The Dawn News - People & society (2024)

Aspiring to take the muhajir vote from across Karachi, Syed Mustafa Kamal and his Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP) appear to have overreached. Their chances look slim, notwithstanding reversals for Altaf Hussain and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

Kamal is widely unpopular among Altaf loyalists because of his ‘betrayal’ and alleged dealing with the army to split MQM. This sense of betrayal is markedly acute after years of a security operation against MQM have decimated Altaf’s hold on the city and crushed his party’s ability to hold protests even over its missing or murdered workers. In this scenario, Kamal embodies a receptacle for people’s feelings towards the security forces. He is perceived as weak and traitorous and supported only by those who wish no good to MQM. He had egg on his face, literally, during his campaign visit to Karachi’s Orangi Town neighbourhood earlier last month. While other MQM stalwarts, such as Farooq Sattar and Amir Khan, are commonly viewed as having compromised their new leadership positions in a now-factionalised MQM to profit financially, Kamal’s wholesale perfidy is viewed as more cowardly and more treacherous.

Kamal has neither the longevity nor the iconicity of Altaf. His legacy is likely to be shorter-lived, his heyday now past, his demise impending – arguably like MQM’s – for all his strategic manoeuvring and false confidence. His personality and political failures highlight gaps in a political landscape where a nuanced stratagem for traversing mafia, militarism, democracy, ethnicity and class has yet to emerge.

Born in 1971 into an Urdu-speaking family that migrated from Bihar in India, Kamal joined the first wave of lower middle-class muhajir mobilisation. As a dedicated MQM worker, he became a telephone operator at Nine Zero, the party’s headquarters in Karachi. Following MQM’s 2002 electoral victory, he was rewarded with the post of provincial information technology minister in Sindh, a position he held between 2003 and 2005.

In 2005, he was nominated by Altaf as mayor of Karachi whereupon he initiated many transport and recreational (beautification) projects and built parks and gardens. His mayoral achievements won him international recognition. Working in harmony with his party’s policy to attract a younger, more educated and more prosperous Karachi voter than the traditional Altaf supporter, Kamal became popular as MQM’s ‘good’, soft face.

Soon after his 2013 election to the Senate from Sindh, he developed differences with Altaf, resigned as a senator and left for Dubai. Meanwhile, in March 2015, state security forces raided Nine Zero as part of the developments that spurred MQM’s dissolution. The year 2016 brought the bizarre spectacle of Altaf’s posters being removed and replaced with those of Kamal’s. In March that year, Kamal returned to Pakistan whereupon he denounced MQM and Altaf and, together with Anis Qaimkhani, another senior MQM leader, launched PSP. Further events led the MQM leadership in Karachi, fronted by Farooq Sattar, to publicly disavow Altaf and establish MQM-Pakistan.

Kamal has survived as a careful strategist since then, winning the allegiance of many legislators and office-bearers of MQM, but his actions have angered the party’s supporters. Much like Amir Khan and Afaq Ahmed during the 1992 emergence of MQM-Haqiqi, he is perceived as working from ‘within’ to destroy Altaf’s and MQM’s electoral capability. Building on the Haqiqi parallel, many muhajir constituents believe PSP has been formed to divide the muhajir votebank in Karachi and Hyderabad. Less propitiously, he is associated with rumours around the 1993 murder of MQM Chairman Azeem Ahmed Tariq, who worked to prevent the party’s factionalisation back then.

It is early to predict whether Kamal will be finished politically without the establishment’s support or if a disunited MQMP will still be able to win in muhajir areas of Karachi and Hyderabad to the detriment of his PSP —regardless of support from the establishment.

Through Qaimkhani, PSP has enticed into its fold many of those MQM workers who understand election engineering, which may help it offer tough fights to MQMP in Karachi’s muhajir constituencies — critically, in Central and Korangi districts as well as in half of district East. These fights, however, could turn into possible setbacks for PSP because of its frequent criticism of the disastrous consequences of ethnicity politics.

The author is a reader in anthropology and psychology at the University of Brighton

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of the Herald, as a part of a series of profiles of 10 politicians who were to make a mark on this year's election. To read more, subscribe to the Herald in print.

Kamil Khan Mumtaz is synonymous with architecture and tradition. He is well known for his advocacy for the conservation of heritage and environment-friendly development. Mumtaz was one of the founding members of the Lahore Bachao Tehreek in 2006, set up to question the widening of the road flanking the canal in the city. He has also played a central role in civil society opposition to the impact on heritage sites of the Orange Line train project in Lahore, under the mantra that development should take place in sync with the historical and lived experience of the city. In his words, “cultural heritage is … a signifier of the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterise a society.”

An interview with him is part predictable, part unsettling, and without fail, leaves one with the pinching realisation that the “crisis” of our time, is in fact not a distant entity for “somebody else” to solve, but one’s very own problem, firmly fixed in our homes and lives.

Mumtaz received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from London’s renowned Architectural Association in 1957, worked in that city for two years, and spent another two years teaching in Ghana. In 1966, he returned to Lahore to join the faculty of the National College of Arts (NCA) as professor and head of the architecture department where he remained till 1975. His students, some of them now in their sixties, remember him as a teacher who would march to the beat of his own drum. He was the inspiring figure who rode a bicycle to work, and carried with himself the Little Red Book of quotations by Mao Zedong.

A philosophical shift came in approximately 1979 when Mumtaz turned towards the exploration of the metaphysical realm via the traditional processes of arts and crafts. This was the beginning of a journey into the world of Sufism for him — both on the professional and personal planes.

With two books to his credit, Architecture in Pakistan (1985) and Modernity and Tradition (1999), he has also been involved in development research such as the well-known Lahore Urban Development and Traffic Study (1980), and institution-building such as the founding of Anjuman-e-Maimaran.

Among his efforts as a practitioner of architecture has been the search for a design appropriate for local climate and economy, as well as locally available technologies and materials. Many of his contemporaries – though they may not agree with his philosophy – argue that he is one of the few architects in Pakistan who have not sacrificed their principles to the whims of the market. Some of his ongoing work includes Daula Pukhta school in Okara district, the mausoleum of Chal-e-Sharif in Gujrat, the conservation of the Lahore High Court and the Governor House, and a number of private residences.

The following conversation with Mumtaz unfolds first in the form of a soliloquy, then a political, historical narrative of mankind’s trajectory on earth, and eventually becomes a tale tied to being and consciousness.

Rabia Ezdi. For several decades now, you have taken a very clear position on the need to preserve architectural heritage in Pakistan. Can you elaborate on this with reference to your activism against the building of the Orange Line train project?

Kamil Khan Mumtaz. Yes, Lahore needs affordable public transport but an elevated metro train is not appropriate for a high-density, low-rise, low-tech, mixed land-use historic city such as Lahore. Moreover, the train is simply not affordable. The state of the art Orange Line [seems] so attractive, so desirable, and would be such a thrill to own and to ride, to go tearing across town in air-conditioned luxury. But the mother has to shake the boy out of his reverie and tell him he cannot have it.

Why do I feel so strongly about it? Because I need this train like I need a hole in my head. This is an unguided cruise missile crashing through the heart of my city.

Cultural heritage is revered by all traditional value systems as a signifier of a society’s spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional characteristics. Old buildings are not to be saved for the sake of visual pleasure but because cultural heritage is the identity of our city.

Heritage, history, traditions — we are told these things must not be allowed to stand in the way of progress and development. Heritage, history, traditions define who we are, where we are, where we are coming from and where we want to go. They define what it means to be human and are the roadmaps, signposts and guides for our journey, our progress and our development towards achieving our goal of realising our highest potentials, our selves. Lose these and you lose the script.

Ezdi. One of your major roles has been that of an institution builder, such as founding the Anjuman-e-Maimaraan ...

Mumtaz. It began with the design of the architecture department course at the NCA in 1966. The Anjuman-e- Maimaran was part of the change in my own thinking — from being a primitive Marxist to a modernist to one who realised the value of tradition. Then came Lahore Conservation Society and from that emerged Lahore Bachao Tehreek and The Lahore Project [a civil society initiative to devise sustainable urban planning for Lahore].

Ezdi. What was your life like growing up?

Mumtaz. Can we not talk about me? I think it is of no interest to anybody and does not need to be talked about. What we need to be talking about is our times. It is much more important to understand what is happening [to us all] than [knowing about] puny individuals and their lives.

Ezdi. People always want to know how individuals like you evolve and become who they are ...

Mumtaz. I have no desire to speak about myself. I have no desire to share my private life with the world. We can certainly talk about our times — the times we live in. What has changed around us, what is the direction that times are taking, what do we need to do, how do we respond to these [situations] as human beings, as architects? I would rather look at these questions objectively than subjectively.

The times that I have lived through have seen the heyday of national liberation movements and anti-imperialist struggles. Modernism and Marxism have been essential to these [movements and struggles]. And Marxism is only another facet of modernism. So, what is the lesson that we learn from modernism, Marxism, colonialism, anti-imperialism? Since then, there has been another big change that is [called] postmodernism. What is the significance of this change and what has actually changed because of it? These questions have impacts on politics, economics, the arts, including architecture and urbanism.

Why I insist on the need to understand the nature of the times in which we are today, [why I insist] that this is what should be our main concern is because we are passing through an unprecedented crisis. It is a global crisis. And it is a crisis that is causing irreversible changes — in the environment, in the biosphere, in life forms including the human species. The real question is: What should be our response? How should we act? The crisis of our time is not for somebody else to solve but a matter of our very own existence and survival; it is rooted in our homes and in our lives.

Ezdi. How did we get here?

Mumtaz. We have seen development and technological breakthroughs in many fields of science since the industrial revolution. This amazing explosion of change [appears] as a higher phase of human progression. If you look at the past 300 years, [the rate of change] is a relatively straight curve [that] shoots up. But if you look at 900,000 years [before that], the rate of change has remained practically steady. There have been no dramatic ups or downs [over the millennia] in man’s relationship with the environment, consumption, global warming, carbon emissions, extinction of species. Even the rate of population growth has remained relatively constant.

The first change [after the beginning of human life on earth] happened 6,000 to 9,000 years ago with [the advent of] agriculture and animal husbandry. You had to settle down or be stationed to be able to plough and harvest. Thus came about villages, towns and cities. The word ‘civilisation’ [has originated from] civitas, which has to do with cities.

The crisis of our time is not for somebody else to solve but a matterof our very own existence and survival; it is rooted in our homes andin our lives.

With [the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry], we saw a sudden jump in production. With increased production, we could support many activities that we could not support before. The surplus was used to support arts, crafts, manufacturing and services like education and health. [All these activities enabled] the producers to produce even more because they had acquired specialised and better knowledge. But there is a limit to how much you can produce within the territory you control — and a limit to how much you can consume. [Those limits have to be] sustainable by the environment. They [should] not overexploit the environment.

Modernism has been the second major change — [that is, the emergence of] modern science and industry. It resulted in a huge jump in production. For that, you needed resources beyond the territory you belong to. You had to look for markets beyond your community. So you acquired more territory [through] imperialist projects, colonisation and world wars — leading to a struggle for the control of the world. This is modernism. What happens when you have controlled all the world’s produce and markets and you have fulfilled all the needs of the world? You invest in science and technology to invent demand — this is consumerism. This is the postmodernist age in which we are.

Obviously developments in science and technology are [made] possible by our understanding of the world — of what is reality. The hunter and gatherer got from nature all he needed: food, clothing and shelter. He saw in natural phenomena the presence of the real — the essential reality, not zaahir, the superficial reality.

With the transition [to agriculture], man saw phenomena that were manifestations of the real. He saw a separation between the cause and the effect. Whereas previously he saw himself as one with the real, now he [sees] himself as separate from it. This realisation was traumatic. The prophets all belonged to this stage [of] civilisation. Their message: How can man reconnect with his origin? This is the meaning of religion — to reconnect, to retie the connection that was broken.

In modernism, however, man [altogether] forgot the real cause of effects which he saw in the material world. [This phase] is 600 to 700 years old, starting with the Renaissance in the 16th century Europe. Postmodernism exploded into our consciousness with [the bombing of] Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It completely shook all humanity. We wondered what was all that.

What happens when you have controlled all the world’s produce andmarkets and you have fulfilled all the needs of the world?

Einstein’s theory of relativity, that says time and space are not static but moving, completely shattered the Newtonian world view. [It produced] quantum physics and the unleashing of atomic and subatomic forces. The Newtonian world view is that the universe is governed by absolute and constant forces of nature. Quantum physics brought with it the unpredictable. It says that physics cannot know the nature of the universe, that we cannot say what matter is and what energy is. So, you have alternate, parallel realities existing simultaneously. This new understanding of nature necessitated an answer from the philosophers as to what is the nature of truth. They could only say there is no absolute truth.

Ezdi. And what is at the core of the crisis of our time?

Mumtaz. To understand where we stand today, we have to understand where we are coming from. [You have to] understand the human condition and our relation to our environment. [It was] during modernism that we began over-exploitation of the planet’s resources. [Now we have moved] to consumerism which breaks all bounds. The result of this is precisely the global crisis that we are in. The question is: Knowing the nature of our times, how should we act? Most of us, of course, are completely swept away by this whirlwind 24/7 thrilling ride. Every day, [there is] a new sensation. And we are too busy in having this fun. But now things have got to a point where you can no longer deny the crisis that we have created.

Ezdi. Is there anything we can do? Is it time for a revolution of sorts?

Mumtaz. Most of those who are concerned about these situations are looking for a mitigation of bad effects. We do not want to reverse [anything] because we are told that [economic growth] is the destiny of mankind. So, we must only know how to achieve that without damaging the environment and other species. You have all kinds of critiques of modernism and postmodernism but the bottom line is that they are all looking for ways to achieve economic growth without damaging the environment — ‘green architecture’, ‘sustainability’, all the buzz words.

But I talk about looking at all this in [historical] perspective. Change in nature is constant but where do we get this idea of mankind progressing forever? Having stayed steady for 800,000 to 900,000 years, the change is suddenly approaching infinity. There are only two moments in the life of anything at which the rate of change is infinite. First, when it comes into existence — from nothing into something. With time, it attains a normative state that endures for some time and then it atrophies and degenerates out of existence. This terminal stage is the second moment of infinite change.

What is happening now is not a normal event. It is an abnormality, an abomination, an aberration. The short time in which the curve [of change] has started approaching infinity [is alarming]. When I first looked at the statistics some years ago, one species or form of life was going extinct every 20 minutes. A year or two ago when I checked again, one species or form of life was going extinct every 11 minutes. The latest rate of the extinction of a species or form of life is every four minutes. The rate of extinction is multiplying. It is the same with global warming. And it is all interconnected and irreversible.

It is also not just the biological species [that are dying]; it is our humanity embedded in our languages [that] is going extinct. Four to five years ago, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) figure was that one language was going extinct every fortnight. A whole culture is lost with every language, every word [that goes extinct].

To imagine that we can engineer, tweak our way out of this crisis is delusional. How should we then act in these times is a big question. What should we do?

But cities of today are the biggest contributors to the present globalcrisis. Postmodernism has taken the rug from beneath our feet and weare in free fall.

In the postmodern age, there is also a denial of anything absolutely right or absolutely wrong. We should, therefore, first discriminate between right and wrong and then do what is right. Not because we expect to change the world but because it is the right thing to do.

Ezdi. What concrete measures can we take in terms of our institutions, for example? Let us take the case of higher education ...

Mumtaz. Of course, our higher education systems are part of the problem. They promote and train our next generation to do what we have been doing — more of the same. We prepare them to destroy the world faster. Education is now one of the few growth industries [that also include] health, real estate and art.

We have these newer production units cropping up — there are 24 schools of architecture in Pakistan. I understand 21 of them have received notices from Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners. Clearly something is amiss.

We treat education like any other business enterprise. But what the customer wants, what the market demands and what is the need of the hour are three different things. The customer – the student who buys the education – wants a ticket to success, to become rich and famous. What the market demands is slaves — good draftsmen, good 3-D graphics people, good visual designers and interior designers. But what is the need of the hour is to approach architecture with the knowledge of the realities of our time.

Ezdi. Let us talk about urban planning. What does it need to do better?

Mumtaz. Like everything, urban planning has also been impacted by epochal changes. When the cities were ruled by lords, kings, emperors, [they maintained] a feudal hierarchy [in their environment] and their planning was for defence purposes. Much of what we see today is a result of modernism and the possibilities created by machines, science and technology. So, we dreamed of [cities as] machines — consider, for instance, Le Corbusier’s architecture and skyscrapers. But beneath this was still an altruism and idealism — the principles of equality and non-discrimination among human beings. The centre of this new universe was man, not God. [The modernist world view was imbued with the] idea of universalism, the brotherhood of mankind and democracy.

But cities of today are the biggest contributors to the present global crisis. Postmodernism has taken the rug from beneath our feet and we are in free fall. We have no ideals, no principles. All we want is to make a splash, to make a name for ourselves, to make money. The Shanghais of the world are taking off into some fantasy which is part of this destructive process.

Yes, the cities are seen as engines of growth. That is precisely what is destroying the planet. We talk of a sustainable planet but no city is sustainable by definition. Cities are parasites; they cannot survive without a host region [to feed their need for resources].

In this post-industrial reign of global capital, wealth is also concentrated in the cities. The shining glittering city thus becomes a symbol of progress and development. In economies like ours – the client states – cities are just middlemen for transferring wealth to developed nations. And like middlemen, the cities take a cut from that wealth.

But when you get to a city, it is not that [you see] everyone rolling in wealth. [Wealth] is in the hands of the one per cent — a case of concentration upon concentration.

As Gandhi said: “The world has enoughfor everyone’sneed,but notenoughfor everyone’sgreed.” Needs are finite and limited

What we should think about is this: If cities are destroying the planet, let us stop building more cities. We instead are thinking of new ways of extorting the world’s wealth [through] intelligent cities, smart cities, etc. Now you can buy green products such as green architecture – all just labels – because this is what sells.

Ezdi. So, can architecture change the world?

Mumtaz. It is too late. Do you think you can bring down that exponential change in the growth curve? Or you can reverse it? You can, however, do what you believe is right. Do whatever you can, wherever you can. Do it but don’t do it to bring about a revolution.

Ezdi. Do you see young people taking up these causes with as much passion and commitment as you have?

Mumtaz. I keep being surprised by the number of people who are seriously seeking answers and are troubled by the institutions they are studying at and by the world around them. They sense and feel that there is something wrong. They are looking for alternatives.

Ezdi. What would you say to the young idealist of today who is constrained to earn his living but still wants to bring change?

Mumtaz. Each one of us has a responsibility to preserve ourselves, our health and our physical well-being. We are placed in this world in these bodies. We cannot deny our responsibility towards them. The world, our families and our bodies have a right on us. [It is our] responsibility to ensure that we do not neglect to provide what we need. The trouble is that we want more than what we need. That becomes greed. The moment you chase more than what you need, you become part of the trouble.

As Gandhi said: “The world has enoughfor everyone’sneed,but not enoughfor everyone’sgreed.” Needs are finite and limited. You cannot eat or drink more water than a certain amount. You cannot breathe more oxygen [than your body requires]. But greed and desire have no limit. You always want more. As the advertisem*nt says: ye dil mangay more (the heart craves for more).

Ezdi. Would you say that the lack of spirituality lies at the core of this embracing of greed?

Mumtaz. Nature has been generous and provides everything we need. There has been no reason to accumulate more than we need. On the other hand, there has always been [the urge] to store. Both spirituality and greed, thus, have always been a part of human nature.

With agriculture and animal husbandry, it became possible to acquire luxuries, to enjoy the arts. Anyone who had the power – muscle power, political power or weapons – turned towards accumulating the surplus so that they could do those things which one could do with surplus wealth.

The desire to accumulate feeds itself and it went out of the ballpark in the industrial production. When you produce industrial surplus, what do you do with it? Do you give it away? That is the last thing you want to do. So you store it – as insurance – or you reinvest it in your industries, with the result that you produce even more. The greed factor thus multiplies.

In the age of consumerism, you want instant gratification. The greed for sensation and power has gone berserk. These tendencies have always been within human nature but previously civilised man recognised these as evil. He recognised charity as virtue. What is evil and what is virtue now? Spoil yourself and flaunt [your wealth]. We have stopped calling it wrong. People say ‘that is what life is about’. The world has been turned upside down. The seven deadly sins are now the seven deadly virtues.

I keep being surprised by the number of people who are seriouslyseeking answers and are troubled by the institutions they are studyingat and by the world around them.

To be kind and compassionate is seen as a disadvantage. When Michael Jackson says ‘I’m bad’, that is the highest compliment he can pay himself. What was a no-no is now the mantra of business — ‘young man, go market yourself, sell yourself’. Even in architecture, we were taught not to advertise ourselves. Now advertising is [everywhere].

Ezdi. Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” What is the most powerful, world-altering idea of our time?

Mumtaz. The idea we have to slow down is beginning to gain more and more traction. Essentially, the problem is the whole modernist paradigm, particularly that of economic growth. Given what is happening to us, to our world, we are gradually beginning to hear serious voices calling for a paradigm shift — for instance, voices criticising the mess of postmodernist art and architecture. I am thinking of [Canadian-American architect] Frank Gehry saying, “98 per cent of what gets built and designed today is pure s**t”. David Hickey, the [American] art critic who [recently] retired from art writing, realised that art has been reduced to money transactions and investment options and has seized to be art altogether. It is like the emperor has always had no clothes but nobody has said it all this time.

There is realisation that something is seriously wrong with the way we are living. There are serious concerns about what drives consumerism — that is, greed. Until last year, we had serious writers praising greed as the oil that makes the capitalist machine flourish. I think there are people now who are seriously questioning that. They are realising that there is more to life than the pursuit of a material paradise.

Ezdi. Are you satisfied with what you have contributed to the world in your lifetime?

Mumtaz. First of all, I have no delusions in terms of what I have contributed to the world. I have only tried to be true to what I believe in and to live accordingly. If that has benefitted anyone, I am grateful for that.

Correction: The article's earlier headline misquoted Mumtaz as saying "I need this train like I need a bullet in my head". We apologise.

This article was originally published in the Herald's November 2016 issue under the headline, 'The architect of ideas'. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The writer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, National College of Arts, Lahore.

Immediately after the horrific Quetta terror attack on August 8, 2016, Dr Danish, a television anchorperson, tweeted pictures of Asma Jahangir with a caption in Urdu which translates as: “When lawyers were being killed in Quetta, the so-called leader of the lawyers was enjoying herself in the northern areas.” The post was enthusiastically retweeted, shared on Facebook and distributed through WhatsApp groups.

Asma Jahangir was not “enjoying herself in the northern areas”. She was in Gilgit-Baltistan on a human rights fact-finding mission when the attack happened. There was no way she could travel to Quetta the same day. She took to Twitter and responded to the anchorperson: “Shame on you for exploiting facts even when people [are] in grief ... Ask [your] spy friends not to stoop to the lowest levels of viciousness.”

A picture of her from a March 2008 meeting with Bal Thackeray, the now deceased leader of Mumbai’s Hindu chauvinist Shiv Sena party, created a similar furore. Nationalist websites and media persons wrote thousands of words to denounce her for sharing the same space with one of Pakistan’s most vicious detractors. It did not matter that she had met Thackeray in her capacity as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion, investigating violence against Muslims in India.

Indeed, many people go ballistic every time her name is mentioned. Haroon Rashid, an Urdu-language columnist with a large fan following, wrote in 2013, “warning” that he would lead a march on to Islamabad if Asma Jahangir was appointed caretaker prime minister. She had said earlier that she had no intention to accept the post.

Asma Jahangir’s earliest recollections of activism are from her timein school at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, a church-run school inLahore.

If anything, these examples suggest a pattern: often wild, unsubstantiated allegations are levelled against her. Often she, too, responds to her detractors in a no-holds-barred manner. In 2012, in typical Asma Jahangir style, she accused intelligence and security agencies of trying to eliminate her. National and international concern and outrage poured in with such vehemence that the plan, if there was any, had to be dropped.

It seems Asma Jahangir seeks controversy — her critics attribute it to a search for glory. The Lebanese-American writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a word for it: “antifragile” — that is, things and people that benefit from volatility, shock, disorder, risk and uncertainty.

Asma Jahangir does not agree. She argues that she does whatever she does in order to adhere to her core principles — not to seek glory, not to benefit from adversity.

In September 2015, the Lahore High Court ordered the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to black out the coverage of Altaf Hussain, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) supremo. Very few, if any, lawyers in Lahore were willing to represent him due to his alleged involvement in acts of violence in Karachi and his volatile speeches and media statements. Asma Jahangir was perhaps the unlikeliest lawyer he would get: the two had never found themselves on the same side of the political divide. In May 2007, MQM had called Asma Jahangir a “chauvinist lady” who should form her own “chauvinist party”. An MQM statement had also accused her of having a secret affiliation with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

But she agreed to represent him.

Her opponents took to the streets. A small group of lawyers in Lahore brought out a demonstration, demanding the cancellation of her licence to practice law. Her supporters in bar rooms were also uncomfortable with the idea but they knew she could not be swayed against fighting for someone’s freedom of speech — no matter if the person concerned was a serial abuser of that freedom. “Well, that is how she is,” says one of her supporters, shrugging their shoulders.

When Asma Jahangir decided to contest the election for the Supreme Court Bar Association’s president in 2009-2010, she faced stiff opposition from many sections of the society, including newspapers and television channels. The media campaign against her was led by the Jang Group’s senior reporter Ansar Abbasi and it focused on projecting her as anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam. Six years later, the same media group engaged her as a counsel to represent it before the Supreme Court.

Asma Jahangir’s earliest recollections of activism are from her time in school at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, a church-run school in Lahore. The head girl there was always selected by nuns but Asma Jahangir, as an O level student there in the late 1960s, arranged a protest demanding that there should be “at least a semblance of an election”. The school administration reluctantly agreed to an election process while retaining a veto power. That method for finding a head girl still continues at the school.

Asma Jahangir’s exposure to public life happened at a very young age. On December 22, 1971, the military government of Yahya Khan detained Asma Jahangir’s father, Malik Ghulam Jilani, under martial law regulations. Malik Ghulam Jilani, a former civil servant and politician, was sent to jail in Multan after his detention. He sent his family a letter through a jail employee, listing possible grounds on which a petition could be filed for his release. Then only 18 years old, Asma Jahangir filed the petition at the Lahore High Court.

“Courts were not new to me. Even before his detention, my father was fighting many cases. He remained in jail in Bannu. He remained in jail in Multan. But we were not allowed to go see him there. He did not want us to go there and see him. We always saw him in courts. So, for me, the court was a place where you dressed up to meet your father. It had a very nice feeling to it,” Asma Jahangir reminisces, lightheartedly.

She knows how to make her presence felt, using calculated aggression,wit and sharp one-liners

Mian Mahmud Ali Kasuri, a lawyer that her family generally consulted on legal issues, was federal law minister then and, therefore, could not be her counsel. The second choice, Barrister Manzur Qadir, a former foreign minister and a retired chief justice of the Lahore High Court, was not eligible to appear in the court that he had once headed. Qadir referred Asma Jahangir to M Anwar, considered one of the finest lawyers of the Lahore High Court at the time. Anwar thought it was a strong case because the governor of Punjab had signed the detention order before taking oath of office. (The detention order was changed later, Asma Jahangir says, to remove that anomaly). The Lahore High Court, however, dismissed her petition.

Asma Jahangir went to the Supreme Court. Qadir then decided to be her lawyer in what became known as Asma Jilani versus the Government of Punjab case. “The courtroom used to be full,” she recalls. “Since I was a petitioner, I got a special seat and felt very important.” She remembers Qadir with awe and admiration. The arguments he made were absolutely fabulous, she says. “I have never heard those kinds of arguments again. He was not just a lawyer, he was a philosopher.”

Asma Jahangir also credits the proceedings at the Supreme Court for initiating her into the cynical, realpolitik world of courts. “What I saw was the manipulation behind the scenes — how cases are won and lost.”

In 1972, after Yahya Khan’s government had ended, the Supreme Court decided Asma Jahangir’s petition in her favour. In a first for Pakistan’s apex court, the judges declared the military government illegal and Yahya Khan to be a “usurper”. History had been created and a young girl found herself at the centre of it.

Malik Ghulam Jilani waged a somewhat lonely political struggle — particularly at the tail end of Ayub Khan’s government and during Yahya Khan’s regime. He was on the wrong side of the consensus in West Pakistan on the 1971 military operation in what was then East Pakistan and when that region declared itself as the independent state of Bangladesh, he advocated against official Pakistani recognition instantly.

That period in her father’s life has had a deep impact on Asma Jahangir. “When we were children, he always talked about fundamental rights and adult franchise and, believe me, I did not know for a long time what adult franchise meant except that he was fighting for it.”

Asma Jahangir remembers her mother exhibiting a different sort of character. She was not in any way politically active and was almost nonchalant about the frequent imprisonment of her husband. “Whenever my father got arrested, she would sell her car and would move around on a tonga, believing that everything will work out or she would rent out our house and go to her father’s house and put us in his dressing room.”

Asma Jahangir comes from a well-off family — the spacious house her parents built is located in one of the priciest parts of Lahore’s Gulberg area. But she does not see money having played any part in her upbringing. “We never felt that we were privileged or non-privileged,” she says.

In July 2016, a division bench of the Lahore High Court was hearing a public interest petition against the construction of the Orange Line Metro Train. The petition contended that the project was damaging Lahore’s architectural heritage. A star team of lawyers was representing the Punjab government. There was Shahid Hamid, a legal wizard and a former governor of Punjab. There was the advocate general. There were many assistant advocate generals and deputy attorney generals. The packed courtroom was unusually abuzz with the chatter of minions and acolytes of the government’s lawyers.

Everyone was waiting for Asma Jahangir to argue in favour of the petition. When she stepped forward to the rostrum and began her arguments, one of her co-counsels tried to whisper a legal point in her ear — a relatively common practice in courts. Before he could even start, Asma Jahangir dismissed him with a wave of her hand and almost sternly said, “Stay where you are. If I want your assistance, I will ask for it.”

Her aggression had a direct impact on the opposite side and murmurs immediately died down in the courtroom. The only reaction from the government’s lawyers during her arguments was a slight shaking of the head by Hamid. She spoke briefly, vociferously and authoritatively. As she left the rostrum, she paused, turned around and took one step back. She turned towards the judges and Hamid, and said, “You know what the entire problem here is Shahid Sahib? Your chief minister needs training in aesthetics. We would be glad to arrange tutoring.” Hamid smiled weakly and continued to shake his head.

This is Asma Jahangir’s style — mixing the legal with the polemical. She knows how to make her presence felt, using calculated aggression, wit and sharp one-liners. For a woman in her 60s, just over five feet in height, she is acutely aware that she cannot afford the other side to dominate. “She is a performer,” says Neelum Hussain, her long-time friend and fellow activist.

She does whatever she does in order to adhere to her core principles —not to seek glory, not to benefit from adversity.

Asma Jahangir’s entry into law did not automatically follow her victory in Asma Jilani versus the Government of Punjab case. She received her law degree from Punjab University in 1978 after she fell in love with and got married to Tahir Jahangir, a Chinioti businessman and her next-door neighbour. “The principal stopped me from attending the [law] college because I was a married woman. It was a college policy,” she says. Gulrukh, a friend of Asma Jahangir’s, was also married but the principal did not know. “Gulrukh used to take classes and then she would teach me.” Asma Jahangir secured a first division in her law exam — a major achievement for someone who has always been a “second divisioner”.

She did not start her law practice immediately after graduating.

When she had her second child, she started to feel that she was suffering from bouts of depression because of feeling “useless”. The depression was “showing on me because I had started to put on weight”. She had puffy eyes. She looked unhappy. “Whether I was just imagining things or it was otherwise, I think the respect my husband – or for that matter, my in-laws – have had later for me was not there at the time,” Asma Jahangir says. “Everybody thought they could bully me because I was not seen as an entity. I was just a little, out-of-shape mummy.” She decided that she had to do something with her life or she “will just be a sidekick for everyone”.

Asma Jahangir invited some of her friends over lunch to discuss the possibility of starting a law firm. Late Shahid Rahman, who was the son of a former chief justice of Pakistan, S A Rahman, and an excellent lawyer himself, told her to talk to Shehla Zia, another young lawyer at the time. Asma Jahangir’s equally well-known sister, Hina Jilani, was already working as a junior lawyer with Ijaz Batalvi. The three then roped in Gulrukh — thus, AGHS was formed on February 12, 1980, taking its name from the first letters of the names of its founders. It was Pakistan’s first all-women law firm.

It was the darkest of times. The Hudood Ordinance was already in force. The law of evidence was about to be changed to the disadvantage of women and non-Muslims. It was also the best of times. The Women’s Action Forum (WAF) was formed smack in those years.

On February 12, 1983, WAF decided to hold a public demonstration on Mall Road in Lahore against the provisions of the Hudood Ordinance that discriminate against women. Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani both joined the protest as members of the Punjab Women Lawyers Forum. It was the first open denunciation of attempts by General Ziaul Haq’s military regime to mix religion and law — and it made WAF, Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani the most recognised faces of the movement for women’s rights in Pakistan.

A simultaneous lawyers’ movement was also underway in those days against Zia. Protesting lawyers began using Asma Jahangir’s office as a place of hiding because the authorities would not consider “coming into a woman lawyer’s office looking for male lawyers hiding there”. The misogyny of Zia’s regime in this case worked in favour of his opponents.

In the 1980s, a woman lawyer arguing human rights cases was largely uncharted territory. In the beginning it had some novelty value. Courts were patronising, even when they were not sympathetic, to a woman practising law and would usually grant Asma Jahangir relief. She started off with family law cases – divorce, child custody and maintenance payment etc – but she was quick to realise that what was required was not temporary relief but fundamental change, and not just for women.

Soon, she started taking up blasphemy and bonded labour cases. “In bonded labour cases, judges would ask me why I had brought those people to the courts who stank. You are here precisely for them, I would respond.” Her fierce arguments in favour of those “stinking” brick-kiln workers made people realise how those “labourers with hardly any clothes on their bodies owed debts of hundreds of thousands of rupees.” It was then that lawyers and judges started taking her seriously — that she was not just a female lawyer or another practitioner of family law.

In the mid-1980s, the Zia-appointed Majlis-e-Shoora passed a resolution, saying that Asma Jahangir had blasphemed and she should be sentenced to death. The basis of the accusation was an alleged comment she had made in a WAF meeting. Zia set up a commission to investigate the allegation.

When Asma Jahangir came back home from prison, she was very animatedand made her “jail time sound like it was an adventure, a thrillingjourney”

Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code that provides for death penalty in blasphemy cases was not enacted yet. “Maybe they enacted it after finding out that they could not put me to death without it,” Asma Jahangir says, only half in jest.

Asma Jahangir boycotted the commission and instead lobbied lawyers to gather support. Fortunately, Tahira Abdullah, a renowned human rights activist and a WAF member, had taped the entire proceedings of the meeting where the alleged comments were made. When that tape came out, it was obvious that Asma Jahangir had not made any blasphemous remarks.

In 1993, an 11-year-old Christian boy, Salamat Masih, and his uncles, Manzoor Masih and Rehmat Masih, were accused of writing blasphemous words on the wall of a mosque in a small town near Lahore. Later, Manzoor Masih was killed outside district courts in Gujranwala where the case was initially being heard. Asma Jahangir represented Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih when they appealed before the Lahore High Court against their conviction by a trial court. Lawyer Mehboob Khan, who represents the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and assisted Asma Jahangir in the case, remembers the hostile atmosphere during the proceedings. He also remembers how she remained unfazed through it.

In an unprecedented decision, the Lahore High Court acquitted Salamat Masih and Rehmat Masih on February 23, 1995. Arif Iqbal Bhatti, one of the judges who had acquitted the two, was assassinated in 1997. When his killer was arrested a year later, he confessed to have killed the judge for deciding the case in the favour of the accused.

There was an attempted attack on Asma Jahangir’s house as well. The assailants mistakenly entered her mother’s house who lives next door. Everyone in the house was held at gunpoint, including Asma Jahangir’s brother and his wife and their two little children. Frustrated at not being able to find Asma Jahangir, they attempted to kill her sister-in-law but their gun did not work, giving the family enough time to escape and call in security guards to engage the attackers.

Munizae, the eldest of Asma Jahangir’s three children, remembers being sent to a boarding school to protect her from possible abduction. Munizae understood from a very young age that her mother was different from most people around her. Still, she was confused when Asma Jahangir was first arrested in 1983. She remembers how her schoolfellows asked her the next day if her mother had “stolen something”.

When Asma Jahangir came back home from prison, she was very animated and made her “jail time sound like it was an adventure, a thrilling journey”. An intrigued Munizae asked her mother to take her along when she went to jail again.

Back in the early 1980s, Asma Jahangir and her father decided to set up a trust to support political prisoners. The two pooled in their own money to put together the trust, named after her father and headed by Nisar Osmani, a senior journalist and human rights activist. Prominent lawyers such as Khursheed Kasuri, Aitzaz Ahsan and Khalid Ranjha were among its trustees and Asma Jahangir was its first secretary.

The trust made lists of political prisoners and then approached their families to give money. This was not sustainable — the lists were never exhaustive and the trust’s funds had never looked enough to survive long. In late 1986, Asma Jahangir and Osmani decided to hold a seminar titled ‘Dimensions of Human Rights’, at the Pearl Continental Hotel, in Lahore. They wanted to test the viability of the idea that there could be a membership-based human rights organisation in the country.

They were pleasantly surprised to find an overwhelmingly positive response to their invitation for the seminar. People from all across Pakistan converged in Lahore to participate and endorse the decision to form HRCP. When the commission was set up in 1987, Justice (retd) Dorab Patel, a former chief justice of the Sindh High Court who had refused to take a fresh oath as a judge of the Supreme Court under Zia’s diktat, was appointed its first chairperson.

The most outstanding feature of the newly created HRCP was its overtly secular mandate. The participants of its founding seminar had passed two resolutions, among others, on the protection of the rights of religious minorities in Pakistan.

Asma Jahangir fondly remembers how Habib Jalib, the legendary revolutionary poet, bantered with her on the occasion. Earlier that year, she had dragged him to a women’s demonstration outside the Lahore High Court where he was beaten up by police. “I am very happy that at least from The Mall you have been able to come to Pearl Continental,” was his way of differentiating between street protests and institutionalised civic action.

Asma Jahangir is not apologetic about the focus that HRCP has onPakistan.

The shift was neither easy nor smooth. Allegations of foreign funding have dogged HRCP from the start. Even Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, who has the experience of arranging money for his cancer hospital, has questioned the sources of HRCP’s finances. Incensed when HRCP stated that his 2014 sit-ins diverted attention from human rights abuses in the country, he thundered in October that year: “You don’t need to tell us what is right and what is wrong. Just tell me first what the sources of HRCP’s funding are.”

(“HRCP took a decision early on that it would accept no aid that may be interpreted as compromising its independence. So superpower sources were foreclosed from the start and HRCP had to thankfully decline such offers,” reads a post on the HRCP website. The members and the donors of the organisation are encouraged to check its audit reports to know the source of its funding that mostly comes from the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Canada.)

Over the years, HRCP in general and Asma Jahangir in particular have also been branded as “traitors” and “American agents”, trying to malign Pakistan and destroy the country’s social and political fabric in the name of women’s rights and the rights of non-Muslims. The commission is also condemned for highlighting human rights abuses in places such as Balochistan and the tribal areas – as if to embarrass Pakistan – rather than talking about similar abuses in Kashmir and Palestine.

A senior lawyer from Lahore, who does not wish to be named, declares: “Asma Jahangir is working on a specifically anti-Islam agenda and she is getting foreign funding to do that.” The same lawyer contested the Lahore High Court Bar Association election as Asma Jahangir’s nominee but he could not win. “The liberal lawyers did not vote for me because I have a beard and the religious, conservative ones did not support me because I was backed by Asma Jahangir,” he says as he explains how she divides the bar along ideological lines. “She is part of the Illumanti, a secret organisation controlling the world,” he then proclaims.

Asma Jahangir is not apologetic about the focus that HRCP has on Pakistan. “Yes, I am very unhappy, extremely anguished at human rights violations against Kashmiris in India, or against Rohingyas in Burma, or, for that matter, Christians in Orissa; but obviously I am going to be more concerned of violations taking place in my own house because I am closer to the people who I live with. I have more passion for them,” she says. “And I think it sounds very hollow if I keep talking about the rights of Kashmiris but do not talk about the rights of a woman in Lahore who is butchered to death.”

Asma Jahangir has been the longest-serving United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and is one of three Pakistanis appointed to the position (the other two being her sister Hina Jilani and Lahore-based feminist activist and sociologist Farida Shaheed). Yet her entry into lawyer politics is of recent origin; it essentially came under the limelight with – and after – her election as the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in 2010.

Before her entry, the bar’s politics dominated the two groups — one led by senior lawyer Hamid Khan (who is also a senior member of PTI) and the other led by Malik Karim (who passed away a few years ago). She has now taken over the leadership of the latter group.

When Hamid Khan talks about Asma Jahangir, there are serious hints that he respects her for being a “formidable opponent” and an internationally acclaimed human rights campaigner. He, however, does not regard her as a competent lawyer. She only had some family law cases to her credit before she fought the bar election, he claims, and then accuses her of using her position in bar politics to bolster her law practice.

Hamid Khan also alleges that Asma Jahangir was “planted” in the bar politics by PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari to counter the then Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. He cites her frequent criticism of the judiciary as evidence and says she has taken this criticism to a dangerous level where it appears like an attempt to “blackmail the judges”.

Asma Jahangir, indeed, has had a number of run-ins with the judiciary, more specifically since the reinstatement of Chaudhry as Chief Justice of Pakistan in 2009. Her opposition to the judicial “activism” of Chaudhry’s court over the PPP government’s inaction on many political, economic and administrative subjects led many to believe that she was being an “apologist” for Zardari who was then the president of the country.

One of the biggest allegations against her is that she represented Hussain Haqqani, then serving as Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, in the so-called Memogate case. The case revolved around an alleged memorandum written by Haqqani in 2011 to Admiral Mike Mullen, a top American military commander, seeking help from the United States administration for Pakistan’s civilian government against the military establishment. The whole controversy was predicated exclusively on the testimony of one Mansoor Ijaz, a Pakistani-American with dubious credentials. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, then the most important opposition leader, went to the Supreme Court demanding an inquiry and the Supreme Court obliged him by constituting a highly powered judicial commission consisting of three judges.

She is a contrarian but she is also a conciliator — with the abilityto find points of convergence.

Asma Jahangir is unequivocal — she believes that the judiciary was swayed both by populism and the establishment. The Memogate case is an illustrative example of what is wrong with the judiciary, she contends. “Can anybody justify it today? I do not think even the petitioners can.”

The July 31, 2009, judgment of the Supreme Court that summarily dismissed scores of judges across Pakistan on the grounds that they had taken oath under Pervez Musharraf’s Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) in 2007 was the precise point when she decided to take the Supreme Court head on. Asma Jahangir’s point of view was simple — almost all the judges on the bench which had issued that verdict were themselves beneficiaries of a previous PCO. Their outrage against those who did the same later appeared to her misplaced and hypocritical.

Until then, the bar was presented as a monolith and the dissenting voices in the lawyers’ movement came from the fringes that did not matter much. Asma Jahangir was the first of the key leaders of the movement to express her dissatisfaction publicly and disassociate herself from Chaudhry.

Initially, it was an individual decision. She remembers being cautioned by friends to refrain from visiting the Lahore High Court bar room a day after she wrote an article in daily Dawn, criticising Chaudhry. His loyalists had the reputation to be rude and rowdy towards his critics. She went to the bar room anyway. Nobody was rude or rowdy towards her; on the contrary, people came up to her and said, “Well done”.

“The judges were playing politics,” she says when asked about the reason for her criticism. She also views the confrontation in the context of a fight between democracy and authoritarianism.

