gun at her and demanded it as if it was their birthright. This state – its military, its judiciary, its  political parties, its clerics, its enablers – has systematically stripped its residents of the ability to even die and remain buried with dignity.

Goodnight. And good luck.

Karachi: “Midway between its tranquil past and bustling future”

April 14, 1950. The New York Times, on the choice of Karachi as the capital of Pakistan:

“… So Karachi was projected into unexpected fame. It still is midway between its tranquil past and bustling future. Housing is short in the extreme. Thousands of refugee craftsmen do their weaving and spinning beside shacks that not even a “Hooverville” tramp in the days of the American depression would inhabit.

There are far more bicycles, rickshaws and rubber-tired carts drawn by ambling camels with tinkling bells around their knees than automobiles. Buzzards wheel overheard mournfully searching platforms where the Parsees, most of whom have gone to Bombay, used to expose their dead.

Minor birds and crows chatter among bougainvillea and hibiscus flowers in the prosperous residential area. Sindis in long white coats, Baluchis with turbans and fierce brown-faced Punjabi officials from the north wander through the baking streets past temporary hutments where most Government offices still are installed.

[...]

But despite squabbles with India over their joint heritage, the festering Kashmir quarrel, suspicions of Afghanistan, commercial and financial disputes with New Delhi and a budget rendered totally lopsided by budget requirements. Pakistan has made remarkable progress and like the mushroom city of Karachi, exudes confidence.”

Sone ki chirya dengue malaria / Gud bhi hai gobar bhi

Watching Shanghai today brought it with a sense of familiarity: this is a story I’ve seen before, felt before. By the end of the film, I felt like I had seen the past two years of work flash by.

Target killers? Check. Reluctant police officers? Check. State complicity? Check. Urban sprawl and threats of forced resettlement? Check.

Combine Shanghai with one of the best books I read last year – Siddharta Deb’s The Beautiful and the Damned – and its your guide to what is exactly wrong with Karachi.

While Islamabad – and the Islamabad-centric news media filled with egotistic talking heads – is obsessed with yet another issue that has little to no practical consequence for the hundreds of millions of people in Pakistan, the state has happily abdicated its responsibility in every area in Karachi. I’m sure you didn’t notice. There was no tender issued.

Here you go: security – contracted out to private guards, chowkidars and strongmen and that family member who scrounged around for a weapons license, religion – handed to the neighbourhood imam and the head of the religious-political party of each sect, health – run by private clinics and hospitals, rescue services – Edhi and Chhipa, water – the tanker owners,  development – the AKDN, housing – private developers, planning – paper-pushing advisors, justice and dispute resolution – the neighbourhood vigilantes, the well-connected politico, the SHO, riots – party workers, strongmen and a group of people fed a plate of biryani.

Everything in this city is a golden egg, an opportunity to scam someone out of more money, to help one group at the cost of another. The city is heralded as the country’s financial capital, but it is really the country’s opportunist capital. The city is flogged again and again – for money, for gaining political mileage, for showing who is in control after all. Land? Who lived there before? Who cares? They can be shuttled off somewhere. Rape? What does it matter? She must be lying. So must be her medico-legal officer. Riots? Let’s kill a few more people.

“Dekho halaat phir kharab honge. Yeh election tak baar baar hota rahe ga taake logon ko lage ke sheher control se baahir hai.”

Bhatta?

Arey mangta hai humein chanda bhi
Humein sooraj bhi
Bolo kya do ge?
Dhandha ye agar chanda nahi, donation sahi
Bolo kya do ge?

“The extortion slip featured a drawing of a bullet and said that the doctor’s life would be priced at Rs38, which is the cost of a bullet.”

“Mai to chai bechta hoon. Mai maheenay ke chaar sau rupay kahan se doon?”

Like that moment in Shanghai when Emraan Hashmi starts dancing in glorious abandon – a day’s work done and does it matter that the man he’s dancing with is going to be the reason he’ll be  running through the streets with a CPU, banging at a bureaucrat’s door for justice (who has just been mocked for trying to pull off a Robin Hood act) – Karachi dances this tune everyday. It isn’t that those who are elected don’t care, there’s a reason there has been development, whether that was done with a holistic view is another question altogether. But the fact is that they don’t need to care. They can easily just get by.

And that is what Karachi is surviving on. Everyone is getting by, but the dance is turning angrier with each day. Those who loved a ruling political dynasty now smear black paint over their faces on posters they once proudly kissed and look over into a reporter’s notebook to make sure they’ve listed their list of complaints: kutta, haramzada, beghairat, humein bech daala. Hai hai. And those who would never speak ill of the powerful now openly blame them for their lives being in ruins. But it doesn’t matter. They will soon be coddled, told that what happened was a mistake, that they tried their best, and be given more Robin Hood-like characters to look up to.

