A perfect alibi

Published August 12, 2016
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

WE are happy to have invented an alibi for ourselves. Some of us use it in the name of neutrality. The more imaginative of us apply it in order to draw the much-craved democratic satisfaction. Maybe the second category is more dangerous since it strives to serve everything to everyone in equal measure, according to the group members’ own version of democracy. They are in a permanent state of doubt. They are in and on to India-held Kashmir when the topic is Balochistan, and they are lost in Balochistan when a roll call about those who support the movement of the Kashmiris is taken.

These people stand nowhere yet claim to represent a rational approach when it comes to solving issues. In reality, they may only be succeeding in fooling themselves. It is perfectly understandable that they are looking for relief for themselves — principled positions, clean conscience, et al. In the process, they are often perpetuating the same policy of confusion and obfuscation that they have accused others of having over long years.

It is such a politically correct excuse. It is so convenient. Those in Pakistan — and outside of it — who cannot or are unable to, out of conviction or fear, protest the dark happenings in Balochistan voluntarily disqualify themselves from speaking about, much less for, Kashmir. They are quick — quicker than they have ever been — to point out that they lack the moral ground to condemn Kashmir in isolation of Balochistan and vice versa.

The logic is deceptively unassailable. How can they possibly fault the cruelty of another when they cannot identify the excesses committed on their own soil — the soil that must throw up bodies from time to time to leave them guilty but speechless? If they are afraid of protesting the disappearance of a Baloch deep inside Balochistan or from the outskirts of Karachi, how can they, possibly, question and condemn the black hole in Kashmir, which has eaten up an unspecified number over all these years?


The logic is deceptively unassailable. How can they possibly fault the cruelty of another when they cannot identify the excesses committed on their own soil?


Kashmir and Balochistan, whatever the argument for and against putting the two together, constitute a prominent permanent example of the tendency. A similar approach to dealing with all kinds of situations in life is used by the timid and the fence-sitters. You may look for instances to back this view in your surroundings. Chances are that you will be pretty overwhelmed by instances where so-called principles are invoked to come up with an objective, and a toothless and even anti-people stance over some very crucial issues.

This is outrageous — wilfully choosing to stay silent about one oppression because there is a gag order on another. This is an ill-conceived deterrent to those who are and must be moved by injustice. They should speak out when and where they can. Their security obviously is something that they are fully within their rights to review before venturing an observation.

There can be no greater snub to the people than the suppressing — or blacking out — of their case on the basis of these pleas. Doing this would be conforming to the very notions that facilitate oppression. If these notions that perpetuate old diktats have to be challenged, let’s try and not abstain from condemning excesses where we see them and where, according to our own understanding of the compelling circumstances, we are able to raise our voice against a violation.

You must have come across these debates on mainstream media and social media which pitted people favouring a popular solution in Kashmir against the conscientious souls who are pained, rightly, by the gag order on Balochistan. Patriotic Pakistanis steadfastly refuse to believe that those who rule over them and can cross the line are routinely shamed by others about their inability to not see.

These have been really heated debates, more intense in social media, where the participants have been getting away with the most liberal use of invectives thrown at their ‘opponents’ — so enormous has been the anger of those who speak as patriots that it is getting more difficult with time to talk on the basis of facts.

But if this should have ideally led to the initiation for a greater search for the facts in the opposite camp, the effect has produced an entirely different result. This other side has chosen, by one definition, the rather easy path of counter-condemning, or what is worse, abstaining from debate.

With time, an increasing number of fellow Pakistanis are among the crowd which must immediately flash Balochistan at the first mention of the rights violations by state actors in Kashmir. The comparison is born of a somewhat strange and decidedly inferior model of democracy that these debaters appear to have in mind.

This is a model of democracy that has little room for diversity of opinion that must rank much before and above variety in action. This is reflected in the shouting matches that we are often witness to, and in labelling of certain indiscreet commentators, however few they may be, as traitors. These vocal defenders of this and that cause — of Kashmir and Balochistan — don’t seem to realise that they are guilty of grossly undermining and disrespecting the very cause they are seeking to champion.

The model that we have in place has scant respect for the minority view. It is built upon basics that may end up promoting more tokenism than equality. This can be seen in discussions in Pakistan right now. This encourages generalisation over specific focus in an issue, and allows everyone in the argument to go away with an exalted feeling of having scored big points against the opposition.

The point to remember is that those who speak against excesses in one region are not in competition with the ones who identify, with matching zeal and shock, abuses in another area. They may continue so long as they do it on the side of the people.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2016

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