Hamid Khan claims Asma Jahangir is disconnected from bar politics at the grass-roots level. He attributes her success merely to a “consolidation” of all the small groups of lawyers opposed to his professional group.

Asma Jahangir certainly was an “outsider” in bar politics, as Hamid Khan puts it, before the Chaudhry era. It was, indeed, the movement for the restoration of Justice Chaudhry between 2007 and 2009 that allowed her to interact with a cross section of lawyers. Those interactions allowed lawyers in different parts of Pakistan to get first-hand knowledge of her as a person and a lawyer — beyond what they knew through her public image of an elitist, yet fiery, crusader for women’s rights.

Most crucially, Asma Jahangir’s own view of an average lawyer changed. “This man who has dressed up so neatly and nicely lives in a two-room house and does not know in the morning whether he will have money to feed his children or not,” is how she summerises her understanding of the financial predicament lawyers face. When asked about the incidents of violence and hooliganism that lawyers often engage in, she responds by drawing attention to their working conditions. “What we do not see is the humiliation that lawyers have to suffer.”

Those who have been on the receiving end of bad behaviour by lawyers – and that includes politicians, judges, government officials and often junior-level policemen – may dismiss her argument as mere justification by someone who cannot afford to antagonise her voters.

Asma Jahangir’s role in bar politics certainly demands that she win popularity contests (through elections, that is) — something Asma Jahangir, the contrarian and the firebrand human rights activist, at best did not care about and on previous instances very deliberately rebelled against. Neelum Hussain believes Asma Jahangir has changed — from being a private person to a public agitator to a politician.

Still, Asma Jahangir is different from most of her colleagues in bar politics — in more ways than one. She smokes beedis in the bar room, talks loudly and bluntly and makes direct eye contact with those she is conversing with. She is undiplomatic yet she has a disarming common touch. She has the ability to be frank and honest without sounding abrupt and pretentious. She is a contrarian but she is also a conciliator — with the ability to find points of convergence.

She is also a wife, a mother and a grandmother — and is quite comfortable with her family roles. Her eyes light up when she talks about Tahir Jahangir, her husband. For a moment, she lets her iron lady persona drop. “I was absolutely in love with him — madly in love with him. I think in some ways I still am, despite my many differences with him.”

She gives him some backhanded compliments. “He was one of the reasons I was able to work. He was one of the reasons I learned to negotiate. He said you can practice law but you cannot go to court. I agreed, but then I went to court. Then he said you can practice law but you will not do it for money. I agreed, but then I did it for money too,” she says, laughing.

Tahir Jahangir never listens to any of Asma Jahangir’s speeches norattends any of the protests she organises; Asma Jahangir does not readhis columns.

It was only when Asma Jahangir went to jail that Tahir Jahangir “realised that things had gone too far”. She was first put under house arrest in 1983. A few months later, she was arrested and sent to Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore, to face trial by a military court. When she got out of prison, she did not know if Tahir Jahangir would let her back into their house. But he was there at the prison gate to receive her. He patted her on the back even though he “was shell-shocked”.

They have an unwritten agreement — Tahir Jahangir never listens to any of Asma Jahangir’s speeches nor attends any of the protests she organises; Asma Jahangir does not read his columns, mostly written about nature, and mostly refuses to accompany him on trips to the mountains.

Asma Jahangir’s daughter Munizae recalls how Saima Waheed, a plaintiff in a famous love marriage case in the mid-1990s, was surprised to see her in shalwar kameez. Munizae, a journalist, wears baggy shalwar kameez to press conferences on the advice of her “very conventional mother” who at times is “horribly conservative”. She is a typical Punjabi mother, says Munizae, “who is never happy with how my sister keeps her house or is bringing up her kid”. On the other hand, “our brother gets away with the dumbest of jokes all the time.”

Munizae had just started her first job as a television reporter for India’s NDTV in 2005 when in May that year Asma Jahangir, along with other human rights activists, organised a women-only marathon in Lahore to highlight violence against women. There was serious opposition to the idea by religious parties and groups. On the day of the marathon, the police attacked participants with batons, kicking and dragging them into police vans and taking them to the Model Town police station.

When Munizae arrived at the site of the marathon, the first image she saw was of her mother with her “clothes torn off, her bare back exposed — being manhandled by police officials”. Her reporter colleagues had smirks on their faces. They looked at Munizae from the corner of their eyes. She felt embarrassed — more than that, she was shocked, traumatised.

Asma Jahangir’s husband was out of the country at the time. He immediately came back, only to see Asma’s bare back on the front page of a newspaper. Munizae broke down and cried when she saw her father but Tahir Jahangir was unfazed. If anything, he was proud.

Asma Jahangir was later transferred to jail from the police station. When Munizae got there, she saw her mother “in the same shirt, now stitched up with safety pins”. She was “shouting and essentially leading a protest in jail”.

Nothing, it seems, can ever stop Asma Jahangir from being what she has always been.

This article was originally published in the Herald's September 2016 issue under the headline "The street fighter". To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The writer is a lawyer and a columnist and a member of the Human Rights Watch.

What could be common between a children’s animation series, an international call centre, an annual cattle show and online trading in the stock exchange? Surely not the source of money going in? It would take a fairly discursive mind to finance these unrelated enterprises. Or a fairly inventive one.

The man funding all these ventures also owns luxury apartments and shopping plazas, provides financial services, has stakes in the oil and gas sector and imports a number of commodities. His name is Aqeel Karim Dhedhi. Karachi knows him well. Too well, in fact. You can scarcely do business in this city without being in competition, or in collaboration, with him.

He has his fingers dipped in a little bit of everything, cutting himself a piece of every pie. But his diverse investments are not just a means of hedging financial bets. Many of his projects have not proved financially sustainable yet he remains dedicated to investing in new and untried ventures. “Business is about more than just money. It is about ideas,” is one of the first things he says to me while talking about his venture capital funds set aside for technology start-ups and innovative ideas. Through these start-ups he has carved unchartered territories in the stock market, the telecommunications sector and, of course: animation.

Commander Safeguard, to be precise — the eponymous superhero representing a brand of soap, who became a public service icon for children’s hygiene. It was the first animation indigenously produced in Pakistan by a start-up called Post Amazers. The start-up was funded by Dhedhi’s TMT Ventures.

Among other things, TMT Ventures gives money to fresh graduates and students with innovative ideas, looking for capital to set up their technology and media businesses. The company works both as a seed fund and a business incubator, providing money and training to aspiring entrepreneurs. Dhedhi has been purposely pioneering these services for the last decade or so. “I’m a strong believer in the first mover advantage,” he explains.

Some of the students funded and trained by TMT Ventures have proceeded to establish patented ideas. Although, Dhedhi says with a sigh, most of them have sold their intellectual property for money, almost immediately afterwards. “The last successful one was sold to some company in Dubai for 80 million rupees,” he says ruefully. “Bhai, I’ll give you the money. Take it from me. But don’t sell the ideas. Ideas are important.”

He is fairly metaphysical about the bull and bear markets. As one of the richest men in Pakistan, perhaps he can afford to be.

In 2000, Dhedhi set up what he claims was Pakistan’s first outbound call centre, mainly dealing in long-distance and international calls. He says he slashed the price of trunk calls to five rupees a minute, at least three times less than what his closest competitor was offering. He was making only 0.10 rupees per call but he succeeded in severely undercutting his competition, attracting bulk traffic.

The company that ran the call centre – DV Communications Limited – soon faced a series of legal troubles for allegedly not following regulations put in place by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). By the beginning of 2014, according to the PTA, the company had failed to pay up to 1.6 billion rupees in mandatory licensing fees. That non-payment might have been one reason why DV Communications Limited could keep its call rates so low.

Though Dhedhi has since sold the company’s frequency spectrum to pay off this debt, he denies any wrongdoing. “Chorro yaar. They make up rules and regulations as they go along, always to favour the established businesses,” he says, dismissing ten years of legal notices like one swats away a fly.

Sitting at his brokerage house one Monday, Dhedhi gets into a protracted debate with an employee over the nature of business in Pakistan. His central argument is that the authorities here treat money with suspicion. “Always asking where it has come from, why is it being invested? Never thinking about what this money would mean for the industry itself. Only land and concrete are respected here.”

Dhedhi has a flagrant disregard for both the Pakistani business elite and the rules they operate under. He also displays a strong tilt towards trading in cash and liquidity which lands him in frequent, and spirited, battles with regulators.

The man is large, well over six feet tall, stout and thick-limbed. Nobody will be walking in the shoes of this giant; they’re simply too big. If ever anyone’s reputation became their visage, Dhedhi is that person. He fills every room he steps into. His stature commanding unbidden respect from colleagues and associates.

Most of the companies Dhedhi owns are housed in a single building in Clifton. He has made them largely autonomous – with work spaces and administrative structures of their own – although he monitors them all from his own fifth floor office; in his case that means getting up and physically doing a tour of the compound, a few times a day. For someone so large, Dhedhi is easy to lose track of when he’s up and about.

And wherever he goes, people flock around him as if his mass exerts a gravitational pull. His movements are slow but incessant and always forward, like that of a shark.

His interactions at these offices, regardless of whether they are over procurements, renovations or investments, have the same air to them. He is always looking for something new to add to his business portfolio. He is not as concerned with performance as he is with futurism. Performance he largely abandons to God.

Also read: Open for business — Chaman thrives as a smugglers' paradise

His work day starts around 10 am, at his Defence Housing Authority (DHA) home, where the gates are big and the security detail bigger. He conducts his financial orchestra from his living room on the ground floor.

He has a deep, booming voice, much like a qawwal’s. When he wants to talk business, he switches to Memoni, a community based dialect of the Gujarati language. He keeps three phones with him and they never stop ringing. He is often on all three at the same time, effortlessly switching between languages and handsets.

Not quite Wall Street — there are no suits, no cocaine, no deals closed at expensive fine dining restaurants. But it is hectic. Doing business in Pakistan means anything can go wrong, anywhere, anytime. There are few rules. Regimes change frequently and what is good for the gander is rarely good for the geese.

Dhedhi takes another call, responding in Memoni, about a case against him at the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra). He assures someone on the other side of the phone that all evidence against him is spurious. He later tells me that the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has already rejected all charges of insider trading against him, citing insufficient evidence.

They make up rules and regulations as they go along, always to favour the established businesses

The case pertains to allegations that a former Ogra chairman conspired with Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) in 2010 to make windfall profits by temporarily increasing gas tariffs; mainly through shifting the cost of theft and line losses to consumers. Dhedhi was named in the petition because he owns substantial shares in SSGCL. He laughs at the suggestion that he can influence a national regulator like Ogra and make it increase or decrease tariffs. “This is all propaganda,” he says.

In a few minutes, he gets another phone call. The person on the other side is asking him if he caught Mubasher Lucman’s television show last night. Dhedhi responds in a tone that suggests the answer should have been obvious. “What is Mubasher doing with his show these days? He has gone soft. He is not making waves anymore. His ratings will fall,” he adds by way of critique, before pausing for the other party to respond.

Lucman, a controversial talk-show host who has spent a large part of his career at ARY News, is a good friend of Dhedhi’s. A friendship perhaps made out of necessity. Corporate media is where the new battle lines among businesses are drawn. Public image takes years to build and only a few screen tickers to destroy.

When Dhedhi first came under fire by the country’s biggest corporate media house, the Jang Group, over a personal feud, he needed friends, and he needed them fast. ARY News was the antithesis to Jang Group’s Geo News, and Lucman had made his career railing against the latter. So there came a time when Dhedhi found himself a regular on Lucman’s show.

But he doesn’t really like the cameras. “Arey yaar. I can’t do this all the time. I am a businessman, not an entertainer. My business doesn’t depend on ratings. Those whose businesses do, are welcome to keep talking about me.”

When Haji Abdul Karim Dhedhi, a Gujarati Memon, was invited to Karachi in 1946 to invest in the fledgling markets of what was to become Pakistan’s first capital city, he was also asked to invest in Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s media project, an English-language newspaper called Dawn. Dhedhi claims his father was one of the principle sources of the funds collected to launch the newspaper.

Around independence, Dhedhi’s family had businesses in Colombo, a textile mill in Chittagong, an export business in his ancestral town of Junagadh and a construction business in Bombay. His father also traded in gold. Since the family’s migration to Karachi, the Dhedhi family businesses have been shrinking geographically. By 1975, his father had wound up his businesses in Colombo and Chittagong.

On the other hand, the once subcontinental Dhedhi empire has been reconstructed, on a smaller scale, in the city of Karachi, which now hosts Karim Textiles, Karim Housing and Karim Center in Saddar which was, for a time, the city’s biggest shopping plaza.

Haji Abdul Karim Dhedhi set up a real estate business and a brokerage house as early as 1947. Dhedhi was born ten years later, in 1957. After he cleared his first year intermediate examinations, he quit his studies and joined the family businesses. He says he did not have the patience for books. At the brash age of 16, Dhedhi made some speculative investments in the stock exchange and lost a lot of money. His father had to pay off the debts. “I learned a lot from that failure,” Dhedhi says.

The next three years of his life were spent sitting at Karim Center and looking over the commercial properties his father owned. It was only in 1976 that he returned to stock trading. By 1984, he had set up his own company, simultaneously taking over property businesses and other assorted family interests. The rest, as they say, is history.

On a sweltering Friday morning, we get into a Range Rover at Dhedhi’s home and drive to DHA Phase VIII where his long-delayed Arkadians residential towers project is still under construction. We arrive at the office of Creek Developers, a conglomerate of companies working on the project. The office has a gorgeous view of the Arabian Sea.

As a meeting ensues, the participants start bickering over whose fault the delay in the project is. Dhedhi sits at one end of the table, head and shoulders above everyone else. For a while, he does not speak; he listens, and eats, crushing peanuts between his thumb and index finger. The empty shells soon make a small hill on a plate in front of him. After fifteen minutes he finally raises a hand and everyone quiets down. He tries to reconcile the different arguments by bringing them down to one common denominator — the liquidity of money. He is prepared to wave fresh cheques at old problems. “Take the money. Just get the work done on time.”

There is another reason for the delay which money has so far failed to address. A citizen moved the Sindh High Court against the project, accusing its proprietors of having illegally occupied plots reserved for amenities such as playgrounds, schools and parks. The legal challenge allowed construction work to proceed only haltingly. As the case lingers on, the future of the project remains precariously poised. Dhedhi scoffs at the accusation, claiming DHA gave him the rights to construct these towers in a public auction.

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Like the Arkadians project, his Naya Nazimabad housing scheme near Manghopir has gone through years of litigation and stay orders on construction work. Naya Nazimabad was halted due to petitions in the Sindh High Court by the provincial mines and minerals department, accusing Dhedhi and his building partners of illegally converting mining land into a housing project. Those who purchased land there also went to court and alleged that the scheme was being set up on a toxic dump unsafe for human living.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s principal secretary formed a committee to investigate these allegations. Its report said that the land was indeed reserved for “mining purposes” and that an illegally established chemical factory there had dumped toxic waste over the area where the project was planned. As we walk out of the meeting, a young woman calls out to him and asks if he’s headed home. This is Ayesha Dhedhi, one of his four daughters. She oversees the Arkadians project.

Because business and kinship are so closely knit in traditional Memon households, everything has to stay in the family. All of Dhedhi’s daughters oversee some part of his business empire. What might seem regressive in a business sense becomes progressive in a social one.

Faith is one thing Dhedhi constantly invokes.

Religion is very important to him, in fact to his entire household. There are no wall-hangings or decorations in his home which are not religious in nature. The lavish lawn at his residence does not just serve an aesthetic purpose. Every week or so, he covers it with canopies and holds religious seminars under them. To which he invites some of the most renowned Sunni scholars and preachers in the country. Tariq Jamil, the popular orator from the Tablighi Jamaat, is a regular at the Dhedhi establishment. As is Mufti Muneebur Rehman, who heads the Central Ruet-e-Hilal, the official moon sighting committee in Pakistan.

Dhedhi’s father was a devotee of Mufti Mahmud, the father of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman. The latter has been a guest at Dhedhi’s house many times. Dhedhi considers his interactions with these men of religion as a way to better understand his faith, on personal terms, and also as his contribution to reconciling divergent Sunni traditions.

On Fridays, he goes to a mosque for the afternoon congregational prayers. He has to pick from one of the many mosques he has either funded or otherwise been a patron of. Every mosque he enters sees the crowd part to let him move forward. The imams are on good terms with him. Dhedhi is also fond of sacrificial animals. He has no pets around his house, especially no dogs because of religious reasons, but raising slaughter animals is a cultural heirloom he takes pride in. He spends a minor fortune on buying cows and bulls. He says Sibi’s cattle is the most expensive. That Sibi's bulls are the toughest in the world because they are all purebred. That the people of Sibi do not sell their cows, they do not allow interbreeding. The annual maweshi mela (animal show) that takes place around Eidul Azha at his home is testament to this fondness for livestock. Rare breeds, brought in from as far away as Australia, are adorned and put in front of admiring throngs.

Dhedhi considers his interactions with these men of religion as a way to better understand his faith, on personal terms, and also as his contribution to reconciling divergent Sunni traditions.

He knows that many people consider his animal show ostentation, an uncouth display of wealth, but he believes that sacrificial slaughter has to be done with ceremony. “My father and grandfather taught me this, and my children will do this after me,” he says. Much of what Dhedhi says and does is part of his family tradition. He often quotes his late father, and true to Haji Abdul Karim Dhedhi’s own life, religion and business go hand in hand for Dhedhi.

I ask him if he sees any contradiction between his faith and trading in stocks, something many see as a form of gambling. Investing in shares is the most Islamic financial practice possible, he replies. “You invest and get a dividend depending on the stock’s performance. There is no fixed rate of interest.” And he insists that this is not gambling. “We just make educated guesses and hope that God favours our choices.” He is fairly metaphysical about the bull and bear markets. As one of the richest men in Pakistan, perhaps he can afford to be.

Dhedhi has the look of someone who is used to having people around, who is used to the noise of floor trading and the commotions of bazaars — used to a cacophony of voices shouting vital information. But he also has the look of someone who has grown weary of public spaces.He admits as much. At the heart of this weariness is a decade-long feud with media mogul Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman and business tycoon Jahangir Siddiqui, the latter used to be his business partner once.

The fallout between Dhedhi and Siddiqui has happened for many convoluted and ephemeral reasons, but the shadow it has cast over Dhedhi’s business ventures is very tangible. For instance, he says, the plaintiff in the Arkadians case is an Islamabad-based employee of Siddiqui’s bank. “The federal authorities also made a false alcohol possession case against me. A man became an SECP commissioner because of that case, for slinging mud on my name.” Dhedhi keeps churning out names of bureaucrats and ministers who have wronged him. He says Nawaz Sharif’s government has created more problems for him than any other government in four decades.

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When I first talk about his rivalry with Siddiqui, he absent-mindedly starts scribbling onto a piece of blank paper. Nervous? Irritable? He displays a strong sense of victimhood but also a propensity for selective amnesia. When he says the last SECP chairman was removed because “he was investigating money laundering cases against companies that Siddiqui owns,” Dhedhi does not mention that the man is his former business associate and a good friend. He also does not reveal that his removal as SECP chief happened on the orders of the Supreme Court which termed his appointment illegal.

Dhedhi says Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman got involved in the fray because his daughter is married to Siddiqui’s son. The scribbling gets more and more furious as he talks about the feud. Finally, he stops and looks up. “They also filed a case against me saying that I use asbestos for building material and it causes cancer. Dhedhi causes cancer now. I mean, are they crazy?” He puts down the pen, laughing and shaking his head.

On a table in Dhedhi’s office, in full view of all visitors, clients and interlocutors, lies the latest Annual Financial Report for Jahangir Siddiqui Bank. This enmity is now the single most defining aspect of Dhedhi’s life. He has piles of documents and folders on what he calls corporate malpractices by Siddiqui, including two reports by the SECP, compiled under his friend’s tenure.

Dhedhi claims he has sued both Siddiqui and Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman at the Sindh High Court for defamation. “The court once issued warrants for their arrests but nothing came of it,” he says. Around the same time when these arrest warrants were issued in 2014, another court issued warrants for the arrest of Dhedhi, Lucman and a handful of other media men, from Islamabad, for defaming Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman. This warrant carousel has been going on for a while now.

“Do you want evidence against the two? Here is everything they have done wrong. I have the Federal Investigation Agency’s reports on Siddiqui’s companies. I have the SECP reports. Do you want to see? Will you write about these things?” he says, as he piles documents and files in front of me. There is both a challenge and an admonition in his voice. He feels corporate media has been unkind to him.

Dhedhi has also compiled a folder carrying all the news stories that the Jang Group publications and television channels have carried against him. If one sifts through business reporting over the last decade, stories that associate Dhedhi’s name with property fraud, black money, insider trading, price fixing and other such crimes have been largely reported in two primary sources: The News and Jang, both owned by Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman.Conversely, Dhedhi himself has lent a lot of his own ‘research’ to ARY News and Lucman who then ran targeted media campaigns against Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman. The pendulum has swung both ways.

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There is one particular news story that stands out amid this plethora of accusations and counter-accusations. In the fall of 2013, a Karachi-based English daily, Business Recorder, ran a short report about a Reuters piece that had allegedly exposed corruption in the AKD Group’s businesses. The international news agency contacted Business Recorder and said it had not published any such story. The newspaper retracted the report and also issued an apology. Dhedhi alleges the publication of the false report was the handiwork of his rivals.

A few months earlier, The Hindustan Times, from across the border, had published a similar story that was similarly retracted after Dhedhi filed a lawsuit. He firmly believes one of his adversaries was in India at the time.

According to Dhedhi, this bitter saga started when he was asked to mediate a financial dispute that Siddiqui was having within his own family. “I was Siddiqui’s partner at the time, and a good friend.” Somehow, he says, he ended up being in the middle of the quarrel. “They started blaming me for everything. I never even wanted to get involved.”

When Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman got involved, the situation deteriorated quickly. Lots of bad blood, lots of things were said that couldn’t be taken back. There was no making peace after that. “Before all this, Mir Shakil was like a brother to me.”

While this last statement is difficult to verify, what is clear is that they now spend considerable amounts of their personal time and money in running legal and media campaigns against one another.

Dhedhi has been entwined with the burgeoning metropolis called Karachi over the course of his entire life. He has grown, and his businesses have grown, like the city itself, in unforeseen and unpredictable ways but always with an underlying purpose: the drive towards new avenues of wealth.

Sources of money are less varied in the rest of Pakistan; it is generated through land or established forms of industry. In Karachi, wealth is more dynamic. People like Dhedhi, sitting at the heart of the country’s biggest stock market, have been speculating on other people’s businesses all their lives. The thing with money is that it needs avenues. It needs direction. It needs to go somewhere. There is no point in hoarding it. It is not gold. Dhedhi is very much of the “invest and divest” mindset but government policies, he feels, have often not been helpful. The government only accommodates the traditionalists, he laments.

A much younger Dhedhi used to live in Soldier Bazaar near Karachi’s Nishtar Park. This was where Karachi’s elite once lived. Like most of them, he eventually moved to Defence — in 1998, to be exact. The following years were kind to him, as was General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s military government. Business was brisk and the Karachi Stock Exchange was flourishing.Musharraf gave Dhedhi a national award for services rendered during the 2005 earthquake relief. When Musharraf was issuing licences for private television channels in 2005, a close friend of Dhedhi’s, Nisar Ahmed, wanted to launch a business news channel called Sun TV. He even got the licence for it.

But uncertainty was looming round the corner. The transition to democracy after Musharraf’s removal brought multiple problems for Dhedhi. The Karachi Stock Exchange, for one, took a temporary nosedive. More importantly, new regimes came with new rules and new policies, Dhedhi’s businesses in Lahore and Islamabad, his attempted foray into television, into oil and gas, into telecommunications, were all jolted. Sun TV buckled under its own expense-ridden weight before it was even launched.

Two years ago, someone tried to kidnap one of his nephews. Since then, Dhedhi has ramped up security around him and his family. His last two animal shows haven’t been as grand as they used to be. Though he still moves around freely in the city, he has become mistrustful of having too many people around him. What was once an entourage is now just a convoy of cellular phones.

He has restricted his social interactions largely to his Memon community. He runs schools and a hospital in Kharadar where the Memon community lives in large numbers. He patronises Memon Awaz, a community newspaper, and is the guest of honour at most Memon community events. Even the World Memon Organisation furnished him with accolades.

Gujarati and Memon businessmen in Karachi are among the enduring legacies of partition. They have contributed immensely to Pakistan’s economic growth but they have also remained somewhat isolated, not fully integrated with the larger province around them, let alone the rest of the country. Dhedhi’s own attempts at integration with Pakistan’s economy at large have at best shown lukewarm results, and at worse, landed him in serious legal troubles.

“Karachi is a cosmopolitan city. This is both a good and a bad thing. The immigrants who come here, live here, make their fortunes here, still think of themselves as Pakhtuns or Punjabis, or even Memons. They don’t take ownership of Karachi. It hurts everything. It hurts business,” Dhedhi says. “But my father spent his life building the family’s businesses in Karachi. I am not going anywhere. I’ll stay here and fight; I’ll set things right.”

Aqeel Karim Dhedhi responded to the published story in a letter to the editor, in which he states:

I am saddened and disappointed to read the selective and incomplete use of information provided during the interview; the author has painted a biased impression of me. My responses to other business personalities have also been quoted in a mischievous manner. I feel the interviewer has exaggerated only to serve, what I now suspect, was a mala fide intent.

This article was originally published in the Herald's November 2015 issue. To read more subscribe to The Herald in print.

All photographs are by Mohammad Ali, White Star. The writer is a staffer at the Herald and tweets @haseebasif

Tina Sani is a misfit unapparent. Born into affluence with no musical lineage, she has had a musical journey that she defined on her own terms, traversed at her own pace.

Sani was born in what was then East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh but she spent her early youth in Kabul before moving to Karachi where she studied commercial art. Her father – a big shot oilman who had learnt to play the sitar – urged her to learn classical music.

Sani started her music education under the tutelage of Nizamuddin Khan and later honed her skills guided by Chand Amrohvi. She also received training from ghazal maestro Mehdi Hassan and is probably best known for singing the poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

Just like language, music should come very naturally to you and if it does then [the audience] tends to fill in the blanks.

Sani’s melodious voice and decorous stage presence have made her one of the favourite ghazal singers of posh urban Pakistan even though she insists that she has always preferred singing nazms, not ghazals, because of their understated musicality. It is this very restrain that has helped her ensure her place as one of the country’s most beloved ambassadors of music.

A self-proclaimed westernised person who loves Adele, Sani talked in detail about her life and music career on a recent July day. Excerpts of the conversation follow:

Omran Shafique. So you have always been very intuitive about your work…

Tina Sani. Yes, I always have because it feels right. When I started doing music, it was not to become a singer. It was just because I loved music, because my dad loved music and there was this great classical ustad, Nizamuddin Khan sahab, who luckily was around.

Shafique. How old were you then?

Sani. Around 18. It was after I had graduated.

Shafique. You had no desire to become a singer before that?

Sani. None. It is just that I had a good voice and everybody would tell my father that I should learn classical music. My dad loved classical music and I was my dad’s pet. I would do anything to please him. But when the ustad came over, I had absolutely no idea what were the etiquettes of learning music.

Till then, I would not understand why my father or anyone listening to classical music nodded in praise. It all sounded the same to me. I pretty much grew up on Western music. I was a huge admirer of Barbara Streisand.

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Shafique. Have you ever done Barbara Streisand type of Western music?

Sani. I did one song. It is titled Feelings. I remember singing it all the time. I was also fond of John Denver and used to sing Country Roads all the time. And, of course, I liked The Carpenters. These all were my people but Barbara Streisand held a special place for me. She still does and always will because vocal expressions [like hers] are almost non-existent in Eastern music. I am not saying that there are no vocal expressions in Eastern music at all. But, for instance, if your voice cracks during singing, you will be taken into the recording studio for a retake. Whereas in Western music, if I sing in a cracked voice, it is on purpose because emotionally I am feeling that pain. If I hush my voice, the sound recorders would say that the level of my voice has dropped. I say, please, I need a whisper here because the poetry demands it.

Shafique. What Western music does is, in fact, to use varying degrees of your voice.

Sani. [Singing is] like language. When we are talking, we say words that we do not even pronounce completely and the listener understands them. Just like language, music should come very naturally to you and if it does then [the audience] tends to fill in the blanks.

When [my music education] started, I really thought that Eastern music followed no system. When the ustad introduced me to the first raga in a systematic way, he insisted I learn and sing one raga for a year or so. I was sick and tired of that raga. What he was trying to teach me was how to drive a car and once you have learned that then you can drive any car. It is like somebody teaching you a system.

A raga is like going into a new city. On the first day in your hotel or wherever you are, you are not sure where to go, what to do. When you are given a map, you are still lost. And the next day you have to do some groceries. That is the next note. Then you go there and come back because a raga is all about coming home. That is the basis of a raga. You have to do everything and come back. Once I started understanding [Eastern music], it turned out to be such a brilliant system. You can basically understand the whole system overnight. Everything else is organic. It’s like a plant growing from a seed.

Shafique. Did you ever feel that you have mastered this system?

Sani. No, absolutely not. But I know it well.

Shafique. I think it is important to figure out the system. Once I figured out the fret board on the guitar, I knew how I could get from one point to another. I needed the first two to three years to figure out the instrument.

Sani. The process of learning was very similar for me. You basically need to train your mind. It is just familiarity. Like in learning a language, the way to keep learning music is to get from places you are familiar with to the places that you are unfamiliar with. It has been an interesting journey.

My teenage years were spent in Kabul. I was about 12 and studying at an international American school there in the 1970s. I was the only Pakistani in school, surrounded by people from all over the world. It was a school where you studied world literature, world geography. I really got out of the tunnel vision. Things started to fall into perspective for me around that time.

I became a new voice with a higher intellectual level.

When [Ziaul Haq’s] coup happened [in Pakistan], I felt torn. I was really sad and I said to myself that I was not settling in Pakistan because the country was in chaos. Yet I had to come back [from Afghanistan] to Karachi to complete my senior year at school. Fitting in was difficult. I felt lost. I was bored. I did not understand why people did not want to work. All the girls my age were thinking differently; of marriage and little stuff. I would live in dreams. Not that I did not think of marriage but I knew my life was different. At that age, I did not understand but I knew I was destined [for something else].

Shafique. I am sure there were other girls like you around as well.

Sani. There were many of them out there. I wore jeans which was a big deal but that was what I grew up in.

Shafique. Wearing jeans was a big issue then?

Sani. Yes, but that was all I wore — a white T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. The best thing about my home was that we could speak our mind. By then I was part of Karachi’s drama circle. I was just trying too many things at that point — photography, painting, commercial art. I tried everything I could get my hands on to see what it was I wanted to do. I failed miserably in all that.

As I started figuring out my life, I came upon music. I started learning it. Two years down the road, in 1980, producer Ishrat Ansari, who was known to my family, said he wanted me to sing in a new television programme he was starting. It was a programme for students. Alamgir was to host it. He was a huge pop star back then. Each week, the programme was to introduce a new singer. I was already learning a semi-classical Punjabi song that my ustad, who was visiting from Delhi, had given me to sing. Brimming with confidence, I went to the studio. The song had to be recorded in one take because the programme had audience participation.

Shafique. Which song was that?

Sani. Akhan chham chham wassiyan. If you see that old recording, I am looking up because I had never sung in front of people as such. And I tell you, till date, that was a good song I sang. To me, it was pitch perfect. I became a star overnight.

I was not ready for stardom. That was the only song I actually knew full well at the time. Because of my success, my ustad was doubly interested in getting it together for me. So he really, really, helped me. I took a safer road as an artist. I said to myself, ‘You don’t know enough; don’t expose yourself and be selective.’

My producers were patient with me because they knew I had never sung in front of a mic. Even today, I hate the mic. I like the natural sound of my voice. Khari neem kay neechay [a folk song from Thar] became another big hit [of mine].

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Shafique. Did you experience any problems with the song’s language?

Sani. I sang Khari neem kay neechay because I love languages. Because of my father, we have been wired with languages. I spoke French at home with him and my sister. So learning a language came quickly to me.

Shafique. So singing in Urdu was not an issue?

Sani. Singing in Urdu was never an issue. Urdu was a language that we heard everybody speak around us. I also picked up Persian along the way. But Sindhi was a language I had no exposure to.

This was a story about a Sindhi singer. The reason the producer picked me for Khari neem kay neechay was that it was meant to show her entire range of singing. It was the title song for a television play in which the singer gets picked up by the commercial people and they get her to sing pop songs. So the producer thought I could do the whole range [from classical to folk to pop].

Iqbal [Ansari] said the song was going to be without any musical instruments. I said to myself, ‘Tina, if people do not like your voice, this is it then.’ It was like hara-kiri, a suicide. In those days, Pakistan Television was the only television everyone was watching. So you really had a fixed audience.

Anyhow, I said yes to him and the song became a huge hit. [Meanwhile] after my first song I got signed up by EMI [recording company]. Habib Wali Muhammad, who was a wonderful singer, then said he would like to do an album with me. Nisar Bazmi was to compose it and we were to record it in EMI studios. I was about to faint because this was as big as it could get for somebody who had just been in there for a year. I said, yes, I’ll do it.

Bazmi Sahab was the best thing that happened to me. It was tough learning under him. When you are on the crest of fame and you are there for a rehearsal with him, you ask him, ‘Bazmi Sahab, I have to go because the television is going to show my prgramme.’ He would say, ‘You have done the programme once; why do you need to watch it again?’ He flattened you like this, knocked you down and got all that wind out of you. It was just so brilliant. I loved that man. We spent six months together, nearly every day rehearsing and practising and recording that album.

But on the first day of that recording [EMI], I got in front of the mic and I could not sing.

Fitting in was difficult. I felt lost. I was bored. I did not understand why people did not want to work.

Shafique. You could not sing because you were unable to get your voice out in the right manner?

Sani. No. I was so nervous. Musicians were all around me. Mansoor Bukhari, the EMI director, came in and said ‘tell her to go home, she can’t sing’. I asked Arshad Memood, who was managing the recording at the time, to drop me home. On the way home, I told him I was not coming back to recording the next day [because] I could not sing for nuts. I told him that the musicians made me nervous because they all rolled their eyes at every mistake I made and I could not take it.

[The musicians] would make it difficult and I understand why. The recording company had signed this amateur singer because her albums sold. It was business for them so they had to work with me. For a while that was not a good feeling because when people had to work with you for that reason, they did not really like you. You were just selling stuff for them.

At some point, I got very tired of singing the same type of songs.

Shafique. Like the ones that appear in movies or just in albums?

Sani. No, no. These were television songs.

Shafique. It may sound weird but, after a lot of moving around, this is exactly what co*ke Studio is doing — making songs specifically for television. None of your songs was in the movies?

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Sani. I wasn’t in the movies. Nobody asked me and I do not think I have the voice of a movie star. But I did get bored with the kind of singing I was doing. It was quite brainless. I just felt very stupid doing it. So I went to the International American School and got into teaching.

Shafique. While you were a big star on television?

Sani. Yes. I got back into teaching and that was fun till they offered me a contract. The school said it would really like me to come on board. That was when I had to make up my mind — whether I was going to get up at 6:30 am every morning of my life and come home at 4:30 pm or I wanted to do a different song every day. I decided not to sign that paper and decided to do music.

In [1985], Arshad Mehmood called me. We had done some work for children together and he knew me from EMI. He asked me if I would sing a nazm of Faiz. I said yes. I did not know much about Faiz at the time. He had just died and I had never met him.

Shafique. You were not aware of his work?

Sani. No. I found out later that he had written my favourite songs such as Mujh se pehli si mohabbat meray mehboob naa maang, Dasht-e-tanhai and Gulon mein rung bharay. I had grown up on those but I never made a connection with Faiz because my family was not much into poetry and Urdu. Arshad Mehmood said to me very clearly that normally Nayyara Noor would sing Faiz but she was in Lahore and for some reason she could not be flown in. This was Faiz’s first death anniversary and [Arshad Mehmood] needed this song to be ready because [Faiz’s daughter] Salima Hashmi wanted to put it on her show in Lahore. He gave me this song Meray dil meray musafir to sing. It was a beautiful melody. I could not have it recorded in the first couple of takes. Arshad Mehmood said I had got the tune right, I had the singing right but I did not have the emotions right. Then he asked me if I knew of Faiz? I said no, I didn’t. So he brought me out of the studio for this two-hour live sketch of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.

Shafique. What do you mean by live sketch?

Sani. He described to me Faiz’s life as a poet -- what he meant in his poetry, what he stood for. Somehow Faiz touched the right nerves in me because of years of my own displacement, my own little political angst. I realised I was a product of the very political environment he was writing about. Meray dil meray musafir was my story. There is a part in which the poet says, “Har ik ajnabi se puchhen jo pata tha apnay ghar ka” (To enquire from every stranger what was once the address of our own home). I have always cried to that line because it gave me the feeling that I have been uprooted, philosophically and physically. Philosophically because I did not know where I stood as far as my thinking was concerned. I did not know where my belief system was going at that point. Every word that I read would make sense to me.

Shafique. What happened after Arshad Mehmood did the live sketch?

Sani. The second take was just perfect. I became a hit — I am so sorry I am using this terrible word. I became a new voice with a higher intellectual level. Everybody, apparently, cried to that song when it was played in Lahore; I wasn’t there.

Mansoor Bukhari, the EMI director, came in and said ‘tell her to go home, she can’t sing’.

Shafique. That is where you got your emotionality from?

Sani. Yes, because you can do it with a nazm. That is why I love Adele. I am sorry if you don’t.

For a while I had thought I was going to represent crisp classic music but I evolved myself out of it. Ghazal was never my favourite. It was always nazm. To me, nazm was this perfect blend of a dialogue which I wanted to do. It is almost like a musical narration with just a hint of music.

Shafique. You said you brought some of Barbara Streisand’s emotionality into Meray dil meray musafir. That is a Western thing. Do you think that made you distinct?

Sani. Absolutely. That is the reason why the song clicked with everybody in my generation at the time. When Iqbal Bano or Farida Khanum or Mehdi Hassan were singing Faiz, everything was technically correct. But there was something raw about my music that possibly resonated with people.

Shafique. That is definitely the Western influence. If you are 100 per cent on something, you tend to be just like everybody else and that then is boring. Then you find someone who has got some small flaw or fault that makes them human — like a crack in the voice. Is that what you mean?

Sani. Yes, I remember being told that I should not be on the mic when I breathed. Breathing should not be audible on the mic.

Shafique. Don’t you feel there needs to be someone who takes up the baton of ghazal and nazm singing from you and carry it forward?

Sani. This fear that we are losing our past — no, we are not. In order for growth to happen, a certain amount of rebelliousness is the most natural thing.

What is growth? If you picked up a guitar and you are going to copy other guitarists then where is growth? I think that is what is happening here. Nothing [from our past] is going anywhere.

Also read: In conversation with filmmaker Jami

Shafique. When I hear that we are losing sight of our past, I wonder what are people holding onto — nostalgia? They felt for something when they were growing up and then they want it to be exactly like that forever which, of course, will never happen. From my experience of working with co*ke Studio, I know there are young people who are doing a great job with their music just like Tina Sani was doing in the 1980s. Ten years down the line, they may end up being the follow-up to Tina Sani.

Sani. Many of them are doing so well. There is Zoe Viccaji. There is Sara Haider. There is Sara Raza in Lahore — I am very impressed by her. She was just 14 when I did a little introduction of her on one of her first serious programmes. She sang so well that I said, watch out for this girl. You have got that whole new crop … Let the future organically evolve out of the past and the present.

Shafique. Is the book that you are writing biographical or historical?

Sani. It is historical. It is really a deep look into Pakistani music, 1947 onwards. I will just tell stories about people but it is not going to be like Wikipedia. The book has lots of revelations. It will have my answers to why we have certain charmers in music in Pakistan. I will talk about co*ke Studio as well to explain why this kind of music always resonates. I am writing this book for myself and for my son. It is almost like I am talking to a 19-year-old from his perspective.

People ask me if there is such a thing as Pakistani music. I respond there is some serious Pakistani music. They say what I call Pakistani music is actually the music of the subcontinent. I ask them if they have heard about the difference between North Indian and South Indian music. Those are poles apart. When I say Pakistani music, I do not think I am saying something wrong.

Shafique. For sure, we have definitely developed in our own way.

Sani. Absolutely. I am not saying our music is better than India’s. I am not saying we are more melodious. I am saying we have shared roots but we have evolved into different species.

Shafique. Have you passed on your music to the next generation?

Sani. What is passed on to my son is quite incredible. He has always heard the kind of music that I hear in the house. Roshanara Begum is always playing in the house and Mehdi Hassan is playing constantly. Mozart, too, is playing because I am very fond of him.

On my son’s 11th birthday, my husband gave him a guitar and that started his love affair with music. He is now in the process of applying to music colleges in the United States.

Shafique. What kind of music does he do?

Sani. Western.

Shafique. Don’t you feel that he should be doing eastern music?

Sani. No, never. Nobody forced me to do anything. I was so western at the time I started off that I could not even be a pop queen. The producers were trying to replace Runa Laila with me because she had just left [for Bangladesh]. They said I was a perfect Runa Laila but I said no, I am not.

Who is going to listen to my music has not mattered to me. I have been doing what I love and I just hope people can like it also. I am, therefore, not going to tamper with my son’s passion at all.

I only tell him that he should not see me as his celebrity role model because I got lucky. I do not know why people like me.

Also read: Kishwar Naheed — The phenomenal woman

Shafique. It is the combination of the right place at the right time. And, obviously, you had to make an effort and you had to make some right decisions besides having that little bit of a spark that got people interested. You cannot manufacture all that.

Sani. The one rule in my house is that music is not to be taken non-seriously. It is very sacred in our lives in the sense that we don’t joke about it. He knows that music is not child’s play.

Shafique. Apart from your own son, have you ever mentored anyone?

Sani. If I cannot commit 100 per cent to someone, that is really leaving somebody in the lurch. At this point, I think writing is a better way of sharing my experience.

Shafique. Instead of sharing with one person, you are going to share it with everybody. Tell me, how you started to sing Amir Khusrau’s poetry.

Sani. I heard his poetry being sung on television but it did not inspire me. Then I heard this beautiful piece done by Shujaat Khan, son of sitar maestro Vilayat Khan. I got to know Shujaat Khan at one of my concerts in Dehli and then I came upon a recording that he had done of Amir Khusrau’s poetry. I emailed him to ask if I could use [the music]. He said I could. It was half-whisper, half-dialogue, half-music. I would never use sitar in my own songs because sitar has a lot of depth that is hard to compete with. In order to have a dialogue with it, I thought of these two guys – Yusuf Kerai on tabla – and this young person [Shehroze Hussain] who goes to Nixor college and wants to go to Berklee [College of Music].

Shafique. Like we were discussing earlier, you have to get out of your familiar terrain to move forward.

Sani. Absolutely. But not for the sake of only trying [to get into unfamiliar territory]. Then you will be doing it for the wrong reasons. It has to evolve.

It is important to listen to your heart. It is actually the toughest thing that one can ask of oneself because it requires a kind of lifeblood in many ways. Creativity is joy but it is also very painful. When you are trying to grow a seed into a blade of grass then you don’t pull it out — that will break it. I once asked writer H M Naqvi about his writing schedule. He told me he had been writing a book for five years.

Shafique. You cannot force these things. You have to follow the funny hints and clues — follow some of them and discard others. How did you settle on singing Mori araj suno? Did you choose it or was it Rohail Hyatt?

Sani. We had done the composition for a play years ago. When I started learning classical music, I asked Arshad Mehmood to do something which showed my classical music prowess. He made Mori araj suno dasatgeer peer — just the four lines, the slow ones. I used to sing it and then I stopped singing it for years. Then I came across one of Faiz’s Punjabi poems, Rabba sachya, and I connected it to Mori araj suno. Rohail said he would like to have Arieb Azhar narrate poetry during the song. I said yes to that.