Who doesn’t love a target killing year? Or a dengue year? Or a floods year? After all, this is nothing but an opportunity to plant a big flag and say ‘we helped, don’t you remember, now vote for us.’

Who doesn’t love an election year. Naach magan, kaat mutton, roz humein khana. 

Garhi Khuda Bux

In Larkana, this song reverberates through the town. Until I go to sleep, I can hear it from the nearby roundabout, from the cars driving past.

I spent a couple of days in Garhi Khuda Bux this week. Twice a year, journalists descend on this village to cover the death anniversaries of Zulfikar Ali and Benazir Bhutto. The last VIP leaves, and so do the camera crews, with the mausoleum staff sweeping up the debris left by the thousands of people who have walked in, shouted Jiye Bhutto, brought bags of flower petals and chadars and wreaths.

The doors close when the Bhutto family is visiting. Shades are put up so we cannot look in through the carved wooden doors. The courtyard of the mausoleum is emptied of visitors, pushed back behind a gate.

They bang on the doors. The rhythmic thumping echoes through the mausoleum.

Clang, clang, clang.

When the doors finally reopen, they storm in. They rush to the graves, and then they stop.

Tombstone after tombstone, velvet embroidered chadar after chadar bears a tale that is intertwined with
Pakistan’s history.

Photos on Flickr, reports here, here, here and here.

–

A few days later, I begin thinking about rose petals and private grief, found in the overcrowded graveyards in Karachi. Rows and rows of tombstones, some constantly covered with fresh flowers, others that have not been visited in years and are being eyed up by the graveyard management to use anew. I think about the graveyard in Lahore where some genius thought he’d paint an ad on the boundary wall: “aaiye, hum aapko jawan banate hain.”

–

Private or public, grief is always set to music. I will listen to the same songs over and over, every time wondering why.

–

Waqt ki qaid mai zindagi hai, magar, chand ghariyan yehi hain jo azaad hain. 

Riyasat hogi maa ke jaisi.

Seven victims of enforced disappearances who were in the custody of the Pakistani military appeared in the Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday. There were originally eleven. Four are now dead.

Dawn:

Ghulam Murtaza, father of Mazhar-ur-Haq, told Dawn that he had met his son after over one year. “My son cannot talk normally. He told me that he was kept in a basement in Parachinar in freezing cold with a window open all night. He was without any quilt or mattress and used to sleep on floor.

Umar Cheema at The News:

Every word from them was followed by the advice ‘not to be quoted’ as they feared a backlash. One of them said they would not get any warm clothing or blankets in the freezing cold at the internment centre. Once, a detainee was suffering from serious disease, and he asked for help. A low-ranking official passed the information to his officer who replied: “Let him die first.”

Saeed Shah for the Guardian

After the hearing, as he was being taken away, Abdul Majid, one of the detainees, broke down in tears. “Either take our life or let us go,” pleaded Majid, 23, who said that he had not received medical care for his illness and had been getting little food. Majid had appeared in court carried a urine-filled colostomy bag in his hand, as a result of kidney problems.

‘The situation is worsening’

Mohammad Iqbal

For Mohammad Iqbal, his decision to convert to the Ahmadi faith almost cost him his life.

It took his father fourteen years to start pressurising Iqbal to change his decision. Despite several threats, Iqbal, who belongs to the Arain caste, did not give in.

Iqbal says he escaped two murder attempts before his own father asked a local cleric to register a case (PDF). Even though one of the witnesses from the cleric’s side refused to testify against Iqbal, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Faisalabad. Iqbal recalls seeing “turbaned men” in large numbers at his trial hearings.

After six years in jail, his sentence was overturned by the high court on appeal. Iqbal was 40 when he was released from jail in June 2010, and joined his family in Rabwah, who had moved there three years earlier.

Iqbal’s wife was expecting a child when he was imprisoned, and he was only able to meet the child six months after it was born.

In an interview, he recalled conditions in the jail. Iqbal was kept in a cell with others jailed for committing blasphemy, including a Muslim. “We were kept together since the jail also housed extremists and terrorists,” he said. “Taliban members, the men who plotted that assassination attempt on Pervez Musharraf… they were all there and they knew the jail housed people convicted under the blasphemy law.” According to Iqbal, he was only allowed to leave the cell if he had visitors.

He is now trying to rebuild his life. Only one of his brothers still speaks to him. His father has reportedly offered to sign over land to him if he reneges on his faith. The cleric who filed the original case has died, and there is no one to account for why Iqbal spent six years in jail.

