THE Reuters stringer in Dhaka, Enamul Haque Chowdhury, who deliberately put some dangerous words into the mouth of Bangladesh’s Home Affairs Minister, Mr Altaf Hossain Chowdhury, about “possible” links with the explosions in four movie theatres in a northern district on Dec 7, has now been exposed to illegal action by the government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

Putting words, and that too very sensitive ones, into the mouth of a minister is highly unethical on the part of a journalist, in the first place.

The Reuters stringer, who was originally a sports reporter of the state-run news agency, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), filed a “news story” falsely quoting the home minister as saying that “the bomb attacks (in the cinemas) could be the act of Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group”.

The story was widely picked up by the international media, especially the extremely market-driven western press, which is hungry for such politically sensational stories from Muslim countries these days.

Understandably, the “news” item, making a “disclosure” of the “presence” of the Al Qaeda network in Bangladesh by none other than the home minister had enough potential to attract the wrath of the Anglo-American axis.

Had the report not been immediately proved fabricated, it might have been used by the superpowers of the day as a plea to irrationally settle some scores with a tiny Bangladesh _ perhaps not hesitating even to drop a bomb or two on the small delta crowded with some 136 million people.

However, the minister rejected the report the next day, claiming that he had not made any such comment on the explosions to any one of the 17 people he had talked to on that fateful night.

He also claimed that there was no journalist among those he had separate discussions with on the issue over the period in question.

Some people accepted the home minister’s version, while most others, including a majority of his cabinet colleagues, did not _ thanks to the credibility crisis the minister suffers from for some obvious reasons.

The confusion worsened when the Reuters Dhaka office continued to claim for the next two days that they had a “proof” that the minister had talked to the reporter concerned on the subject.

But Mr Altaf Hossain was very serious this time. He had his telephonic discussions rechecked only to find that he had really not talked to any journalists, let alone any Reuters man.

Subsequently, his office demanded that the Reuters produce the “proof”. And the Reuters failed. Moreover, the news agency on Dec 9 retracted its reports on the explosions, released on Dec 7 and 8.

The development instantly exposed the news agency to a credibility crisis the world over, which brought to Dhaka on Dec 13 its South Asian senior editorial staff, William James Sato, to conduct an internal investigation to see how such an amateurish piece of journalism, devoid of minimum ethical standard, could get through the agency.

However, on Dec 12, the Bangladesh government arrested the Reuters stringer, under Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), on suspicion of involvement with certain quarters, which, the government believes, are engaged in plots portraying the country as a safe haven of Muslim extremists.

Later, he was put on police remand for interrogation and was eventually implicated in the explosion case. He is now in prison, reportedly in a condemned cell of the Sylhet jail since Dec 21.

SACKING: In another development, the management of the government-controlled BSS, where the reporter, Enamul Haque, was a permanent employee, sacked him on Dec 13.

Given the “crime” Enamul Haque Chowdhury has apparently committed, one can hardly criticize the government for its decision to bring him to justice. But the way the authorities arrested him, the way he has initially been denied legal counsel, the way his “confessional” statement implicating a politician of the opposition camp in manufacturing the Reuters story has been secured, the way he has been implicated in the case related to the explosions in the cinemas, and the way he has now been detained in a cell in a remote prison are completely illegal.

The stringer was not at home the night the police went to his residence to arrest him. But the police forcibly took his wife and his brother-in-law, none of whom had anything to do with the crime allegedly committed by the journalist, to the office of its Detective Branch at the dead of night.

Understandably, the police wanted to blackmail the newsman to make sure that he, if in hiding to avoid arrest, surrenders to them. The dirty ploy worked.

Enam surrendered to the police the next morning. But the means the police applied for obtaining his arrest were illegal and devoid of the basic principles of law disapproving of punishing the innocent.

Another illegality the police, or the government for that matter, has allegedly committed is that they inflicted torture, both physical and mental, on the Reuters man during interrogation.

Torture in custody for securing information from an accused is also a gross human rights violation under more than one international human rights instruments to which Bangladesh is a signatory.

But the police, as usual, could not care less. Moreover, allegations have surfaced that legal norms were also violated while recording the journalist’s “confessional statement” before a magistrate, as he was not allowed to consult any lawyer over the period between his arrest and the making of the statement.

The Reuters man reportedly “confessed” before the magistrate that he had deliberately put the controversial words into the minister’s mouth “at the instigation” by Saber Hossain Chowdhury, political secretary to Awami League chief and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

It is, however, the responsibility of the government to substantiate its frequently pronounced allegation that the AL, in general, and Saber Chowdhury, in particular, is behind the recent anti-Bangladesh media campaign abroad.

But before the government succeeds in producing the proof, many people genuinely believe that anyone, including the top brass, would readily own up to anything the police want him/her to confess, if the present mode of torture is adhered to during the interrogations.

As for Enam’s imprisonment in a cell meant for those awaiting execution, is an explicit demonstration of the contempt the present government holds for the rule of law.

The government action seems ominous. This is neither good for the rule of law, nor for professional journalism in Bangladesh.

Reading Shahid Naqvi’s Bedaar Shua’ain, published a few days before his death last month which is his last salute to the pioneers of the progressive movement in literature, one becomes acutely conscious of the sea change time has undergone in the past fifty years since our liberation from colonial rule. Not just in a manner of speaking, not just literally, things have fallen apart in a very physical, material, palpable sense. It is not that Sajjad Zaheer or Rasheed Jahan or Faiz or Makhdoom are all gone or that there is no one to carry on the torch but that the spirit seems to have gone, the road lost and the centre has not held. One is reminded of Rilke’s (?) poem on the making of a bouquet. The gardener picks one flower and discards another, takes a great deal of time selecting the right combination till the bunch he thinks to be right is ready. It remains in the vase for a while, the flowers all together brightening the room. Then the colour starts to fade. The gardener examines the bunch and throws it out the window. The time of togetherness of like- spirited people is what defines a period. It is a strange chemistry that makes groups click. You just cannot bring that about by design.