It was so invigorating. Your finest performance is the one where you let go of your inhibitions in order to communicate with the audience.

Shafique. The beginning, and the middle, all came together like magic.

Sani. We all had a great vibe together.

A man from The Hindu in Chennai [India] called me and said the newspaper would like me to perform at its annual concert. I asked him if he was sure he wanted me to perform because I only sang in Urdu. The guy on the other end of the phone said they would like me to sing Rabba sachya. After I sang in Chennai, young people came backstage. I asked them how they knew the song and they told me that co*ke Studio was a cult there. It is just so amazing, the power we carry as musicians.

Shafique. Sometimes things turn out in a way that we were not even thinking of.

Sani. Yes. I made fun of this song that I had sung. I am not going to name it but I said it was a terrible song. It became huge.

People ask me which was my finest performance and I say the one I had in Croatia in 2008 or 2009. At the after-party, musicians were sharing their percussions with my musicians. People came to see me from places such as Russia saying they cried when I sang Meray dil meray musafir — the song that speaks about the poet being asked to leave what he has been most comfortable with, his comfort zone.

It was so invigorating. Your finest performance is the one where you let go of your inhibitions in order to communicate with the audience.

Shafique. That is why I think musicians and creative people tend to go for intoxicants because those do help them lose some inhibitions.

Sani. What I have noticed is that in the middle or somewhere along in a performance, there always comes a zone…

Shafique. …Where you lose yourself. That is a magic moment. It is like your primitive mind just takes over and then everything that you do comes out of you like second nature.

Sani. The Rumi song (Nawai ney) we did together did not have as many hits as Mori araj suno. But to me, it was magic. I experienced what you would call transcendence. That is how natural it was. I was not aware when the song ended. In fact, they stopped recording but I kept singing.

There was a German woman, Hildegard, who lived a thousand years ago. Her music was found in Germany in the oldest of churches — intact and played. She wrote theology of music and said music of the heavens was in such perfect pitch that Satan hated it. So he infected it. The man on Earth is forever searching for that lost divine music.

Shafique. It is basically finding the natural tonality of the planet because everything is always spinning and there is always a frequency to it.

Sani. I started working with sound healing at one point. I gave a lecture at SIUT at one point and talked about how sound heals and how music heals. I said to the SIUT staff, you guys break stones in the kidneys with frequencies, don’t you? I can bring a tear to your eye without touching you. That is music.

This was originally published in the Herald's August 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The interviewer is an award-winning musician.

A large body of Bani Abidi’s works was recently on display at Gandhara Art Space in Karachi as part of the gallery’s anniversary celebrations. Titled intriguingly as Look At The City From Here: The most amount of people standing still, screaming and laughing, the exhibition opened on July 13 and ran through the first week of August. The exhibits were a series of films, still photos, videos and photographic explorations that draw attention to history, time and space, and raise questions about the nature of viewership, ownership, representation, self-representation and artistic aesthetics.

Abidi grew up in Karachi. After her graduation from the National College of Arts (NCA), Lahore, in 1994, she did her master’s at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. Since then she has produced artworks exploring private and public spaces through a complex critique of the social and the political. After dividing her time between Karachi, Delhi and Berlin for some time, she has settled in Berlin and shown her work at as many as 80 shows worldwide, including at dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012, Devi Art Foundation in 2011, VM Art Gallery in 2010, Green Cardamom in 2008 and 2010, the 7th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea in 2008, the Singapore Biennale and the Frieze Art Fair, London, in 2006.

Also read: A different stroke — Unseen works by Sadequain

In a recent conversation in Karachi, Abidi discussed concerns about her medium and what it means to show one’s works in close proximity to the people and spaces those works have emerged from. Excerpts follow:

Q. How were you drawn to Karachi as an artist? How did you connect to the public spaces that your works on display at Gandhara Art Space are engaged with?

A. The work on these particular films started two years ago. It was commissioned by the Berlin Biennale. I told the curators that I did not want to do a pre-planned work. They were very much in agreement. So I came to Karachi to work for three months. I started off with a photograph of Clifton beach that [appeared] on [architect and urban planner] Arif Hasan’s blog. It was a picture of food carts for the poor near Dolmen Mall. Everything there costs five rupees. They place these plastic chairs – sometimes even in water – spread out in clusters. You can have juice and samosas there. I thought that was really poetic; at the end of your day, you can go there and turn your back to the city. That image got me thinking about public spaces. I was interested in social and economic divisions that exist everywhere — even on the beach, the areas for the poor and the elite are separated.

It is like producing some kind of fiction – but [at the same time] also by understanding that the city is full of ideas.

Q. What is it like showing your work after six years in the city which has always been in your imagination?

A. It is most fulfilling. I said at the opening talk [for the exhibition] that I could show [my work] all over the world and nobody would know if I was right or wrong. I feel nervous while showing [my work] in Karachi because my audience here is most knowledgeable. I am a product of this place. That’s why it’s so important for me to show here. Yesterday, someone said there was a lot of sadness in my work and one person said it was the first time that they thought they had understood what art was. That was a huge compliment. What has been an imagined audience suddenly becomes real [when I show my work in Karachi].

In a way, I am pulled out of the city so my depiction in this series is of a dystopic, melancholic abandonment which is an exaggerated representation of a city devoid of people. I am asking: “Where did everyone go?” It is also my voice and my story. In any case, there is a very thin line between what is real and what is fictional. In one of the still video works, I have photographed a few people and photoshopped them to make it appear as if there is a crowd protesting. It is my way of creating a fictional protest out of a crowd that is just standing still. I know that in reality this protest will not happen.

I have recreated imaginary places from real spaces in the city. That’s a choice I have made. For example, in one of the films, there is a solitary man trying to retrieve parts of Nishat Cinema that was burnt down some years ago. The metal containers for keeping cold drinks are still there but the seats are melted and destroyed. There are lots of remnants of people’s bodies. You feel like it is a mortuary.

Also read: What is Pakistani art?

The city itself has a lot of living spaces that can trigger [artistic] responses. Funland was a major part of our childhood recreation. Even now its gates open at 4 pm and it is full of people till 2 am every day. I went to film it when the rides were being tested but there were no people. I superimposed a sound track to the film. It is like producing some kind of fiction – but [at the same time] also by understanding that the city is full of ideas.

Q. As a storyteller, you seem to dismantle the artistic conventions and take the story to the public domain and that alters the nature of representation and viewing. There is a story outside the ‘art’ space that you create and narrate to bring it to your audience. It feels as if the viewers themselves are in the story. Is that a correct assessment of your work?

A. It is, also because I don’t think that I am looking through a window. My lens is [placed] within the space [I am representing]. I work with video because it allows for the layering that I want and it satisfies my needs. I want to deal with the poetry of short images. There is so much potential to play if you videograph something for five minutes and it is very slow.

Also read: Seeking paradise — The image and reality of truck art

Q. Is it right to say that you draw on the most complex and make it seemingly lighthearted?

A. Humour is my strategy for dealing with complexities. Somebody at the opening of the exhibition thought I was completely mad and I took that as a compliment. As it is, I am interested in madness. The work in the upper gallery of this show is all about eccentricity for that is the only way one can survive in [Karachi]. It is the biggest statement of independence. For example, there is this man who broke the Guinness World Record by breaking the most number of walnuts with his head. I take these kinds of eccentricities and build my narrative. The fictitious representation of a man who is banging his head against a wall is also suggestive of the social and the political as they affect us. The premise of the work is that the true potential of public space does not exist [to allow] all classes and communities to come together.

Karachi is totally divided at this point in time. It wasn’t so when we were growing up. It wasn’t such a big city. There was much more intermingling and there was less fear. For some people, it is because of the fear of dirt, heat and danger; [they see the city] as unsafe for their children. For another set of people, it is because of the barriers and containers that prohibit movement, or that [living here] is expensive.

As it is, I am interested in madness

Q. So you are looking into multiple perspectives as well as perceptions of the private space in relation to the public space. You are also consciously aware of the challenges of connecting with many spaces in Karachi and of the distinctions within those spaces. As you have said, there is that awkwardness in approaching places where you do not belong. These very distinctions are disregarded when the upper middle class elite establishes a relationship with public spaces in our cities.

A. Yes, it is about what you can access and what you cannot. In fact, we reside in the city in very different ways. For example, look at the question of flyovers or underpasses. These facilitate some people and not others. In Cairo, you literally have to climb a structure to reach the flyover to catch a minibus that you could catch without all this when there was only a road there. So, one set of people are totally disregarded in planning the city. The ability to be citizens of a city together is reduced because there is no place [for all the citizens] to come together. Diverse [groups of] people do not find shared places to come together.

Q. You look at spaces much like a sociologist does. Your approach diminishes the divide between art and life. Your work is removed from the sterile gallery space yet it brings the public space you address to the gallery which seems to serve as a meeting point…

A. I have a tendency to work with research. There are a lot of people, such as anthropologists, writers, and historians who are my friends and who inspire me. It is not just through art that my aesthetics are formed.Life is infinitely more beautiful than art.

Q. You are based in Berlin but you travel to Karachi regularly. How do you mediate the distancing that comes with this? Is something being lost in translation, in transporting an idea to a different context?

A. Yes, [it results in] both a loss and another understanding of the artwork and its context. I think that distancing helps. People can now afford to live in between points A and B. This is unlike the 1970s when you really became a diasporic artist if you left [home] to live in Europe or elsewhere. You stayed there and your imagination had issues of nostalgia. I travel to Karachi for many months in a year. This is my working place. I seek spaces here. I film in Karachi and do the rest of the work in Berlin. I am always on WhatsApp, discussing my ideas with friends such as people in the Tentative Collective.

Also read: Lahore Biennale — Art for the public

I was recently thinking about Abbas Kiarostami whose films are all about Iran but have never been shown in Iran. What is really interesting for me is that his imagined audience was always Irani. Whether that audience saw his work or did not get to see it is inconsequential. When my imaginary audience and the imagined space in my work come together, my work is created. What happens to a work is a secondary concern.

Q. How do you view the contemporary dynamics between art, artist, audience and gallery? How do you engage with these dynamics?

A. It is quite sad for me that the appreciation of art in Karachi or Pakistan is still about the ownership of a beautiful object. It is not a reflective space. Most people want artworks to be spectacular. To them, art is either pretty or not pretty.

The lack of support for artists is a big challenge. As an artist working in film, I need projectors and equipment to be able to show my work. My art has to be viewed in a public space. I am showing it in Karachi after many years because it has become possible only now with the support provided by Gandhara Art Space. Commercial galleries have their limitations. They are not discursive spaces.

Q. You have shown in many biennales yet I would not consider you a ‘biennale artist’. How do you negotiate your voice within the international art scene?

A. My work is very different in nature from the work of many contemporaries who are showing internationally. When I showed abroad, I did not include text to explain the work. I let people do their homework and seek the content. I am very anti-globalisation. I feel it is a neoliberal way of arranging the world in which you are killing the agency that artists, intellectuals and creative people have in relationship to their own history and politics. You are making them effete.

Q. But don’t biennales do exactly that?

A. Biennales and residencies have to be studied very carefully. In fact, there should be more [local] biennales [than international ones] – like a Gulshan biennale, a Nazimabad biennale, a Clifton biennale, a Multan biennale, a Bahawalpur biennale. Venice and Documenta biennales should definitely not matter at this point. We need to empower people at this time.

This was originally published in Herald's August 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Amra Ali is a Karachi-based art critic and curator. She is also a co-founder of NuktaArt magazine.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was scrambling to stitch together a coalition government in Islamabad on February 28, 2008, 10 days after emerging as the single largest party in the National Assembly. The party had lost its leader, Benazir Bhutto, in a gun-and-bomb attack on an election rally at Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh only two months earlier. Now her husband and successor as the party head, Asif Ali Zardari, was faced with a problem: who could he trust with the post of prime minister?

The natural front runner for the slot was Makhdoom Amin Fahim, the soft-spoken poet-pir from Hala in Sindh. He was head of the Parliamentarians version of the PPP through one of the party’s most difficult times, after the second Nawaz Sharif government in the late 1990s had forced Benazir Bhutto into self-exile and put Zardari behind bars on corruption charges. Even an offer from General Pervez Musharraf to become prime minister after the 2002 general election had not lured the Makhdoom of Hala into changing his loyalties.

Zardari did not have a very high opinion of Fahim — as is shown in the situation reports sent by the United States embassy in Islamabad back to Washington DC. According to the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, the US ambassador at the time, Anne W Patterson, told her bosses back home that Zardari viewed Fahim as personally weak, lazy and a poor administrator who lacked the requisite skills to run a government.

Patterson’s classified memos inform us that the PPP co-chairperson seemed to be backing Shah Mehmood Qureshi even before the general election had taken place. Qureshi, after all, was the PPP’s candidate for the post of prime minister after the 2002 general election when Benazir Bhutto was still alive and her party was just a few National Assembly seats behind the Pakistan Muslim League–Quaid-e-Azam (PMLQ), which eventually formed the government.

His arch-rival from their hometown, Multan, Yousuf Raza Gilani, according to the leaked US correspondence, always came up as a less likely option in Zardari’s discussions with Musharraf’s National Security Adviser Tariq Aziz and the then Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj — both of whom were negotiating a power-sharing deal with him. When Zardari told Aziz that he was considering Qureshi as a candidate for prime minister, the latter was ‘unenthusiastic’. He thought that “Qureshi would not work well with other parties, was very ambitious and might threaten Zardari’s authority.”

When the moment to make the final choice arrived on March 24, 2008, Zardari picked Gilani to head the government. Qureshi was made the minister of foreign affairs.

It was the second time after 2002 that he had come within a whisker to becoming the prime minister, ever since he had fought and lost a local government election to a younger brother of his other political rival from Multan, Javed Hashmi, in 1983. Having turned 60 this year, will Qureshi ever get that close to the top job again?

Also read: Why Pakistan needs a foreign minister

According to Lahore-based journalist and political commentator Sohail Warraich, Qureshi has been “grooming himself for the job ever since he joined politics”. And, Warraich argues, he has what it takes to be prime minister: “He is one of the most well-read politicians in Pakistan, comes from a known religious family, is intelligent and has a strong grip on foreign affairs, economy, agriculture, etc. He understands Punjab’s politics and remains untainted by charges of moral and financial corruption. He knows how to communicate with local and international audiences and is close to the country’s powerful establishment.”

Anyone with these credentials would want to have the post of Pakistan’s chief executive. Little wonder then that most people who know Qureshi have found him ambitious.

He easily alienates people around him because of his feudal, aristocratic attitude,” concedes one of his loyal voters.

One of them, Ambassador Patterson, narrated to her superiors in Washington DC that Qureshi had been promoting himself as a possible prime minister in his meetings with diplomats. She, at the same time, described him as an independent person. “If I am prime minister, I am not going to be Zardari’s ‘yes-man’ ... I am loyal to the party and to Zardari, but I am my own man,” a leaked US embassy document quoted him as having told US officials. He is said to have explained to them that, if he were made prime minister, he expected to be able to choose his own ministers and would not passively accept directives from Zardari working from behind the scenes.

Also read: Pakistan's foreign policy betrays deep domestic insecurities

To Patterson, Qureshi was a polished, experienced, pro-West politician. “Qureshi … is a smooth and sophisticated interlocutor, and he appears sincere in professing that his and PPP’s interests are congruent with those of the United States. He believes PPP has more in common ideologically with Musharraf than with Nawaz [Sharif]” — whose Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PMLN) he had quit after about six years of association, to join the PPP in 1993.

On January 27, 2011, almost three years after the PPP’s fragile coalition government had taken over, Raymond Davis, a private security contractor engaged by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), shot down two young motorcyclists on Lahore’s busy Ferozepur Road.

The police arrested Davis for the murders and sent him to jail. The US government demanded his immediate release, contending he enjoyed diplomatic immunity and was protected from criminal prosecution under international conventions. But, blown up by 24/7 television news, the incident triggered a strong public outrage. Political parties and religious and militant groups joined the foray to whip up anti-American emotions. Protests were held almost on a daily basis and fiery speeches were delivered, threatening the government against releasing Davis under any American pressure.

Also read: Which has been Pakistan’s most significant political schism?

The case soon evolved into a much bigger issue about the presence of a large number of CIA operatives on Pakistan’s soil. Zardari – who by then had become the President of Pakistan – and Husain Haqqani, Islamabad’s ambassador in Washington DC, were blamed for freely issuing visas to these operatives.

There were speculations that the military establishment was pulling the strings from behind the scenes to hit back at Zardari and Haqqani for their perceived proximity to US authorities. It was amid this political melee that the Foreign Office issued a statement, presumably at Qureshi’s behest, that Davis did not enjoy blanket immunity from trial because he was not a diplomat according to Pakistani records. This was the last thing that a beleaguered Zardari expected from his government’s top diplomat.

Also read: Satire: Diary of Nawaz Sharif

A few days later, the PPP’s central executive committee decided to trim the size of the federal cabinet. There was talk of the reshuffle being a ploy to bring in a new foreign minister.

Qureshi decided to skip the oath-taking ceremony of the new cabinet after he came to know that he had been stripped of his old portfolio. “He declined to accept the water and power ministry offered in the new cabinet because he knew that he was being punished for the statement on Davis’s diplomatic status,” contends a Multan-based political observer. “By accepting a new cabinet portfolio, he would not only have accepted the reprimand by Zardari but also invalidated his own stand on the issue of diplomatic immunity for the American operative.”

Some suspect the Foreign Office statement and Qureshi’s refusal to join the reshuffled cabinet were both prompted by the then ISI director general Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha. “Qureshi was, and still is, very close to Pasha,” claims an Islamabad-based political analyst who personally knows Qureshi. “That was the time when the military establishment was trying to politically isolate President Zardari for his government’s unrestrained support to the US at the cost of what the establishment considered the country’s sovereignty,” the analyst adds without wanting to be named. “General Pasha had a major role to play in that.”

Qureshi portrayed his unceremonious removal from the cabinet as a “selfless act of defiance” to protect “national honour”. It suddenly catapulted him into national limelight. From being one of the 54 ministers and advisers in Gilani’s cabinet, he became one of the most sought-after politicians in the same league as Sharif, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and, of course, Zardari himself.

In spite of the public snub from the PPP leadership and insults hurled at him by second tier party leaders, Qureshi did not quit the party immediately. He initially tried to woo the anti-Zardari elements within the party by questioning the PPP’s alliance with the PMLQ. Many speculated that Qureshi was trying to foment a revolt within the party and create a group by gathering alienated party workers and leaders around him.

By the time he made up his mind to leave the PPP, he was being wooed by both Sharif and Khan. The former hosted him twice in his Raiwind estate, inviting him to join the PMLN, but he chose to wager his bets on PTI instead — a party that many in the Sharif camp saw as being helped by Pasha as a possible challenge to their hold on Punjab.

Qureshi is the custodian of the shrines of Bahauddin Zakariya – the founder of the Suhrawardiyya Sufi order in the subcontinent – and his grandson, Shah Rukn-e-Alam, in Multan. British colonial rulers always sought the support of his family to strengthen their rule — as did the military dictators after 1947.

One of his ancestors – after whom he is named as Shah Mahmood Hussain Qureshi – is said to have sided with the British in the 1857 War of Independence. “In return, he was allotted huge lands in Multan. Later on, his family joined the [pro-British] Unionist Party from whose platform [Qureshi’s] grandfather Makhdoom Mureed Hussain Qureshi fought the 1946 election before independence,” says Shakir Hussain Shakir, a Multan-based author and political analyst.

“After independence, Qureshi’s father [Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi] carried on with the family’s tradition of political correctness and tried to align himself with parties close to the establishment,” says Shakir. “When General Ziaul Haq imposed martial law in 1977, Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi joined the dictator who inducted him to [his hand-picked] parliament, Majlis-e-Shoora. Later, he was made a senator and then appointed Governor of Punjab.”

Also read: The great divide: Politics for the poor has gone out of fashion

The family’s love affair with the powers-that-be continued apace after that. In his book, Haan! Main Baghi Hoon, Hashmi writes that General Hamid Gul, who was corps commander of Multan at the time and who later became a controversial ISI chief, called him to his office in the run-up to the 1985 partyless general election and advised him to withdraw his candidature for a Punjab Assembly seat (which included Hashmi’s ancestral Makhdoom Rasheed town near Multan) in favour of Qureshi. The conversation took place in the presence of Qureshi’s father. Hashmi refused to oblige. When the results became known at the end of the polling day, Qureshi had polled almost twice as many votes as Hashmi did for the provincial assembly even though the latter won the National Assembly seat from the same area.

An alumnus of Aitchison College, in Lahore, and a Cambridge University graduate, Qureshi joined the PMLN before the 1988 general election. Two years later, he was made minister of finance in Chief Minister Ghulam Haider Wyne’s Punjab government. Just before the 1993 general election, he joined the PPP after Sharif declined to make him PMLN’s candidate for a National Assembly seat that included Makhdoom Rasheed where Hashmi wanted to contest. Qureshi easily defeated Hashmi to become a junior parliamentary affairs minister in the second Benazir Bhutto government.

“He was disappointed with the PMLN because he believed that Nawaz Sharif’s politics had started only after [Qureshi’s] father had sworn him in as chief minister in 1988, although [Sharif’s] party had not won enough seats to form a government in Punjab,” says a former member of the National Assembly from Multan, requesting anonymity. “[Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi did so] despite a telephone call from Benazir Bhutto stopping him.” Sharif did not return the favour.

Another factor was a class conflict between ‘agriculturist’ Qureshi, who was the founding chairman of the Farmers’ Association of Pakistan, which represents big landowners in Punjab, and ‘businessman’ Sharif under whom, according to Warraich, “Punjab’s political power shifted into the hands of the urban elite from the landed aristocracy.”

There was another reason. “In my view, the most important factor that made him quit the PMLN was his ambition. He believed he could not achieve his goals if he stayed with the PMLN,” says a political activist from Multan who claims to be close to both Qureshi and Gilani. “He needed an alternate platform to advance his ambition and the PPP provided him that.” Benazir Bhutto made him the party’s Punjab president in 2007 even when Gilani did not see the decision ‘favourably’.

Warraich, too, believes that the PPP treated Qureshi quite well. “If Benazir Bhutto had made him the Punjab president of the party, Zardari, too, gave him the vital designation of foreign minister at a time when the party needed someone trustworthy in its dealings with the Americans.”

Some PTI leaders say Qureshi ‘advised’ Khan against letting Hashmi into the party.

What, then, made Qureshi quit the PPP? “I think he was not satisfied with a slot in the federal cabinet or with becoming the foreign minister,” says Warraich.

The aforementioned Islamabad-based analyst agrees. “The foreign ministry did not seem to fit in with his long-term political plan, although it immensely helped him show his competence to the public and develop close and personal relationships with powerful US officials like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her replacement, Senator John Kerry. He wanted something bigger.”

When Qureshi accused the PPP government of undermining Pakistan’s sovereignty perhaps “he was following the example of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto” who, before founding the PPP, had blamed General Ayub Khan of doing just that in the aftermath of the 1965 war by making peace with India at Tashkent. Qureshi went to the extent of cautioning the “nation that the nuclear programme wasn’t safe in the hands of Zardari”. This, the analyst says, shows “how desperate he was to rise as a popular national leader”.

Also read: General accountability

After his exit from the PPP, Qureshi tried many a time to build his image as a popular politician who has grown out of constituency politics. For example, he used Jamaat-e-Ghausia, the organisation comprising devotees of Bahauddin Zakariya, mostly concentrated in Sindh, to organise a large public rally on November 27, 2011, in Ghotki, on the border between Punjab and Sindh, to announce his decision to join the PTI. Later in 2013, he contested a National Assembly seat from Umarkot, again in Sindh, where a large number of his family’s spiritual followers reside. He lost the contest to a PPP nominee, Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur, by more than 13,000 votes.

While Qureshi could not break free of the constituency constraints, failing to win an election away from his ancestral Multan on the back of his family’s spiritual following, he did manage something unprecedented in the process. “It was the first time in the history of Jamaat-e-Ghausia that its figurehead was using it for political objectives,” says Shakir. “His father never did that.”

Qureshi’s only brother, Mureed Hussain Qureshi, later accused him of using the Jamaat’s support and donations from the followers of Bahauddin Zakariya to consolidate his position in the PTI. Mureed Hussain Qureshi also led a failed attempt to oust him as the custodian of the two shrines. “Shah Mahmood is using the names of Sufi saints for political gains. He is encouraging members of Jamaat-e-Ghausia to join PTI. They are wrongly being pushed into politics,” he is reported to have told a press conference in Multan, some months ago. In the 2013 election, the two brothers were in opposite camps — one with the PTI and the other with the PPP.

Qureshi contested the 2013 general election from two National Assembly seats in Multan as well. He lost his original constituency (comprising Makhdoom Rasheed and its adjoining villages) to PMLN’s Malik Abdul Ghaffar Dogar by a margin of more than 17,000 votes. He won from an urban constituency which he was contesting for the first time — mainly on the strength of hisparty’s popularity.

The constituency politics he was trying to rise above had caught up with him, it seems. Lineage is important in politics but not as much as it used to be, says Shakir. “The custodian of a shrine may have thousands of loyal followers but now he has to personally contact voters to win an election. Times have changed.”

Qureshi’s supporters and critics in Multan agree that he has a feudal ego that impedes his politics — both at the level of constituency and in national politics. “He easily alienates people around him because of his feudal, aristocratic attitude,” concedes one of his loyal voters. “It was his ego that hampered him from creating a personal following within the PPP while he was its provincial president. Little wonder then, that no one followed him when he exited the party.”

Also read: Mind your language — the movement for the preservation of Punjabi

A PTI leader from Lahore expresses similar views. “Qureshi has made more enemies than friends in the party,” he says, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Some PTI leaders say Qureshi ‘advised’ Khan against letting Hashmi into the party. Similarly, he was not pleased when the former Punjab Governor Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar joined the PTI. Qureshi is said to have disappeared from the party scene for months after Sarwar was welcomed into its fold. He is also not comfortable with PTI Secretary General Jehangir Tareen and Abdul Aleem Khan, both seen as bankrolling the party. This kind of attitude, according to the anonymous PTI leader “has not helped Qureshi create a strong constituency for himself within the party”.

Qureshi’s differences with Tareen and Sarwar came to a head during a convention of party workers in April this year in Lahore where he accused Sarwar of having made repeated attempts to have him removed as the party’s senior vice-chairman. “I will part with the party if I have to seek a ticket (for election) from people like Tareen and Sarwar,” he thundered at the convention. He also accused the two of trying to hijack the party. “Sarwar and Tareen cannot influence Imran Khan’s decisions. How can these political novices teach us politics? If any rich man thinks he can impose his will on the party, he is mistaken,” he proclaimed.

It was reportedly after this speech that Khan called off intra-party elections, raising speculation that the move was to avert its possible break-up.
Qureshi, according to many PTI insiders, has a knack for making himself controversial. “His present status in national politics does not match with the kind of rifts he has become part of in his party,” says the PTI official from Lahore. “If he has his eyes on a bigger prize, he must keep his feudal ego under control and work with opposing factions in the party to unite it and not to divide it. Or else he may make content himself with always playing the supporting role he now has under Imran Khan.”That supporting role is something Qureshi has already averted twice. How will it be different the third time round?

This was originally published in Herald's July 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The writer is chief reporter at Dawn, Lahore. He tweets at @nasirjamall.

In the rough waters that make up Pakistan’s foreign affairs, navigating policy turns can run the risk of both crashing and capsizing. Major General (retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani – Pakistan’s 23rd Ambassador to the United States (between 2006 and 2008) and the National Security Adviser between May 2008 and January 2009 – has seen and faced these risks intimately.

Durrani’s journey from a missionary-run school in Abbottabad to brokering Islamabad’s relationship with New Delhi, in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, and with Washington DC against the backdrop of a Taliban insurgency in 2008, speaks of his calibre as a soldier and as a diplomat. After retiring from the military in October 1998, he devoted himself to steering a number of peace initiatives with India.

Sitting in his study in Rawalpindi, recently, he talked about some important issues related to Pakistan’s national security and foreign policy. Behind him were photographs – some black and white, others coloured – showing him standing next to the who’s who of the global political, diplomatic and military circles.

Here are the excerpts of the conversation:

Fahd Humayun. What are you reading these days?

Mahmud Ali Durrani. I have been reading In the Shadow of the Sword on Islamic history. What I have been currently struggling with most is religion. One sees the Islamic world in turmoil from one end to the other and one wonders what is wrong with it? Is there something wrong with [Islam’s] message or is there something [wrong] with the way that it's interpreted? ... I want to know what the real message of Islam is. Is it the Islam of the Taliban? Or is it the Islam of the Afghans? Or is it the Islam of the Iranians, or of the Turks, or of the Indonesians? As a nation, we need to give these things very serious thought.

Humayun. What do you think is the place of religion in the business of the state?

Durrani. The way Pakistan has evolved, it will almost be impossible to divert the state away from religion and bring it closer to the Westminster model ... I personally think religion should be kept away from the business of the state, but in the prevailing environment in Pakistan, we are bound to religion as a central theme. When you have modeled your state on the slogan ‘Pakistan ka matlab kia laa illah il lallah’ (Pakistan means nothing but a country of Allah, the only God), where do you run from there?

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Humayun. Like religion, the army has been another constant in Pakistan. Traditionally, it has been averse to improving relations with India. Do you think this aversion is justified?

Durrani. Well, let me say two things. One, the army is not the monolith it is normally perceived to be. No, the army is a collection of people who come from all kinds of backgrounds. This collection may have someone like me who studied at an English medium school run by Christian missionaries and it may have someone from Toba Tek Singh who studied at a government school ... By the time you enter the military, your basic views on religiosity and morality are already formed. The army does put you in a straitjacket; it gives you discipline and provides you with a perspective on geopolitics ... but the individual thoughts developed at school and home stay with you. It is because of discipline that people in the army do not voice their personal feelings and follow the given line or narrative.

The way Pakistan has evolved, it will almost be impossible to divertthe state away from religion and bring it closer to the Westminstermodel

Going back to your question, unfortunately, the military has been very suspicious about India right from the beginning. Initially [India] said they did not accept the creation of Pakistan and would try to undo [Pakistan] given half an opportunity.

Secondly, the military is not as hard-line today on India as it was in 1948 or 1965. Subtle changes have come about. I am a living example of diversity of opinions within the military. Since my retirement, I have been working on India-Pakistan relations and have also written a book on the subject.

They have a very strange name for me in India. They call me General Shanti which means General Peace. A journalist, Bharat Bhushan, gave me the name. When I was posted as Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, he wrote, “General Shanti goes to Washington”.

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But [the military] is welcoming new thoughts. Whenever I go to India, I take the military leadership into confidence. Peace with India will be almost impossible if we don’t take our establishment, particularly our military, with us.

Humayun. You work for peace [with India] and you also describe yourself as a realist. Is there tension between the two?

Durrani. As a Pakistani and as a realist, I say it is in our interest to have stability in our relations with India because all this tension has kept us behind the West. If we had spent the same money and thoughts we spend on India on development, on improving governance, on improving the justice system and on improving our political system, we may have been better off.

That is why I joined this bandwagon of peace. Initially, even my family was against it. They said, ‘You can’t be friends with India.’

Humayun. Is the military the biggest roadblock to peace with India?

Durrani. If it is not a roadblock then why are things not moving the way that they should be moving? But roadblock is a strong word that I would not use. The military has certain views and it has a strong influence on society ... It has some serious misgivings about India, about what India wants from us with regards to Kashmir, about how India wants to be a dominant power and how we should handle it. I do not think there is 100 per cent clarity on these issues within the Foreign Office, the military or even in the public.

Humayun. You speak of the confusion towards India. Who is in charge of making policy on India and Afghanistan?

Durrani. As far as our foreign policy towards India, Afghanistan and Iran is concerned, the military has a stronger role than the Foreign Office and [our] political leadership. I would, however, put it another way: if there are three people making decisions and two of them are weak, the third one will automatically dominate. If political leadership and other civilian institutions are weak and the military is better organised, then the military will naturally dominate ... It is all about the interplay of wisdom and strength of the institutions.

I said to Benazir Bhutto, “You are looking very nice.” I thought, likea Westernised woman, she would say ‘thank you very much’, but sheblushed like a schoolgirl. I was surprised by that.

The military is said to have kept the civilian institutions weak. I do not agree with that. If the political leadership carries its own weight, if it shows wisdom, if it shows courage, the military will salute it.

When there are earthquakes or when there are floods, it is not the military’s job [to provide rescue and relief]. When there are riots, [the army] is cleaning up Karachi? What is the role of the military in all of this? ... These are the jobs of civilian institutions. When they do not deliver, they ask the military to come in. Once the military gets involved, it expands its role and starts thinking that it is superior. It is the weakness elsewhere that propels the military into such positions.

Also read: The pursuit of Kashmir

Humayun. How do you view Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s peace overtures to India?

Durrani. I am not a big fan of Nawaz Sharif, but the efforts that he has made for peace between India and Pakistan are a good step.

My only request to our political leaders and our establishment is that they should maintain their dignity. Pakistan must have good relations with India, but being a doormat will not help. They have to show some strength and dignity in international relations. Wanting peace is good, but national interest should be their foremost priority. That should be the guiding principle.

Humayun. Pakistan is constantly made out to be the fall guy for American misadventures in Afghanistan. What are your thoughts on this?

Durrani. Broadly speaking, I agree that Pakistan is being shown as a villain. The problem is that Afghanistan has become a very complex issue ... Today if you go to Afghanistan, you will find that the majority of Afghans do not like us and this includes the Pakhtuns, the non-Pakhtuns, the establishment and others. They all feel that 90 per cent of their problems are created by Pakistan.

Humayun. Well, there has to be a reason why the Afghans have such negative opinions about Pakistan.

Durrani. We blame the Americans and the Indians for our own faults. The Afghans do the same and blame us. There is another reason. When the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, we recognised them and supported them. Maybe we went too far in advising and helping them. The non-Taliban turned against us and, alas, after sometime even the Taliban turned against us.

I was in Afghanistan when 9/11 happened. I was a part of an informal dialogue – initiated by the United Nations – among Iran, Russia, America and Pakistan. A few hours before the Twin Towers fell, I landed in Herat (Afghanistan). Later that evening, I was sitting with Pakistan’s consul general, whom I knew. He had a little transistor radio because the Taliban did not allow televisions. We heard about the towers and the attack. We were mighty confused.

My reaction was to predict that the Americans were to come into Afghanistan and hit the Taliban. My host said, “Why should the Americans do that? There is no proof.” I said, “From what I know of the American people and their political system, they will want revenge. Where will they go for that?”

Humayun. Does our military still have favourites or preferred outcomes in Afghanistan?

Durrani. They certainly will have preferred outcomes but a preferred outcome is one thing and methodology is another. Preferred outcome is that we should have some friendly and sympathetic government in Kabul. Full stop. The Afghan government should not be sitting in our lap, but there should be a government in Kabul that wants to have good relations with Pakistan. The preferred outcome, without doubt, is that we should live in peace and harmony.

I don’t think the military or anybody else wants to dominate Afghanistan. We can’t get our own house in order. How can we dominate another country? When we did try to dominate their policies, it was a wrong thing to do. We are still paying a price for that.

Humayun. How much influence does Pakistan really have over the Afghan Taliban?

Durrani. I will be guessing, but I feel that the influence of Pakistan over the Afghan Taliban is limited. I am quite surprised at how we offered to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table. It amazes me. Remember when the Taliban were ruling Afghanistan and there was this issue of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan? The whole world begged the Taliban to let the statue be because it was a heritage site. They did not listen to anyone, including Pakistan. Similarly, we had criminals escaping from Pakistan to Afghanistan. We had our interior minister visit Afghanistan and talk to the Taliban, but they did not listen to him. The Taliban will do what they think suits their long-term interests.

If political leadership and other civilian institutions are weak and the military is better organised, then the military will naturally dominate

If we think, or the world thinks, that Pakistan can deliver the Afghan Taliban to the peace process then in my view there is a fallacy in that belief.

Humayun. The military is fighting wars on multiple fronts: in Balochistan, in Waziristan and in Karachi. How easy is it for a military trained to fight in plains against India to adapt and acquire the culture, training and logistics required to fight internal wars?

Durrani. Fighting an internal war for any military is a very, very difficult job — close to being impossible. It is like you are fighting with your own people. And I can assure you that the military did not go into these wars willingly. It went in kicking and screaming.

After 9/11, the Americans used the Northern Alliance, some Special Forces and bombings to drive the Taliban leadership into Pakistan. At that time the Americans were pushing us saying, “Go and kill them.” We were not interested in going into the tribal areas. We had no idea how to fight an insurgency. The military said going into the tribal areas would only increase its problems and this is what has happened.

The military has been involved in Balochistan and Karachi because there have been very, very unfortunate events. I wish the military had not gone anywhere, but if all the other institutions fail then the army goes in [to control the situation]. It is not going in on its own. It is going in on the invitation of the federal government or the provincial governments. In the military, we call it “in aid of civil power”.

When the military is in a certain part of the country and the chief minister or somebody tells it to do things in a certain way, the military says, “No, we will do it in our own way.” That is probably where the problem is.

The Congress, the media and the think tanks were blasting us for notcooperating — for not supporting action against the Haqqani network.

I’ll give you the example of Swat. The army went in and cleared the valley of militants [in 2007-2008]. Then the elections happened, the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa changed and the ANP [Awami National Party] came into power. The party said, “We are Pakhtuns and we know local culture," and other nonsense. The ANP signed an agreement with Mullah Fazlullah and returned some weapons to him. The provincial government also released some of his men. All those who had cooperated with the military were kicked in the back. Many of them were killed. Senior military officials were also killed by Fazlullah.

Then the military went into Swat again in 2009. These guys were bent upon taking revenge. I can very well say they should not take revenge and abide by the Geneva Convention [on prisoners of war] but they are also humans. Four of their colleagues were slaughtered and they wanted to exact revenge.

I have spent time in Wana (South Waziristan), Mir Ali and Miranshah (North Waziristan) before I went to Washington as ambassador. I met a lot of officers there; they were awaiting orders to go [after the militants]. It was [General Ashfaq Parvez] Kayani who kept procrastinating. His indecision could be based on the worries that the war may expand to the rest of Pakistan.

I see that as a big mistake because Pakistan let the Taliban operate in these areas for four to five years. They built their strength and power base in this period.

Also read: Fighting the Taliban- The US and Pakistan's failed strategies

Humayun. What do you think are the biggest challenges facing Pakistan’s relations with the United States?

Durrani. The biggest problem today is lack of trust. Removing mistrust was the number one challenge for me as Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, because it was pretty deep-rooted.

When the Americans took out Osama bin Laden from my hometown [Abbottabad], American mistrust of Pakistan went sky high. I remember the then incoming American Defense Secretary said Pakistanis were either complicit or incompetent. Both titles were not very flattering.

Then came the Salala incident, in which the Americans killed 24 of our soldiers. That increased our mistrust and anger towards the Americans manifold. There has been significant mistrust on both sides.

The Americans bombed Taliban leaders and almost defeated them, but then they did not block their exit from Afghanistan. Our planners thought the Americans should have blocked the Taliban and eliminated them, rather than letting them flow into Pakistan. The Americans left their work incomplete and we suffered as a consequence.

If we had worked together after 9/11, we could have developed some trust, but then we started having problems, for example, over the Coalition Support Fund (CSF), which was meant to reimburse Pakistan for security operations conducted in support of the American operations in Afghanistan. We sent invoices from here and the Americans thought those were inflated.

Humayun. Were you surprised by the 2011 American raid that killed bin Laden?

Durrani. Yes, I was totally surprised. I could not imagine bin Laden living [in Abbottabad]. Whoever had put him there was very smart because Abbottabad is not a standard military garrison like Sialkot or Lahore. There are no combat troops in Abbottabad; all it has are training institutions. It is an education city actually.

We arrested a few al-Qaeda operatives and sympathisers from Abbottabad [weeks before the 2011 raid]. They had placed him there — in a completely insignificant place.

A week or 10 days after the May 2011 raid, I got a telephone call from John Kerry. He was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at the time, and was in Afghanistan. He knew me because I had been Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington. He said, “I’m coming to your country tomorrow and I will meet your civilian and military leadership. Do you have any advice for me? How should I go about it?” I gave him my two cents worth. He then said, “I don’t believe that people in your establishment did not know that Osama was in Abbottabad.” I said, “John, trust me. They did not know. There is more Pashto spoken in colonies on the periphery of Abbottabad than Hindko, which is the native tongue of its residents. A lot of people from Swat and several other places have come to the city and settled here. They have brought with them their culture as well. I can show you a half-dozen houses which have big walls and some that have barbed wire around them. It is not unusual. The house where bin Laden was living was a typical Pakhtun compound.”

Humayun. What was your biggest challenge as Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington?

Durrani. It was a challenge to convince the US Congress and the media about Pakistan’s point of view. The Congress, the media and the think tanks were blasting us for not cooperating — for not supporting action against the Haqqani network. Washington is fundamentally different from other capitals. There are many power centres there. You have to humour them all or at least explain your position to all of them. You have to go and salute everybody.

The tragedy is that when I became close to the Americans through such great effort, people here started calling me a sell-out.

Once I went to the Pentagon, along with a visiting Pakistani general. Analysts there gave us their assessment: it was entirely opposite to what our analysts were telling us. I was a little flustered because it is the basic assessment of their intelligence agencies that goes everywhere. I said to myself: if that assessment is wrong then the whole of Pakistan’s case is doomed. So I asked this deputy director of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] who had come to a dinner at my house that I wanted to meet his analysts. A couple of days later, I went to the CIA along with the defense attaché and met four analysts there. I said, “If your intelligence and our intelligence do not come to a common sheet of music, we’ll never be able to fight this war.” [Difference in intelligence analysis] is the mother of all problems because the people who take decisions at the White House feed off that intelligence.

Then we had challenges regarding the Coalition Support Fund (CSF). Those in Pakistan would pressurise me to get the money released immediately. One day, someone from the Pentagon came to me and accused us of fudging figures.

I knew America like the back of my hand. I had served there, in Fort Knox, at the Armor School, for a year. I had been Pakistan’s military attaché in the US for the unusual length of five years. I had been going there for meetings and seminars. When I went there as ambassador, it was nothing new to me.

Richard Armitage, former US deputy secretary of state, was a great help. In Pakistan, people were scared of him. They called him a bully. Even Pervez Musharraf said to me, “Sir, he had been rude to me. I’ll never spare him.” Armitage was known to be rough. I knew him from my attaché days. He was in the Pentagon then and was nobody, but I called him for a private lunch and he came. When he became the deputy secretary of state, he did not forget that Mahmud Durrani was his friend when he was nobody. Whether he met others or not, he would always meet me. Point is: you have to work on these relationships.

The tragedy is that when I became close to the Americans through such great effort, people here started calling me a sell-out. They said I was with America. I responded by saying that I would have done the same if I had been sent to the Soviet Union. Our people are very petty.

Also read: Pakistan's foreign policy betrays deep domestic insecurities

Humayun. You have been both the ambassador to the United States and the national security adviser. Which was the more challenging of the two jobs?

Durrani. Well, the national security adviser one was more difficult than the ambassadorial one. I was in the former position for only seven to eight months. All this time I was trying to establish the office of the national security adviser — acquiring office space and hiring human resources. I was battling the Pakistani establishment more than anything else.

I have nothing in common with the PPP [Pakistan Peoples Party] and I am not a politician but a technocrat. Why I joined this position was because I wanted Pakistan to have the office of national security adviser. I had been studying security issues for more than 12 years. I studied the American model, the British model and the German model. Later, I also studied the Indian model. Because I liked the American model more than other models, I crafted the office along the lines of the American one.