He is one of the many Pakistanis who have been victimised and targeted under the blasphemy laws. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against members of all faiths on the basis of little to no evidence. Allegations of blasphemy have been responsible for triggering off riots, such as in Korian and Gojra in 2009.

The majority of blasphemy cases are filed in Punjab, where both Governor Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti were assassinated in 2011. Taseer’s assassin confessed that he killed the governor for his opposition to the blasphemy law. Flyers strewn around the scene of Bhatti’s assassination declared that he had been killed because he was on a “committee reviewing the legislation”.

In its report on the state of human rights and democracy in 2010, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office stated: “Unfortunately efforts by the Pakistani government to reduce the abuses associated with the blasphemy law have been stalled by public opposition to any reform following the assassination of Governor Taseer, and there is little likelihood of much-needed reform in the near future”.

“I cannot even think of committing blasphemy,” Iqbal declared. “Section 295 is a wrong law. I was convicted merely on testimony, without any proof. I have no hope of it being repealed – look at Aasia Bibi’s case or the assassinations of Taseer and Bhatti. The situation is worsening.”

This interview was conducted in Rabwah in June 2011.

August 17, 1988.

Illustration and caption from The Age, August 18, 1988

Today is the death anniversary of General Zia ul Haq. While as Shahid Saeed points out, the obituary by Anatol Lieven should be on top of the Mard-e-Momin memory reading list, here are some excerpts from foreign press coverage of his death and funeral. You can also watch Ghulam Ishaq Khan announcing his death on national television here.

‘A ball of fire’

A Pakistani paper, The Moslem, reported that most witnesses had seen an explosion in the air like a ball of fire that fell to the ground. The only visible item that reportedly escaped the flames was a copy of the Moslem holy book, the Koran.

Pakistan Seeking Reason for Crash in which Zia died – New York Times

‘A final category’

A final category of people who did not like General Zia were citizens who felt he had wronged them, a category Mr. Kreisberg said included ”anyone whose family has suffered a loss they attribute to Zia or any of the other people on that plane.”

The Foes of Zia: So Many, So Bitter -  New York Times

Others stayed focused:

While joining Pakistan in mourning Zia’s death, the State Department stressed that it anticipated no slowdown in the flow of U.S. weapons to Afghan rebels through the South Asian country.

Mysterious Explosion arouses Suspicion – Associated Press News Analysis

In Islamabad…

Some clutched portraits of Zia and shouted, “We will mourn you forever!”

Tens of thousands gather for Zia’s funeral – Associated Press

The end.

As visitors left the funeral in a swirl of dust, heat and chaos, one large sign greeted them.

Strung across the road in front of the mosque, a sign read: ”Dear Zia. Our hearts mourn and shed tears on your sad demise. Afghan Mujahedeen.”

Zia Is Buried Before a Muted and Prayerful Throng – New York Times

And Zia ul Haq:

He was, in fact, a man of simple tastes. In accordance with his Moslem beliefs, he did not drink alcohol and his only indulgence appeared to be British cigarettes. His walls were covered with embroidered verses from the Koran.

”I really have been a reluctant ruler,” General Zia told reporters recently. ”Really, you can say that. But I am not a person to just give up in disgust and walk away. I am determined to stay here until I solve all of the many problems that continue to face our country.

”Only then,” he added, ”will I disappear and start playing as much golf as I wish I were playing right now.”

Mohammad Zia ul-Haq: Unbending Commander for Era of Atom and Islam – New York Times

Man on the moon

Hitler may want a united Eid…

…but no one agrees.

Efforts of the Senate’s standing committee on religious affairs to observe Ramazan and Eid on same days throughout the country went futile on Friday when clerics from Peshawar’s Qasim Khan Mosque refused to accept the authority of the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee.

The entire account is fascinating, including a debate on whether the Met Office’s reports should be followed and science and Sharia

Maulana Bashir Ahmed Kakakhel, a member of the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee, said he had learned about procedures for fixing Ramazan and Eid days in various countries, including Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

“Reports of Met offices are taken seriously in most Muslim countries and we should not ignore this practice in Pakistan,” he said, adding that there were also many false evidences and that too during the time when moon had not even originated as per the Met Office report. Maulana Kakakhel`s remarks led to a brawl between the two groups of ulema and Mufti Popalzai asked: “If you have to choose between science and Sharia what will you believe?” He said science was evolving, but Sharia laws would be there till the day of judgement.

The Minister for Religious Affairs Khursheed Shah chimed in with what has to be the quote of the day:

If a committee is sent to the moon even then many ulema will say that the moon is not visible

Here’s a post from 2009 on the moon sighting debacle.