Areference in fond memory of Asma Jahangir on the second and last day of the LLF left the audience emotional as panelists remembered some stories of her life – some lively and funny, others emotional.

“The words describing Asma ranged from advocate, angel, icon, warrior, fighter, fearless, friend and family,” said BBC journalist and session moderator Lyse Doucet as she introduced the panel. “And there is also a disbelief at the injustice that Asma Jahangir was taken with us too soon.”

Her longtime friend and human rights defender I.A Rehman started with his memory. “I was mainly focused on writing a lot in those days which Asma often jokingly said was a waste of time. One day she stood in my office’s doorway and said, Rehman Sb let’s start a human rights commission. And without giving much attention to her I said Ok let’s. Well the HRCP was formed but Asma never let me live this down always reminding me of how I had ‘never looked up’ while she had been making a serious proposal.”

“I must say everyone thinks she was always throwing the spanners in the works, but she was doing so much constructive work,” added Mr Rehman. “In 1984, Asma was asked by the CJP to conduct a survey on bonded labour and it was because of her report that the Supreme Court gave the judgement to abolish bonded labour. She also helped build a draft of the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, which was moved by Syed Iqbal Haider as a private member and it was adopted.”Always known for her outspoken ways, Asma had often refused offers or refused to be affected by threats by authorities of the state, even sometimes laughing outright at their absurd suggestions such as offering to have a National Human Rights Commission located within the Interior Ministry.

Salima Hashmi remembered when she was a young girl and had met Asma. “I had befriended her during Zia’s era, the street-fighting years,” she said. “Her nurturing began way back in Ayub’s era when her father was fighting the dictator. Her family was very much in the heart of it and that was how she was inspired too. We had a bond because we had a strong emotional tie to the times when our fathers were incarcerated.”

She said detractors said Asma was utopian. But she saw the bigger picture and its manifestations in smaller things. She said she had an almost impish sense of humour, where she was able to see the ridiculousness, and silliness and pomposity in the affairs of the state, and how she was able to see that and take it down – “all of this helped us see through the toughest of times”, she said.Salima also said that all her friends will tell you how intensely interested and proud she was of her children and how much she loved them.

She always spoke plainly and dramatically; the latter because she said that since contradictions had become so sharp that she said it was needed.

Ahmed Rashid spoke of when Asma had helped lift the ban on his book ‘Taliban’. “There is no human being in Pakistan’s history who has taken up so many causes, non-Muslims, blasphemy, the Baloch, missing persons, landless peasants, the Pashtuns – if you had a legitimate cause and you went to her she would probably wield it into her legal and political presentation.”

“Whenever there was a political crisis she was the first person I contacted and I was always stunned because she had all sorts of insights and information, because there were so many people in the establishment that admired her that they would leak information to her!”

On the panel were Asma’s daughter Munizae and her son Jilani Jahangir who spoke of her as a mother and how much she looked after them even though she never made a big deal of it.

“In the middle of my TV show I would be getting a live feed from her telling me to push my hair back, letting the guest finish what they’re saying, things like that,” said Munizae to a laughing audience. “Often she would even tell my producer why don’t you do shows on social issues?”

“She was the one who took me to Balochistan and we were being shot at, and eventually when we went to the army safe house, she said a few things straight to the DCO’s face without even thinking twice. A lot of people had told us that he was waiting for us there so that when we approached they would shoot at us.”

Munizae said there was no need to mourn her life; it should be celebrated because she celebrated everyone and believed in the courage of the people of Pakistan.

Jilani Jahangir also recalled his childhood memories.

At the end of the session, Asma was posthumously awarded a life-time award for human rights which her daughters Sulaima and Munizae and her son Jilani accepted. I.A Rehman was also given a a life-time achievement award for human rights.

Earlier, Kishwar Naheed read out her poem on Asma.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2018