Just to give you some background, Benazir Bhutto was in America about 11 months before she landed in Pakistan [in 2007]. A Pakistani businessman invited her for lunch and he also invited me. When I went there, the hostess plopped me next to Benazir Bhutto. We started discussing geopolitics and she said, “You know, Durrani sahib, you should be a national security adviser and not sitting here.” Our host said, “Make him national security adviser when you become prime minister.”

The military leadership may turn around and say, “You idiot, we are already doing that.”

About two or three weeks before she came to Pakistan, the same gentleman hosted a dinner in her honour in Washington. He invited me again. I called Musharraf to ask if I should meet her. I knew Musharraf very well. That was a big advantage as an ambassador because I could talk to the head of the state at any time. I called him and I said, “They [the PPP] have invited me for dinner. If you are talking to them, I can contribute something.” He said, “No, sir, please go ahead with the dinner. We are managing our relationship [with PPP] over here [in Pakistan].”

During the dinner, Benazir Bhutto sat right across from me and said, “Durrani sahib, you have to help me. Ask Musharraf to close these cases filed against us and he has to give us some space.” I said, “He doesn’t want me to get [involved].” She said, “No, no. You are a friend of his. You are like his brother.” I said, “But he doesn’t want me to get involved.” She insisted, “No, you must talk to him.” A little later, Asif Ali Zardari came and sat with us. He said, “General sahib, please take a look. There are so many cases against me. This needs to end.”

To change the topic, I said to Benazir Bhutto, “You are looking very nice.” I thought, like a Westernised woman, she would say ‘thank you very much’, but she blushed like a schoolgirl. I was surprised by that.

A couple of days after she died, Zardari called me. He said, “She made a promise to you and I want to fulfill that.” I said, “Are you talking about the national security adviser?” He said, “Yes.” It is because of a promise that she never made that I became the national security adviser.

I think I was a little naïve. When I was offered the job of national security adviser, I was thrilled that I could set up something new. I did not realise the political implications that unfolded gradually.

Before I became the adviser, I spoke to Musharraf. I told him about my conversation with Zardari. Musharraf said, “Yes, you should join [as national security adviser].”

Also read: General accountability

Humayun. He did not have any problems with this?

Durrani. No. At least not visibly. He said, “Look, if you join as national security adviser, people will say all my friends are abandoning me.” I said, “If you are uncomfortable, I will not join.” He said, “If anyone asks you, tell them Musharraf has cleared this.” I said, “I am only joining since you have cleared this.” Thinking back, I believe he gave me clearance, but in his heart he was not happy.

The military, deep down, was also not very comfortable with a general becoming national security adviser. It is a higher position than the army chief, who wanted a direct communication line with the prime minister and president. The military did not like the idea that a retired officer would come in between. This is just my personal assessment.

Kayani behaved nicely with me. I told him: “I cannot move forward without your support.” He responded, “Yes sir, that’s what it is.”

Humayun. What was your relationship with Kayani like?

Durrani. It was good. As a young officer, I read a book written by Heinz Wilhelm Guderian who was a German general during the Second World War. He is [considered] the father of Blitzkrieg (a method of warfare) and he commanded a campaign, called Operation Barbarossa, into Soviet Union. His book carries directives from Hitler’s office to various army commands.

Taking a cue from those directives, I made one to be sent from the prime minister to various agencies on how to fight the War on Terror. I spoke to Kayani and said, “This is what I have made. Have a look. I want to send this to everyone.” He said, “Sir, I’ll run it past the staff.” After two days, he came back to me with a very minor change. This was something very unusual. Political leadership giving direction to the military and everybody else had not happened before in the history of Pakistan.

I took the directive to [Prime Minister Yousuf Raza] Gilani. I do not know if he read it. I told him, “Sir, you will be the first political leader to send a written directive to everybody on this war.” He asked me, “Has the military cleared it?” I said, “Yes.” I wanted him to sign it or authorise me to sign it. He said, “Leave it here.” So I left the directive there and that is the last that I heard of it.

Humayun. What advice would you give the Pakistani military today?

Durrani. I would say: Don’t be too pushy. Have patience, try and help the political process. Don’t compromise fundamental issues of Pakistan’s security for promotions or extensions.

The military leadership may turn around and say, “You idiot, we are already doing that.”

The military should respect the civilian leadership but then the civilian leadership should earn respect. How can one accord respect to an incompetent, useless thief?

This was originally published in the Herald's June 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The interviewer is a researcher on foreign policy and tweets @fahdhumayun.

December 1986, will be remembered as a watershed. This is the month when Operation Clean-up was launched in Karachi's Sohrab Goth area. Caches of narcotics and ammunition were discovered. Residents were asked to pack their belongings and shift to a nearby village. Many were arrested. The operation prompted violence and many died in the clash against the army.

While Karachi burned, Abdul Sattar Edhi was left with the responsibility of picking up the pieces. Edhi ambulances were everywhere, his team of doctors on twenty-four hour call, his workers retrieving corpses and providing relief often at the risk of their own lives. Edhi was now a household name — the lone voice of sanity in an increasingly insane order.

Here, he speaks to the Herald and shares his views on the bloodshed, its aftermath and practical measures to deal with the situation:

Q. What are your views on the Karachi carnage? What do you think really happened and why?

Abdul Sattar Edhi. What happened was the work of the drug and death dealers. Every country has their share of these people. The places they attacked, and the manner in which they were attacked, clearly shows how organised these people are. Their modus operandi in all cases was identical. First, they came in groups of five to ten and shouted slogans inciting a particular ethnic group living in the area to join up with them. Once they managed to get these people with them, they started firing at random. When residents of the area emerged from their homes, they opened fire on them, stopping only when their victims fled. The mob then moved in, ransacked houses, looted them and finally set them on fire. They did not discriminate in their choice of victims or the methods they employed to conduct this massacre.

Q. What do you think will happen next?

Edhi. This will not end. But one can try to control it. I have made a few suggestions to the administration, but I don’t run the country, so it’s for them to decide whether they’ll implement them or not. I believe that honorary judges should be appointed in all the various mohallas. They should be assisted by a committee comprising people from the mohalla, representing every ethnic community in the area. Unemployed men from the community should be appointed as guards; their salaries should come from a mandatory fee of five rupees paid by every family residing in the area. The judge should have at his command a heavy arsenal and the authority to use the weapons if the need should arise.

Furthermore, I’ve also told people to gather large amounts of stones and keep them on the roofs of their houses, so that if a situation of the kind were just witnessed arises again, they can use these in self-defense. For every five of them that gets shot, they’ll at least get one from the other side. Every human being has the right to self-defense.

Q. What role has the government played? Do you give any credence to the allegations of government collusion with the “subversives”?

Edhi. There are conflicts within the government. The people responsible for the carnage have infiltrated every organisation, every section of society. They are everywhere, including the government. Their strength is immeasurable, and they have no soul. They will go to any lengths, use any means to perpetuate their evil designs.

As for the government, even when they arrive at the scene of a crime, they take at least two or three hours to take action. How can they be effective? To enforce the law you cannot afford to waste a minute. There were reports that most of the incriminating evidence had been removed from Sohrab Goth before the authorities arrived. Certainly, large quantities of arms and drugs were removed, but not two or three days earlier — just a few hours before the army went into action. I don’t know if it was planned this way, but in those crucial few hours it took the forces to get “organised,” the crooks made off with all the evidence. These people are always on the alert anyway, and they know all the routes out of that area. The army wasn’t given orders to start raiding or shooting till much later. So what could you expect? Even when they impose curfew, it takes them hours to get organised enough to enforce it. So obviously, there’s no protection. This is the system we exist in. Nothing ever gets done until innocent blood has been shed.

Q. There have been allegations of severe harassment of Sohrab Goth residents by the authorities at the time of the action. Did you hear any evidence of such incidents?

Edhi. Well, this is only natural. When you’re being forcibly shifted, you can’t expect to be driven out in a Mercedes or carried out on a velvet litter. And there were several very wealthy people living there as well – people who owned four to five cars each – so obviously, they are not going to be satisfied with the treatment handed out. But now that they’ve been shifted, I’ve heard several people – the more sensible ones at any rate – saying they are glad they’ve been separated into different groups.

Also read: Operation overkill – How not to improve law and order in Karachi

Q. The government promised the Sohrab Goth evacuees compensation. Apparently this has not been forthcoming, and you’ve been left holding the baby. Is this true?

Edhi. There were different groups in Sohrab Goth: The Persian-speaking Afghans, Pakistani Pathans, some Punjabis and Urdu-speaking people, and lastly, the Kutchis – vagrants who have neither any faith, nor principles, nor even any fixed place of residence. Now they’ve all been shifted to different camps. The KDA has allotted them each a 60-yd plot and here at least these people can be watched.

The Afghans have their own commissioner to see to their needs. We’re not responsible for them. They’ve also been given a lot in foreign aid. For the Pathans, Punjabis and mohajirs, I haven’t seen any arrangement, either short-term or long-term, so far. The government has made a lot of promises, but I don’t know if it will actually do anything. For the next few days we’ll supply them with the basics, as we have been doing. I’ve been given special funds for the purpose from different agencies. But these are only temporary, emergency measures.

Q. The government seems to have abdicated all responsibility for the welfare of the affected people to you. How do you feel about it?

Edhi. In the west, governments take care of their own. In third world countries like ours, there’s no such arrangement. But it’s a two-way street. The awaam dodges taxes, defrauds the government, and the government in turn lines its pockets to allow this to happen. You get the government you deserve, and meanwhile the poor and the needy get left out in the cold. So there’s a crying need for social workers from private quarters. The day this mutually beneficial arrangement stops, there’ll be enough funds in the national coffers to start taking care of the people. That day, I’ll become redundant and relinquish my job to the state. But since this isn’t likely to happen, I have no choice in the matter. It’s a responsibility I have taken upon myself, and I’ll carry on doing it under any circ*mstance.

Q. There has been an overwhelming public response to the disaster. How do you feel about it?

Edhi. I’ve always received this kind of response. It’s not new. But what’s been inspiring this time is the spirit in which they’ve sent their money. I got a hefty cheque with a letter from somebody in Jeddah, saying that the money was to be used for all those affected, Pathans and mohajirs alike. The money has poured in and keeps coming.

Q. Have you utilised any of these funds to expand your operation?

Edhi. No, because our expense has multiplied. The ambulances have been in constant use, twenty-four hours a day. Several of them have been damaged, sometimes by the crowds as they converge on those carrying relief items. There’s been a vast amount of fuel used. And then there’s an endless demand for provisions. So we’re just about managing to cater to the needs of the moment. Sometimes, my workers even tell me to stop aid in a certain area because people are now cashing in on the situation. I have lists of the victims in each area. Several of these, however, have run away. But there are others who take their place, so you get people who take three times their share of rations.

Nevertheless, I just tell my workers that I have been given funds for a particular purpose, and even if we sometimes make mistakes, the funds will be used for that purpose. But it is true that people exploit the situation. There are three kinds of people who surface in these situations: the chronic beggars, those who hop on to the bandwagon on such occasions, and the actual victims. You have to discriminate between them and ensure that the really deserving get their share.

This was originally published in the Herald's Annual 1987 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The writer is a former staffer at the Herald

Dr Ishrat Husain has recently retired as the dean of Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi. He has also worked as the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) from 1999 to 2005. Before that, he had a long and distinguished career with the World Bank – from 1979 to 1999 – during which he served at several key positions in Africa and East Asia. Husain also headed the National Commission for Government Reforms from 2006 to 2008.

With such extensive and varied work experiences, he has attracted both admiration and criticism. Some of his critics point towards the relaxed monetary policy he pursued at the SBP while many of his admirers draw attention to his steering of Pakistan’s economy through difficult times as well as IBA’s transformation under him from a business school to an institution of excellence in higher education.

Here are excerpts of a recent conversation with Husain:

Fahd Ali. What were the challenges you faced after taking over IBA in 2008?

Ishrat Husain. When IBA was set up in 1955, it was the first business school outside North America. Why the heck is it still so unknown outside Pakistan? To me, the challenge was that this institution should be one of the top institutions like the Indian Institutes of Management, which are household names abroad. Why isn’t IBA in the same league?

Also read: Jawwad S Khawaja—Poetic justice

Being a public sector institution, my first condition for taking on the job was that I would not allow interference from any political quarters. The second condition was that the government must give me the freedom to approach the private sector and charities to raise money because the government did not have the money [required to restructure IBA].

Ali. What necessitated IBA’s restructuring?

Husain. I wanted to put IBA among the top 100 global business schools and among the top 10 in the region. In order to do that, I had to realign its programmes with the best international practices that are also rooted in local circ*mstances. IBA also had to apply for accreditation with the international agencies. The changes were necessary in order to obtain those accreditations.

Ali. What was your restructuring strategy?

Husain. I enhanced the quality of the existing academic programmes and brought in new ones. I transformed IBA’s flagship MBA programme and aligned it with the best international practice: that everybody has to have a two-year post-graduation work experience before they can enrol.

When, however, we started the new MBA programme in 2010, the enrolment went down drastically — from 150 to 25. This was a big shock. Tuition fee collection declined substantially and many members of the faculty had no courses to teach, but I persisted. The market has now recognised there is a qualitative difference in graduates who join an MBA programme straight after a BBA and those who are now coming out of [the restructured] MBA programme. The new graduates are more mature. They are not chasing grades; they apply their knowledge to real world problems.

The state is not a monolithic, hom*ogenous mass. It is highly amorphous.

The BBA programme was not a terminal degree. The majority of its graduates would go for the master’s programme either in Pakistan or abroad. Very few went into the job market. I have made BBA a terminal degree and made eight social sciences courses mandatory for every BBA student. My philosophy is that a student has to be a good human being before he becomes a competent professional.

I brought in an experiential learning project. In the final year, each student is assigned a problem-solving project in a company for hands-on experience. I also introduced a “Responsible Citizen Initiative” that requires BBA students to do an eight-week community-based internship.

The second pillar of my strategy was bringing in new faculty. IBA had only 19 PhDs in 2009; today it has 60. Another 24 members of the faculty are doing their PhDs abroad. In the next few years, 80 per cent of the faculty will have a PhD, with degrees secured mostly from outside Pakistan.

The third pillar was physical infrastructure. There was no proper office for any faculty member. They were all sitting in a common lounge. Not a single laboratory or classroom had been added after 1965, even though the number of students had gone up from 200 to 2,000. How could I attract people from Berkeley, Northwestern and Cambridge universities to teach at IBA in those conditions?

I undertook a major programme of remodelling and expanding the existing physical infrastructure. I mobilised some five billion rupees and completed 21 new projects. This expansion has helped IBA increase its enrolment from 2,000 to 3,600 this year. Its financial resources have almost doubled. With internal revenues providing 70 per cent of operational expenditure, dependence on outside resources has decreased. I raised one billion rupees to set up an endowment fund. The income from that fund also supports the expenditure.

And the final pillar was community outreach. I have established four centres. The Centre for Executive Education trains mid-career professionals in strategy, leadership and supply chain management. The Centre for Business and Economic Research assists the Sindh government on taxation and the SBP on consumer confidence and business confidence surveys. It also does studies for the World Bank, for example, on the textile industry in Pakistan among other things.

Also read: Sabeen Mahmud's legacy of courage and compassion

The Centre for Excellence in Journalism has been set up in partnership with the Medill School of Journalism at the Northwestern University, which is one of the top journalism schools in the United States. The centre has a state-of-the-art television studio comparable to any newsroom at any news channel. The Centre for Excellence in Islamic Finance is the fourth one. Islamic finance is expanding quite rapidly in Pakistan, but the manpower for it is hardly distinguishable from that of conventional banking. IBA competed with other universities and won a grant from the SBP for setting it up.

Personally satisfying for me are the talent hunt programmes to recruit students from backward districts and poor families who have done well in their intermediate examinations. IBA brings them to Karachi at its own expense and mentors them. Last year, we received 1,600 applications under this programme — 25 of them passed IBA’s entry test. We have the son of a factory worker in the same class where the daughter of his father’s employer is also studying.

Ali. How did the staff and faculty respond to the changes?

Husain. The old faculty and the old staff were very annoyed because they wanted to retain their comfort level. They were always threatening to go on strike. They wrote newspaper articles against the changes. I, however, refused to be distracted. When they saw that progress has been made, they could not do much [against it].

Ali. The freedom to ask questions is an essential aspect of the intellectual environment at an educational institution. A lot of people feel that such freedom is shrinking in Pakistan. What do you think?

The military has completely changed. It is now convinced that ourinternal problems are our worst enemies and that we have to take careof these problems.

Husain. You are right. Intellectual curiosity and academic freedom are the cornerstones of the environment at any university. Teachers at IBA are quite free to express their views openly. I also encouraged IBA students to ask all the difficult questions. On their first day at IBA, I would tell them that the best way of learning was through inquisitiveness and that no question was a stupid question.

Ali. To be specific, new historiography in Pakistan is not possible unless higher education institutions protect the freedom to ask questions …

Husain. I think this is happening. There was a certain ethnic party in Karachi, for example, that nobody could even point a finger to because they were all scared that some retaliation would take place. For the last four years, the media has been full of stories about that party.

We expect social change to take place overnight, but you have to see whether the pointers are in the right direction.

Ali. What about [questioning] the military?

Husain. The military has completely changed. It is now convinced that our internal problems are our worst enemies and that we have to take care of these problems.

Ali. When an individual leaves an institution, his good work also leaves with him. Do you see the same happening at IBA after you?

Husain. I believe in institution building. My decision to not renew my contract for a third term is embedded in the principle that human beings are not indispensable and that institutions have to be built by a succession of people. It is quite possible that the next person has better ideas and better execution than me. If I have put in place systems and procedures, then the 80-20 formula for institution building will prevail — 20 per cent is the influence of the individual, but 80 per cent is system-driven.

Ali. Do you have any targets that you missed?

Husain. I wanted to make the faculty work in teams. They are working in silos. My goal was to develop teams for collaborative multidisciplinary research because our problems cannot be compartmentalised. I could not do anything on this front because my time was taken up by other preoccupations.

Ali. There is a focus on the social sciences in higher education these days. What do you think is the reason for that?

Husain. I presented a paper, Public Policy and Social Sciences, at a conference at the Government College University in Lahore about seven years ago. In that paper, I discussed the status of social sciences teaching and research in Pakistan. [My diagnosis was that] people who did not pass the civil service exam became teachers of history and social sciences.

But that trend has changed. Some of it owes to the Higher Education Commission (HEC) that has started investing in PhD programmes. Some very bright young men and women have gone to good schools abroad and come back with PhDs recently. We should have people who are conducting research on our political system, our social and economic problems and our history. We should have more Ayesha Jalals.

Also read: Raheel Sharif—The chief who could be king

[Social sciences] is also virgin territory: if you write about Pakistan’s historical, political and religious problems in a scientific manner, you will get published in the best journals. The critical mass has been created by the HEC and an incentive structure exists that induces young teachers to specialise in these fields.

The HEC also offers competitive research grants in the social sciences every year. You do not have to be part of a public sector university in order to compete for these grants. You can compete if you have developed a good proposal. The state is, thus, modifying its postures as far as research in the social sciences is concerned.

Ali. How committed is the state to maintain this posture?

Husain. The state is not a monolithic, hom*ogenous mass. It is highly amorphous. If you are talking to the chief minister of Punjab, you get one picture of the state. If you talk to the chief minister of Sindh, you will get another picture. There are, however, opportunities and the educationists must alook for those wherever they can be found.

The government in power between 2008 and 2013 did not pay muchattention to economic management. It changed five finance ministersand five governors of the central bank.

There was a gap after General Pervez Musharraf left. From 2008 to 2013, the government completely starved the HEC of funds and then diluted its powers by decentralising its functions to the provinces. All the overseas scholarships were discontinued. People studying abroad did not have money to pay their tuition fee. That has really done a great disservice to education in Pakistan. This government is trying to put things back on track, although the damage done will take a long time to correct.

Ali. Moving to your stint at the SBP, people say one of the outcomes of your monetary policy was that it encouraged consumerism rather than focussing on supporting manufacturing. Your response?

Husain. You have to take economic conditions into consideration when devising your policies. After May 1998, Pakistan was under nuclear sanctions. Freezing of foreign currency accounts had shattered the confidence of Pakistanis — both residents and non-residents. Growth rates had tumbled and foreign exchange reserves were negative. Soon the military took over and more sanctions were imposed.

Our fiscal policy lever was jammed because the debt–Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio at that time was 100 per cent. There was no purchasing power. The aggregate demand was deficient. How do you kick-start an economy under these conditions? You only have the lever of monetary policy to play around. You bring down interest rates so that this can provide a stimulus to the economy working below its production capacity.

If you are producing 30,000 cars when the installed capacity is 20,000 cars or cement production is nine million tonnes against the installed capacity of 18 million, then the first thing that you do is to take steps that can enhance the purchasing power which will lead to rising demand, resulting in higher capacity utilisation. It is only after the existing capacity is fully utilised that expansion will take place through investment. Our consumers did not have cash to purchase a car or motorcycle or an apartment available on a lump sum payment. We decided to give them loans against their incomes which they could use to make a purchase on instalment basis. This pushed the aggregate demand upwards and the existing capacity was utilised.

In the second phase, when demand for steel, automobiles and cement went up, there was new investment to expand the production capacity. By 2006-2007, the investment–GDP ratio was highest in the country’s history, at 23 per cent. When the investment rose, the GDP growth rate averaged six to seven per cent per annum.

We have the son of a factory worker in the same class where the daughter of his father's employer is also studying.

If we had not kick-started the economy through an increase in aggregate demand using the monetary policy lever, we would not have been able to attain this virtuous cycle of increased capacity utilisation followed by new investment.

Ali. What did not go up at the same time were public sector investments…

Husain. No, public sector investment did go up but not by the same extent as the private investment. Public sector investment -- at seven per cent of the GDP -- accounted for more than one third of the aggregate investment. Even today you don’t have that level of public investment. The motorway between Peshawar and Lahore was made during that period; development at seaports and airports also took place then.

The only area where the government underestimated the problem was the energy sector. The government did not realise that demand for electricity and gas would increase with a GDP growth of six per cent. We should have at least kept energy production at a level commensurate with the future demand.

Ali. What do you think went wrong 2007 onwards?

Husain. There was a lack of timely decision-making on key issues in the post-March 2007 period. If you don’t take timely decisions, the cumulative effect of the postponed decisions is huge. I have said the same thing about the import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). There were very good deals available in 2010 but the Supreme Court did not allow even one of those deals to be completed. Today in 2016, we are suffering because of the indecisions and postponed decisions.

Ali. How do you compare the economic policies of different civilian and military regimes in the recent past?

Husain. I would say 2000–2002, when we had a cabinet of technocrats, was the best period of economic management in Pakistan’s history. It was during that period that all the tough reforms – including those in the structure and administration of taxes – were introduced. The period between 2003 and 2006 was reasonably good because the momentum for growth had been created earlier. International confidence in Pakistan’s economy was high and the Foreign Direct Investment flows were at their peak.

The turning point came in 2007, with the announcement of elections, judicial issues and the Lal Masjid episode. In 2008, there was tension between Musharraf and the army on the one hand, and the new civilian government on the other. The government in power between 2008 and 2013 did not pay much attention to economic management. It changed five finance ministers and five governors of the central bank. When the ship is in turbulent waters, you need strong hands on the wheel to bring it to shore safely. We had an economy in trouble between 2008 and 2013 but there was no one minding the store. That created a lot of problems. We did not even implement conditionalities of the International Monetary Fund loan programme.

The current government at least has a very clearly designated steward of the economy. You may disagree with him, but at least we all know somebody is minding the store.

Ali. Why can’t we catch tax evaders?

Husain. When Abdullah Yusuf was heading the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), tax administration was doing well. The moment the government removed him, the whole process turned topsy-turvy.

Also read: Altaf Hussain: Politics on mute

Let me give you a very specific example. The FBR had a merit-based selection process for key postings in the customs and income tax departments. Those selected were given double the usual salary. As a result of this policy, very good people were selected as regional tax officers and they started generating additional revenues.

The new government came in 2008, and the FBR officials who were not hired for those posts went to politicians and said that they were being treated unfairly. The government doubled the salaries of all the officials irrespective of their merit or performance and the old culture was restored. If the merit-based, performance-related evaluation process and compensation system was allowed to continue, I can tell you things would have improved.

The current government at least has a very clearly designated stewardof the economy. You may disagree with him, but at least we all knowsomebody is minding the store.

Decline in revenues has widened the fiscal deficit and we are seeing the re-emergence of multiple slabs in customs and regulatory duties. You do not know which good is going to attract what duty. The lack of transparency and greater complexity in rules has given enormous discretionary powers to tax officials. [If the government] simplifies the tax code, removes discretionary powers of tax collectors and makes the tax collection system transparent, computerised and automated, I can bet tax collection will go up.

Experts such as Hafeez Pasha have been saying that the Statutory Regulatory Orders (SROs) have distorted the entire taxation structure and should be put to rest. We should have a level playing field in the tax structure. Taking away the power to issue SROs from the FBR and giving it to parliament is resented by many FBR officials who have been the beneficiaries of the SRO regime, along with businessmen.

Ali. You have been involved in reforming the bureaucracy, too. How has your experience been?

Husain. I am disappointed but I have not given up. Today, there is no performance evaluation system in the government. Everybody in the same grade gets the same salary and everybody is promoted after a given time.

In the structure I have proposed, selection is based on open merit and performance evaluation is not based on annual confidential reports but on key performance indicators. You do not get an automatic promotion. Reward and compensation are linked to performance, the outcome of training you acquire, and the competence to do the next level job.

Some people argue that the army has occupied a lot of space in Pakistan’s governance. I’ll give you my own explanation of that. In 1964, when I joined the civil service, bureaucracy would have been somewhere between 90 and 95 out of 100 on the efficiency and integrity index. The armed forces, at the same time, would be close to 30 or 40. Because the army used to recruit its officers from those who had only passed intermediate examination, it was not getting the brightest and the best who invariably competed for the civil service.

This was reversed 10 years later. When you have a civil service going downwards and a military service going upwards, who do you think will occupy the space for governance? And why do you think the army is more efficient? The armed forces have maintained the highest standard of selection, rigorous training and performance-based promotion. Performance evaluation is extremely stringent in the military and is based on predefined parameters. Promotion is decided collectively, not by one individual, where every candidate is discussed based on their record. Out of 350 cadets who join the military academy at the same time in a given year, only one or two become three star generals.

The armed forces have maintained the highest standard of selection, rigorous training and performance based promotion. Performance evaluation is extremely stringent in the military.

There were 20 people from West Pakistan in my civil service batch. Out of them, Farooq Leghari became the president of the country. Shahid Hamid became the governor of Punjab. I went away to the World Bank. Two of my colleagues were sacked. Each one of the remaining 15 went on to become a federal secretary.

Now, which is a better system: the one where I know that I will be automatically promoted to the next grade after every five years or the one where we always have to remain on our toes to cross the next hurdle? The commission on government reforms has proposed a process where everybody has to compete for higher-level positions after reaching grade 19 through a merit-based selection process conducted by the Public Service Commission.

In an economy that is becoming complex and specialised, we are giving a short shrift to specialists and have created a sense of entitlement among generalists for the top slots. Scientists, engineers, agriculture researchers, economists, lawyers, accountants and doctors languish all their lives in lower grades, frustrated and demotivated — subtracting rather than adding value to the society and economy. This kind of a system is not viable for any country.

The commission’s report has not seen the light of day because those who are presently enjoying unrestrained entitlement to top jobs are closer to the powers that be and would not allow these recommendations to be implemented.

Ali. What do you think are the most pressing economic issues or challenges that Pakistan is facing?

Husain. I think we have had enough of stabilisation policies. The sooner we get on the growth trajectory of six to seven per cent the better.

There is a big gap between the delivery capacity of the government and the expectation level of the general public. Because of powerful communication platforms such as social and electronic media, the public has heightened expectations. In 2000, social media was not as popular. Even the educated, urbanised middle class has become quite large now, which was not the case in 2000.

Local governments, on the other hand, have been disempowered from delivering services such as education, health, water supply, sanitation and solid waste disposal under the new laws. These services and their associated resources are concentrated in the hands of provincial governments but whatever the provinces are getting from the federal divisible tax pool is not reaching the ordinary citizens.

Efficiency in resource allocation is greater [under a local government system] because people at the grass-roots level know what their problems are. As secretary planning, I used to allocate money for 500 primary schools but I did not know whether those schools were even there or whether they had teachers. Local governments can decide whether a locality needs a road more than a school because they know the situation much better than those sitting at the provincial headquarters. Just like the 18th Constitutional Amendment has devolved powers from the federal government to the provincial governments, devolution from the provincial government to the local governments is also needed.

Ali. Why are provincial governments so reluctant to give powers to local governments?

Husain. When the local government system was introduced [in 2001], nazims became very powerful. A person like Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who had been a provincial minister and a member of the National Assembly, chose to become the nazim [of Multan district].

The local government system diluted the powers of provincial and federal legislators [in devising and implementing development schemes in their constituencies]. As a legislator, you should make laws. You cannot run local governments. If you are interested in running a local government, then leave your legislative office. The legislators, however, want to become as powerful as the nazims in running the local government system; at the same time, they want to remain in the legislature. This is the root cause of weak local government legislation in recent years. Strong, empowered local governments hurt legislators. They, therefore, have made local government totally impotent.

Ali. One of the most important economic issues these days is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. How do you see it?

Husain. It [offers] a win-win situation for both countries. China is very serious in addressing the backwardness of its western provinces by linking them with the shortest and most efficient international trade routes. If we are smart, we can use this corridor to open up the backward districts of Pakistan, which are located on its proposed western route — linking Gwadar with Khuzdar, Quetta, Zhob and Dera Ismail Khan.

Providing roads and electricity to these districts can be a game changer. Some of these districts have minerals which cannot be processed because they are not accessible. Others have horticulture which cannot be marketed because there are no roads. In some places, there are fisheries [which rot because of the lack of transportation]. The economy of these districts will bloom if we open them up.

If we are smart, we can use this corridor to open up the backwarddistricts of Pakistan, which are located on its proposed western route— linking Gwadar with Khuzdar, Quetta, Zhob and Dera Ismail Khan.

If, however, we indulge in political point-scoring, then this corridor is going to meet the same fate as other mega projects such as the Kalabagh Dam. We have to develop understanding among all the provinces and all the political parties that this project will benefit the vast majority of Pakistanis. In the 15 years required for its completion, the same party will not remain in power; all parties, therefore, have to work together. All the provincial governments, irrespective of their political affiliations, have to work together.

There is a huge coordination challenge in implementing the corridor. The federal ministries are fighting with each other and the central government is at odds with the provinces, which are also fighting among themselves. This is not the model that will take us forward. It might take us back even further.

The idea of special economic zones [to be set up for the Chinese industries along the corridor] is nothing new. Demonstrate the efficacy of this and you will find that other countries will be saying, “If you give this opportunity to the Chinese then consider us as well.” Make it work first.We are blessed that two giant economies [China and India] that are growing rapidly are our neighbours. We should take advantage of that. We should not play one against the other. We should have good economic relations with India, China, Iran and Central Asia. That is a smart thing to do.

This was originally published in the Herald's May 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

The writer is an economist and assistant professor at Habib University in Karachi.

Slow at first, the tempo rapidly rises as the dancer matches every beat and every pause of the tabla’s rhythm. The conversation between the ghungroo and the ensemble of the tabla, harmonium and sitar explores a gamut of emotions which has the audience erupt into a chorus of “wah”.

Farah Yasmeen Shaikh has her Karachi audiences transfixed as she illuminates the stage with a rendition of Mughal Emperor Jahangir and Empress Noor Jehan’s tale of love. Shaikh is the lone dancer on stage, yet she morphs from one character into the next — playing a range of 21 characters with swift changes in body language, movement and expression.

This is an original choreography based on Indu Sundaresan’s novel, The Twentieth Wife. Shaikh trained under the tutelage of Kathak icon, the late Pandit Chitresh Das, while studying at the San Francisco State University. She then went on to become a lead dancer at the Chitresh Das Dance Company.

Based in San Francisco in the United States, Shaikh is now an internationally touring soloist and teacher of the Kathak dance form.

Zehra Nawab. Is classical dance still perceived as an interconnection between culture and religion?

Farah Yasmeen Shaikh. Yes, but it is subjective. There can be an interconnection for some, while others might want to separate it from religion altogether. I think this interconnection is more possible in Kathak than any other dance form due to its historical significance. Thousands of years back, people shared their stories of ethics through the oral tradition. Kathak was used as a form of entertainment in the northern regions. It went beyond storytelling. It did not have to be about the story of Ram and Sita, it could be about love or any other element. So you can still have those connections.

Kathak derives most if its traditions from Hindu stories, but people perform a contemporary form of the dance nowadays. Moreover, social and political elements such as domestic violence or women’s issues are also incorporated in the storytelling. It is not as simple as just telling the story of one person.

So, for example, a dominant woman such as Noor Jehan has many other facets to her life. Other than showing her power, we also show her loss. I play the scene of her miscarriage and a lot of people commented on how gutsy it is to show a Muslim woman that way. People can relate to the pain of a profound loss to which they are helpless. I even performed the death scene of Akbar where Salim is by Noor Jehan’s side. All of that is very spiritual; it connects you to your own stories, some of which are literal and some abstract.

Nawab. What led to the rift between you and your guruji? What were the last few years of your relationship with your ustad like?

Shaikh. When somebody passes away, you have to bury the hatchet. It is an honour to bring his name to Pakistan. He was a traditionalist and also an innovator. He was an artist who encompassed all the elements.

I am so touched by how many people of the older generation are responsive to my performances, because it is a style check for them. We usually do not see art being done in the same way. At the same time, this is not a criticism as everyone has their own style. The audience tends to appreciate Kathak when performed in a relatively pure but exciting way.

Nawab. How did you stumble across your first dance class? And how did it work out for you being an 18-year-old girl?

Shaikh. I started at the age of five. I was born and raised in California, where we did not have a large Pakistani and Indian community. For us, it was more of a feeling of assimilation. My sister and I are very close in age, and our parents enrolled us in dance classes. I was a baton twirler. It was an amazing organisation and we are still very close to the director, who was also a yoga practitioner.

When I went away to college, I gained 35 pounds because I did not exercise and was eating horribly. I just felt awful. I picked up the schedule in my second semester and saw that Indian dance was being offered. I called it “kah-thaak” in my American accent, and probably even butchered my guruji's name. My parents encouraged me to take it up so I enrolled in the class.

The classes were very challenging, especially the concept of taal and rhythm. Learning movement was never hard for me. My coordination was fine and I had a presence in my body — but it was much more than that. You needed to have an awareness of rhythmic structure and expression. Western dance requires one expression, which is showmanship. Kathak, however, requires layers of emotions and body language to create a mood. I also learnt so much about Indian history.

A very profound moment occurred a few months into my taking classes. I went to my first performance of guruji and saw him perform Dropati Bastahara, where this man gambles his wife. He is a bit naïve and is being duped. He puts everything on stake and the last thing he puts on stake is his wife, Dropati, thinking there is no way he can have such bad luck. Dropati is taken in front of everybody and they are humiliating her by pulling her sari off. I had no context of the story. Even the introduction was not enough for me. I was literally watching this feeling unfold around me. I felt like there were four or five people on stage when there was only one man. This woman is being disrobed, but her faith is in Lord Krishna. She is thinking, “the divine will protect me.” It is about having that higher faith. It was seeing him surrender at this point when he was maybe 60-years-old and being completely vulnerable — and yet finding that inner strength. It moved me and I can put that in the top five most powerful moments of my life. I remember calling up my parents and telling them that I was hooked. And I am still hooked. It is moments like these that continue to inspire me.

Nawab. When was your first performance?

Shaikh. I started performing with guruji's company called Chitresh Das Dance Company. My first performance was in November 1997. It was after about a year and a half into studying. Even at the age of 18, if I had danced once or twice a week, I would not have gotten very far. But it hooked me in so much that it led me to not switch my major. I did my major in women’s studies and was able to give it enough time. I was around guruji seven days a week — not always dancing, but around him nonetheless. So it created that bond.

The goal of the dance is to be a soloist. However, to achieve the ability of being one, you must be well versed in all four elements: tayar, lekari, khubsurti and nazakat. Ultimately, it is the guru’s discretion to see when you are ready. For me, it happened in October 2007. In the first performance, the guruji is on the platform with the musicians, which is both a support and a challenge.

After this, I started performing solo regularly. I was still working with this company when I had a baby in 2011. But I took a couple of years off, partly because my relationship with guruji was a little strained. Otherwise, I would have loved to go back to dancing the next day.

When I returned to dancing in 2013, I just went full force. Having a child gave me a lot of clarity. Some people think that after a child, your life shifts to being about them. For me, however, having a child was really about being the best of me — for my child. I tend to get emotional about this, because my daughter has empowered me on so many levels. She is there with me while I tour.

Something I believe in strongly is that this dance form has brought me a physical and mental balance, along with a sense of history, culture and music. I cannot stress enough on the benefits; why would I not want that for my daughter?

Nawab. Comparing the two experiences, where you first performed on stage in 1997 and then walked alone on stage in 2007 — how was the excitement? Was there any difference?

Shaikh. I remember being really nervous the first time I stepped on stage. It is funny how the nerves have dissipated significantly. In 1997, there was newness in my spirit. In 2007, it was like the veil had been lifted; I was vulnerable. There was no hiding what I was going to do there; it was me all alone.

We get so inundated with pop culture, and therefore to see something that takes a great deal of commitment and discipline to achieve is an inspiration. The other day, a group of mothers and daughters came up to us and said, “this is the kind of multitasking we would love our kids to do” instead of being on their phones [all day]. Activities such as playing the harmonium, singing or dancing — you know, all of that! So that was a wonderful sentiment.

Nawab: Is it difficult to practice and pursue a dance form in the United States, where it is viewed as something exotic?

Shaikh. Yes and no. Guruji laid the foundation for diversity, yet there was a struggle. San Francisco is known for being a cultural melting pot. When I was with the dance company, the audience was very diverse. It was not exclusively South Asian, we would see a 50-50 [mix]. There’s more diversity now.

If you were to focus on the press attention, contemporary dance and ballet still dominate in terms of funding and grant opportunities. Pakistanis are known to be philanthropic in the United States, but they tend to give to religious or social causes — the arts are rarely mentioned.

I have been lucky in terms of the support I got when I did The Twentieth Wife project, which is an irony because I feel it is [more] difficult to stand out in India. Their attitude is lackadaisical with relation to arts and dance because a lot of people are doing it now. Without being judgmental, I would say a lot of work is not appreciated. You have a dense population and you are competing with Bollywood. In the United States, you can easily get out of it because the artist looks at it for art’s sake. They group all 'ethnic' dances together. So it is actually not that challenging.

There is no shortage of work. When I left guruji's institution, I lost all my students. However, I have been able to build up a student base since his passing. I teach privately. I converted one of my rooms into a small dance studio. I also partner with organisations for group classes and the response is overwhelming. I was guruji's only Pakistani Muslim student that took it on at this level, the rest were Indian Hindus. Now, a good number of senior instructors are white Americans and Canadians. We call it a rainbow coalition.

Nawab. Did you come to Pakistan with the intention of performing? How often do you visit Pakistan?

Shaikh. As a child, I used to visit Pakistan every two to three years. I remember going to India once as a child. As an adult, most of my dancing visits were to India. I visited Pakistan in December 2006. I had planned to perform at the National Academy of Performing Arts, but the plan got bogged down because of a conflict. My guruji was very protective of the idea of me dancing in Pakistan. He was not sure of the kind of response I would get here; it was both love and a little bit of control. So once I separated from him, I explored that avenue.

When I did The Twentieth Wife, I started to see the response I was getting from the South Asian community. My hope is to tour the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and India. It is very challenging to manage logistics and everything else when you are touring. Knowing the magnitude of the project, I just wanted to meet people in person rather than pitch [the idea] in an email or phone call.

When I was working on the repertoire before coming here, I knew I had to be very open since I was going to be working with musicians I had not previously met. I had to be aware of the content, what is acceptable and what is not. So I made a decision, for the most part, to not bring many of the Hindu elements in it. Kathak usually opens with an invocation to a deity, but I took that out. You do not feel the tension in the air.

One gentleman, in particular, was very moved. He said, "women like these" will make peace through art. I totally agree with that. Some people were basically parading me — not me, but the idea of a dancer.

And then, of course, there is a bit of fear that I am putting myself out there in a way that could be making me a target. I would be lying if I say that every time I walked out of The Second Floor, I was not holding my daughter’s hand. At every show, the first people to come up to me are usually the ones that belong to the older generation. Even at the Pakistan American Cultural Center, there was a bearded man who [would exclaim] “wah, wah” during the expressive pieces and songs, some of which were suggestive or sensual.

Nawab. Would you consider performing at a relatively unsafe space?

Shaikh. I am open to that. I hope we transcend people’s perceptions. I do not fear where I put myself. I want to be aware of things, unless it is a tense situation. Not everybody is going to be an arts lover, but that is the hope.

Nawab. Tell me about The Twentieth Wife. How did you choose to perform such a piece?

Shaikh. All my solo work up until that point followed the structure that you witnessed, but I wanted something that felt a little bit more like me. I felt I was relying too much on guruji's content. So my first thought was the Partition. I thought it was too predictable for a Pakistani Muslim Kathak dancer to do something on the Partition — but now, ironically, it is my next project.

I felt like it was not the way to go for my first endeavour, so I started thinking of what moved me. I have always loved noble history. It drew me into Kathak because of its connection to Islamic culture, that was not only about religion.

I was reminded of a book that I read in Pakistan in 2006-2007 called The Twentieth Wife. I had finished that book and was starting another novel by the same author, The Feast of Roses, which is also about Noor Jehan. I thought it would be amazing to create a piece on that novel. So I sent an email to the author. I thought I was contacting the agent; surprisingly, within two days, I got a response from the author herself. There were silent screams because I had not told anybody about it. She was very receptive to the idea.

She lives in Seattle, but is originally from India. It turned out that she was going to be coming to the Bay Area within a couple of months for a book launch. She wanted to talk more about this, so she asked me to meet her.

I went to Seattle where we met and she agreed to be on-board. We worked very closely. I chose the themes that really stood out and which I felt would make a good dance drama without getting into the superfluous details. We created the script entirely from the text. I did the first run and she rewrote certain sections and added new material to make it flow better. She was also the narrator for my premiere, which was amazing.

She was not able to tour because of the time commitment. When we first started talking, it was very cathartic. The experience of working together brought value to the show. It was simply a dream that I decided to act on. I will be here in a year's time, hopefully, and I will be touring Noor Jehan and Jahangir’s tomb.

Nawab. Did you find similar support in the family that you married into?

Shaikh. My husband’s family is very supportive of me dancing. Two years after my marriage, my father-in-law told me that he will be at every single performance unless he absolutely cannot. Back in 2002, he had a triple bypass and I was visiting him in the hospital. A week later, we had our home season. He had barely been home and I was doing the show. Somebody came to me and said there is someone here to see you. I went down and saw my father-in-law. He was in a wheelchair and said, “I told you I would not miss anything”. That’s how they are. They would have my guruji over for Eid and my mother-in-law would cook paya. My father-in-law has passed now and my mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s, so she does not come to my shows anymore. My immediate and extended family does so much for me. I call my daughter, Aziza, my tour manager sahiba.

Photographs courtesy Farah Yasmeen Shaikh

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“The Sufi sheikhs,” a saint once said, “are physicians of men’s souls.” For those touched by Data Ganj Bakhsh’s teachings, this is one of his most familiar pearls of wisdom. Yet one wonders what the beloved sage would say 10 centuries later. For while the sheikhs remain physicians, there are judges who may be sheikhs. History records that Hafez held no hammer, Saadi invoked no suo motu (despite needing them against his Crusader captors).