This selected bunch of writers whose lives Shahid Naqvi has sketched in Shua’ain had a hard time doing their work but their spirit seems to have risen to the height they needed to surmount the hurdles. They had faith and hope. Yet the world they left behind is not a better world in any way. The work should have continued therefore with more vigour. The dereliction that is seen is not understandable. The lot of the underdog is worse, the downtrodden have not risen in respectability, the exploitation of the worker continues, and society as a whole has not become just, equitable and egalitarian. The quest had no reason to be abandoned. A worse thing has happened. The lot of the wretched of the earth looks gloomier today than it ever was as even the light that flickered at the end of the tunnel has been put out.

Some from the old bunch are still around but there is no team. Even the middle guard that was raised with the elders of the movement lies scattered. Their attachment to the progressive ideals is daily weakened by their awareness of the looming despair. All that remains is a fond memory. The weakening and depletion of the intellectual leadership has resulted in the passing of the struggle to desperadoes of all denominations at the end of the line. The disproportionately high-handed and thoughtless reaction of the global behemoth of our post- industrial Romans against the defiance of the Third World gladiators reminds one of Albert Camus’ rebel who, left with only his life to lose, has said “enough, I will take no more.”

Shahid Naqvi’s biographical essays on these founders and activists of the Progressive Movement — Sajjad Zaheer, Mulk Raj Anand, Dr Rasheed Jahan, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Prof Ehtesham Hussain, Makhdoom Mohyuddin, Ali Sardar Jafri, Zaheer Kashmiri, Syed Sibte Hassan — are important as a record of cultural history but what is more interesting than even the putting together of the individual work and contribution to the movement of these poets and writers is the study of their work as a team. This enables Shahid to capture the unique spirit of the time that we living today have no experience of. The interaction for instance between Faiz and Sajjad and Rasheed Jahan during their Amritsar days brings to mind the account of his time in France that Hemingway gives in Fiesta. These sketches with their overview of the writings of these great writers sparkle with life. Sajjad Zaheer’s last words that he wrote to his wife, Razia, sum up very simply the purpose of their struggle: “Don’t remember me with sorrow because I lived for happiness. My purpose was only this that I wanted all to be happy. Don’t remember me with tears because I wished to see smiles on all faces. This was my journey, my destination and my endeavour to my last moments.”

Shahid Naqvi, who died fighting cancer and suffered much in his last days, would have included more personalities in this study but his failing health did not allow him to do more work. Yet what he has left in the shape of this book is a valuable contribution to the literature of the Progressive Movement. He was fortunate to see it in published form and hold the book in his hands just days before his death. Beside two collections of his poetry, Saughat (1986) and Peshkash (1999), he published a number of research studies in Shia history. A study on Lucknow culture that he was doing remains unfinished.

A PROGRAMME arranged by the Lahore Arts Forum (LEAF) which I never want to miss is the one confined to readings from three languages —- Urdu, Punjabi and English. It comes up on the third Tuesday of every month in Hall II of the Alhamra Cultural Complex near the Gadhafi Stadium. Last week I was all the more anxious to attend because the slot for Punjabi was not to be filled by someone presenting a story or a poem but by the rendition of Najm Hosain Syed’s play, Ik Raat Raavi Di, directed by that talented teacher of the Lahore Grammar School, Huma Safdar. She, I understand, also writes poetry. I had already seen her dramatic rendition of Heer in the same forum and was aware of her talents.

This play by Najm Hosain Syed revolves around the happenings of 1857 and the part played by Ahmed Khan Kharal against the British. It goes to the credit of Huma Safdar that she not only managed to get young girl students of a snobbish English-medium school to play the part of male characters but also speak Punjabi with the required accent. But I must also compliment the teenagers for putting up a commendable performance. I am glad the hall of the Alhamra Cultural Complex was overflowing that evening and everyone sat patiently till the end.

The rest of the programme that evening was no less interesting. Salman Shahid was there to play a double role, first as a poet of English and then to handle the arts capsule as a film maker. I met him after a long time and was sorry to see that he had lost his boyish looks. However, he was still impressive with his partly greying hair. He opened the programme reciting his poems. The one which appealed to me most was about a piano which someone had presented to him with and which kept lying in a corner of his room as a decoration piece, and a companion. The reason? It did not work!

Neelam Ahmed Bashir was there for the Urdu part of the programme. She read a short story, Eik Thi Malika. Although she had forgotten to bring her glasses, she managed to correctly read the entire script with borrowed glasses from Ali. The story was about the younger lot living abroad and the agony of the parents hearing of trying days lived in foreign lands.

Neelam has lived in the United States for years. She told me that evening that she had written a book on 9/11, Sitambar, Sitambar. She happened to be there at the time and her son had only a few days earlier been laid off in the twin towers. It is likely to come out soon.

Parveen Atif, Neelam’s aunt, was also there that evening but I found no opportunity of talking to her. Salim Shahid was again called upon by Muzaffar Ghaffar to wield the mike. A qualified film maker from Moscow, the talk he delivered on the subject was illuminating. In a soft and mellow voice, he traced the 100-year history of film making and the changes and innovations brought into it over the years.

At the same function, I also met Mustansar Husain Tarar. He told me that the Urdu Department of the Al-Azhar University had included his book, K-2 Kahani, in its M Phil syllabus. He is the first Pakistani to get the honour. Mustansar expressed the wish that his novel, Qila Jangi, was translated into English because his publishers thought it would be a best seller abroad.