Nothing could be sacred in a country, where the constitution is not held sacred, says leftist activist and academic Ammar Ali Jan at a session on the last day of the Lahore Literary Festival held at Alhamra, The Mall, where his book ‘Rule by Fear’ was launched on Sunday.

At the session moderated by senior journalist and TV anchor Mujahid Barelvi, Jan, also founder president of his Left-oriented Huqooq-i-Khalq movement, said his book opens with one of the the darkest episodes of Indian History, Jallianwala Bagh carnage occurred at Amritsar (now India) on 13th of April, 1919. On the day, British Indian army opened indiscriminate fire on peaceful protesters, killing, as per some accounts, up to 1,500 people, on the orders of Gen Dyer.

Jan mentions that Gen Dyer ordered the massacre just to instill fear among the Indians so that they could never think of rising against the British rulers and that state was still using the tool of fear to subjugate people demanding their rights.

Sindh University Jamshoro Assistant Professor Amar Sindhu said Jan’s book presents the case of marginalised communities. She said the most damaging thing state has done is that it erased the nation’s memory of the atrocities committed against the people, including attempts to snatch their rights, and instilled fear and uncertainty in its collective consciousness.

She regretted that the post-Zia generation was unaware of the state oppression because they just remember Musharraf regime. She said military dictator Gen Zia ruthlessly used fear as a tool to suppress dissent, and put its opponents in the torture cells in Lahore Fort. “Whenever a government of people would take charge, Lahore Fort would be converted into a ‘museum of torture’,” she added.

Peshawar-based human rights activist Shahida Shah referred to Dalton’s theory of structural violence to expound state’s employment of torture and other forms of violence to suppress people. She said for her activism was a natural option given the political and social conditions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where there was an atmosphere of fear and suffocation.

To Mr Barelvi’s question that why Pakistan’s leftists could not so far make a united front to struggle for achieving their common objectives, Jan said the Left was systematically rendered disorganised because of conspiracies. He said a scattered fight was being fought by the leftists in various parts of the country, stressing the need for unity among various leftist factions. He said the situation was, however, improving as a younger generation of Punjabi leftists were supporting their comrades from other provinces like Balochistan. In this regard he mentioned support of Punjabi students of Punjab university for the Baloch students.

Amar Sindhu was of the opinion that leftists should not have detached themselves from local and regional issues. She regretted that public domain had been left to the mullah (rigid religious people).

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2022