Yet during the strange summer of 2015, these two poles – the mystic and the magistrate – came together. For 23 days, the 23rd Chief Justice of Pakistan held court. And for 23 days, the state stood on the verge of a nervous breakdown: bureaucrats went underground, politicians trembled in fear, and lawyers fled the country. The saints inspired devotion. Chief Justice Jawwad S Khawaja inspired dread. If indeed he could see into men’s souls, he would see only the plagues in them.

Judicial activism sounds like a cliché now, but by the time Justice Khawaja stepped down as the chief justice, scores of sacred cows had been thumped: real estate barons, Arab princes, elected prime ministers, the security establishment, the bar associations, even the old ghosts of the Raj.

To the critics, it was a mission to civilise — a throwback to the days of the mad king, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who seemed to make up the law as he went along adjudging, often hunting in pairs with Justice Khawaja. To the fans, it was a bold new era: the fear of Lady Justice returning to the hearts of the rich and the powerful, the law smiting the lawless.

Not that it was ever meant to be this way. On the eve of his appointment as the chief justice, a Dawn report read, “Justice Khawaja is unlikely to have much of a legacy because… his tenure will last merely 23 days.” Other reasons were subtler. By the time he took over, the soldiers of judicial activism were in retreat: Justice Chaudhry’s name had taken a clobbering, the military was riding high again, and Nawaz Sharif 3.0 aroused little of the righteous wrath the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) once had.

Not that it mattered. “In him, we have an ascetic thinker of vision,” said outgoing Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk whose own vision – judicial restraint – was worlds away from “the new human order” Justice Khawaja had planned.

It soon became apparent that some legacies run deeper than they appear. Justice Khawaja knew that all along. “Most of the jurisprudential developments made by the Supreme Court during the tenure of Chief Justice Chaudhry are here to stay,” reads his contribution to The Politics and Jurisprudence of the Chaudhry Court, a collection of essays put together by Moeen H CheemaandIjaz S Gilani. This was a year before he took up the same exalted office and carried on the same project. He wrote on: “As Hafez (the peerless sage of Shiraz) says, having glimpsed, however fleetingly, the reflection of the Face, it is not possible to regress into a previous state of unseeingness:

(In this cup, I have seen the pleasures of his face,Little do you know about the pleasure of my wine)."

For Justice Khawaja, people were blind to the possibilities of the court under Justice Chaudhry at first, but eventually saw its achievements.

September 9, 2015, marked his last day as the chief justice, and it served as more than a metaphor. Lawyers were at war with the bench: the full-court reference in his honour was boycotted by the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Pakistan Bar Council. But even though his tenure was already over, the judge refused to hold back fire. In the harshest farewell address in memory, His Lordship first scorned the ceremony for the sake of ceremony “jis mein kuch tareefi kalmaat kahay jaatay hain aur nizam-i-adl ki behtari ke liye kuchh tajaweez ki jatay hain. Main inn anmol ghariyon ko rasmi kalmaat ki nazr nahin karna chahta” (“In which some praise is showered on the justice system and then some suggestions are made for its improvement. I do not want these priceless moments to go to waste in mere ceremony”).

Justice is neither inexpensive nor speedy, he declared and did not even spare the apex court: a case takes a whopping 25 years on average from registration to ultimate disposal by the Supreme Court — he said he had determined this with the help of his staff. And it was fear – base, sweaty, judicial fear – that was one of the speech’s major themes. “Ba’az auqaat mein ne adal ke aiwaanon main khauf ke ka’ee roop dekhay” (“Sometimes I saw the many faces of fear in the institutions of justice”), he said, as his brethren on the bench stared at the ceiling. It was fear – the tremor that ran through the judges’ hearts – that kept them from seeing – and showing – the light of justice.

Justice Khawaja carried on in the purest Urdu, yet another cause célèbre of the court under him. Citing one last Sufi couplet, he was gone from the highest bench as rapidly as he had appeared on it. Or at least, the bench today would like to think so. In sunny contrast, current Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali remarked in February 2016 that the country’s “time-tested judicial system has no defects” — a statement as defect-free as the 20,000 cases pending before him.

And as Justice Khawaja’s successors have started reversing his decisions left, right and centre – with the sort of speed rarely in evidence at the Supreme Court – his shadow seems only to be lengthening. But the more stubborn the shadow, the harder it is to understand.

Jawwad Sajjad Khawaja was born into a Kashmiri family, in 1950, in Wazirabad — a small town midway between Gujranwala and Gujrat in central Punjab. Laal Din, a family servant, would call him “Judge Sahib” even as a child. “I still don’t know why Laal would call me what he did,” says Justice Khawaja in an interview with the Herald. He is back at his old sanctuary, the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), as scholar-in-residence (It was LUMS he took solace in after resigning in 2007, and to LUMS he returned after retirement.) He is infamously averse to the press — the only other interview he has granted was to daily Jang’s Sohail Warraich a decade ago. The press however is not averse to covering him.

Justice Khawaja attended the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1970s before returning to Lahore and entering law practice. Forty years and three oaths of office later, not a smidge of evidence of his judicial life – a plaque or a prize – can be found in his office. The lone photograph is of former Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice A R Cornelius, gazing down benevolently at his protégé, partner and eventual executor of his will.

They held the highest judicial office in the country 45 years and 18 chief justices apart. A quarter-century after Cornelius’s death, Justice Khawaja’s voice is still tinged with sadness while mentioning his mentor. “He was a genuinely humble individual, with immense moral and intellectual integrity … One of the reasons I felt I could act independently and decide cases ‘without fear or favour’ – which is in the judges’ oath – is that Cornelius Sahib embodied this quality. I think some of that must have rubbed off on me.” Cornelius lived in a very humble room in Faletti’s Hotel and, as Justice Khawaja says, “was amongst the most contented persons I have come across in my life”. It is an odd association – one was caricatured in his day as a gentle Catholic, the other as a severe Sufi. But raging against the rich is a common thread: as Cornelius once put it, “Affluence is poison for our people.”

His pupil’s ambitions, too, seldom concern the financial. “At home there was an emphasis on consideration for others, rich or poor, relatives or strangers,” he says. “But now just too many things revolve around money and self-interest … instead of education, you acquire the ability to make money. Values and humanness are mostly sidelined,” he laments.

This chimes with what he told Warraich in 2007. “We get so caught up in material life that we take it to be the only aspect of existence. There is another dimension to our lives as well, but I wouldn’t use any term for it because it’s impossible to describe it in words.”

Ronald Reagan’s biographer was said to have had a meltdown, so elusive was his subject. Wouldn’t it be the easiest thing to deem Justice Khawaja unknowable as well?

The closest anyone has come to capturing his soul is the writer of Adalat-e-Aliya Ke Qasid Ki Kahani (The Story of a High Court’s Tipstaff): the memoirs of Ali Rehman, an ageless qasid (tipstaff) of the Lahore High Court (LHC). The book is richer and more readable than the literary attempts of many of our ex-judges. The picture Ali paints of Justice Khawaja is other-worldly: the judge is no less saintly than the saints that show up in a peon’s writings. “Even before writing about his personality,” wrote Rehman, “my hands started shaking so that I do not desecrate him.”

We get so caught up in material life that we take it to be the only aspect of existence. There is another dimension to our lives as well, but I wouldn’t use any term for it because it’s impossible to describe it in words.

The judge, we are told, took no days off in years. He attended few social events, and turned up at weddings at 8 pm sharp — for Lahoris who habitually arrive late at such gatherings, this, indeed, is saintly behaviour. He refused the plots of land allotted to him. He consumed only homeopathic medicine even when burning with fever. He sought out the shrines of saints and observed budding flowers with curiosity. On mandatory holidays, he trekked across mountains, valleys and deserts.

Real-life concerns did not seem to matter either. In one instance, his staff learnt that his house had caught fire soon after the judge strode into the court that morning. Such was his terror that the staff debated among themselves whether to tell him at all. “Ziada se ziada jhaar par jaie gi” (“The most that will happen is that I’ll be scolded”) is how Rehman reasoned with himself. So the trembling qasid scribbled a note and placed it in front of His Lordship mid-proceedings. To everyone’s shock, the judge flicked it aside. “Now we were in for it,” Rehman wrote.

While the staff ran in circles, the phone rang again. The fire had been brought under control; a table was the sole casualty. Rehman’s heart raced nonetheless. When the judge did retire to his chambers, he asked about the fire. After Rehman told him that the fire had been doused, Justice Khawaja said something that imprinted itself on the qasid’s heart. “All the water of the Ravi and all the sand of Cholistan would not be able to tame the flames,” he is quoted to have said. “O Ali Rehman, it was God who set the fire and God who put it out. And we have neither the nerve nor the courage to snap a twig without His consent.”

Such is Justice Khawaja’s unearthly charisma that Rehman wept bitterly when the judge resigned from the LHC. That day came on the heels of March 9, 2007, when Pervez Musharraf, then both the president and the army chief, summoned the country’s supreme adjudicator to the Army House, quizzed him in khakis, and suspended him outright. It was all that was needed: Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry became myth, martyr,and revolutionary in a single afternoon.

Also read: Satire: Diary of Justice S Khawaja

The next day, Justice Khawaja began his work as per routine but he could neither work nor focus. The events of the previous day had “shattered this belief” of his that no one dare interfere with the performance of his constitutional duties. “What did I matter when the chief justice could be treated in such a way?” Rehman wrote that Justice Khawaja spent the morning studying the Constitution (and Divan-e-Hafez) in depressed silence. According to the judge himself, he postponed the day’s hearings, returned home, and told his wife he could not work anymore. After collective revolt by the judges found no takers at the LHC, he struck out alone on March 19, 2007, becoming Pakistan’s only judge to have resigned. He had not even met Justice Chaudhry — ever.

Justice Khawaja’s exit was the beginning of the end — the Lawyers’ Movement exploded into a political storm immediately afterwards. Over the next two years, the general would fly out of the country and all the sacked judges would long-march back into the courtrooms. Justice Khawaja would be parachuted into the Supreme Court.

All that came later. For qasid Rehman, there was no reason to live after Justice Khawaja’s resignation. “The whole world was snatched [from me]. Just recounting that accursed day makes my heart and eyes weep tears of blood,” he wrote in his memoirs. Only after he realised that there was a spiritual connection between him and the judge that the clouds of his grief lifted. Only then did his tears dry.

After taking another wife, the applicant had divorced his first. He then applied for a DNA test in order to deny paternity of the children from his first wife. The case made it to the highest bench in the land. The court ruled: “It is worth taking time to reflect on the belief in our tradition that on the Day of Judgment, the children of Adam will be called out by their mother’s name.” God has “taken care to ensure that even on a day when all personal secrets shall be laid bare, the secrets about paternity shall not be delved into or divulged.” Justice Khawaja, thus, rejected the application for DNA testing. The law, he held, protected children from “unscrupulous fathers”.

But who would protect fathers from their unscrupulous sons? And if Justice Chaudhry brought the rest of us out of a “state of unseeingness,” was he blinded by his own child?

The year 2012 was Chief Justice Chaudhry’s annus horribilis. In the dead heat of summer, people switched on the same television news channels that had once catapulted the 20th chief justice to glory and watched his legacy turn to ash. Malik Riaz Hussain, real estate tycoon and self-admitted corrupter of the administrative system, was on air. His story was sensational: he had given Arsalan Iftikhar, the chief justice’s son, gifts worth millions of rupees. In return, Arsalan Iftikhar had promised to influence his father’s rulings in Hussain’s favour. “You’re saying I buy [people]? No one is going after the guy who put the whole store on sale,” he said in his folksy style.

As leaked clips later demonstrated, his interviewer was planted. The news media, it seemed, was as compromised by the Baron of Bahria Town as Arsalan Iftikhar was. Ultimately Justice Chaudhry took suo motu notice of his son’s adventures and summoned the principal law officer of the land.

Enter Irfan Qadir, the then Attorney General of Pakistan. After a thirty-year thrashing at the hands of the judiciary, the PPP government went for the biggest bruiser it could find. Qadir was the government’s weapon of choice: a battering ram that refused to be cowed by a chief justice whose restoration he had called “the biggest bad luck”.

Qadir and the Chaudhry Court have a bloody history and Justice Khawaja features prominently in it. Qadir was removed as a judge via the Supreme Court’s landmark July 31, 2009 ruling against the judges who had taken oath under Musharraf’s 2007 Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO). The court then removed him as the Prosecutor General of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

Having tangoed with the Chaudhry Court twice, Qadir pulled no punches the third time round. When he appeared before Justices Chaudhry, Khawaja and Khilji Arif Hussain in the Arsalan Iftikhar case, he yelled: “How on earth could this man be on the bench, hearing his own son’s case?” Qadir says he was “a lonely soul” at the time. “All the press, the judges, the politicians were on [Justice Chaudhry’s] side.”

The Chief Justice began, “You must have heard about all this … It is not a question of individuals, but of institutions.” Qadir nodded along and then, on the spur of a moment, he said, “Sir, the case is against a person who perchance happens to be a son of the chief justice. He is a son of the soil, not a son of the judiciary.” He then cited an article from the Judges’ Code of Conduct which says a judge must decline sitting on judgment in cases of close relatives. “And sir, can there be a closer relative than one’s own son?”

It still took two more days for Justice Chaudhry to understand that this was indeed a hideous conflict of interest. The chief justice recused himself.

In the verdict in the case, Justice Khawaja held that it was not the court’s mandate under a suo motu hearing to rule “on the guilt or innocence of those involved”. Qadir’s smile was triumphant. “I was implying all along this isn’t a suo motu — public interest litigation is not a matter between individuals. That is exactly what they held in the end: that this is a matter between individuals. So how did they find [it justified] to take a suo motu in the first place?”

For Justice Khawaja, the ruling’s critics have invariably not read the actual judgment: the only reason for the suo motu, he says, was that “the judiciary was being undermined by a whispering campaign, innuendo and unsubstantiated rumour.”

And when the court gave Hussain the chance to clarify, he acknowledged he had received no actual benefit. The judge is sardonic about it: “It may well be that in his business model he may not have encountered failure previously … As far as I’m concerned, the whole purpose of thesuo motuaction was complete there and then.

The term “nemesis” comes from the Greek goddess of vengeance and means either an archenemy or an inescapable agent of one’s downfall. In the epic clash between Justice Khawaja and Bahria Town’s Hussain, “nemesis” denoted all three. No two people in the same situation have been less alike: Khawaja, the ascetic born wealthy; Hussain, the poor boy who struck it rich. Justice Khawaja plumbs the depths of Sufi lore; Hussain’s monuments to cultural illiteracy – desi Eiffel Towers and Nelson’s Columns – graze the skies.

Between the two gentlemen, there could only be more casualties.

The Houbara bustard is an odd bird, tame and terrified looking. And with good reason. It falls prey to visiting Arab princes with regularity: according to an old desert whisper, houbara flesh is good for virility. How one’s manhood benefits from blasting birds out of the sky is moot. But the state took a rosier view: the royal hunters brought roads and riyals with them.

Barely three days after taking the office, Chief Justice Khawaja banned houbara hunts. The laws of Pakistan that ban the hunting of the bird, the court held, are “not saleable commodities” to be bought by poachers from the Gulf. It was the first salvo in a volley of indiscriminate firing. “[The government] isn’t about to appear before Jawwad Khawaja,” veteran politician-cum-pundit Sheikh Rasheed told a TV anchor. “[People in the government] will be running for the hills or going on vacation.”

For once, he was right. Thinking it best to sit the summer out, the government functionaries hightailed it out of the country (some with return tickets for September 9, 2015, the day the judge was to step down). Part of it was because of Justice Khawaja’s legendary volatility on the bench. “Justice Khawaja has always been in the habit of sermonising, haranguing and ridiculing the institutions of the state, its officers and the litigant public,” says Qadir.

Asher A Qazi, a lawyer who clerked for the judge from 2010 to 2011, and then again when he was chief justice in 2015, sees it differently. Since contempt proceedings prove ineffective in ensuring compliance, the court takes the gloves off. “Keeping a case pending, calling for reports and making senior executive functionaries continuously appear before the court until compliance is achieved,” is how he explains the court’s method. “The idea was simple,” he says, “beizzati kertay hain logon ki (we’ll dress down the people) and if it is done in open court then shayad ghairat jag jaie (perhaps they take action for the sake of self-respect).”

With the Supreme Court having since sunk back into colourlessness, it seems strange to remember the hysteria that greeted Justice Khawaja’s elevation: the ponytailed qazi of this conservative republic, making one last stand. The Urdu press swooned over the judge taking oath in Urdu; cartoons depicted him spurning a whole lot of plots and privileges which the record confirms; middle-class righteousness embraced his refusal of bulletproof cars.

Meanwhile, the Herald satirized the judge as a diarist given to sanctimony (“I don’t want to use a bulletproof car; it is my experience that bulletproof cars only tend to attract heavier ordnance, like bombs,” we wrote). Bloggers cried anarchy while op-ed columnists shook their heads over his “irrepressible inner calling” which one of them interpreted as a “belief that subjective morality, divinely inspired, can trump the menial constraints of man-made law.” The equally irrepressible Qadir was on national television, calling his term a “judicial nightmare”.

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But as far as nightmares went, there was no trepidation in Justice Khawaja’s own mind as he went charging where angels feared to tread. “[His] finest moments came when he heard the cases of missing persons,” a former deputy attorney general says. “He was the epitome of justice” as he ordered the registration of cases against servingmilitary personnel.

The judge was also among the six judges who deemed the 21st Amendment through which military courts for the trial of terrorists were to be set up as unconstitutional. Others hold up the case involving Makro-Habib, a superstore in Karachi, in which he ruled against the Army Welfare Trust having swallowed up a playground. No doubt, Justice Khawaja was unmoved by the establishment.

And by everyone else. A case in point: his derision for the NAB. “Dou saal se takrein maar rehay hain” (you have been making aimless strikes for two years), he said to the NAB officials in a corruption case involving the senior officials of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra). Elsewhere, he ended up ordering a corruption case against the NAB’s own ex-chairman.

By the time Justice Khawaja declared he would review the ever-expansive Defence Housing Authority Ordinance, all tin gods had come crashing down. “Five overs ka power play khelnay aaye hain” (he is out to play a five-over power play), tweeted one citizen, commenting on Justice Khawaja’s stint as the chief justice. But it was a power play the other team only dodged and ducked.

Most especially those who represented Hussain’s Bahria Town. For the media, the new chief justice had unfinished business with the Bahria bunch, and not just over the Arsalan Iftikhar case. Accused of swiping over a thousand kanals of forest land in Rawalpindi, Bahria Town called the whole thing a witch-hunt and Courtroom Number One again saw scenes of fire and brimstone.

Thus, if such persons who may be in hundreds of thousands can be assured their rights through one suo motu action without much delay or expense, the exercise of such jurisdiction is fully justified.

Despite reserving judgment, the bench did not award a final verdict. Justice Khawaja does not consider this a loose end: the bench took many steps, ordering, for instance, the registration of a criminal case against Bahria Town ten years after a complaint had been lodged by the Sindh Forest Department, he says. He, however, remains perturbed by such time lags in the judicial system and terms them the reason why “a perception is created that the lawyers, police and courts are complicit with criminal elements and mafias with deep pockets.”

There was no such question of loose ends when it came to another pitched battle. Justice Khawaja and Qadir went pound-for-pound to the end, sending TV tickers in a frenzy — the Unstoppable Force had met the Immovable Object. Had the Arsalan Iftikhar case been the only sticking point, there might have been an Irish peace. Instead, there were constant skirmishes.

For instance, while hearing a petition back in the PPP’s government, the judge sought Qadir’s opinion on whether Musharraf had committed high treason. “By this Honourable Court’s reasoning,” the then Attorney General said, “let’s assume General Musharraf has committed high treason, and that removing thirty judges in violation of Article 209 constitutes high treason. Then, sir, all those judges who are now on the bench of this Honourable Court, have removed over a hundred judges in violation of Article 209, and that is aggravated high treason. If law is to be applied equal, those judges should be tried for treason before General Musharraf.”

It could only have escalated after that.

By early 2015, the future chief justice and the former attorney general were again in the trenches. Qadir was defending Sindh police’s contract for procuring 16 armoured personnel carriers from Serbia. With mercury rising in the court, he demanded Justice Khawaja recuse himself from the case. The judge instead suspended his licence in a 4,000-word order covering four years of “persistent objectionable behaviour”. The contract was also struck down.

For court reporters who have been witnessing this tug of war, Justice Khawaja had at last concluded the epic battle with this decision. Qadir, however, still managed to write the epilogue: towards the end of Justice Khawaja’s term, he wrote a letter to the President of Pakistan, citing everything from “eccentric behaviour” to the suspension of lawyers’ licences over personal vendetta, and sought action against the judge.

Vendetta or no, Justice Khawaja’s rage certainly did not differentiate – whether it was the NAB or the ever-present establishment at the receiving end. When asked about the fears and pressures that govern such territory, his answer is typical: “Fear of what? … I have received threats against my family and myself. I feel blessed I have not been intimidated or deterred in the performance of my duties.” He says he never felt any pressure “although there was a feeling of disgust at the moral and ethical decay which appears to have permeated society.”

Then he waxes mystical. “There is a bigger power, and when this omnipotent power puts faith in your heart, there’s no one else out there who can take it from you.” He quotes Hafez again: “Once you are shackled in the yoke of the Beloved, you are freed from all other chains of enslavement.”

This kind of conviction can be dangerous. For ordinary mortals, the “chains of enslavement” – such as life, career and family – are real. That is why they invented the recusal. But His Lordship doth not recuse himself: not when he heard the Arsalan Iftikhar case; not when he heard petitions against his own relative, Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman of Geo Television Network; not when he suspended Qadir’s licence; not even when Bahria Town’s legal eagles begged Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk recuse the judge from the bench.

Why? “Only those stand scarred who are not with the truth. We cannot be fearful of anything,” is how he once answered the question, rebutting his critics during Musharraf’s treason case. This in itself is a scarring idea: to deny the feelings of weakness, prejudice and inadequacy is to deny the human condition. Asher Qazi says he confronted Justice Khawaja over not recusing himself from the Geo case. He was told, “If I recused myself, I would be doing so out of fear of social consequences and not owing to my conscience.”

As when anti-Khawaja banners popped up across the Constitution Avenue in the federal capital in May 2014, he dived in after the shadow world they came from. “He has lived his life with a belief in destiny,” Asher Qazi says. “When you live your life that way, you become fearless. That doesn’t mean that he would jump off a plane without a parachute. It simply means that he has ignored or not given much importance to issues which concern most of us.”

Issues that concern most of us, however, constitute one of Justice Khawaja’s profoundest legacies: the constant expansion of the Supreme Court’s “original jurisdiction” – to enforce the fundamental constitutional rights – through a storm of suo motus that rocked the country. While his generation of jurists rose up against martial laws and exorcised the ghosts of Justice Munir’s ‘doctrine of necessity’ and General Musharraf’s emergency, they also sent elected prime ministers home, botched mass scale privatisations and bulldozed their way into matters of pure policy. All this was happening while the lower courts still remained as dysfunctional as ever.

Even Justice Khawaja was once a lukewarm believer in the power of suo motu. He says he was “not overly enthusiastic about the original jurisdiction being exercised by the Chaudhry Court.” His eureka moment came upon elevation to the highest court in the land: “This view, I confess, underwent a drastic change when I was able to actually hear and adjudicate cases brought before the Supreme Court.”

A change so drastic that Justice Khawaja has little issue with judicial restraint today. “A person may argue for ‘restraint’ and watch the katchi abaadi being demolished particularly when there are many influential persons who have occupied state land with impunity and without fear of demolition of their homes or eviction,” he says. “Nor is restraint an option when the houbara bustard – an endangered species – can get exterminated as a result,” he argues.

To the critique that the bench ventures into unknown territory when it is guided more by whim than by the rules, he remarks: “A lawyer in 18th century England cynically commented that the principles of equity in England varied as did the size of each Lord Chancellor’s foot. Through precedent spanning 300 years, there is now a degree of certainty in English equity jurisdiction. The point is humein jooma jooma aath din huay hain suo motu power ko dekhtay (it is only very recently that we have started looking into the suo motu power) and already the contours of this jurisdiction are reasonably well defined.” There are many decisions, he points out, that lay down a set of parameters “as to where and how this jurisdiction should be invoked”.

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He does not agree that suo motus are taken up on whim. “This is an invalid, uninformed criticism based on a lack of understanding, due diligence, knowledge and empirical research by commentators,” he says.

What of the criticism that suo motus distracted the court under him and Justice Chaudhry from regular matters. “Only one or two benches from among many were hearing such cases, and less than one percent of cases – yes, that’s right, less than 150 cases out of over 20,000 instituted in the Supreme Court each year – were taken up by the court [under its original jurisdiction]. Out of these, not more than 30 in any year were suo motu cases,” he explains. Even those cases were mostly “being heard after regular court hours”.

He contrasts hard data with hot air. “The space … taken by news coverage of a case has no relation to the time spent on it by the court. Judging the use of court time on this basis, in my opinion, is quite mindless and silly.”

Feisal H Naqvi, a Supreme Court lawyer based in Lahore, raises another question. “The issue isn’t the amount of time spent on hearing suo motu cases and whether the Supreme Court could have been deciding X or Y instead,” he says. “The issue is the expansion of original jurisdiction as a routine event. Once the Supreme Court takes notice of something in its original jurisdiction, it’s already committed to a certain view of the matter. It’s something that they teach salesmen: once a customer signs on to anything, then selling them options is easy because they’ve already committed.”

Justice Khawaja is nothing if not committed. His suo moto approach takes no prisoners: the consequential good, he says, is limitless. “This is a people-friendly jurisdiction and its use has had immense benefits for large number of people who are underprivileged and don’t have the means of accessing the prevalent judicial system which is both expensive and prone to unacceptable delays.”

Here is where the critics of judicial activism give in to resignation: more often than not, to paraphrase Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, there is “a stinking rat” in the workings of the state which then acts as moral rocket fuel for the judges to do as they like. “Thus, if such persons who may be in hundreds of thousands can be assured their rights through one suo motu action without much delay or expense,” Justice Khawaja says, “the exercise of such jurisdiction is fully justified.” His Lordship’s eyes drift to the window as he talks about the subject. “A sensitive person will see this immediately,” he adds.

Back in 1710, Sindh was simmering under Aurangzeb’s great-grandson — the f*ckless Farrukhsiyar. Local landlords jostled for turf, the mullahs spread hatred and the masses knew nothing but poverty. The man of the hour was Shah Inayat Shaheed. Originally from Multan, he forsook his family’s wealth and became a wanderer, falling in love with a saint in Bijapur, in southern India. He came to Sindh a changed man, giving away all his land to the tillers over a century before Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital.

Shah Inayat Shaheed is the Ho Chi Minh of the Sufis: a guerrilla poet who fought against the Mughals and their minions. Finding a land riddled with greed and superstition, he revolted against everyone — leading the peasantry against the feudals, the mullahs and all the king’s men. And it was with Shah Inayat Shaheed that the judge closed his farewell address – and his 16 years as a justice of the superior courts – rather than with luminaries of the judicial profession.

“Some persons have been critical of my use of Farsi or Punjabi verse in my judgments,” Justice Khawaja says. “I suppose this is on account of their personal choice. It seems they would be quite happy if I were to quote Shakespeare.”

The language and legacies of the Raj, indeed, have been running themes in his career — the “need to wean ourselves off the colonial bosom”. Justice Khawaja has little patience for Pakistan’s Anglo-Saxon inheritance: he finds it is a colonial construct driven by the likes of Lord Macaulay. For him, the 1973 Constitution makes a break with the Raj for good. Thus, theories alien to Pakistan – be it India’s basic constitutional structure or Bracton’s doctrine of necessity – are bad “organ transplants” for him. It is time, he says, that we bear in mind our “zamaan, makaan aur ikhwan” (time, space and brotherhood) instead.

Which is what he took up on his last day as the chief justice: in a final kidney punch to the state, he directed the federal and the provincial governments to adopt Urdu in place of “a colonial language which cannot be understood by the public at large.”

To turn to the legal sphere, will undoing – or translating – a century of hyper-technical precedent in English, cribbed via common law, be at all manageable? “Manageable or not, I consider myself to be a constitutionalist, having taken an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. Our constitution says, this is how it shall be, and so it shall; it’s that simple. It’s not about whether we like it or not,” Justice Khawaja says. Being a product of educational institutions like Aitchison College and the Forman Christian College (both in Lahore), he says, “it would be easier for me to write my judgements in English, but my own comfort can never be a reason for disobeying a constitutional command.”

Thus, he took to writing his opinions in Urdu. He cites another saint to explain why. “An old woman brought her child to Baba Fariduddin Ganjshakar and said the child ate too much shakar (sugar). Baba Farid told her to bring him back in a week. So she brought him back and Baba Farid said to the child, you should not eat so much shakar. The mother said, you could have told him as much a week back. To this Baba Sahib said, I could not have done so because at that time I myself was eating shakar.”

Having clerked for Justice Khawaja at the time he announced his Urdu verdict, Asher Qazi is clear-eyed. “If implemented, the decision may put me out of a job in the long run but if you put your own situation aside and think sincerely about the guy in the street — if you want that his children ever have a chance then which way would you decide?”

Quite the reverse, if the current bench has its way. In the six months since Chief Justice Khawaja stepped down, the Supreme Court has run in the opposite direction, going on a spree of reversals of its own precedent laid down only months ago. The manner of the reversal is inelegant: rather than allowing the review petitions to be heard by the same bench that made the original decision – as per usual – the Supreme Court has formed larger benches where the judges on original benches are in a minority. As one barrister puts it, “a message is sent to all governments and litigants that the Supreme Court’s decisions and enunciations of law are not final per se but only final till the arrival of a more propitious time and a review bench with more amenable judges.”

In a breathtaking about-turn, the court has undone the ban on houbara hunts. Whereas Justices Khawaja, Qazi Faez Isa, and Dost Muhammad Khan had authored the earlier ruling, a five-member bench that heard the review petition included only Justice Isa from the original bench. “The majority view in the review, in my opinion, represents a negation of the common law principle,” says Justice Khawaja, “and the reason is that some judges in the Supreme Court appear not to be aware that Pakistan is a common law jurisdiction … So many binding precedents and legitimate questions raised in Justice Isa’s dissent and his earlier interlocutory order have not even been adverted to, let alone addressed by the majority opinion.”

The decision has not been approved for reporting.

And though it has been only seven months since Justice Khawaja stepped down as the chief justice, the past already seems another country: today, trained falcons soar across the sands of Sindh, slamming houbaras to the ground; Musharraf flies off into the sunset via Emirates, a free man; military courts continue working in the darkest night; and the official language – like that of the Herald – remains the Queen’s English. To be clear, this is not Justice Khawaja’s Supreme Court. In a sense, it never was his Supreme Court, even as the chief justice. Why else might a man recite Shah Inayat Shaheed as dusk approached?

Shah Inayat Shaheed was betrayed to Farrukhsiyar’s governor and was executed on January 7, 1718. Legend has it that it was his mourners who blinded Farrukhsiyar though, more likely, it was a palace coup. “I’ve made a vow, to Babar [Mirza] – my student – that we will go to Jhok Sharif in District Sujawal,” the judge says. “That is where Shah Inayat Shaheed’s dargah is. He was the quintessential humanitarian and the champion of the oppressed.”

Justice Khawaja then recites a couplet by Shah Inayat Shaheed which, according to him, “shows absolute fearlessness, indeed ecstasy in the face of his beheading”: For a fleeting moment – as His Lordship translates the verse – the mist parts. For the length of a few short breaths, Justice Khawaja is knowable: “If my head is sacrificed at the feet of the Beloved — how wonderful,” he says. “It was a heavy burden; now that it has been removed — how wonderful.”

This was originally published in Herald's April 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the magazine in print.

While driving towards Kunjah, about 10 kilometres to the west of Gujrat city, it is difficult to miss the change in scale; towns and villages, roads, shops and tea stalls, everything looks smaller than it does on the Grand Trunk Road that links Gujrat with Rawalpindi, to the north, and Lahore to the south. Within Kunjah, the scale shifts again — from small to narrow: bazaars are narrow, streets even narrower. It is hard to imagine that this is the native town of Raheel Sharif, arguably the most important, most powerful person in Pakistan.

In this old town of about 50,000 people, a labyrinth of narrow lanes leads to a blind alley where a dilapidated two-storey locked house wears the same aura of mystery that all empty spaces acquire after their occupants have left long ago. This is where Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif’s grandfather, Mehtabud Din, lived — as did the general’s father, Major Muhammad Sharif. It was also in this house that his elder brother Shabbir Sharif was born and raised until he joined the Pakistan Army in the early 1960s.

During the 1971 war with India, Shabbir Sharif was posted near Okara as a major. He died fighting there and won the highest military award, Nishan-e-Haider, for his gallantry. People in Kunjah are proud of him and, therefore, regard his ancestral home as a historic place.

Raheel Sharif, who is 13 years junior to Shabbir Sharif, spent most of his early life in the shadow of his illustrious brother. “At the Pakistan Military Academy [Kakul] and later in the army, there were always people, especially close friends of Shabbir Sharif, who had high expectations of Raheel Sharif. He had to work hard to come up to their expectations,” reminisces an old friend of the general in Lahore. “Being Shabbir Sharif’s brother was aheavyburden on his shoulders,” says the man who in 1974 shared a room at the military academy with Raheel Sharif and later served with him in the same platoon. “It was only slowly and gradually that Raheel Sharif was able to create his own identity and place in the army.”

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Raheel Sharif could see any of his elder brother’s army friends, including Pervez Musharraf, whenever he needed to. Being on such close, personal terms with one’s seniors could be a big advantage for a junior officer. They may help one get prized postings and quicker promotions. “Such suggestions always hurt him deeply, though they did not stop him from calling on his brother’s friends,” says his Lahore-based friend.

Raheel Sharif was not born in Kunjah. No one there has any memory of having seen him in town. He was born in Quetta where his father was posted as a major in the army. The family, indeed, had left Kunjah much earlier than Raheel Sharif’s birth in 1956. Only a few old people in the town can claim having known and interacted with his father and elder brother.

One of them is Haji Abdul Ghani, a retired soldier. He remembers Raheel Sharif’s father as someone who would always “help the people from Kunjah”. Even though Muhammad Sharif never returned to his home town once he left for wherever his army career took him, he continued helping local residents – including Ghani – to get into the army.

Ghani has never seen Raheel Sharif in person but he says the general, like his father, has a “soft spot for Kunjah and its residents”. Why else would hecall Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and ask him to upgrade the Shabbir Shaheed Rural Health Centre in Kunjah? “When some people from our town met [Raheel Sharif] to condole the death of his mother in 2014, they complained to him about inadequate public healthcare here,” Ghani says. That promptly occasioned the call to the chief minister.

Raheel Sharif, like his predecessors, considers it his obligation to do “what he thinks is right regardless of its constitutional or democratic appropriateness.”

The general comes from a religious family. His grandfather, after whom their home street is named as Koocha Mehtabud Din, was a known religious scholar in the area, whose forefathers had settled in Kunjah in 1840. A younger cousin of Raheel Sharif who still lives in Kunjah knows the general asa friendly person who does not let anyone feel insignificant in his presence.“He knows how to give respect to others and how to command respect from them,” the cousin says without wanting to be named. Raheel Sharif also loves driving cars and hunting game, according to his cousin. “Being a chain-smoker, he looks out of his element when he cannot smoke.”

Within the military, says one of his old friends, Raheel Sharif is known from his early days in uniform as a man of strong character and steely resolve. “I remember a boxing game at the academy in which Bobby [Raheel Sharif] was pitted against a tough opponent. I do not remember who won the contest but he bravely took all the punches from his opponent, with the same expressionless face you see on television channels, and neverleftthe fight.”

Raheel Sharif is also considered to be one of the most popular army chiefs in recent times. “His ability to inspire confidence and love in the troops is quite remarkable,” says his friend from the military academy.

Musharraf, who was a course mate of Shabbir Sharif, is also a big admirer of Raheel Sharif. “He has been to the most dangerous places in the (Zarb-e-Azb) battle zone. Many others would not dare go near those places fearing for their lives,” Musharraf says. “It is Raheel Sharif’sstrong character and compassion for his juniors that sets him apart from the rest of the pack. He is not just a commander but a leader — the one soldiers happily obey and follow in war,” the former president says in an interview in Karachi.

In 2015, Raheel Sharif’s popularity grew out of the barracks and spread across Pakistan, making him more popular than any politician including Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan. A mosque in Islamabad was named after him last year and his portraits could be spotted on the back of trucks and autorickshaws everywhere. Banners and billboards featuring his image still adorn the streets of almost every big city, particularly Karachi, and many contesting the recent local government elections put his photo on their publicity material to attract voters. Even on social media, a #ThankYouRaheelSharif hashtag has trended for months.

The reasons for his popularity are not difficult to comprehend in times of rampant terrorism, insecurity, corruption and a general disappointment with politics. He is widely credited with improving security in the country in general and Karachi in particular. He is also hailed for launching an anti-corruption drive, mostly focused against politicians.

Then there is this other argument advanced by scholars such as Aqil Shah, the author of The Army and Democracy: Military Politics in Pakistan. The surge in his popularity has been choreographed by the army’s public relations wing – Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) – and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), is how this argument goes. “One key factor (behind the general’s popularity) is the relentless campaigns on news television channels and social media,” Shah tells the Herald in an email interview from the United States where he teaches politics at the Princeton University.

The media campaign, Shah says, emphasises Raheel Sharif’s ‘can do’ leadership and “unwavering moral courage in the face of an existential threat” to Pakistan. It also compares him to “selfish, corrupt and dithering” politicians such as Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari and “glorifies him as almost a superhuman being, an omniscient commander of the faithful,” explains Shah.

This is not something extraordinary. The military’s public relations machine – consisting of an expanded and restructured ISPR and the InformationManagementWing of the ISI headed by amajorgeneral orsomeone in an equivalentrank fromtheairforceorthe navy – routinely invest effort and money in constructing and maintainingaglorifiedpublicimageofthearmedforces, Shah says. “The retrofitted ISPR makes savvy use of social media and funds glitzy hyper-patriotic videos, songs and films,with the active collaboration of artists, actors, movie directors and writers.The ISI … metesout bothsticks and carrots tojournalists. Any journalist who dares question the picture-perfect image of Raheel Sharif or the military’s policies in, say, Balochistan can only do so at his or her own expense,” he adds.

Also read: Person of the Year 2015

The mass media’s role is central to this public relations exercise. “The military views the media as an ‘element ofnationalpower’essential tomouldpublicopinionanddevelopa consensuson national security,” Shah says. That is why hardly any days go by when Raheel Sharif’s images are not flashed frequently on television screens or across front pages of the newspapers.

The ultimate objective of the image-building exercise, however, is not just to glorify a general or provide heavily sanitised information about the military’s anti-militancy operation in the tribal lands of Waziristan or its anti-crime and anti-corruption efforts in Karachi. It is aimed at securing a bigger prize: exclusive power over the twin domains of national security and foreign policy.

The image-building, thus, has gone hand in hand with Raheel Sharif overshadowing the political landscape as far as handling internal security and foreign policy is concerned. He has been calling all the shots – or at the very least his has been the most important voice – in these two sectors.

This has not been lost on Pakistan’s foreign interlocutors. When Afghan President Ashraf Ghani made his first visit to Pakistan in 2014, he drove straight to the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi to meet Raheel Sharif before seeing the civilian leadership in Islamabad. The general spends a lot of his time visiting capitals across the globe– from London and Washington to Beijing and Kabul – to meet monarchs, presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and, yes, his own counterparts in other militaries. No important foreign dignitary visiting Islamabad leaves Pakistan without having a meeting with Raheel Sharif.

Also read: General (retd) Zaheerul Islam: The shadow warrior

Even though the rise in his public and official stature seems personal, it is not. It cannot be separated from a number of other developments that mark a massive increase in the military’s pre-eminence in national affairs. The passage of the Protection of Pakistan Act shortly after the launch ofZarb-e-Azb in July 2014, the announcement of the National Action Plan (NAP) in the aftermath of the Peshawar school attack in December that year and the passage of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution early in 2015 put together, according to Shah, “effectively took away the initiative from the civilians and handed it over on a platter to the military.”

These measures have helped the military encroach upon judicial terrain through the military courts set up earlier last year and override the elected administrations through apex committees at the federal and provincial levels. Even though these committees are not entirely dominated by the senior officials of the security and intelligence agencies, they give such officials a very prominent berth in civilian affairs constitutionally outside their domain. “The NAP codifies military supremacy over civilians as is evident in the structure and functioning of the apex committees … which place the generals above reproach and accountability,” says Shah.

When Nawaz Sharif became prime minister for a third term in the summer of 2013, there was some optimism that the balance of power was finally swinging in favour of the civilian leadership. In the first few months of his tenure, civilian control over what the military traditionally considers its own domain – national security and foreign policy – seemed to be growing. The government initiated talks with Taliban militants in the tribal backyard of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tried to open dialogue with separatists in Balochistandespite the military’s reservations on both counts. On the external front, peace overtures were made to India with promises of much-delayed liberalisation of bilateral trade; and Afghanistan was assured of any support it required for the resolution of its seemingly eternal conflict.

Emboldened by the relative ease with which the government could take these steps, Nawaz Sharif then overreached and decided to put former military dictator Musharraf on trial for high treason. The civilian administration blocked all his moves to get out of the country. And even while the military was acting behind the scenes to ensure that he spent his time either in a military-run hospital or in the comfort of his own farmhouse in Islamabad, the government did not have any trouble in continuing with the trial — until it suddenly did.

A crucial factor that changed the dynamics of the trial appears to be the choice of General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s successor as the army chief.

The reasons for Raheel Sharif’s popularity are not difficult to comprehend in times of rampant terrorism, insecurity, corruption and a general disappointment with politics.

At first, and in strictly military terms, Raheel Sharif looked like a suitable choice for the post even though he was third on the seniority list and was not commanding a corps. He, however, was instrumental in creating a counter-insurgency doctrine – which focuses on training and preparing the army foranti-terrorism operations – asthe Inspector General for Training and Evaluation. Those who elevated him to the post of the Chief of Army Staff perhaps did not know of his close family ties with Musharraf or if they did, they did not consider them a problem.

In an interview with the Herald, Musharraf acknowledges being in touch with Raheel Sharif since leaving the office of the president in 2008. Though he says the frequency of their interaction has decreased after Raheel Sharif became the army chief “so that he did not come under any criticism” for that, the two regularly exchange messages on important personal and social occasions.

That personal link between the two generals still does not fully explain how and why the tide started turning against the civilian leadership and the power balance started tilting back to the military’s favour. The rest of the answer is provided by two apparently unrelated developments.

Also read: In conversation with Pervez Musharraf

One of them was the start of the operation Zarb-e-Azb in the middle of 2014 when the military did not bother to seek permission from the civilian leadership and launched a massive campaign against the Taliban in Waziristan. The government, at that point, was still pursuing a policy of negotiated peace with the militants based in the tribal areas. It was only after the operation got well under way that the civilian leadership endorsed it.

The other development was the Islamabad sit-in by Khan’s PTI and Tahirul Qadri of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) which also started in the middle of 2014 and continued till the terrorist attack on the Peshawar school. This is how the conspiracy theory goes: after the elected government resisted to share its authority with the military in areas the latter believes exclusively its own, the sit-in helped the military turn tables on the government. A mix of mishandling of the protests, the government’s stubborn resistance to negotiate with Khan and Qadri, and the willingness of the leaders of the protests to go to any extreme – regardless of how violent and destabilising it became – allowed the military to regain centre stage.

This theory was endorsed by Javed Hashmi when he resigned as the PTI chairman accusing Khan of forwarding the agenda of some generals to the detriment of a democratically elected government and parliament. Analysts like Shah also claim that the military leadership under Raheel Sharif “engineered the protests” to cut Nawaz Sharif down to size on issues such as Musharraf’s trial and Pakistan’s policies towards India and Afghanistan.

Syed Riffat Hussain, who heads the Government and Public Policy Department at Islamabad’s National University of Sciences and Technology (Nust) is not a believer in this theory. He does not think the military as an institution was involved in destabilising the government. He points out that Raheel Sharif, on the other hand, stepped in with a compromise formula to resolve the stand-off only when the situation became too tense and the protesters started attacking government buildings and installations in Islamabad. “He was willing to play a role for reconciliation between the government and the protesters,” says Hussain.

Neither the government nor the protesters, however, were ready to listen to him. When no one showed interest in accepting his compromise formula thatoffered to address the PTI’s vote-rigging grievances if it dropped the demand for the prime minister’s resignation, he backed off, adds Hussain.

In either case, the government had to spend so much political capital on taking care of the protests, and their political fallout, that Nawaz Sharif and his senior aides were left with little energy and capacity to continue being in charge of national security and foreign policy. Musharraf’s trial, too, fell through the political cracks created by the sit-ins.

A heavily guarded compound of around 20 houses sits atop a hillock just behind the Zamzama Street on the confluence of the Clifton and Defence Housing Authority (DHA) neighbourhoods. The guards are all in military uniform. Anyone seeking to enter the area must have prior appointments and permissions. It is in this completely cordoned off – and very quiet – corner of Karachi that Musharraf now lives. Nobody can reach him expect with the military’s permission.

That is a perfect metaphor for the limits that civilian power has always had in Pakistan: the military enjoys exclusive spaces where civil administration cannot dare enter. Extend this to statecraft and what you get is a huge imbalance in power between the military and the civilian parts of the polity.

“This historical civil-military imbalance has endured because we treat Pakistan as a security state and see every issue through a security lens. Unless this trend is changed, the imbalance will endure no matter what,” is how Hussain explains this not-so-unusual phenomenon in Pakistan’s political history.

Since early 2015, the military has aggressively used this imbalance in its favour. In the latest manifestation of it, the military leadership has been breathing hard down the neck of the provincial government in Sindh on real or perceived connections between terrorism and corruption. Both the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) are facing the heat generated by the arrests and trials of their leaders and activists, and by being constantly bashed in the media ostensibly on the military’s prompting. Media commentators routinely dub the two political parties as corrupt, supportive of organised crime and terrorism; also incompetent (in the PPP’s case), even unpatriotic (in the MQM’s case).

And even while the government in Islamabad has supported the military’s stance on Karachi, the GHQ has not been entirely happy with the federal administration. This became apparent when in November last year, after a meeting of the corps commanders, the ISPR released a statement lamenting the lack of enforcement of various aspects of the NAP. Though some ministers in Islamabad tried to deflect the criticism in the statement towards the government in Sindh, the ISPR’s phrasing was too all-encompassing to be reduced to the failures of civilian administration in a single province.

Also read: Enter the General

“The statement was issued only because of the ambivalence of civilian leadership on issues such as terrorism. When politicians leave their job for the military to do, they then have [no moral authority] to complain about the increasing role of the army in civilian territory,” is the rationale Hussain gives.

Like many other analysts in Pakistan, he believes the ISPR statement does not reflect Raheel Sharif’s personal assessment but the viewpoint of the military as an institution. “In the army, the chief may have the final say but he cannot be indifferent to the feelings of his corps commanders. If the corps commanders feel strongly about something, the chief has to convey their feelings to the government,” Hussain explains. On his own, he says, Raheel Sharif is not interested in politics.

Hussain is also willing to give politicians some benefit of the doubt though. Long shadows cast by repeated military coups/military rule have shaped the expectations of civilian leaders about what is permissible, he says. That is animportant reason why the military’s influence in civilian affairs endures. “As long as civil institutions remain weak, those with established positions on issues of security and foreign relations will continue to take advantage,” he adds.

If so, it does not really matter what kind of individual Raheel Sharif is when it comes to the military’s interference in civilian affairs. Whether he is interested in politics or not is irrelevant. “I don’t view Raheel Sharif as any different from other army chiefs as far as the military’s vital interests are concerned,” says Shah. Raheel Sharif, like his predecessors, considers it his obligation to do “what he thinks is right regardless of its constitutional or democratic appropriateness.”

Theoretically, no one can disagree with the supremacy of the constitution and the need for a democratic system of government. Not even Musharraf.

Comfortably perched on a Victorian chair in his Karachi sitting room, he is full of praise for Raheel Sharif’s personal and professional conduct before he starts explaining why the general is looming so large on the political horizon. “All rules and the constitution are for Pakistan, not the other way round. I believe that Pakistan is more important than any rules,” Musharraf says emphatically. The army has to step forward and intervene when Pakistan is going under, and no constitutional fixes are available to change the inept civilian leadership, he argues.

The logic of this principle is as simple as it is ominous; will Raheel Sharif, then, also do what Musharraf did in 1999 when he overthrew an elected civilian government?

This was originally published in Herald's Annual 2016 issue as part of Herald Person of the Year section. To read more subscribe to the magazine in print.

At the sombre office of the Punjab Food Authority (PFA), in a tiny driveway, a child whacks a ball with a bat. Inside, a lone staffer sits by a door that reads “Director (Operations)”. “Madam Ayesha Mumtaz is usually in the field,” he says, and as much is obvious: she is not your usual desk warrior. The man by the door, her assistant, now sighs: “Ay Mussalmano, kyun har cheez mein milawat kartay ho?” (Why, O’ Muslims, must you adulterate everything?)

A strange statement to make: while tackling food adulteration is the main task of his department, one expects bureaucracy-speak over religious rhetoric. Yet all is made clear when his boss arrives and the office sweats in deep December. The ongoing campaign against food adulteration in Lahore is no ordinary government drive — this is a mission, and the messiah could well save our souls (or at least, our innards).

When Ferdinand II founded the Inquisition – to maintain Catholic orthodoxy over an uneasy Spain – desperadoes would roam among the converts, to purge the wicked and unclean. Pop culture turned it into a faceless, fathomless dread. “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition,” goes the Monty Python comic saying.

But everyone expects the director of operations, who has inspected around 12,000 eateries in her first 187 days at the job, averaging 64 inspections a day. In 2015, her department became a whirlwind: it put up 27,174 improvement notices at eateries, sealed over 2,600 premises and made 384 arrests — the kind of thunder that shook even Lahore awake.

Yet there were few forecasts of Mumtaz’s success. A career civil servant since 2001, she landed in the unheard of PFA in June 2014. Armed with what she calls “zeal and zest,” she has since inspired adulation, envy and at least two impersonators.

Read more: Cash cows

How she did it is easy to understand — she does not discriminate. Targeting everyone from Gloria Jean’s Coffees to food stalls in Gawalmandi, she says, “I find it shameful that we distinguish between people in the application of law in this country, pushing the weakest to the wall.”

As for her work, she describes its three basic ingredients (if one can forgive the expression): God, humility and noble intentions. Unlike today’s public servants with their mile-long motorcades, Mumtaz is content with her sparse office and its blank walls. “Kaanay ho toh kisi ki ankh mein ankh nahin daal ke dekh saktay” (If one is guilty, one cannot face anyone), she says. “One must have the audacity to confront these people. I won’t succumb to pressure … it is not in my dictionary. When people with connections show me their cards, I say the bigger the card the greater the snubbing.”

As Mumtaz smashes old idols, she also shatters older conventions: as a female officer in the field from dusk to dawn, as a food safety boss who has captured the public imagination and a civil servant improving the lives of citizens.

In a way, Mumtaz is the Great Incorruptible, to plagiarise a title from the book of French revolutionary turned dictator, Robespierre. And the Terror of Ayesha Mumtaz, spoofed in the news and serialised in text messages, is only too real. “Northern Lahore has a culture of its own,” she says. Women who sighted her in the midst of her raids began beating themselves and crying, “Haye marr gaye, lutt gaye” (Oh, we are done in, we are robbed).

This is to be expected: the PFA often finds itself in the heart of Lahore, a city with food in its heart. During the recent urs, the death anniversary of the beloved Data Ganj Bakhsh, her team fenced off the area around the saint’s mausoleum to ward off the likelihood of food manufacturers escaping. As the officials moved to seal an eatery named Pakwan Centre, an elderly citizen came out crying, “Hang me, why won’t you hang me and be done with it?” The man’s cries caught on and the locals gathered. Interest gave way to anger, and the crowd gave way to a mob, hooting for their hero. “Try shutting it down,” they jeered. The director and her food safety inspectors were surrounded.

Mumtaz did not fear them — for, she tells me, she fears only God. “Any jackals that think they are lions, step forward,” she called out. The crowd shrank, shrivelled and died. Pakwan Centre was sealed.Besides her belief in the divine, experience has helped: as the first female district officer at Lari Adda, the famous bus stop in Lahore, Mumtaz faced off the trucker mafia. Her moral rage at any and all mafias borders on the Robert Kennedy-esque. And like Kennedy, the doomed American attorney general, she refuses to relent “until the mafia realises it is over for them.”

But Mumtaz has had to contend with swanky lobbies first: the Lahore Restaurant Association (LRA) has moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) against her, staying her hand from uploading photos of their premises — the ones that have shocked the country. “We respect the court, so we are not uploading any photos, of the petitioners or otherwise,” she says, referring to a tableau of blood, grime and faecal matter that often features in these photos. “So now they think, let us keep delaying the case until the madam leaves.”

Mumtaz is also amused by their plea; that their reputations have been savaged. “They never challenged the actual fact of those pictures, that they were false or mala fide. Instead what is paining them is that we uploaded them in the first place; filth that could be seen by the naked eye. [This plea] is an indirect admission [of guilt].”

Read more: Person of the Year 2015

Much younger than our vintage-era babus (those that employ human keyboards on government salaries), Mumtaz understands connectivity and is hampered by its loss. In her book, judgment is rapid: the Almighty doth not give stay orders. “There are no lawyers in the Hereafter,” she says. “God decides then and there.” As for the petitioners against her, her puritan streak shines through. “When I see their faces, my blood curdles,” she says. “Who do they think they are representative of? Certainly not Lahore. They represent the same four places on M M Alam (Road). That is where they start and end…posh places think they are above the law.”

Feeling the heat of her fury, the LRA has tried to add more ammunition to its armoury: that the restaurant boys are all honourable taxpayers, and that the director is no food technologist. When challenged, Mumtaz again acts contrary to our officialdom; she does not parry criticism as much as she bulldozes it. “They don’t do us any favours,” she says. As to her qualification, she acts solely in her administrative capacity. “Is the secretary health a heart surgeon? No, he is looking at service structures and system transfers.”

Nor does she sally forth without trained food inspectors in tow.

During an iftar raid at a famous coffee chain (her team is as likely to storm in at midnight as it is at high noon), Mumtaz discovered expired syrup bottles from 2012. The excuse: to display what bottles from the previous years looked like. “I thought this was a coffee shop,” she said, “but you are selling historical artefacts.”

She has a dark sense of humour about her raids. “I tell myself I am not in the [Punjab] Food Authority, I am in the National Geographic,” she says. During one reported inspection, she asked the management of an eatery whether it used the deep freezer to bury the dead.

Much of her blitz is courtesy the (otherwise nervy) Punjab government: Mumtaz has carte blanche, with “not a single phone call” of intervention from the famously food-centric Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PMLN).

Yet whatever the Raiwind Rulebook says, could this become another cliché of individual over institution? If one hears and believes Mumtaz, her effort is institutional: the PFA is mulling expansion in all directions, drawing up second shifts, divisional task forces and branching out into the rest of the province. It has discarded thousands of litres of bad milk, ceased the en masse slaughter of sick animals and trampled on the don’t-ask-don’t-tell pact between the lazy foodie and the lax restaurateur.

Their leader bears witness – rats in the urinals, roaches in the chillers, shaving kits in the kitchen – and she points to matters societal: a broader culture of bad hygiene got us where we are. From Lohari Gate to Akbari Mandi, a swathe of the Old Lahore famous for its wholesale markets and traditional cuisine, “is where the resistance [to food inspections] is,” she says. “You show up there and all of a sudden there are locks on all the gates and everyone disappears … they say their fathers’ fathers did it, and so should they.”

But even as Mumtaz smashes old idols, she also shatters older conventions: as a female officer in the field from dusk to dawn, as a food safety boss who has captured the public imagination, and as that rarest of unicorns, a civil servant improving the lives of our citizens. More than any government functionary in the outgoing year, Mumtaz restored the people’s faith in service delivery. Thus her nomination for the Herald Person of the Year for 2015; hence her status as a one-woman wrecking ball.

Read more: What's on my plate

Asked whether protecting the culinary concerns of 100 million people was overwhelming, she smiles. “I feel thrilled.” This seems like coming from an old world zealot but that may be missing the wider picture. Part of the reverence Mumtaz inspires is because she stands at the intersection of all that Lahore is about: food and politics, in that order. And to hear a famous playwright describe the latter, they may be one and the same: “This is gastric juices churning, this is enzymes and acids, this is intestinal is what this is, bowel movement and blood-red meat — this stinks, this is politics … the game of being alive.”

And by exposing the game’s rotten underbelly, Mumtaz may be bringing Lahore back to a cleaner life one raid at a time.

This was originally published in Herald's Annual 2016 issue as part of Herald Person of the Year section. To read more subscribe to Herald in print.

Haji Noor Deen Mi Guang Jiang’s calligraphy work is on permanent display at the British Museum, one of the oldest and most prestigious exhibition and archival spaces in the world. His piece, Ninety Nine Names of Allah, became a permanent part of the museum’s Islamic Art section in 2005 — a rare distinction that artists everywhere crave for.

The Islamic identity of Jiang’s calligraphy, in spite of the fact that he does not belong to a Muslim-majority country, is so pronounced that his work cannot be lumped together with other exhibits from his native country, China. And his output is of such high quality that those familiar with the millennium-old tradition of calligraphy in Islam can ignore his work’s peculiar beauty and distinct character only at their own intellectual peril. That easily explains why many prominent art museums across the world –apart from the British Museum – have exhibited his work in recent years. These include the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the National Museum of Scotland and the Harvard Art Museums at the Harvard University.

The Islamic identity of Jiang’s calligraphy, in spite of the fact that he does not belong to a Muslim-majority country, is so pronounced that his work cannot be lumped together with other exhibits from his native country, China.

Born in 1963 in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, Jiang did a course in Arabic calligraphy in Egypt when he was quite young. He does a lot of his work in what is known as Sini style of calligraphy which essentially is the Arabic script written with distinctly Chinese flourishes and frills. The Sini style is mostly used in mosque inscriptions in eastern China and to a lesser extent in Muslim places of worship in central and western Chinese regions such as Gansu, Ningxia, and Shaanxi. When written in the Sini style, the thick part of the Arabic letters suddenly tapers into thin and curled endings, just like what we find in Chinese language characters and unlike the traditional Arabic script in which tapering is always gradual. Some historical accounts suggest the Sini style was developed during the long reign of China’s Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and it came about as a manifestation of the desire among the Chinese Muslim artists to merge their ethnic and native cultural and linguistic forms with those associated with Islam.

Jiang has the spectacular ability to produce a piece of calligraphy in a few minutes right in front of an audience looking at him in awe and has been instrumental in popularising Islamic calligraphy within the western academic institutions in recent times. He has been giving regular lectures and doing residencies at such distinguished places as the Harvard University, the Cambridge University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also teaches calligraphy at the Islamic College in Zhen Zhou, China, and the Zaytuna Institute, Berkeley.

Jiang came to Pakistan in February 2016 as one of the panelists and speakers at the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF). Attending his solo session at the festival was a unique experience as he dazzled the viewers with demonstration of such beautiful Arabic scripts as khat-e-naskh and khat-e-divani besides regaling them with instantly produced works in his signature style.

Here are excerpts of an interview with Jiang conducted during his stay in Lahore:

Ayesha Majeed. When did you start doing calligraphy?

Haji Noor Deen Mi Guang Jiang. I was eighteen years old when I started practising calligraphy. I studied under a master teacher in Egypt for eight years.

Majeed. Why did you choose this medium of expression?

Jiang. As a Chinese Muslim, I understand the beauty of both the Islamic and the Chinese cultures; their rich [artistic and cultural] heritage inspired me to develop a medium of expression by combining the two.

Majeed. Where do you get your inspiration from?

Jiang. My earliest inspiration came from my study of Islamic texts including the Quran. Even inscriptions on the mosque walls became sources of inspiration for me. It is from the Quran that I choose texts to render into pieces of calligraphy as I try to express the beauty of Islam as a religion through my work.

Majeed. The Muslims among your audience have linkages with the Quran and, therefore, may find it easier to identify with your work but how do western audiences respond to your calligraphy?

Jiang. The western audiences always try to find the meanings and the spiritual linkages of the words that I write in my calligraphy. When they discover those meanings and the linkages, they are able to enjoy the work I produce.

Majeed. Why did you opt for doing your work in the Sini style?

Jiang. I inherited the Chinese calligraphic style from my ancestors but I was also really inspired by the Arabic script. I thought I could create a new style of calligraphy (by merging the two). It is a unique experience to mix the two to produce a beautiful piece of art.

Majeed. How is the Chinese calligraphic style different from the one done in an Arabic script?

Jiang. The main difference between the two is that the Arabic script is written horizontally but the Chinese characters are written in a vertical pattern. The two scripts are totally opposite in how they appear to the viewers and the readers. I believe that Arabic script has a lot of internal logic in it though both scripts are among the most influential and most distinguished forms of the written word.

Majeed. How long do you take to produce a piece of calligraphy?

Jiang. It depends on many things. Producing a piece of calligraphy can take anywhere between two minutes and two months [depending on what is being written].

Majeed. How do you see the work of Pakistani calligraphers?

Jiang. Pakistani calligraphers are producing beautiful work. Through their different ways, they are all exploring the beauty of the Islamic culture.

Opening image: Haji Noor Deen Mi Guang Jiang speaks about his calligraphy work at the Lahore Literature Festival | Ayesha Majeed

Pakistan’s glitzy fashion weeks have evolved into highly professional affairs that are more than just a gathering of fashion moguls. The designers showcase their clothes with the principal goal of exhibiting their evolving design aesthetic in order to push for a greater market reach. These events are a platform for serious business. Late last year, as another fashion week in Karachi came to a close, I caught up with a few of the designers, who have reigned over the Pakistani fashion scene for a long time. We discussed their views about this forum which essentially furthers their sales and also briefly spoke about their future plans of expanding their brands.

Sana Safinaz

The uber chic fashion label of Sana Safinaz caters to fashionistas such as the designers themselves: youthful, desiring to embrace the couture from the West while espousing the Eastern mindset. This start up which may have appeared as an indulgence of the rich and famous – launched by two young ladies from elite backgrounds – in reality proved to be a well laid out business plan. The designer duo have built on it brick by brick and today this coveted brand can proudly claim a fast growing presence in 13 cities in Pakistan.

Sana Hashwani, spokesperson for the design house Sana Safinaz, claims that fashion weeks are a valuable opportunity for young designers who do not have the market-reach as advertising is very expensive. This platform allows them to get exposure through media, facilitating buyers all over the country to view their designs. Fashion weeks also give senior designers a chance to showcase their seasonal trends encouraging buyers viewing these shows to book orders on the current season’s collections.

Over the decades the niche label has evolved into a brand that has across the board accessibility: the brand caters to a clientele from the middle class with their eminently desirable lawn suits, to the youth with prêt lines and the yuppies and fashionable older patrons with their couture and haute couture studio.

Hashwani explains that her brand works in tandem with the textile industry, using 99 per cent indigenous fabric since their largest production is lawn — everything else follows on the heels of this production line. For this reason, she proposes that more textile mills sponsor fashion weeks since many of the designers use home-grown fabrics, and textile mills could offer the younger designers a launch pad.

The fashion house has signed up with a textile mill in India, and further down the road Hashwani says she would like to see their studios open in the East and possibly even the Far-East. In efforts of supporting indigenous crafts, Sana Safinaz is working towards reviving chikankari in their future collections.

Proud to be one of the leaders in creating employment in the fashion industry, Sana Safinaz has ambitions of proving to be a lucrative foreign exchange earner for Pakistan, one day.

Maheen Karim

The elegant Maheen Karim started her career in Pakistan with the multi brand designer retail store labels in 2006. She is strongly influenced by her years at Armani working in the PR/ Press department and at Escada as the PR head in the United Kingdom. Khan, who studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, translates her years of learning into designs and silhouettes that appeal to her stylish Pakistani clientele: sharp, current yet timeless.

At the The Pakistan Fashion Week 2015 (TPFW15) themed in Karachi, Karim showcased a collection of luxuriously draped dresses, culottes with embellished flowing capes and finely structured jumpsuits.

For her, fashion weeks mostly play the role of displaying seasonal collections to attract buyers in Pakistan and abroad. She supports the fact that designers, old and new alike, now have this platform to showcase their work on a biannual basis, forcing them to stay current.

Karim’s goal is to emancipate women through design, making them feel elegant, confident and self assured.

Karim does not wish to develop the business further at the moment as she maintains a niche clientele and believes this to be her forte. However, catering to such an exclusive market, her atelier runs into many production problems that larger design houses do not face: she does not have too many back up teams for the specifically trained personnel. The workers in Karachi face daunting law and order situations, power cuts, strikes, delaying timely deliveries.

Specialty operations such as hers encounter additional problems with the sourcing of fabric, as most of the fabrics her brand uses are imported and sometimes it is difficult to attain the same bale due scarcity. This consequently affects her output and, in turn, her ability to supply internationally. She wishes that there were proper channels open for the import of fabrics as this would help facilitate smaller design operations.

However, Karim applauds Pakistan’s fashion industry for its persistent efforts in reviving and sustaining the dying hand crafts, as embroidery is fading out in most Western couture and finely embellished hand embroidery is now only available in Pakistan and India. Moreover, the fashion industry’s commitment to sustain hand embroidery in turn creates employment and sustains the livelihood for traditional artisans.

Opening images: Models sport Sana Safinaz (left) and Maheen Karim (right) designs | Photos by Tapu Javeri

Many, who know her well, call her Bunny. To those who don’t, Nighat Said Khan is the director and founder of the Applied Socio-Economic Research (ASR) Resource Centre — a non-profit organisation that has been one of the pioneers in feminist and social activism, and in combining activism with research and theory. She has also helped establish the Institute of Women’s Studies Lahore (IWSL), aiming to close the gap between theory and practice in political and social movements.

Her journey began long before she permanently moved to Pakistan, long before she attended Columbia University in the 1960s in New York. We can go even further back, to when she was a mere 14-year-old, defying her father’s position in the army.

Always on the go, always controversial, always direct and forthcoming. Khan has long been involved in the women’s rights movement and peoples’ movements in Pakistan as one of their most prominent faces. But not very many know of her personal life and her fierce resistance to personal problems and challenges. Excerpts from a recent interview with the Herald follow.

Tanveer Jahan. Tell me about the journey of Nighat Said Khan as a women’s rights activist?

Nighat Said Khan. In many ways, my life has been very different from what is the norm in Pakistan. My father was posted to the United States in the 1950s where I started elementary school. We returned then to Pakistan so I completed my O levels from here. I then went for my A levels to London. During this period my father resigned from the army and the family moved to the United States. I followed soon after and went to college there. However, I was determined to return to Pakistan and in 1974 I came back, giving up my British and American residency. Other than the time I spent in England later for my post graduate studies, I have been here since.

While waiting to go to London for my A levels, I became involved in a student’s movement against Ayub Khan even though my father was a martial law administrator. I was on the streets against my own father. I became a communist when I was 14-years-old, influenced by an incident at school, and also by Tahira Mazhar Ali and Mazhar Ali Khan.

There is no single point in my life where something happened that made me take the decision to become a feminist. I come from a liberal family that did not prefer sons over daughters. And there was no extended family – no aunts or uncles – to say that women are less or more equal than men. But I was always aware that girls around me did not have the freedoms that I had and that those from other class backgrounds were particularly controlled.

When I was at Columbia University in the 1960s, I had to work to pay for my education and often this was in grocery stores and in factories. This experience led me to become involved in unionised labour. I was also involved in the civil rights movement as well as the anti-Vietnam war movement and, of course, the women’s rights movement. When I came back to Pakistan in 1971, I wanted to work with a Maoist group but Maoists were supporting or were silent on the military action in East Pakistan while I was adamantly against it. They also did not have a position on the ‘women’s question’ and tended not to take women seriously. The women in the group were often the wives of party leaders and were active because of their husbands. Disillusioned, I got involved with the Pro-Moscow Democratic Women’s Association and its struggle against the military’s suppression of the peoples aspirations in East Pakistan.

I became involved in a student’s movement against Ayub Khan even though my father was a martial law administrator.

I was in Pakistan for a whole year in 1971 and then I went back to the United States and England to pay off my student loans. I was again working in factories to pay the loans off. After I came back to Lahore, I started looking for a job and, because of my leftist orientation, started working with Professor Eric Cyprian at Shah Hussain College [which had been set up in Lahore by leftist intellectuals]. Later, I joined the Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, but in less than a year was ‘thrown out’ since they did not want me to teach. They did not mind me being there as a researcher, but the administration did not want me to influence the students so they took away the coursework from me. I moved from one department to another. At the economics department, I was involved in a project looking at rural poverty. We decided to go and live in villages like the villagers live. The idea was to experience poverty — eat what the villagers ate and sleep where they slept; nothing was to be procured from the cities. People know me as a women’s rights activist but actually all my academic work is on Marxism, peasant struggles and on peace and conflict. Often when I am invited abroad, I am invited as a socialist, as an expert on peasant movements or on issues of conflict and peace. But I have always done this with a feminist lens. Within Pakistan, I have aligned myself with many political movements such as those going on in Balochistan and Kashmir.

In 1979, I went to England for my post-graduation, studying Marxism and peasantry under the supervision of Hamza Alavi. I returned for my field work in 1981 and immediately became active in the recently formed Women’s Action Forum (WAF). I felt we needed to combine the work on women’s rights with academics. That resulted in the setting up of the ASR Resource Centre. But ASR was not registered till 1988 even though it started in 1983. This was because we said we were socialists so the government considered us a political organisation.

Jahan. What is your critique on the women’s rights movement in Pakistan? What has it achieved since the setting up of the WAF?

Khan. I think we have to go back a bit. We have to acknowledge the movements that came before us. There was a movement (basically of aristocratic women) before the partition. The first Asian women’s conference was held in 1931 in Lahore. Its demands were quite similar to ours — right to inheritance, right to vote and right to stand in elections. In 1948, the women who were married to or were close to people in power – such as Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan – issued a charter of demands for women’s rights. They were basically saying, ‘Okay, now that we have a new state, what is going to be the status of women in it?’ They were talking about changes in the Islamic laws; they were talking about inheritance rights; they were talking about women’s representation in the legislature. They were anti-dowry and they stood against second marriage. And they did what they said. They would protest whenever dowry was given. And when Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra got married for the second time, they boycotted him.

The Democratic Women Association was, too, founded in 1948. We also had women’s organisations like the All Pakistan Women’s Association (Apwa) that successfully worked for the passage of family laws during Ayub Khan’s regime. This movement was led by women from the upper-class unlike the pre-partition movement which tended to be more aristocratic. The women who formed the WAF in 1981 were mainly women who came from professional backgrounds. While the class background of the leadership changed over these phases, had the earlier generations not played their role we would not have been in the position to challenge Ziaul Haq as we did in the 1980s.

Our struggle as members of the WAF was not so much a fight for our personal freedoms, it was actually for the women who did not have agency. None of the women’s rights activists went to jail for adultery. No one received lashes. Women activists took a position on sports not for personal reasons as they themselves had access to private spaces which they could use.

Within the WAF, we have to make a distinction between its chapters. In Islamabad, which is the seat of the government, many of the WAF activists were either government servants or otherwise in vulnerable positions and, for them, taking on Ziaul Haq was very risky. Several of the members of the Karachi chapter came from a different political background while in Lahore the founders were dominated by women who were from the left, were members of political parties or were part of politically active families. The Lahore members, therefore, were more experienced in mobilising support.

Also read: Kishwar Naheed: The phenomenal woman

In the initial period, there was also this big debate within the WAF on whether the activists could use Islam strategically while criticising the Islamic state and Islamism. I was one of those who did not support the idea. What I like about the WAF is that decisions are taken with consensus. Except in some cases, the members stay in the organisation and try to convince others over a period of time. Although there are instances of this, very few members leave and challenge the WAF from the outside. The requirement of all chapters arriving at a consensus position meant that, working within to change positions, took 10 years for the WAF to state that it was a ‘secular’ organisation.

Apart from holding regular informal and formal meetings, the WAF Lahore organised two large public meetings in 1982, one at the YMCA and the other at Apwa. In the first, we mobilised about 300 women and in the second approximately 400 or more. Our strategy of going from individual to individual, holding regular meetings in closed spaces, visiting factories and neighbourhoods was a successful tactic. When 14 months later the call came to protest on The Mall road against the Law of Evidence on February 12, 1983, over 250 women risked their lives and came out against Ziaul Haq. Nobody ran away. Many were beaten, many arrested and this defiance changed the whole nature of the movement. It broke the silence against Ziaul Haq. This day is widely celebrated as Pakistan Women’s Day.

Suddenly everyone was interested in joining the WAF. The disadvantage of that was that the camaraderie that existed among the founding members was not shared by the new members. We were initially working with the feminist principle that the personal is political. There was an enormous space for sharing of the personal with your fellow activists. What we have lost is that element. I now often no longer know the woman sitting next to me even in WAF and have no idea what she is experiencing at a personal level.

The other thing was that there is little internalisation of the political and public positions that we take. I’ll give you two examples. I have asked many women’s rights activists how many of them would take their brother to court for their share in inheritance. I have not gotten a positive reply from many of them. Yet they are expecting some woman from some village to take this stand and be beaten up and have nowhere to go. I ask a similar question about domestic violence: if your son hits your daughter or the maid, will you file a case against him. There was not a single activist who said that she would use the law.

There is still a lot of energy in the WAF especially in the new chapter in Hyderabad and it continues to play a major role in the women’s movement. So many women identify with it. You meet someone you have never met before and they say they are a member of the WAF. There is a running joke among us that any woman over the age of 50 will say she is a founder member. In that sense the organisation has thousands of members. This is the WAF’s strength.

The WAF has no funding, no office, no hierarchy. It is there but it is not there. This gives it an enormous advantage. Unlike a donor-funded project that lasts [for a specific time], it is not bound by any time frame. It is also not constrained to taking positions in accordance with funding requirements or within the parameters of any particular government. And it will continue to exist as the government cannot do anything against it since it is not registered.

Where the WAF has possibly failed is its indecision on how to transform itself for the future. It cannot remain the way it is. The class background of its members is changing from mostly English-speaking professionals to non-English speaking professionals. In Hyderabad, it has become Sindhi-speaking. Its members there tend to live in smaller neighbourhoods, travel by public transport and have different living standards. The organisation also has not addressed how new chapters can be formed, with the result that there are instances of women setting up organisations using the name WAF like a brand name.

People and women are active everywhere. They want to fight. This is where I think the women’s movement’s future lies.

From being an autonomous movement, women’s rights activism has also changed with a plethora of NGOs [non-government organisations]. The work [NGOs do] tends to be project- and donor-driven bound by time frames. The focus is also on quantity rather than quality with expectations that projects can reach out to and change people’s understanding by just participating in one or two events. Increasingly these large NGOs arrange meetings and activities for thousands of people who are supposedly to be trained within those few hours. When these NGOs say they have trained 10,000 to 20,000 people, I don’t take them seriously. In my experience, if I can get five committed activists during the course of a programme who will take the process further on their own accord, I would consider myself lucky. If these NGOs are managing to convince thousands of people to join the campaign for women’s rights, then we would have a very large movement by now.

My experience with NGOs is that once they exit a project, I don’t think people carry on with it on their own. This is the disadvantage of anything that has a time frame. At ASR, we have tried to do it differently with projects in which we never leave an area, a programme or a process after a project may be completed but it is very difficult to keep doing that.

There is a need for a new movement for women’s rights. There is also a need to redefine this area since it has become dominated by the NGOs and the United Nations (UN). The involvement of the NGOs and the UN in some way is damaging the [prospects of] organic movements. The moment some woman or some people become active in a village, an NGO goes there and makes them a part of a project. Earlier, they were doing their activism on their own but then they become our mazaras (tenants) and we fight not only for the ‘ownership’ of ‘our’ mazaras, we even fight over which districts we are working in. We act like landlords and chaudharis.

The other change that has happened is the competition for funds. The donors have turned us into enemies of each other. Twenty years ago, when we formed the Joint Action Committee (JAC)for People’s Rights andDemocracy in Lahore, we were very close to each other. Earlier, we were not bound to attach names or logos to the projects so it did not matter whether you were doing it or I was doing it. Now the donors insist on attaching their names to the projects essentially marketing themselves. Donors have tied us to capitalism and jet-setting is a part of the package. Over the last few years, I have spent months in over 50 districts, essentially trying to assess the impact of the 30 years of ASR. People and women are active everywhere. They want to fight. This is where I think the women’s movement’s future lies. While these struggles need support and even informed direction, the movement cannot be determined by those who stay within their comfort zones. Women who have to fight to go to school, who risk their lives to get married to the men of their choice, are the women who substantively challenge patriarchy.

Pakistan also does not have what several other countries and continents have, and what I have been trying to [work towards] for many years — a conference or something like that which happens every two years or so which will bring together women working on all kinds of issues. When we go to such conferences abroad, we see 40 workshops, each done by a different organisation, giving us a chance to meet different women, open ourselves up to other ideas and initiatives, to have a more holistic understanding of feminism and the women’s movement. I have had many meetings and have written on the subject. At one point, a couple of us even got funds from the UN for an annual event but somehow it just fell apart. A holistic multidimensional inclusive conference would give us the opportunity to connect the dots and to move forward as a collective movement.

Other countries also have women’s studies. We don’t have those either. A lot may be going on in Pakistan in these fields but that too tends to be scattered.

We, especially in the metropolitan cities, however, are living in cocoons and bubbles. In Lahore, for instance, there is a bubble that is the M M Alam Road; there is a bubble that is the Defence Housing Authority (DHA); there is a bubble that is Bahria Town. I have no idea what those bubbles are looking for but if you talk to people living in those bubbles, they do not even know what anyone else is doing in Lahore. They have never gone to Anarkali. Some have never even seen the fort. They are the ones who say Allah Hafiz [instead of Khuda Hafiz]. They are the ones who get influenced by Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They are the ones who want personal liberties within a closed space. They are not interested in the [lower] classes at all. Yet they are the ones who define aspirations and ideologies with their control over consumer spending, the media, advertising, education and even health care.

Jahan. The civil society in Pakistan is facing many challenging issues such as sexuality and the treatment of religious minorities. Working on these issues creates backlash and involves risks in a traditional society like ours. How do you feel about that?

Khan. As far as sexuality is concerned, ASR took the position that sexual expression is a personal decision. In 1997-1998, a story started doing the rounds that ASR is a lesbian organisation and that there are lesbians working here. This rumour, plus other activities that ASR was involved in, propelled a minister in the Punjab government to accuse ASR of being anti-state, anti-government, anti-religion, anti-military and “leading women astray”. He said he knew what was happening behind the “closed doors” of ASR. Other women’s groups were charged for other illegal activities including corruption. The then chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, invited us to his office where the ‘charges’ were read out to the NGO representatives.

I responded by saying that if we were anti-state, there was a law that could be used to take us to court. As for being anti-government, I thought it was our constitutional right to be anti-government if a government is doing something that we disagree with. On being anti-religion, I said to Shahbaz Sharif that I never called him an infidel and I did not give him the permission to call me one. I said I did not have to answer to him on religion.

Then he began talking about the military. He kept going on about how they were building houses, roads and bridges. I said, yes, I opposed the military getting involved in any way in civilian affairs. I grew up in this house, I said, when my father was a martial law administrator. I was then 14 years old. If my own father could not convince me that I should be pro-army, you are not going to convince me when I am 54. But the minister kept accusing me of “enticing” women. I said that was just our job and there was nothing I could say to him about that. If two women like each other and are in a relationship that has nothing to do with ASR or the IWSL as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others.

As I age, I struggle to keep on top of my specificity. I increasingly wonder what I have achieved by coming back to Pakistan. I am lost.

I have kept bringing up the issue of sexuality and the sexual control of women with other women rights organisations. Whether it is women’s mobility or their marriages, it is women’s sexuality and agency that is controlled. Women’s bodies personify the symbols and markers of identity. Women carry and are meant to perpetuate religions, culture, tradition and, most importantly, lineage. Their sexual ‘purity’ ensures continuity of the bloodline of the family and the community. Only a woman knows if a child is the father’s. This purity, therefore, must be controlled at all levels.

My own understanding, based on Marxism, is that it is the sexual control of women and the control of women’s labour that is the seat of patriarchy. Women produce children but they also produce labour: outside the home and within where she fulfils multiple roles of wife and mother, teacher, cook, cleaner, washerwoman. We all say that we are against honour killing and that we need laws to prevent this but the notion of honour itself is seldom problematised.

In 1993 when WAF was preparing its position for the UN World Conference on Human Rights, it decided to change the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) through a feminist lens. On the question of the family, the WAF took the position that the UDHR should state that it supports “all forms of the family” implying that the heterosexual family is not the only form. However, while the WAF took what was a radical public position, it did not pursue this in terms of its own internalisation or activism. In 2006, the WAF included a discussion on sexualities in its national convention. I felt strongly that the issue of Lesbians Gays Bisexuals and Transsexuals (LGBTs) needed to be discussed, especially the silencing of lesbians. We needed to discuss this because there is a hierarchy even within the LGBT community. The most privileged ones are khawaja saras because people think of them as hermaphrodites who are what they are because they are born like that. Their presence has been acceptable in our culture since they guarded the harem of the kings and their courts. They are considered special people who can bless and curse others. Bisexual men have some legitimacy since while expressing their sexuality with men they also have relationships including wives and children; further down are male hom*osexuals since men have sexual desire and sexual expression; while at the bottom of the pile, we have lesbians.

Women are not meant to have sexual desire or sexual expression outside the heterosexual marriage. A woman in a relationship with another woman or lesbians as such challenge the very basic structure of marriage as a heterosexual union, and thus the family, society and the state. The WAF, however, tends to shy away from discussing this and tends to take marriage and the family as a given. Some members even argue that this is an upper-class conceptual understanding and has no reality on the ground or in other classes.

Also read: Not without a fight

Shortly afterwards, in 2007 there was the case of Shamail (a female to male transsexual) and Shahzina who got married despite family pressure. Both of them are from Faisalabad and from a lower-middle-class family. By taking this enormous step, while also challenging the very foundation of heterosexual marriage, quite apart from challenging patriarchy, religion and law. Their case went to the Lahore High Court (LHC). Interestingly, feminist lawyers did not offer legal support and, although some individual members gave some moral and financial support, the WAF did not support them as an organisation. The issue, they argued, was too ‘controversial’.

On the other hand, no maulvi raised his voice [against Shahzina and Shamail]. The court also did not bring in religion throughout the hearings because there is no mention in the Quran of the relationship between two women. And the law, too, does not refer to women. It is also not illegal to get a hysterectomy or mastectomy (as Shamail had done). The Chief Justice of the LHC, however, of his own volition levelled a charge of perjury and convicted them to three years each in jail. ASR supported them though the process and moved appeal in the Supreme Court, which gave them bail immediately and last year gave a judgement that the case should never have come to the court and that it should be wiped off the records.

We were initially working with the feminist principle that the personal is political. There was an enormous space for sharing of the personal with your fellow activists.

Subsequently, the Supreme Court gave a verdict that khawaja saras as a community are equal citizens before the law and need to be facilitated by the state. Several NGOs now have projects working with khawaja saras but, despite the fact that the court also gave a good judgement in Shazina and Shamail case, no organisation has focused on the oppression and silencing of women’s sexual or gender agency. Women are still silenced — even by activists of human and women’s rights.

Jahan. Do you ever feel threatened while working in the field?

Khan. No, not really. For example, I was in Chilas after the Shia killings at Karakoram. I was at the Shangrila Hotel where I was expecting a small group of people at a meeting. In the event about a hundred men showed up. Many of them had received money as compensation for the land taken away from them for building the Bhasha Dam, so they came driving their new SUVs. Since we were discussing the killing of Shias, the issue of Islam came up immediately. I told them I would only talk about Islam with Muslims. They were appalled; whereupon I asked them if they had given due share to their women from the compensation money because their wives, daughters and sisters had the right to have a share in accordance with Islamic tenets. They just listened in silence and no one said that I could not visit Chilas again. We started discussing the Shia killings and I wondered: if I had the same conversations with a maulvi in a city, he would have had me killed.

I did not feel that they would harm me or attack me. In Lahore, I would feel threatened because here the maulvis have so much control. One speech against me and anyone can come kill me. In that sense, I feel more vulnerable in the city.

Jahan. You must have faced a lot of challenges during your work. What were those challenges? Khan. In many ways, it has been a very lonely struggle. I have never been normal. My parents were both the only children of their parents so we have no aunts, uncles, cousins. None of my brothers and sisters or nieces or nephews are Pakistani citizen, with the exception of one who is a dual national. This is a very unusual situation to deal with. It was difficult for me even to get my identity card renewed because the officials asked who the head of my family was. I told them my parents left before the identity cards were introduced. I am not married, have no children, or any uncles, aunts or cousins. Then I realised that my legal status is in question. If I fall ill, no one can access my account, no one can pay my bills, no one has any legal authority to make decisions on my behalf. Now that I am getting older and illness is staring me in the face, all these aspects are beginning to matter. It has always been a problem for me to constantly assert my legitimacy in Pakistan since this society is so family-centric, but I had not understood the legal implications of this until [the identity card issue] alerted me to it. Additionally, there is a lot in me and ASR that is influenced by America — in that there are no class differences and everyone does everything for themselves and for others. So, in a lot of ways I have been out of the mainstream and it has been extremely lonely. Now it has become even lonelier because my friends have increasingly turned inward, or become conservative, or they move in social circles in which I am out of place.

I have epilepsy and I live alone so it can become dangerous. I am also bipolar and I take medicine for it. Fighting this to live a normal life has taken its toll. However, there is no one in my life who can understand what I have been going through. I mean, I have a lot of friends who take it for granted that I can handle things myself. I also have younger friends from different backgrounds but I am more of a mentor for them. As I age, I struggle to keep on top of my specificity, unusual circ*mstances are becoming even more difficult and now I increasingly wonder what I have achieved by coming back to Pakistan. I am lost.

Jahan. Yes, one can understand that because you have given every single minute of your life to a struggle.

Khan. I am the 24/7 type. I never stop in my personal life. I also believe that ASR is a space to do everything that I do in my personal life. If you can come to my house and drink then you can come to ASR and do the same. In that sense, I cannot separate the personal from the professional, or the private from the public.

Jahan. If you could do this all over again, what is it that you would do the same way and what is it that you would want to do differently?

Khan. If I was not kicked out of the Quaid-e-Azam University, I would have stayed in public-sector education. What I would do differently is to maintain my friendships better at a personal level. I am a critic, politically and personally, and of myself; I feel if I can say something about myself, I can say it about others, too. But that is not something that the others appreciate.

A friend once asked me if I had not returned from the United States, where would I be. This [made me think of] Pakistanis who work at American universities and write about Pakistan. They visit Pakistan for two weeks during the summer or winter breaks; meet a few friends, family, talk a bit to others, and/or even do a bit of research. I find many of them are highly opinionated as far as Pakistan is concerned.

They do not live the nuances, the contradictions. Had I not returned to Pakistan, I would have become like them, which is scary.

My father was very keen that I join the UN because I was in America. There was an opening at the time for an Asian woman educated in England and America. Had I taken that up, today I might have been a UN bureaucrat with a big pension. But I don’t think I would have lasted in that position because I am not a bureaucrat. I would have probably not managed many promotions. It is not a life that I want for myself. I cannot think of any life other than the one I have now.

I am in parts a New Yorker. There is a part of me that belongs to London. A lot in me is very Delhi-like. But the place which tears open my heart is where I am. I don’t know where else I can locate myself. This place makes me extremely angry but I have the greatest passion for it. It is, however, not so much a sense of belonging but more a feeling that Pakistan is where I wish a revolution to happen the most.

Opening photograph by Azhar Jafri.

This was originally published in Herald's February2016 issue. To read more subscribe to Herald in print.

If you happened to visit the Herald website where votes for the Person of the Year were being polled, you might have noticed that the image of one contender was conspicuous by its absence. That contender is none other than the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Altaf Hussain. You can write his name in print media, but publishing or broadcasting his image is forbidden, as is airing his speeches or statements.

That is quite a reversal of fortune for a man without whose mention a news bulletin would be incomplete, whose speeches – no matter how long and rambling – were telecast live and often without the otherwise sacrosanct commercial breaks. This fall from grace was, ironically enough, a result of those very speeches.

In late April last year, Hussain made a speech (nationally telecast, of course) in which he made some unsavoury comments about the Pakistan Army and its leadership. The reaction was immediate, with the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) warning that the matter would be “pursued legally”. Subsequently, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) issued show-cause notices to television channels that had aired the speech, barring them from airing what it called “inflammatory content”.

His criticism on television channels was unprecedented for a leader who had previously been chided only in the most oblique and coded language.

Undeterred, Hussain made another speech in July 2015, accusing the paramilitary rangers of the “atrocities being committed against Muhajirs” and alleging that the MQM workers were being extrajudicially killed. This time though, cases were lodged against him and some of his party members in several cities of Sindh and as far afield as Gilgit-Baltistan. The complainants accused him of wanting to destabilise the country. Some called for a complete ban on the MQM itself. Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan also joined the chorus, saying that Hussain’s remarks were “intolerable” and “unacceptable”.

A month later, Hussain delivered what was arguably his most provocative speech of the year. Addressing the MQM’s annual convention in Dallas, he called upon his workers to request North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) and the United Nations (UN) forces to go to Pakistan and investigate what he called the “atrocities” being committed against the MQM members, in particular, and the Urdu-speakers, in general. He also went on to use some unflattering language against the Pakistan Army.

In late August 2015, a full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) banned the live broadcast of his speeches and then, on September 7, directed Pemra to ban the broadcast of any and all images and speeches by him. Even his name was no longer to be mentioned. In October, a Gilgit-Baltistan antiterrorism court sentenced Hussain to 81 years of rigorous imprisonment and also ordered the confiscation of his properties due to his “anti-state” speeches.

While many of the MQM’s political opponents welcomed the move, advocates of free speech questioned the motivation behind the ban and the sentences. It may come as a surprise to these advocates that many in the MQM leadership breathed a sigh of relief at these bans, and not just because of the possible political benefits they could reap by, once again, portraying the party and its leaders as the undeserving recipients of the state’s suppression.

“If the establishment had really wanted to take him down they should have demanded he give a speech at the top of every hour, live and unedited,” quips a somewhat disgruntled MQM leader in a private conversation. The sentiment echoes, though never spoken out loud, among a surprising number of MQM supporters — an admission that Hussain’s outbursts had become increasingly difficult to manage, let alone spin.

From his May 2013 speech warning of bloodshed and violence to his unpalatable remarks against a senior female leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Shireen Mazari, his harangues had long since crossed over from being eccentric to being plain irrational. Each time he spoke, the MQM’s spokesmen would privately gnash their teeth at the thought of having to defend his utterances on air.

When it came to the Dallas address, even these skilled spin doctors, having tried and failed at the usual techniques of distraction and deflection, opted for the “well, what he really meant to say was” strategy. No one bought it.

Also read: Satire — Diary of Altaf Hussain

But just as his incendiary speeches had been giving diminishing and negative returns for the last several years, so were the other weapons in the MQM’s political arsenal: the strike and the walk out. Strikes have become less effective, though one reason for that could be that they have long since played a part in alienating even long-time MQM supporters. The party’s resignations from parliament also only caused a temporary talk show storm, with business continuing as usual in Karachi for the most part.

Though they may defend these policies in public, many MQM leaders in private acknowledge the damage some moves by Hussain have made. These moves, they point out, are one reason why the PTI made such inroads in Karachi during the 2013 general election. This begs the question: has anyone in the MQM leadership tried to convey to Hussain that the path he is on is damaging the party itself?

“We tried, but he does not listen and gets angry with us,” says one MQM parliamentarian. “The result is that no one wants to tell him the truth about the situation on the ground and the ones with access to him tell him what he wants to hear.”

Hussain reportedly gets most of his information from those close to him at the MQM’s London office. And then, of course, there are television channels.

Each time he spoke, the MQM’s spokesmen would privately gnash their teeth at the thought of having to defend his utterances on air.

Party sources say when some local channels recently ran tickers about certain MQM parliamentarians wanting to leave the party or set up an alternative group, Hussain called them and upbraided them based on television news alone. “If he believed that, then shouldn’t he also believe it when channels run news about the party’s links with RAW [Research and Analysis Wing]?” asks an MQM parliamentarian. Did he actually put that question to Hussain? “Of course not,” comes the reply.

He claims to have learned the futility of dissent when some members of MQM in Karachi proposed to Hussain that he leave the day-to-day running of the party to them and become a titular leader. There was no need, they argued, for him to make a statement on every single issue.

The backlash wasn’t long in coming. Many of these members had to lose their party posts.

The unwillingness to let go stems from Hussain’s own history and that of his MQM. Having transformed the party, almost singlehandedly, from a student organisation to a political juggernaut that holds Karachi in a death grip – besides playing the kingmaker at the national level every now and then – Hussain cannot fathom the thought of losing control over the party’s affairs. Adding to this is the expatriate syndrome: One’s image of the homeland becomes frozen in the long years of living abroad. “[Hussain] is so used to doing things a certain way that he doesn’t realise that times have changed and the tactics of the past cannot be used anymore,” says the MQM parliamentarian.

Even in England, 2015 has not been a good year for Hussain. With every summons to a British police station, there is corresponding media frenzy in Pakistan. His criticism on television channels was unprecedented for a party and a leader who had previously been chided only in the most oblique and coded language. And this, too, came as a shock for the ailing Hussain. “The cases against him have added to his health problems,” says a long-standing MQM leader who also suggests that Hussain’s legal problems may be more serious than most imagine.

“[Hussain’s] legal woes have compelled the MQM leaders to think seriously [about a post-Hussain scenario]. It is not known publicly but a committee comprising some senior members at the party’s international secretariat in London has been given some power to run the party affairs in case anything happens to him,” says a senior Karachi-based reporter Zia Rehman.

Also read: Person of the Year 2015—Sabeen Mahmud

Whether a London-based committee would be acceptable to the MQM leadership at large is uncertain, but Hussain is certainly not going to appoint a single successor the party can rally around. There are no official succession plans as such, says Peshimam. “What I can say is that many senior and popular MQM faces have thought long and hard about their exit plans; should matters get out of hand post-Hussain, many have plans in place.”

Ironically, the MQM’s recent success in local government elections is only adding to the worries among the senior party leaders. “[Hussain] may well take this success as an endorsem*nt of his modus operandi. Certainly, that is what the yes-men will tell him and that is what he will likely believe,” says an MQM member. “There will be no hope of getting him to step back or change his ways.”

Also read: Waseem Akhtar—The party man

He also suggests that Waseem Akhtar’s nomination as the next Karachi mayor is an indication that Hussain only wants to further strengthen his position within the party rather than relaxing his control. Akhtar can be seen vociferously and aggressively defending his party chief on television screen every now and then, even though the security establishment has already shown its displeasure over his nomination by booking him in a number of cases.

Such a confrontational, but extremely loyal, person as Karachi’s mayor suits Hussain best in his upcoming battles with the Sindh government, on the one hand (over the local governments’ role and powers), and with the security establishment (over law and order in Karachi), on the other. “Akhtar’s nomination shows that the MQM is in a confrontational mode,” says Rehman.

And that is as true for the party as it is for its chief.

This was originally published in the Herald's Annual 2016 issue. To read more subscribe to the Herald in print.

Nasir Jamal: How do you know General Raheel Sharif and since when have you known him?

Pervez Musharraf: Firstly, his elder brother Shabbir Sharif and I were course mates. But apart from being just course mates, Shabbir Sharif was also a good friend. In the final term of the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Kakul, there are appointments to sort careers. He was an honour student and was the battalion senior under officer. I was also in the run and I was a battalion junior officer. Our rooms were right next to each other in the academy. No cadet could pass in front of our rooms. It was a custom in PMA that no one could walk in front of our rooms as a show of respect. Whichever room we visited, everyone would stand up before us.

That’s how we became close and although he went into infantry and I went into artillery, our friendship continued. This is how I knew him [Raheel Sharif] — as Shabbir Sharif's brother. When I was Major General in Okara – as General Officer Commanding (GOC) – he was a brigade commander there. Obviously, everyone in a brigade does not report to the GOC, only the brigade commander does.

I was about to make him my Military Secretary (MS) when I was President and Chief of Army Staff. I had already selected him and he was about to join, but the other military secretaries of the army told me about a course at the Royal Institute of Defence Studies. It is a top-level course, and I say that by experience since I was once part of it. The Crown Prince of Thailand was there, the future President of Barbados was also there along with the Air Chief of Mozambique. So this is the calibre of that course. This is why I didn’t make him my MS, because I thought he should attend this course.

Jamal: Tell me a little about when his brother (Shabbir Sharif) was martyred and you went to his place and told him that, “You are not alone in this, I’m here; I’m your older brother.”

Musharraf: Yes, I did go to meet him as an older brother and said whatever was necessary.

Jamal: Were you in contact with him after you stepped down from the presidency?

Musharraf: No, after that I went abroad. So other than the occasional conversation, I did not have any contact with him. This is because I didn’t want to embarrass him. You know about the political victimisation that exists in Pakistan and the overall political climate after my departure.

Jamal: Obviously, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was your immediate successor. But when you were choosing your successor, if you had the choice of Kayani and Raheel Sharif, who would you have chosen?

Musharraf: In hindsight, I would have chosen Raheel Sharif most definitely.

Muhammad Badar Alam: What would be the reason for that?

Musharraf: Look, Raheel has certain qualities. Firstly, he is a thorough gentleman. In PMA, we are taught that we are not only cadets; we are gentlemen first and then cadets. So, he is a gentleman, in terms of his character and dealing. He is refined and cultured and knows how to carry himself and how to talk like a commander.

Jamal: So he is a leader, and not just a commander?

Musharraf: Yes, that is absolutely right. Everyone in the army knows operational strategy and tactics. You get to know about the true qualities of a soldier when you are at a time of war and there is a threat of dying. When there are bullets being sprayed everywhere. This is the moment, when such a man is followed by others.

Also read: The military’s image-building campaign and its consequences

Alam: Do you think he has provided the kind of leadership you are talking about during the entire Zarb-e-Azb operation?

Musharraf: Yes, certainly. I think a lot of big people out there will be terrified to go to the places he visits. They will be scared about getting blown in their helicopters in these sensitive areas. It’s not easy if there is a machine gunner sitting somewhere and he shoots down your helicopter. But Raheel Sharif has tremendous guts.

Jamal: In the last year, there has been a peak in his popularity, even outside the military. But there is also criticism that the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has run an extremely sustained campaign in this regard. Did you ever feel you were so popular?

Musharraf: I knew I was popular. However, in 2007, I also knew my popularity was going down. We get the pulse from the bottom; intelligence agencies provide us with data and reports about what the public opinion is. This is one of the most important things commanders need to know, who they are and where they stand. I knew the importance of this.

When you say his popularity is linked to the ISPR’s campaign … I would just say it is best not to overdo it because then there are negative consequences of such actions. His popularity is inherent irrespective of his pictures being on show or not … people have come up to me and have been critical about these pictures, giving negative remarks … I think they should refrain from doing this because he is already popular and by doing things like this, people start talking.

Alam: Why do you think he is popular among the people outside the military?

Musharraf: I think the biggest reason is his action against terrorism. Operation Zarb-e-Azb is no doubt the single biggest factor. You can see that the entire nation was behind this operation; the only people against it were religious fanatics.

One of the biggest reasons for his popularity is that he targeted the roots of the terrorists. I say ‘roots’ because in North Waziristan they had an indoctrination centre. They used to indoctrinate suicide bombers … [and] provide them training.

Also other than the fight against terror, Raheel Sharif is now involved in eliminating corruption, which is another curse in our society responsible for not allowing our nation to progress. Instead, it is heading backwards.

Jamal: Have you ever thought about how the civil government’s weaknesses have resulted in Raheel Sharif's popularity?

Musharraf: Yes, absolutely. In between their weaknesses and misdoings, there is one person — in fact, an entire organisation’s head. The fact that he speaks against them makes him popular. There is this huge ocean of corruption and nepotism which is engulfing the nation. Therefore, if there is a person who is against this whole process and is standing up to this, he is bound to be popular.

Alam: If we examine the flip side of this, we can see a number of people who are critical of the military’s intervention or interference in these sectors. Do you think this is a positive sign for the development of a stable, democratic Pakistan?

Musharraf: Theoretically, it is not. The government should have a thorough foreign policy and should do everything themselves. But I believe in Pakistan first. Pakistan is going on a downward spiral, Pakistani people are becoming shabby and there are no checks and balances. There are no constitutional checks.

Look at Australia; in five years, five prime ministers have changed there. There was a check there. They wanted to change a prime minister for whatever reason and they changed him. Over here, the Pakistan People’s Party phased through five years and I don’t think there will be a single Pakistani who would praise that term other than their own people.

Why were they not replaced?

Then people come running to the army. In my own experience, when I was chief for one year, the situation wasn’t as serious as it is today, but even in those days people used to come up to me and say: why don’t you take over? What are you waiting for — for Pakistan to finish?

At that time, we only had $400 million left in our national reserves, our economy was completely shattered. In this instance, people ran after the army; [we were] in a fix. It’s difficult to find constitutional solutions to deal with these issues, so that the army doesn’t need to intervene. Why should the army come forward? It shouldn’t. I’m a strong believer of that. But, Pakistan comes first and we cannot let Pakistan get ruined by sticking to the rules. Everything is for Pakistan. All rules and the entire constitution is for Pakistan; Pakistan is not for the constitution.

Alam: So do you think this is a manifestation of his [Raheel Sharif’s] personality and leadership? Is it the military’s collective desire as well as his personal?

Musharraf: The military follows the chief. Our army is extremely disciplined. Luckily, we are not a banana republic. There is a chief who directs. There are conferences like Corp Commander Conferences and Principal Staff Officer Conferences where people speak their mind. People have this misconception that the chief is a dictator. People talk in these conferences more democratically than most other places in the country. However, the chief reserves the final word and gives orders irrespective of whatever discussion people are having.

Jamal: It is said that the military is taking over certain functions of the foreign policy and even internal policy. Is that a desire of the military establishment or is the chief’s assessment also present here?

Musharraf: Absolutely, the chief functions like that. The fact is that everything is analysed in the army. There are two directorates, the Military Operation (MO) directorate and Military Intelligence (MI) directorate; and apart from this the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) provides input regularly.

Another thing, since you brought up foreign relations and the army chief going on foreign visits to meet heads of states, the fact is that in international affairs, there is a big interrelation between domestic performance and foreign relations. Your international standing is directly proportional to your domestic performance. You are not living in a vacuum. If you want to progress socially and economically, your international reputation should be good. This is linked to investments and other influences like debt servicing. Our debt services were the greatest in 1999-2000. I saw that five to six billion dollars were going in debt servicing annually. We tried to find out where all this money was going and found out it was going to Paris because of a 12.5 billion dollar loan we had taken out from them. After that, the process included meeting them, rescheduling the debt and finally writing it off. This happens when you have a standing domestically.

However, our own leaders are unable to do this or influence this — for example, when America announced to stop the Coalition Support Fund. Why? The fact is that when these aircrafts, helicopters and tanks operate, millions of dollars are spent to maintain them. This is not a small expense from any dimension. The ammunition that is required for all these operations needs to be supported by someone.

So considering all of these things, I think about Pakistan first. If the government cannot meet these requirements and the army chief is helping out, what's the harm?

Also read: Operation overkill: How not to improve law and order in Karachi

Alam: Do you think Raheel Sharif is following the same principle: Pakistan First?

Musharraf: Most certainly. Another thing I wanted to add earlier was that these policies and strategies … if [they] are not being properly designed at the top or implementation at the bottom is not happening, people at the bottom start making their own strategies since no action is being taken from the top. Obviously, foreign policy is something the civilian government and the foreign affairs department are responsible for. But if their strategies were actually working, why would anyone interfere?

Let’s take the fight against terrorism, as an example. Why isn’t the government saying to go and kill them? I remember back in 2007, in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah became active and, in the south, Baitullah Mehsud was involved in terrorism. The six southern districts that we have which include Kohat, Bannu and Lakki Marwat were all affected by terrorism. The government over there was of Maulana Fazlur Rehman. I asked them to requisition the forces. They just wouldn’t. They didn’t allow the troops to go there. Now, you tell me, what should I have done? The government was silent. Then I sent them a message. I will be frank here; I made sure that they deployed troops there. We had to forcefully do it. Then I sent two divisions, one from Gujranwala and the other from Okara to Swat and Bannu.

We had a discussion at the MO directorate [whether] to strike them together or one by one and we decided to take them one by one. We thought it best to first take care of Swat and then head south. We finished off Swat in 2007.

After that, the elections took place and the Awami National Party (ANP) came to power. When the ANP arrived, they reversed our policy of pressure; they just stopped it. Sufi Muhammad, who was earlier in custody in Lady Reading Hospital, was allowed to come back and he declared jihad as soon as he was back.

If you look at the time period between March and April 2008 till October and November 2008, they burnt 13 girls’ schools and the beautiful ski resort of Malam Jabba. Once again, there was silence. Then people finally woke up and called on the army and the army took action. But it was too late at that point. We had one million internally displaced refuges. When the army attacked Swat, there was vast destruction, loss of life and property. There was no action from the civil government.

What Raheel Sharif has done in North Waziristan is that since the civilian government did not give any orders, he forcibly gave orders. Technically, you can say this was wrong of him to do, but I say Pakistan comes first. He did absolutely right.

Jamal: I am sure a number of people agree with whatever you are saying, but don’t you think it would have been more feasible that the civilian government was taken into confidence and kept in a leadership role?

Musharraf: I’m very sure that a lot of people would have been saying this. The ISI’s job entails telling the chief the reality of whatever is going on. It is important to note that the impact of this [operation] was not only domestic, but it was affecting things internationally. Our reputation was diminishing fast. Afghanistan was angry with us, the whole world was. America was saying horrible things about us and even China. I’m completely positive about the fact that the ISI gave the civilian government a briefing and I can also say the army must have given them one too. The army always invites them to come to GHQ and we will tell you what the ground reality is. It must have taken place for sure; it would only be possible to start the operation after that. But till when can you say no and stay quiet? It’s a judgment call that you sit for a year and wait for Pakistan to get destroyed. So this is a judgment call and the buck stops at the chief. The chief is a lonely man. On top, everything is very lonely.

Alam: You are saying that the army chief is a lonely figure because he has to make all these calls and then take responsibility for them?

Musharraf: Decision making is a Napoleonic theory. Two-thirds of every decision consists of analysis and data input from the ISI and the MI, whichever intelligence organisation you choose. The last third is basically carefully evaluating the data and making a decision.

Jamal: Whatever his decision is, [is that on] his shoulders completely?

Musharraf: Yes. In civilian governments, there is always an element of blaming someone else. However, in the military, if you take the decision it’s your responsibility, since you are the leader. You are solely responsible. Irrespective of whom you got advice from, because the final decision is yours to make. If the impact of the decision means that the prime minister is displeased or the government will not be happy, he will still have to make the decision depending on what he thinks best. This is the time no one will help you.

Jamal: The 'two-thirds' part is already established at this stage, so when you had to do the 'one-third' part, how did you go about it?

Musharraf: As they say in the military, the remaining third is always a leap in the dark. In that they say the leader should be lucky and its either his gut reaction or sixth sense on which he makes his decision.

Jamal: Jamal: Do you think General Kayani had that in him?

Musharraf: Maybe he did suffer from… paralysis by analysis.

Alam: So you think there is more decision-making power in General Raheel Sharif?

Musharraf: Yes, I think so.

Jamal: Is the decision-making power in him similar to what you used to have?

Musharraf: In my opinion, yes.

Jamal: Meaning that in making a decision, like you, he is not afraid either?

Musharraf: Yes, I think so. The operation in North Waziristan was a big decision, it was not something small. Not a small decision at all. It’s not easy to kill so many people using tanks, helicopters and aircrafts. It’s not easy to kill thousands of people, especially because they are your own people.

Making this decision by going to villages and killing people is a tough task. I also used to think about the place where the operation happened. I also wanted to go there. We had a general called Tariq Khan. I had assigned him to that place. He was fully prepared. But there was only one problem he found while planning: all these places were very small towns in which the terrorists had infiltrated … and – obviously – there would be collateral damage.

Also read: Person of the Year 2015

Alam: Civil-military relations are extremely fractured at the moment. This has been going on and there is immense friction. In eight to nine months, General Raheel Sharif is going to retire. A number of people predict this to be 1999 all over again. What do you say?

Musharraf: What happened with me is beyond imagination. If someone cannot even think and reach to that conclusion, that [a general] was coming back from Sri Lanka and his plane was not allowed to land, I have no words.

Now, talking about a repetition of 1999, as I said, my wish is that this civilian government continues to function properly, but there have been so many distortions that there is a need for a major reformation. We need reformation in the political system because there are no checks and balances in the government. Corruption and nepotism is the biggest curse and how should we stop it if the government is itself involved in it. They don’t see anyone beyond their relatives and dear friends and colleagues. They just want to have them work in big offices.

In 1999-2000 when I selected 14 ministers, I had never even seen the faces of 12 of them. My brother is extremely brilliant, he was a Karachi Electric Supply Company officer, but I didn’t place him anywhere. I had other very capable relatives; my own son went to Stanford, but I didn’t place him.

However, for these politicians, they can’t see beyond realities, beyond their friends.

Alam: Assume if General Raheel Sharif retires and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tries to choose the next general on his own terms. Is it then possible to have a repeat of what happened in 1999?

Musharraf: No, it’s the constitutional right of the prime minister to appoint the army chief. The military will not react; he [Nawaz Sharif] will choose whoever he wishes. We can only pray that he appoints the best from the top people and he does not appoint someone by just considering the person he thinks will listen to him the most.

Jamal: The last thing I want to ask you is that you had an interview on Dunya TV in which you said General Raheel Sharif should be given extension for another term. What was the basis for that?

Musharraf: In the same interview, they asked me if I think that other people are not capable, this is a double-edged weapon. They are obviously capable, all of them. Like I said, if someone becomes lieutenant general, there is only a marginal difference between him and the others, there is no doubt about that. Professionally, there might not be a big difference but the qualities of head and heart, as I talked about earlier, that is where there is a substantial difference. Now, you have a man who has exceptional qualities of head and heart, which are proven. And considering the times we are going through in Pakistan, Raheel Sharif is a perfect fit. Why should we remove and disturb him?

This interview was conducted in December 2015 as part of the Herald's Annual issue, in which General Raheel Sharif was a nominee for the title of Person of the Year. Sharif's profile appears in the Herald's Annual issue. To read more, subscribe to the Herald in print.

It seems that Jamshed Mahmood, lovingly called Jami by his friends, peers and followers, was born for cinema. Seduced by the light, or some may say the ‘dark side’ after watching Star Wars in 1977 — he studied film from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, USA and in 1998 returned to his hometown, Karachi, to form his production company Azad Film Company. Over the years, he has been prolifically directing television commercials, becoming a part of the second generation of ‘Young Turks’ who reinvigorated the visual language of television commercials and music videos in the early nineties.

Paradoxically, and perhaps quite ingeniously, Jami has straddled the very shaky line between being an advertiser and an activist, using the experience and financial gains from the former to inform and support the latter. First in the form of gritty, expressionist (and award-winning) music videos and now, over the last few years, through producing and directing soulful and socially aware cinema. He was associate producer for Zinda Bhaag and he directed O21 in 2014. Now, of course, he has directed Moor, Pakistan’s submission for the 2015 Oscars.

For many years, I have observed his work closely and curiously, and have been deeply moved by the earthy, provocative imagery, the culturally informed symbolism and the apparently non-linear narrative. So often I have been emotionally stirred, yet confounded, by his work. After watching Moor twice, I decided to zoom out and look at his work in a continuum. The tapestry of his vision becomes much clearer when we see each specific work as a fluid constituent of a solid whole.

With Jami, the private has become public. All his work is imbued with his personal value system. He is an ideologue and a dreamer, a craftsman and a believer in process. He is swayed by a deep sense of social justice. You can taste the soil in his work. Be Pakistani, buy Pakistani and create Pakistani is the mantra you get when you interact with him. This deep, abiding love for his motherland is apparent in the narratives and textures of his work, in his online and on-ground activism, in the classrooms of the film schools in Karachi and Balochistan that he teaches in, and in the team of film-makers that he has mentored.

Overshadowed for a while by other commercial directors who favour gloss over grit, polish over authenticity, Jami finally seems to have gained his rightful place in the pantheon of Pakistani film-making. With his third film almost ready for release, Moor on its way to the Busan International Film Festival and the Oscars, and a number of other films in the pipeline, he is taking no hostages. Pakistani cinema is ready to impress itself upon the world stage and it seems Jami, both the individual and the movement, is primed to lead the charge.

Here are excerpts from a conversation with him:

Adnan Malik. Do you think a film coming out of Pakistan carries a certain unspoken burden of responsibility, given the kind of negative attention we get in the global arena?

Jami. I think internal pressure is more [than the external one]. Global pressure is there as [international audiences] are expecting a certain type of cinema from us. They want us to do films on women-bashing, bomb blasts and terrorism. If you give in to that pressure, you start thinking about making those types of films. Film-makers should not worry about such things. They should just tell the stories that they want to tell.

When we started making Moor in 2011, the business executives soon started asking about the feasibility of the project, about how much money the film is projected to make, what kind of budget it requires, how many item songs there are in it. I did not know the answer to these questions but I believed that I must say things that I wanted to say. I knew that the time was right to start working on the film as opposed to waiting until the film industry was fully formed. I expected that 2015 will be the time when it would be possible for a film like Waar to be made in Pakistan. I was not expecting it in 2013. That was the biggest game changer. We knew this revival will happen but no one could anticipate that it will happen this quickly.

One important pressure that we must mention is from the cinema halls. The biggest multiplex in Karachi gave Moor an 11 am show on weekends. That reflects the cinema owners’ belief that this is an art-house film so it needs to be taken out of the way. But whether it is an art film or not, give it a fair chance with the right kind of timings. What the cinemas are doing is giving you a signal, a clear one, that “do not mess with us; your film needs to make money for us”. This is their way of subtly holding you down and saying “next time, have a good look at the content; there must be some halla gulla, horseplay”. I kept telling them that no one is going to watch a film at 11 am on a weekend. They also slotted Moor for a 3 pm show on weekdays. This is a time when most people are at work. How are they supposed to watch it at 3 pm?

Malik. Moor has not done very well financially despite receiving immense critical praise. Do you now want to make a film that can make money?

Jami. I can see my life and my career going somewhere like, say, Terry Gilliam’s [has gone]. I just hope I do not have to suffer as much as he did but nobody talks about the money he made. They always talk about his content. Same was the case with my first film, O21. If you go on the IMDb webpage, you will see that it got 8.1 rating and thousands of reviews [yet it did not make much money].

Malik. But O21 was not completely your film.

Jami. A lot of people think that but I take immense ownership of that film. Honestly, we retained only three to four scenes from what [Australian director, writer and actor] Summer Nicks had shot for O21. We reshot and changed the rest. It took 11 months to reshoot and rewrite everything. I take credit for that film because it was so heavily criticised and people don’t take ownership of projects of that kind.

Coming back to Moor, right now no one is asking me about the box office earnings. They are talking about the story, the sub plots and the narrative. If this becomes my career style then this is what the audience will expect from me, like Vishal Bhardwaj’s films. In some ways, I consider myself like him. He has some great work that became a hit and there are other films that did not do so well. I feel he sold himself by putting in a song like Beedi Jalaile in Omkara. It is always quite apparent when the pressure to make money is playing on a film-maker’s mind. But, eventually, the artist within him snaps and he creates Haider, where he does not give two hoots about using commercial gimmicks. It will be very interesting if people say Moor did not make money but it was a good film, so let us see what the director does next.

Malik. We live in the digital era where you can make films quite cheaply and they can be very successful. The film’s commercial success actually depends on the content and the way a story is told. The first film that really did this was The Blair Witch Project; a low budget film which ended up making a lot of money. So, the potential is there

Jami. Good work will do well anywhere. In the 1980s, we saw no film like Robert Rossen’s The Hustler or Alan J Pakula’s All the President’s Men or Sholay by Ramesh Sippy. What happened after the 1970s was that the bankers and the business executives entered film-making. They said the story could go to the dumps; it is all about the marketing and the packaging. This is exactly what is happening now.

Malik. Yes, now upto 70 per cent of a film’s budget can go into marketing.

Jami. And that is very scary. I call this the Monster Inc formula where they used fear to create energy but did not use the laughing technique, which could give them triple that energy. A film like PK proves that a good story is where the game is. It has no bandi (girl) in it and yet it earned 500 crore rupees.

Malik. What, then, do you think is the role of a film-maker in a society?

Jami. They need to take responsibility. I mean Stanley Kubrick did this with A Clockwork Orange. When, after the film’s release, London experienced immense rise in crime, he pulled it off the cinemas. It is wrong to say that film-makers do not have moral responsibilities. You can reject your work even if the audience likes it. The audience, too, needs to speak. Someone said at a premiere the other day that we should all come out to support Pakistani cinema. I disagree. Come out to support good work. Come out to see a good film. Don’t make it seem like we need charity.

Malik. You seem to come from that school of film-making which believes storytelling is important because cinema has a role in shaping people’s values. That it is hugely influential, it can mythologise people and it can turn them into national heroes. Cinema has also had a kind of corrupting effect but it can have a very positive effect, too. Do you believe cinema has the power to influence minds?

Jami. Hitler and Stalin knew this, too. To completely control a society, cinema is the biggest thing you can have. A good film embeds an idea in people’s minds. This is how branding also works since it embeds the idea of a product in the minds of the audience. There is another thing called forced brand placement in a film. That has completely taken over and everyone seems to be alright with it. How can you be okay with brand placement in a film? I just do not understand. Why aren’t people protesting against it already? It is dangerous that the audiences are not raising a voice against it.

Malik. After the National Film Development Corporation (Nafdec) became defunct, we had no real guidelines or policy regarding cinema content. Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) generally does moral policing. That really leaves the corporate sector as the main funding source of films in Pakistan. That is why the brand is king and so far has dominated the few films that have come out. What is the ideal balance here?

Jami. An ideal situation will emerge once these films with brand placements fail badly at the box office. Only then they will learn. But it needs to happen a few times at a stretch.

Malik. In most recent cases, brand placement has not been integrated into the story; it is very abrupt. People feel pinched by it. Brands, too, might be realising that this does not necessarily work. Will you consider it if a big brand approaches you for placement in your next film?

Jami. We had such a situation in O21. A mobile phone seller was interested in brand placement. For me, having that discussion was almost like having an argument. I said the film could not have the protagonist holding a particular mobile phone that denotes a certain social class. That will take the character out of the film. It will change my story. I said: “Just don’t change the content of the film or its premise. Apart from that you can do as you please.”

Malik. But obviously those who have put in their money in the film also need to make money and the brands are willing to provide that money.

Jami. Product placement can be tolerated if it is done in a sophisticated manner. If brands are entering a film and they are not sophisticated in how they choose to be presented, then the industry will never be able to get out of [its bad impacts].

Malik. How have they done it in India? We must learn from them. The legal screening of Indian films is what initially kick-started this revival of Pakistani cinema. Their import has led to more cinemas opening in Pakistan and this has increased the market for local films, also. It is, therefore, important to look at Indian cinema and learn what we can.

We knew revival will happen but no one could anticipate that it will happen this quickly.

Jami. Agreed. But we don’t watch 90 per cent of Indian cinema because it doesn’t even reach us. I am certain they do the same. One needs to maintain a balance. You have to sustain financially but with discipline. If [moneymaking] is done without discipline then this industry is going to suffer a most unfortunate fate. Ten years ago naach gana (song and dance)led to the downfall of this industry. Now just by having good lighting design, you cannot repackage the same stuff. Same is the case with brand placement. Eventually all this will backfire.

Malik. You have vociferously spoken out against ‘item numbers ‘. Why is it such an important issue for you?

Jami. If I want to sell something, I can do that in television commercials. On a 50-foot screen, you are shooting this half-naked woman who is okay with four hundred men around her. She is happy and she is singing, “I am a tandoori chicken; eat me”. A demand is created for this kind of dance and song. It is as simple as that.

Malik. So you are saying it basically objectifies women and is selling sex...

Jami. Every time you put in an item number, you are touching those sexually frustrated people. They think that the girl who is wearing jeans cannot be a good girl. They are not sophisticated enough to not think that.

Malik. Are you saying item numbers encourage crime? They create a wrong impression of women in our society?

Jami. I cannot exactly say they encourage crime but I am sure they create sexual frustration. Sexual frustration is like cigarettes. The manufacturers know that some people need cigarettes. They, therefore, put tar in them which gets the smokers hooked. Item numbers do serve some purpose. For me, that purpose is connected to some kind of a crime. I cannot prove it, but just imagine a girl leaving work to head home at 12 in the night, she crosses a cinema where a show has just ended and the boys are completely out of control. In that kind of a situation, an item song may lead to crime. It will also determine how male filmgoers view an urban working woman in our society.

Malik. Bollywood has its own identity; Iranian films, too, have got their own identity. What are your hopes for Pakistani cinema? How should it be seen in the world? What are the stories we should be telling about ourselves?

Jami. What are our strengths? [Television serials such as] Tanhaiyan and Ankahi were completely original. Now we are doing a copy paste of Indian cinema. In India, they make a film in 100 crore rupees. You recycle the same material and try to present it in a three crore rupee budget. It will not work.

Malik. Then what should we do?

Jami. Well, you have to have your own storytelling style whatever that may be. I do not know if that style is Shah or Moor or Manto but the cycle needs to continue. Storytelling needs to happen. Films like Manto need to keep getting made. That is the key. This process should not be choked.

Malik. At such an early stage of the re-emergence of cinema in Pakistan, we get to see three mature films. That is a very positive sign. These are very sophisticated films...

Jami. One needs to look at how these films are being handled. Shah was not handled properly. It barely had any publicity from its media partners. The film-maker was editing the film himself. Help him out, at least see what he is doing. If he had to put every poster himself then that is madness. My point is that our identity is films like Shah, Moor and Manto. These should be treated as assets.

I think we are developing our voice. If a film like Manto is making money then that solves the problem. But if a film-maker doesn’t get a fair opportunity to make money then I have a problem with that.

Someone said at a premiere the other day that we should all come out to support Pakistani cinema. I disagree. Come out to support good work. Come out to see a good film. Don’t make it seem like we need charity.

Malik. Let us get to the personal. There is such an apparent dichotomy in Jami: he is an advertising man and he is also an activist film-maker. You have a strong opinion about things. Your films are a form of activism. How does this work for you?

Jami. Advertising is important because doing commercials helps me get money. When I was in New York doing the mixing for Jinnah’s Urdu version, I could not board a bus once because I did not have the money to buy a ticket to reach back home from Times Square. I had three dollars on me, I stood there warming myself from the heat emitted by the subway. It was then that I realised that I needed to have money if I wanted to remain a film-maker. And if I wanted to stay a film-maker, then I would have to do television commercials to stay in practice.

Malik. To keep honing the craft..

Jami. Constantly. I became known for jumping in to commercials with a very non-business idea. I was shooting ads in a very music video-like manner.

Malik. There was a whole group of directors doing that in the early 2000s, right? Saqib Malik, Asim Raza, Ahsan and Amina, Asad and Waqas..

Jami. Yes, it was a complete movement. It is important to understand in your mind that there is branded life and then there is unbranded life. A complete cut-off between the two versions of yourself is very important. In film, you cannot mix the two.

Malik. So you keep your film-making activism separate from your commercial work?

Jami. Yes, you have to be brutally honest. I don’t do fizzy drink ads. I just can’t. I read the research and it is very deadly. Same is the case with fairness creams. I just cannot advertise these products. Even within that grey zone, ad makers have their own philosophies.

Malik. I have been a big fan of your music videos from the very start but I never really wrapped my head around them narratively. There is a lot of symbolism but there isn’t a clear-cut arc. What are your inspirations in making work like that? How do you translate what you do in music video into a feature film?

Jami. Someone once asked Steven Spielberg how he comes up with amazing ideas like E.T. He responded saying that he has a child inside him which he keeps alive. Whenever there are meetings, it is that child who provides him with ideas, honest ideas. But here, people come on to you so strongly and are so critical that it does not feel like you are working in a free space. When I made the video for Ali Azmat’s song Deewana, people were like what the hell is this. Deewana technically is Citizen Kane. His empire becomes so huge that he wants somebody to come and kill him. People didn’t understand it but I know my boundaries; I can recognise the point when something will become too much for the audience to take in. I have done 50 edits of Moor just to see how much I can push the boundaries. Now people may say they did not understand which flashback was for which character. For the international release, however, the film has been edited differently and has become completely linear. It was brutally shocking to see.

Malik. How can you be okay with that?

Jami. The [editors] think this is what sells. I was resolute about keeping my own version for the Pakistan and India release. I also made sure that the version sent for the Oscars is mine.

Malik. When I saw Moor, my first comment was this is contemporary Pakistani cinema’s first contribution to world cinema. It is unique and I have not seen anything quite like it from Pakistan before. I had to see it twice to understand it. And now you are telling me you re-edited it for its international screening. This is shocking to me.

Jami. A few distributors said they would not accept a non-linear film. Here we are talking about the pressure that we started this conversation with.

Malik. Do you think Moor is your most complete work? Is this the clearest voice of Jami so far?

Jami. For the first time, I am enjoying the audiences’ reactions to the film. When people walk out after having watched Moor, their reactions are very fulfilling and you feel like the circle is completed; that all those theories floating in your mind are connecting. Maybe it is because the story is simple.

Malik. When I talk to people about Moor, their first comment is that the cinematography, symbolism and the emotions are its strength; but they also say they did not understand the story and that editing is just confusing, if not just plain bad. Naturally, I don’t agree with that. When I first saw Moor, I was moved by it deeply but I did not know why. When I saw it the second time, the narrative appeared much sharper and the editing made more sense. When I tell this to people, they say: “But a good film should tell you the story in the very first watching.”

Jami. I had to watch Inception 10 times. There is no formula that a good film should only be seen once and should tell the story in the very first watching.

Malik. More than any other film from Pakistan, maybe even from the subcontinent, Moor is structured in a way that it asks the audience to get involved and invest themselves intellectually. It doesn’t provide easy answers. People aren’t used to watching movies like that.

Jami. I cannot say whether the movie has been able to connect with the masses but we shouldn’t think of the audience as idiots. These audiences have seen Bol. That was a tough film; it wasn’t all song and dance or anything like that. You have to get the audience into the habit of being invested. If you make everyone used to reading small articles, then who will ever pick up a book? If you don’t understand a book, you can’t just say that it was useless. You should try again because maybe it is your understanding that is lacking.

Malik. Do you see yourself in the Terrence Malick or the James Cameron school of film-making, investing many years to make a single film?

Jami. Moor took so long to make because we wanted to shoot the sound on location. We wanted to give Pakistan a proper cinematic experience. The cinematography looks amazing because it was a very slow shoot. I shot the film in three phases. The shooting started in late 2011 and ended in 2013. Then, there was one last phase of shooting which finished just last year.

If you speed up the shoot just thinking about feasibility or budget or schedule, then you can’t make a proper film. I am not saying that other kinds of films are bad. I am just talking about the kind of film which you can send abroad, screen internationally and say “this is us”. Export quality has to be the absolute best.

Malik. Making a commercial film will never be your priority?

Jami. The other day, I was thinking about this script that I have and which is a very Na Maloom Afraad type comedy. It is a funny script about a few children who accidentally kill a political leader and as a result they are seen as the biggest gangsters around. I was thinking about how I could shoot the film and I thought if I give the audience exactly what they are demanding, well, I cannot do that. That is not me. This is not about being lowbrow or highbrow. I cannot connect to anything that looks like Bollywood. They just have so many fillers in their films.

**Malik. Mainstream, big-budget Bollywood films don’t really focus that much on narrative. The writing is usually very superficial and empty.**

Jami. Yes. If I do that, maybe people will say, “You have also become a Bollywood director”. It has become such a big fear in my head. I am deeply connected to Pakistan.

Malik. All your films and all the ideas that you have spoken about suggest that you are an ideologue. Do you want to make issue-based films?

Jami. I think it automatically happens. In the end, my film revolves around issues. I do not know why. The film I am doing right now, Hasht Roch, is also like that, it is about eight days of a police operation in Lyari. I am working with students from the Karachi University and Szabist on this film.

Just think about it for a second, how did cinema here suddenly emerge with so much force? Nowhere in the world has revolution been this quick. What is going on here? Everyone is shooting a film, while a few years ago you couldn’t even shoot an ad.

Malik. Why do you think that is?

Jami. I think it is a stage where we have just gotten tired of the Taliban and their religious [diktat]. Now people are at a stage where they say, “Please let me have a little fun. I am going to the cinema”.

Earlier, the mullahs were so powerful that people feared they would be persecuted for blasphemy or obscenity. The game changed with the Hazaras laying out their dead for the world to see. I think the army has shown the Taliban a stick after the Army Public School incident. Because those killed there were army children so the army said, “Now we are not going to back down, come what may”. That has trickled down to us here in Karachi. It is a safer city now, which means 4 am film shows in cinemas in Saddar are full. It means people feel they can step out whenever they want to now.

Malik. I heard your mother, Quratul Ain Bakhtiari, speak at the TEDx. She told some really fascinating stories about your family breaking apart and coming together, and then obviously there is her own connection to Balochistan. How did all that lead to Moor?

Jami. If you notice, I am like Wahid in Moor. He lost his mother at the exact same age that mine left home. I was the youngest of my siblings and it was very tough. I had no clue about what to do because my dad would go to work and my mother wasn’t around. I was home alone. That is what made me a film-maker. I would bunk school, entering the gates at 8 am and getting out 15 minutes later.

Malik. To do what?

Jami. To roam around in Saddar.

Malik. To go see the latest film hoardings or to go watch films?

Jami. There were no posters at the time and I didn’t even know films. This was 1982 or 1983.

Malik. Were you just wandering and observing?

Jami. It was a horrible period. It was really bad. And it was nobody’s fault, not my father’s either. My mother was just too radical for him…

Malik. Can you tell us a little more?

Jami. My mother’s upbringing was very liberal and she was extremely beautiful in her prime. She was then married off into this Lucknowi family which was always critical of her. That started a war in the family. My father was not on my mother’s side. He just did not understand her. Their mindsets did not match. It was like telling an actress to just spend her youth sitting at home — not to talk too fast, let alone dance or act. That was the kind of situation my mother found herself in.

She was very vocal about politics and became even more aggressively vocal after Bangladesh separated from Pakistan. It became very personal for her. She would say the army is made up of liars — they claim at night that everything is under control and in the morning Dhaka falls. It got stuck in her head.

This was in Nazimabad 1977 onwards. We saw a very non-burger life. And it was beautiful at that time. I could enter anyone’s house in our neighbourhood, sit down and have food. Everyone used to look after us. They knew we didn’t have a mother.

Malik. Your mother went for further studies, right?

Jami. She [initially] went to work with Akhtar Hameed Khan, the founder of Orangi Pilot Project, which was the biggest of its kind in the world. I did not even know what it was. I found out when I went to Orangi [much later] and saw that what she actually did was help treat sewage and work on female hygiene issues.

Malik. And then she did similar work in Balochistan?

Jami. Balochistan came later. Her work in Balochistan started twenty years ago.

Malik. Is that where the desire to make Moor in Balochistan came from?

Jami. Well, we wanted to show the height of corruption. There are two things that come out in the film. First is the Axact-style corruption — a boy who is selling futures. Secondly, there is his father who is stuck in the past.

I, however, could not touch the real issues in Balochistan. I do not even know what is happening with the BLA [Balochistan Liberation Army] or the bomb blasts. I just heard my mother relate an incident that she witnessed, of a man who went to the bank with a bag full of money. And that set me thinking on what kind of backstory that person might have had. I added details to the story and shared it with Nadeem [Mandviwalla]. He said it was too artsy and added, “Jami, you have to make this relatable. Add something like a train station, a hostel, anything”. I thought that way it could work. When I started researching about trains, I found so much corruption.

Malik. Did you encounter this corruption first-hand?

Jami. Yes, I just took a train from Karachi and the story just wrote itself on the way because an 11-hour to 12-hour journey ended up taking me 53 hours. They said they had run out of diesel. How can that even happen? You know exactly how long the journey is going to be and you know how much diesel is required. But they put in only as much fuel needed to take the train from one station to the next. Then, it is the next station’s problem. Can you believe this?

Malik. The train system was really the heart of this country when we inherited it. It helped this country function and served as the main form of mobility for the working classes.

Jami. Yes. And our own government has ruined it, intentionally, shutting down trains so that we can now run NLC (National Logistics Cell) trucks. This wasn’t just one station master’s story. There were hundreds of guys like Wahid who were crying over their future. These were people who had master’s degrees in English and their children were walking around naked. Things were so bad that they did not have food; they did not have clothes.

Malik. But they still had a strong belief system.

Jami. They were all like Wahid and their wives were stopping them from becoming corrupt. That is when I understood that a man cannot become corrupt on his own. The whole society forces him to go along with whatever the others are doing. It takes a woman to ask why are you selling this train, when others only ask why you still haven’t.

Malik. So you are saying that women are the real strength behind men?

Jami. She is the architect, she creates, she gives birth while us (men) just destroy. Whatever we do always ends in a fight. A woman does not do that. That got stuck in my mind to such a level that every male character in Moor is surrounded by a woman to stop him from doing wrong things.

Malik. And, hence, the moral compass of the film comes from the women?

Jami. The voice of brutal morality.

Malik. Let us get a little bit into the visual language and symbolism. They really created the emotional arc of the film. Where did the inspiration come from? Who would be five film-makers who have really influenced you?

Jami. Akira Kurosawa, definitely. Christopher Nolan. Alfred Hitchco*ck. Kubrick. And, finally, there is Satyajit Ray. Other than these, minor influences are innumerable.

Malik. How did you work with the actors to keep them at the same intensity level that the film demanded?

Jami. We spent a lot of time on the script and then did the same on the actors. We had a lot of rehearsals and workshops with them.

Malik. Going back to symbolism, I love the scene in Moor with the road that breaks the train track.

Jami. There is no symbolism in that instance. It is just the absolute reality. We have made a documentary about the disappearing rails in Balochistan.

Malik. Now we have come back full circle to the idea of film-maker as an activist. How much attention, the wrong kind of attention, are you getting because you are taking on people who have earned a lot from corruption? Have the authorities contacted you? Have the railway people been upset?

Jami. I also thought that something or the other would happen to me but I think nobody cares. That is the sad part.

Malik. But you still chose to give the film a happy ending.

Jami. The ending I have written is something I believe in. I want to give hope to the audience. I want to tell them that we are still alive and kicking. Otherwise, a normal person will just get mortally depressed.

In the original ending, the characters were to go back to their roots but the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] stopped us from going back [to the location]. They said, “You will get killed this time”. I am a Shia, I did not want to get stuck in any sort of situation where everyone gets into trouble because of me. But life imitates art and, actually, we found out that a lot of corrupt officials were arrested around the time the film’s shooting ended. It is actually a happy ending!

This was originally published in Herald's October 2015 issue. To read more subscribe to Herald in print.

He was the ultimate salesman, and today he finds himself making the most important sale of his life.

Shoaib Shaikh was born into a middle-class family, the son of a Sindh High Court lawyer who also served some years as the principal of the Islamia College, according to people close to him. The middle sibling amongst five, Shaikh is the only son. In the year of his greatest trial, he entered the age of 41 — that tipping point where a man’s mind begins to ask, “what have I accomplished in life?”

It is not known how Shaikh is answering that question in the solitude of his prison cell these days.He has some of the best lawyers money can buy in Pakistan. In the court, he is represented by Shaukat Hayat, whose client list includes former military dictator turned president, Pervez Musharraf, and who has also served as prosecutor in the hijacking case against Nawaz Sharif in 1999-2000.

Hayat insists his client is being held in a ‘C’ class cell in Karachi Central Jail. Television crews who have visited the facility recently, however, came back with footage of Shaikh in a cell in what is called the “Asif Zardari Block” in the prison where the former president spent his years in confinement — hardly ‘C’ class.

Shaikh is faced with the challenge of persuading the judges that he is an honest businessman; that his meteoric rise to national infamy was borne out of his legitimate business of software exports. And that the allegations against him – of running a fraudulent enterprise involved in offences ranging from forgery and fraud to extortion and money laundering – are entirely motivated by his rivals’ desire to see him eliminated from the field.

It is proving to be a hard sell. Thus far, all his appeals have been rejected. An application for bail was turned down as well as the one to unfreeze his frozen accounts. Yet another, for transferring him to ‘A’ class facilities in prison, has also been rejected.

But Shaikh remains steadfast. “He is very confident,” says Hayat when asked about his client’s state of mind. “According to him, he has committed no crime. He earned a lot of foreign exchange for the country through lawful means via a software company which was registered and had an export licence.”

Shaikh’s foray into media appears to have been the starting point of his undoing. His television channel, Bol, which never formally went on air but did begin a test transmission, was only a rumour for a number of years. But in a spurt of hiring in the last months of 2014 – which accelerated through the first months of 2015 – saw the payroll rise to almost 2,300 people, according to Amir Zia, who was tapped to head the print platform of Bol.

“Most of that team is still intact,” says Zia, “only a handful of people have left due to the massive propaganda done against Shaikh”.

Every floor of the [Axact offices] was full of people who were simplymaking phone calls, demanding more and more money from those who hadpurchased degrees from one of Axact’s fake universities. That is allthey did over there.

The “massive propaganda” began with an article in The New York Times which punctured the story in which Bol had enveloped itself. That story, published on May 28, 2015, claimed that Axact, the software house behind Bol, was engaged in a massive online fraud: selling educational credentials from fake universities that did not exist except as websites. The story triggered round-the-clock coverage from television channels in Pakistan and prompted a criminal investigation by the government.

Within days after The New York Times story appeared, Axact’s offices in Karachi and Islamabad were raided, Shaikh was arrested along with 30 other employees of the company, and all Axact accounts and those of its senior officers were frozen.

And along with all that came down his media empire. The stalwart talk-show hosts, anchorpersons and senior newsroom managers he had hired for Bol – on salaries way higher than any other media group in Pakistan can afford to offer – started leaving to safer destinations.

The investigators have not just sealed the Axact offices all over Pakistan, they have also confiscated a large number of computer servers supposed to have all the data about the company’s activities. These servers, containing almost 700 terabytes of data, have been forensically examined, according to the prosecution team. The judicial examination of all that data is likely to be an important part of the prosecution’s case.

“We have recordings of hundreds of phone calls in that database,” says Zahid Jamil, one of the prosecutors. “The investigation shows that every floor of the [Axact offices] was full of people who were simply making phone calls, demanding more and more money from those who had purchased degrees from one of Axact’s fake universities. That is all they did over there.”

Some of the recordings were played in open court; they showed callers impersonating government employees, from countries as varied as the United Arab Emirates and the United States. These callers were demanding that the client at the other end of the call either pay for an additional “certification” or face cancellation of their credentials, deportation and possibly criminal prosecution.

Shaikh has, according to the prosecution team, cooperated with the authorities in pinpointing other employees who have further incriminating hard drives in their possession. In at least four raids by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), he accompanied officials to the homes of those employees for the retrieval of the data drives from them.

The alleged degree scam had at least 200,000 victims all around the world, according to details pieced together by the investigators. Hayat is sceptical of this. “Not a single foreigner has made a complaint against [Shaikh],” he says. “If the scam is global, why are there no complainants other than the FIA? How is it that the financial system, with its detailed information gathering [about international transactions], has not detected any wrongdoing?”

On June 13, 2015, the FIA Corporate Crime Circle in Karachi sent the charge sheet against Shaikh to a court. He has been charged on seven counts under the Pakistan Penal Code and on one count each under the Electronic Crimes Ordinance 2002 and the Anti-Money Laundering Act 2010. Two weeks later, the FIA submitted a supplementary interim charge sheet which carried some additional charges. And on July 9, 2015, yet another interim charge sheet was submitted that charged Shaikh on one more count under the Anti-Money Laundering Act. Later in October, a third case under the same act was filed against him for using hundi and hawala networks for illegal transfer of money to and from Pakistan.

Also read: Person of the Year 2015

All these ever-sprawling cases and numerous sets of charges against Shaikh, however, have not yielded a trial so far. “Why has the court not framed charges, despite the passage of more than seven months to Shaikh’s arrest?” asks Hayat. “We have still not been given any evidence against him.”

Prosecutor Jameel argues that the volume of data to sift through is so large that it will take time to build the case against Shaikh. In other cases of similar nature, he argues, it has taken the prosecution a couple of years before it was able to put together all the required documents, forensic and physical evidence. But he remains confident that his team will be ready to file a final charge sheet against Shaikh very soon.

Even then, his trial and punishment will take years to complete. In the interim, he may perfect a sales pitch to plead innocent and prove himself as such. A sales pitch, after all, is what he is best at. His company’s promotional literature reveals a mind keenly tuned to marketing. One flier, for instance, features the words “job” and “career” crossed out; under them the word “lifestyle” is written in bold letters.

That is what Shaikh told hisemployees, too — that they were signing up for a ‘lifestyle’, not a job. That lifestyle included access to a company yacht, clubhouses, beach huts, in-house gyms and swimming pools at the offices, chauffeur-driven cars, free laundry services, five-star dining facilities and many other creature comforts. All these luxuries embody the perfect middle-class yearning for a shortcut to the top.

Shaikh built his enterprise with an energy and determination that left his competitors and rivals flummoxed. But now we wait to see if there is any poetic irony in his predicament. As a court prepares to decide whether he himself availed illegal shortcuts to accumulate his riches, it remains to be seen how the biggest sales pitch of his life plays out.

This was originally published in the Herald's Annual 2016 issue. To read more, subscribe to the Herald in print.

If I were asked to describe Musadiq, I would say, “He was a shooting star that rose, shone and disappeared. Shone from the earth to the galaxies.” I never thought I would be thinking about him in the past tense. He was the kind of person who would live in the present and love every moment of it. For who knows what tomorrow may bring. In our tomorrow, Musadiq is not there, but his memory is.

It was the winter of 1986. Students of the Fine Arts Department of the National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore were returning from their tour of India. At Attari station, they had to wait the entire day for the next train to Lahore under the December sun, without any shade. To kill time, Musadiq started playing his harmonium; another teacher from the NCA joined in with his tablas that he had bought from India. Musadiq started singing a Tufail Niazi song: “Sada Chiryan da Chumba way Babala” (Father, we daughters are like a flock of sparrows).

Like his friends, his interests were vast and varied: he was a keen spectator of Muharram processions and concerts of Royal Albert Hall, alike. He was concerned about the environment; from the coast of Karachi to the fish beneath the Indus Delta.

His voice floated over the whole landscape, rising over the borders. The villagers from either side of the Wagah Border started to throng the iron grille gate. From the Indian side, the villagers brought meals with sarsoon ka saag, lassi, roti and gifts as this impromptu soirée continued. This was Musadiq, my friend, and such was the effect Musadiq’s music produced.

At the time, the country was under the boot of Ziaul Haq’s martial law. Under Zia, Pakistani arts faced severe censorship. “My hands always remained in fists,” was a line in one of Musadiq’s Urdu poems. In a protest by NCA students during the dictatorship, Musadiq lost an eye in an attack by militants of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a pro-Zia religious political party. Generations later, not many NCA graduates may know that it was Musadiq and his comrades who struggled to elevate the NCA’s fine arts diploma to a four-year degree programme (the cartoonist Sabir Nazar, Mudassar Punoo, Tahir Mehdi, New York’s sculptor couple Ruby and Khalil Chishti, and Munawar, who hailed from Bangladesh, were all his contemporaries supporting this cause).

Musadiq himself came to NCA to learn painting but nobody saw him paint. Instead they always heard him singing and playing music. A seasoned Urdu poet even in his young age, he threw away journals of his Urdu poetry as he developed his love for Punjabi classical music as well as Sufi and modern poetry.

Although he wouldn’t have money to eat sometimes, he always wore the finest clothes. “I borrowed a coat from him when I went to meet the parents of the girl who would later become my wife,” a friend from NCA recalls.

He wrote a play that was to be staged in Alhamra Arts Council. The story revolved around a love triangle between a girl, an artist and an owner of a shoe factory. The artist wins the girl over by making a painting of her, while the owner of the shoe factory loses everything for the sake of his love when he gives away all his assets to the artist in order to become a painter. When the girl asks the artist to make her a painting, the artist makes a painting of a shoe, instead.

Soon after this play, Musadiq left Lahore for Karachi. The city was burning with ethnic strife. Post-Zia, the operation against the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) was underway. With his tablas, a harmonium and a few pairs of the finest vintage clothes, he ended up at a cousin’s house at Tariq Road. He found work as a copywriter in an advertising company and then at Glamour magazine, where he met Mohammed Hanif, now a prominent novelist. In Hanif’s words, they were known as the “notorious pair”; Musadiq’s tablas were the root of his friendship with Hanif, and his place became a hideout for many other artists such as his wandering friend and great Sindhi poet, Hassan Dars.

In Karachi, Musadiq rose as a star on the theatre scene. Rizwan Ali, a friend of his, who is now a successful psychiatrist at Virginia, recalls: “My friend Ehtesham Shami told me a young man has come from Lahore. Let us meet him. I met him at Café Liberty and was hypnotised by his conversation. Since then, I shadowed him all the time.” Musadiq was all love, theatre, music and poetry. He had the ability to turn his meeting with two or more people into a crowd and indeed a spectacular theatre. With Khalid Ahmed and Sheema Kirmani, he did theatre under Tehrik-e-Niswan. Later, with Rizwan Ali, he directed Jis Ghari Raat Chalay, a play based on a true story of a schizophrenic girl who is raped. His other epic play was Chahanga Manga which was based on the themes of environmental degradation and urban sprawling of Karachi. I wrote jingles for this play which was later retitled as Meenu Say Milnay Ai Kahani.

Musadiq could befriend all, be it a distinguished psychologist from the city or the fisherfolk of Ibrahim Haidery. Like his friends, his interests were vast and varied: he was a keen spectator of Muharram processions and concerts of Royal Albert Hall, alike. He was concerned about the environment, from the coast of Karachi to the fish beneath the Indus Delta. The last time we spoke, he wanted me to write a song on the missing persons which he would compose.

If there were ever a human embodiment of music, love and poetry, it was Musadiq Sanwal. He now sleeps forever beneath the dust of his hometown, Multan. But the piercing eyes and soul of this beautiful Seraiki boy will haunt us all forever.

Hasan Mujtaba is a writer, journalist, poet, song writer and human rights activist. His poetry collection "Koel Shehr ki Katha" was launched in August 2015.

As far as debuts went, there was nothing quite like it. A 250-page novel, with a three-sentence premise: “Darashikoh Shezad is an ex-banker, pot-smoker, and downwardly mobile heroin addict who also happens to have fallen for his best friend’s wife. He is on trial. You are to be his judge.”

In a land of 140 million people, with less than 14 novelists of note between them – both in English and Urdu – Pakistan was unprepared for Moth Smoke in 2000; a decline-and-fall story with everything else in between: heat and hash, nuclear bombs and car chases, kite fights and wars of succession among Mughal princes.

In a way, the 29-year-old Mohsin Hamid could be compared to the 21-year-old Bret Easton Ellis, the boy wonder who blew the lid off the Reagan years with Less Than Zero. Like Hamid’s, Ellis’s maiden novel is a tale of beautiful young drug dealers that ends in tears. Unlike Hamid, Ellis could not write to save his life.

Moth Smoke opens:

It is said that one evening, in the year his stomach was to fail him, the Emperor Shah Jahan asked a Sufi saint what would become of the Mughal Empire.

“Who will sit on the throne after me?” asked Shah Jahan.

“Tell me the names of your sons,” replied the saint.

“Dara is my eldest son.”

“The fate of Dara should be asked from Iskandar.”

(…)The Emperor closed his eyes. “Aurangzeb is my youngest son.”

“Yes,” said the saint. “He will be Aurangzeb.”

The Emperor gazed across the plain at the incomplete splendor of his wife’s mausoleum and commanded his workers to redouble their efforts. It would be finished before the war of succession began.

Lurking in the passage – around the edges at least – are hints of the fiction Hamid would write in the decade and a half to come: the pared-down prose, the Sufi core, the strong sense of displacement.

There is also lots of love: doomed love, transformational love, love described as mumtaz (sublime), love that has the power to raise Taj Mahals … or cheat on complacent husbands.

We know what happens next: war is waged and fratricide follows. Dara is held an apostate and executed. Aurangzeb reigns supreme. But the central tussle in Moth Smoke, set over 300 years later, is a tad more complicated: the conflict is less over crown than class. The severe, sectarian Aurangzeb and moderate, mystic Dara from history are nowhere to be found. Instead, our hero is Darashikoh ‘Daru’ Shezad and he has just been fired from his middling bank job. We find him an angry young man with broken dreams: an aborted PhD, an ex-girlfriend who left him for a textile baron’s son and a social circle of rich brats he despises but cannot distance himself from. Heroin beckons.

Meanwhile, his best friend Aurangzeb lives in a Sunday Times centre spread: a beautiful wife, central air conditioning and farmhouse parties buoyed by corrupt cash. A world both vapid and stupid; the cult of Ozi crushes our hero.

Hitting a Pakistan starved for self-reflection, Moth Smoke became everything to everyone. For the West, it was refreshingly un-exotic — a louche drug trip via Muslim Pakistan. For political junkies, it was a piece of the 1990s, menaced less by non-state actors than nuclear war. For the naukri pesha aspirer, Daru Shezad was the everyman. For Lahore’s f*ckless elite, it was a mirror to Medusa. And for Pakistani fiction in English, it was a milestone. Daru has joined the Pakistani literary canon in the same way Atticus Finch, Harry Rabbit Angstrom and Willie Stark became one with American literature.

Since that first hit, Hamid has written two more acclaimed novels: The Reluctant Fundamentalist was published in 2007, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia came out in 2013. His work has been translated into 30 languages, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and made into a feature film.

Sitting down with Hamid recently in Lahore, with a lot of ground to cover, it was decided that we must start at the beginning.

The rawest of his novels, Moth Smoke rings truest — a compendium of painful, perfect sentences. It seems easy to imagine as part-memoir (or alternatively, Darashikoh Shezad as a novelised Mohsin Hamid). Why else would the story seem bled from the heart?

“It is not autobiographical in the sense that this is not me telling you what happened in my life,” Hamid says. “Did I seduce my best friend’s wife and wind up being framed for murder? Did I seduce my best friend’s wife at all? No. I can put that to rest right now. But, in a weird way, all of those characters came from me — Aurangzeb, too; who of us hasn’t felt like a sell-out, living in Pakistan, at some point in our lives? Yet, a good friend despite being a sell-out?”

Aurangzeb is a rapacious rich kid, the sort Third World countries patent. But Moth Smoke isn’t just about the men. “Who of us hasn’t been Mumtaz, or met some Mumtaz and fallen madly in love with her?” Hamid asks. “Without Mumtaz, there is no Moth Smoke. She is the Shams to [Daru’s] Rumi, to make an interestingly gendered comparison. Regardless, Rumi’s love for the man Shams was quite transcendent.” Moth Smoke, like all of Hamid’s novels, is a love story. “I am not sure what other kind of stories there are,” he casts around. “I mean, I am sure they exist.”

Variously influenced by Rumi, Attar and Ghalib, Hamid riffs on the Sufi theme whenever he writes love into his fiction: “What is this Sufi tradition we talk about? There are a lot of banalities around it, but my take on it, in that first book in particular, was that passion of a particular strength has the power to transform people.”

What is this Sufi tradition we talk about? There are a lot of banalities around it, but my take on it, in that first book in particular, was that passion of a particular strength has the power to transform people.

A passion on display in the book’s seminal paragraphs, from where the title comes: “[The moth] circles lower and lower, spinning around the candle in tighter revolutions, like a soap sud over an open drain. A few times he seems to touch the flame, but dances off unhurt. Then he ignites like a ball of hair, curling into an oily puff of fumes with a hiss. The candle flame flickers and dims for a moment, then burns as bright as before. Moth smoke lingers.” That part, at least, is straight from the source. “Have I experienced love like that? Sure,” Hamid says. “And it fits in with our literature; an all-consuming, passionate love, that is fallen out of fashion in Western fiction.”

Though much else has been shed along the way, the Sufi thread has weaved itself through Moth Smoke to Hamid’s latest novel written 13 years later. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is vastly different from anything he has attempted in the past: a rags-to-riches epic, masquerading as a self-help book (Hamid often catches it in the business sections of bookstores).

And its last sentence, equally informed by a Sufi spin, has spawned a thousand theories: “…for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son and, yes, your ex-wife, and you have loved the pretty girl, and you have been beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, and awe, and the pretty girl holds your hand, and you contain her, and this book, and me writing it, and I too contain you, who may not yet even be born, you inside me inside you, though not in a creepy way, and so may you, may I, may we, so may all of us confront the end.”

Hamid cares about his ending. “A lot of thinking went into that sentence,” he says. “In some ways, I wanted to write the equivalent of a non-religious Sufi text. That was my thinking behind How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. If you were to take a ghazal that says love is one way to think about how we can achieve a certain degree of release in this life – by making us less centred in ourselves, and therefore less terrified by the end of ourselves – how would that take form? For me, that sentence is a sort of secular prayer, and ‘not in a creepy way’ is just tongue-in-cheek.”

Not that it makes the passage any less earnest. “If I were to think of one sentence in all my fiction that I most care about,” Hamid says, “it is that one sentence”. Which brings us to the twist in this Sufi take: all love is doomed, as a review of his work makes clear (for those still unfamiliar with his books, spoilers follow).

Nadira is Love 1: she abandons Daru for men who run around in Pajeros. Mumtaz is Love 2: she leaves Daru a sobbing mess in the rain. Erica, from The Reluctant Fundamentalist, is Love 3: an obvious allusion to the Land of the Free, (Am)erica disappears as fast as she appears. Around the same time, the romance of America turns repulsive for our hero, who finds himself a modern-day janissary enslaved by his corporate masters. “The pretty girl” from Rising Asia is Love 4 and, at long last, a Hamid protagonist gets the girl in the end. Fatherhood has softened the author’s pen, even if two Romeos later.

“The pretty girl was my non-doomed love story,” Hamid agrees. “But here is the thing about love: it is always doomed. The fact that we are all going to die means it is always poignant — if you love somebody enough, be it your parent or your child or your spouse or a lover, they are going to go. Despite how strongly we feel, we do not get to keep the relationship, and that lends a sort of poignancy to the love we have.”

Not that he would have it any other way. “I mean, without love, what’s the point? Why be here?”

Hamid was born in Lahore in 1971, a season before Pakistan’s bloody separation from Bangladesh — not unlike his father, who was born close to another bloody partition in 1947. His parents brought him to California soon after, living in the Stanford townhouse where his father was studying for his PhD.

Following a month of utter silence, the three-year-old Hamid began speaking — in English, in complete sentences. He regained Urdu, the language he lost, when they moved back to Lahore in 1980. “Eventually, I could tell a joke and sing a song in it, flirt and fight, read a story and take an exam,” he wrote of the time in a May 2011 piece for the Guardian, titled Once Upon a Life.“… But my first language would be a second language for me from then on.”

Hamid read anything he could lay his hands on: a reading of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, during the summer of his freshman year, has stayed with him. “It is a summer in Lahore with nothing to do, with no UPS – it was hot! – the light is coming and going, and you had that book to keep you company,” he says. “It just felt fantastic.”

Hamid’s literary influences were global: he fell in love with Latin America’s Borges, the European modernist tradition of Calvino and Camus, and Americans Baldwin and Hemingway. His distaste for borders may have been something he picked up early, before the added incentive of airport screenings.

The first Mohsin Hamid, the author’s great-grandfather, was pro-Pakistan; a Muslim League campaigner. Around Partition, he was stabbed while strolling down Lahore’s Lawrence Gardens by a Muslim who mistook him for a Hindu. The elder Mohsin survived and the story was passed down to his great-grandson. Whether this – or coming of age in General Ziaul Haq’s Pakistan – informed his politics or not, the younger Mohsin has little truck with today’s nationalism.

“Aggressively thumping one’s sexagenarian chest is a sign not of virility but of wilful self-delusion,” he wrote in a 2012 op-ed. “At sixty-five, we would be better off thinking of retirement … at least of our prickly nationalisms … Asia is big enough to dream of a world where people are judged not by the colour of their passport, but by the content of their character.”

This is a favourite premise in Hamid’s essays, just as migration is a motif in his fiction. “To a certain extent,” he told an Australian interviewer last July, “Shane Warne emerges from a tradition that we saw bowlers like Abdul Qadir engage in the 1980s with”. Would there be an Imran Khan, posed Hamid, without a Dennis Lillee? “I’m very suspicious,” he said, “of terms like ‘the West’ and ‘the East.’”

Hopping continents has chimed well with Hamid’s literary rise, building a brand that blurs borders. A self-proclaimed “transcontinental mongrel”, he has lived in New York and London, before moving back to Lahore in 2013. “I feel an allegiance to this house, this family, this city, this country,” Hamid wrote of home 12 years ago in a piece, The Pathos of Exile, for Time magazine. “It makes my eyes burn. I do not want to leave. But I know I am a wanderer, and I have no more choice but to drift than does a dandelion seed in the wind. It is my nature. It is in my soul, in my eyes.”

To the world at large, Hamid’s literature is distinctive — henna-stained hands do not adorn its covers, nor is the content much about mixed marriages or postcolonial nosebleeds.

In his new non-fiction compilation, Discontent and its Civilizations, Hamid takes this thesis and comes out swinging. “Civilizations are illusory. But they are useful illusions,” he writes. “They allow us to deny our common humanity, to allocate power, resources, and rights in ways repugnantly discriminatory.” Then he throws down the gauntlet, “Our civilizations do not cause us to clash. No, our clashing allows us to pretend we belong tocivilizations”.

This is Hamid, the dandelion seed. But like the said seed, critics ask if this may be too flighty a perspective. Reviewing the book in The Public, a New York weekly, Woody Brown tried boxing back. “The truth is that “civilizations” may be illusory in a certain sense, but in our world they are not,” he snapped. “They are real. So is culture, so are communities… That does not mean that racism is correct, but it does mean that in, say, the United States, living as a black person and living as a white person are two very different things.”

Brown found the contrary glib. “This line of thinking considers sectarian conflict absurd and baseless… (but) even though there may be no functional, physical, visible difference between Hutus and Tutsis or between Sunnis and Shias or between Protestants and Catholics, there still is a difference, one that many millions of people take very seriously … one that cannot be dissolved by saying it’s imaginary or fake orsilly. The truth of the matter is that a 10-dollar bill is not just a piece of paper. It is10 dollars.”

Presented with this, Hamid shrugs. “If someone says Zeus is real, and you tell them Zeus is a loser, they are going to think that is not right. I am not arguing illusions do not exist — they do exist and people believe in them. I am arguing that should you scrutinise these questions more closely – what is a Muslim, what is a Hindu, what is a Pakistani – these things start to dissolve before your eyes. The first friend you make from a different place, and the first fight you get into with someone from your own, is enough to convince you of that.”

He draws closer to home. “Pakistan gives you a good chance at living on the frontlines of this debate and see where you get to if you take it all the way. The idea that there is a Hindu civilisation and a Muslim civilisation, to start. But then, what is a Muslim? Are Shias Muslim? Do you pray five times a day? You discover this divisive impulse, the knife that can cut things finer and finer until there is only you standing.”

Does this not gloss over real-life racial prejudice? Hamid finds it fits his point, “There is a kind of racial, civilisational conversation happening in America right now: people that are disproportionately white are terrified of people that are not, whether it is shooting them in the street, or killing them in their churches, or denying the legality of the election of one of them as President. Is there such a thing as being a black American? Yes… if you are a white American. And we have been fed so much of that in this country: are you a Punjabi or a Sindhi, Shia or Sunni, a this or a that.” Hamid sounds tired. “I do not want to have cornflakes with people on the basis of these civilisational theories. If I sit down with some Japanese writer, and he does not speak a word of English, eats a completely different cuisine – though I love sushi – and we discover, through a translator, that we’re on the same page when it comes to what we think fiction is about, that dude is part of my civilisation.”

The story of Pakistani fiction in English is bookended by two of its biggest heroes: both outsiders, both romantics and – at their worst – both card-carrying sociopaths from Lahore. One was Daru Shezad. The other was Faredoon Junglewalla, a Parsee patriarch and gentleman (try though he does, to murder his mother-in-law).

Bapsi Sidhwa, the grand old lady of the Pakistani novel in English, wrote The Crow Eaters in 1978. Set in Lahore around the turn of the century, the novel brought us Junglewalla, a family man for the ages: warm, gentle and inclined towards arson.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz called it a veritable tour de force. But for Sidhwa, no one was prepared to publish it — a string of rejections she “would not wish on anyone.” When she finally self-published, she told Dawn two years ago, The Crow Eaters “got terrible reviews locally. But when it got published in the UK and got the David Higham Award, and all the magazines and newspapers there gave it glowing reviews, then the Pakistani press began to love the book.”

Sidhwa was wry about it. “We look westward for approval.”

It would be hard to understate the trail blazed by Sidhwa. “Bapsi is important to me … it is a funny thing to say now, but thinking to write one day in English, you need to believe something is possible before you can do it. And I saw her write about Lahore,” says Hamid. The Crow Eaters ranks right up there with his six favourite books.

I am arguing that should you scrutinise these questions more closely – what is a Muslim, what is a Hindu, what is a Pakistani – these things start to dissolve before your eyes. The first friend you make from a different place, and the first fight you get into with someone from your own, is enough to convince you of that.

But the novel was a stray success. As Kamila Shamsie wrote, “Until the 1980s, the idea that books in English were written almost entirely by people from England and America had such a strong hold on people’s minds that there was very little consideration even given to the absence of a canon of Pakistani-English writing”.

That consideration grew with Muneeza Shamsie’s groundbreaking anthology, A Dragonfly in the Sun, published in 1997. Chronicling 50 years of Pakistani writing in English, she says of the experience, “When I compiled A Dragonfly in the Sun, Pakistani English literature was comparatively little-known as a body of work, although it had developed a strong, new, contemporary voice. An increasing number of writers of Pakistani origin had started to win international prizes. The youngest in the collection was the 28-year-old Nadeem Aslam. So the book appeared in that period of transition when a new generation of really talented writers was just beginning to emerge”.

That thinking has thankfully changed in the 18 years since. Asked whether the impression – from around 2009 – that Pakistani authors were throwing up exciting work still applied, John Freeman, who edited the vivid Granta 112 – the Pakistan edition – says: “In America, the literary landscape often has space for just one ... there is just one Bengali (Jhumpa Lahiri), there is just one South African (Nadine Gordimer), I am generalising but you get my drift. But for some reason, it has made space for several Pakistanis at once, and none of them are saddled with that weight of being their country. That’s a powerful statement as to the talent of the writers in Pakistan”.

Having edited Hamid’s work for Granta, Freeman remarks, “I think Mohsin has achieved what the best writers do: he has made his voice feel necessary”. But are his works of literary merit? For Freeman, “A writer only becomes necessary through literary merit: subject matter cannot elevate any work. It is how Mohsin usesstorytelling techniques to investigate moral questions that makes him interesting. It is how well he does it which makes him essential”.

When asked where Hamid fit in the South Asian literary firmament, Freeman replied, “… You feel he is as much in dialogue with Albert Camus and F Scott Fitzgerald and Antonio Tabucchi as he is with, say, Intizar Husain. There’s a cinematic flair to his writing, which does not degrade the power of language.”

How much of Hamid’s local popularity stems from his international acclaim – as Sidhwa observed about herself – is a difficult question. But the West has taken to Hamid’s work with unconcealed enthusiasm. From her perch as chief book critic at *The New York Times*, Michiko Kakutani was moved to call Hamid “the most inventive and gifted writer of his generation”. This, from the lady who called a Nick Hornby novel “a maudlin bit of tripe,” and a Jonathan Franzen memoir “an odious self-portrait of the artist as a young jackass”. To wow Kakutani is the literary equivalent of slaying the hydra.

This may be because, to the world at large, Hamid’s literature is distinctive — henna-stained hands do not adorn its covers, nor is the content much about mixed marriages or postcolonial nosebleeds. In an interview with Duke University’s Chronicle Online, he said, “I certainly think there is a post-post-colonial generation. I am sure a lot of voices you are seeing coming out now are people who never had a colonial experience. We do not place a burden of guilt on someone who is no longer there.”

Bereft of empire, or for that matter undivided India, Hamid is content with writing for himself. “People are writing about the subcontinent with eyes that are not meant to be seeing, for someone who does not live there, people who are not exoticising where they come from. I try not to mention the minaret, because when I’m in Lahore, I don’t notice it.”

For Hamid, Pakistani writing is “the new fast-bowler” on the block, but it is hard to imagine the literary landscape without his first two novels charging the way. If Sidhwa was Kardar of Pakistani fiction writing, Hamid may have been its Imran Khan. If Sidhwa was the founder, Hamid is the Renaissance man.

Moth Smoke set off a storm that has yet to wind down, 15 years later, Hamid’s own career mirroring the second and, thus far, definitive wave of Pakistani fiction in English.

His voice has since been joined by many more. Today, the range of new authors is thrilling: Daniyal Mueenuddin’s beautiful short stories set in southern Punjab, H M Naqvi’s bold, breakneck 9/11 novel Homeboy, Saba Imtiaz’s hilarious, urban Karachi, You’re Killing Me. “We are not lying in sort of a bath of warm water and reflecting upon our sort of quirky, funny families,” Mueenuddin said in a 2009 interview. “There is an edginess to our writing, I believe, which is distinctive.”

Today, Hamid is working on his fourth novel. He has scaled back his full-time writing a degree, dabbling in consulting, helping with the wonderful Lahore Literary Festival, and sitting on the nominating panel for the Best Foreign Film Oscar’s Pakistani entry.

“Full-time writing,” he says, “meant marrying my mistress”. This may be why it takes him seven years to finish a book on average — his agent calls him the Reluctant Novelist. Drafts of Moth Smoke were thrashed around in his college days, first at Princeton – where he studied under Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison – then at the Harvard Law School. He wrote The Reluctant Fundamentalist while working at McKinsey & Company to pay off his law school loans. “I always thought I was going to wind up in Pakistan,” he said recently. “I was afraid that if I kept walking down the path at McKinsey, that I would become a partner and start earning a lot of money and price myself out of my own dream.”

Hamid wrote Moth Smoke between midnight and dawn, and it shows. Now, with his two children making demands on his time, Hamid writes from six to 10 in the morning. “If I get two or three hours of writing, my day is fantastically successful.”

The typical day is a few hundred words and the typical novel is a slim work — that he would rather have people read his work twice than halfway through, is a famous sound bite attributed to the man. “I have said that because I believe in compression and besides, what else can I say?” Hamid laughs. “I write short books and it takes me a long time. I just don’t have a summer to spend in my dacha in rural Russia anymore, while my serfs farm the land and I relax with a 1,500-pager. I might have a box set of Game of Thrones to get through.”

What of the criticism? Hamid learned, studying under Oates, to be unmerciful with his writing. When contacted, Oates was certainly more charitable. “I have read most of [his] work and consider him a brilliant, ambitious writer of bold and provocative fictions.” Not that she was surprised, she said, since he was outstanding at Princeton.

I was afraid that if I kept walking down the path at McKinsey, that I would become a partner and start earning a lot of money and price myself out of my own dream.

Yet, acclaim from abroad has little bearing on the occasional pot shot at home. “People walk right up to me at a dinner or a wedding or a party and say, ‘I hate it. Why did you write that? I cannot stand your stuff.’ And I am thin-skinned; I would love to say I don’t care what people think, but I do,” Hamid says. “People do not realise that you spend six or seven years of your life on your novel; it is like a child — no one would come up to you and say, ‘Your child is ugly.’”

And yet he does not seem to be slowing down. “I want to be loved, but I am still going to do what the hell I want to do. In a way, it is a very base human thing: you put something out there, and declare, ‘Love me! Love me! This is my baby; here I am!’ And people answer, ‘You suck!’ And you say back, ‘Well, that is not nice.’ But that is how the world goes.”

There is one last question — perhaps unfair. We go back to where it all began: Moth Smoke, final chapter. To recap: Daru is on trial for murder. We are to be his judge. Might the writer put himself in the reader’s shoes, 15 years later? Might Mohsin Hamid judge Darashikoh Shezad?

Hamid, who once called the novel a divided man’s conversation with himself, is torn. What follows is a similar conversation between different people: the student who wrote Moth Smoke at night; the lawyer who saw Pakistan dive deep in these long terror wars; and the citizen at the end of his tether.

To start with, Hamid understands Pakistan in 2015 is not the Pakistan of 1998. “The mood in our country right now is very much about vengeance. We want people dead and hanged, and our justice system reflects that: it has reached a kill-and-ask-questions-later moment. We are not going to bother to establish the facts,” Hamid says. “We are going to say: ‘Look. Let’s assume the whole bunch of these guys is bad, and let’s kill all of them.’ Maybe one is reduced to a kind of animalistic impulse, because survival is on the line.”

Yet Hamid has not convinced himself. “Would I as a novelist be comfortable with hanging the protagonist of my first novel? No. Deep down, I love Daru: as a character and a human being, I have enormous empathy and compassion for him.” But other worries weigh heavier. “If I am a judge and Daru appears before me in a parade of killers and terrorists, well…” The author’s face contracts.

“Maybe I am in a hanging kind of mood.”

This was originally published in Herald's September 2015 issue. To read more from Herald in print subscribe.

A group of men, mostly old and middle aged, with varying lengths and shapes of facial hair and fancy headgear, gathered at a government building in Karachi on June 17 this year. Theirs was not a gathering of religious luminaries meeting to thrash out sectarian differences or engage in theological debates. They were there to decide on what is essentially a question of astronomy.

It was the 29th day of Sha’aban, the eighth month of the Hijri calendar, and the next day could be the start of the fasting month of Ramzan. These men, 26 of them, were to focus on the sky to look for the slender new moon that would announce the start of the new month, a job that did not seem easy on this dusty, hazy, humid day.

Besides the moon, the centre of attention in this august forum was Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman — a tall old man with a hennaed beard, thick, almost opaque, glasses and a brown karakul cap. He is the head of the group, officially known as the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, and has been holding this post since 2001 — an unprecedented run sustained through four successive governments.

The venue of the gathering was the Karachi headquarters of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, popularly known as Mausamiat, situated where University Road morphs into a veritable moonscape at its northern limits, all potholed and almost impossible to navigate. The headquarters, built in the late 1950s, is a dull, uninspiring structure with no real aesthetic appeal. On that day, however, there was a lot of excitement — this being the first of a twice-a-year public spectacle to watch the moon, the other being the one before Eidul Fitr, at the end of Ramzan.

A large number of media vans were stationed inside the premises of the Mausamiat building; reporters and cameramen were either milling around or dragging their equipment to the conference hall on the first floor where an official announcement about the sighting of the moon is usually made. Many had already reached the roof of the building where the moon was to be sighted — hopefully. After 6 pm, while most media persons waited elsewhere, Muneeb-ur-Rehman quietly led the members of the committee to a smaller, sparsely furnished room on the second floor. Flanked by Alam Zeb Khan, joint secretary of the federal ministry for religious affairs and chief meteorologist Naeem Shah, he sat at the centre of a table wearing an authoritative scowl that never leaves his visage and a hearing aid that gives away his age, otherwise well hidden below his strong frame. He was livid when he spoke. “Who told [a private television channel] that the moon will be sighted tonight?”

Earlier in the day, the channel had aired the news that the new moon was expected on June 17, citing a Mausamiat report which recorded a “slight chance” of sighting. Accusations flew thick and fast in response to Muneeb-ur-Rehman’s question. The information leaked through Mausamiat officials, complained one member; another was angry that people from the department were undermining the writ of the committee. “Are we mere rubber stamps here?” he asked, angrily putting down the highlighter in his hand. “Moon sighting is a religious assignment and must be left to religious scholars to decide.”

A little while later, everyone was present at the building’s rooftop. The time window to observe the new moon that evening was only 38 minutes long, opening immediately after sunset at 7.24 pm. For the new moon to become visible, it has to be at least eight to 10 degrees above the horizon after sunset — that is, when weather and atmospheric conditions are suitable. Keeping these two facts in mind, Mausamiat officials handling the theodolite, a rotating telescope used for observing lunar objects, expressed little optimism that the moon could be sighted.

In any case, no one cared about the theodolite that evening. Many of those present on the rooftop were taking turns to be photographed on a raised wooden platform, covered with carpets and erected right behind another telescope — a gun-shaped cylindrical apparatus aimed high at the sky. It did not seem to matter to the people posing alongside the telescope that it was not positioned to look at the horizon where the moon was expected to be seen, or whether the telescope was even functional. Most surprisingly, the activity around the telescope was taking place when the sun had not yet set — the new moon was to become visible only after sunset, if at all. At one stage, the crowd posing for the photos became so large that part of the platform crashed — and Muneeb-ur-Rehman tumbled down awkwardly.

While others were still busy posing for pictures, Muneeb-ur-Rehman launched into a little impromptu press conference. He instructed the media to stop jumping the gun and wait till the committee announced its verdict. “Practice caution and don’t rush to make a wrong announcement which may mislead the nation,” he said.

Then came Maghrib prayers — and a brief break in the photo session. By 8 pm, when everyone finally started going downstairs to the conference hall, no one had cared to look for the moon through the theodolite, or through any other contraption. An hour later, Mausamiat officials crunched the data coming in from their 38 regional and local offices across the country. They also confirmed that there was no personal testimony claiming the sighting of the moon in any part of Pakistan.

Having received all this information, Muneeb-ur-Rehman started making his official statement. In a measured tone, a fraction of a second too slow and typically emotionless, he started with the recital of verses from the Quran and ended with a prayer, in between announcing that the first of Ramzan was to fall on Friday, June 19. Everyone dispersed quietly soon afterwards.

At 11 pm, television channels started flashing news reports that the new moon had been sighted — somewhere in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, chief cleric at Peshawar’s historic Masjid Qasim Ali Khan, declared that the first of Ramzan would be on Thursday, June 18, the same day that the fasting month started in Saudi Arabia.

During interviews, Muneeb-ur-Rehman promises himself multiple times that he will not answer questions about Popalzai. Yet, any mention of moon sighting announcements from Peshawar – which seldom coincide with the ones he makes – easily riles him up. The mere fact that there exists what he sees as “a parallel and unauthorised moon sighting mechanism” is an abomination to him.

“How is it possible that nobody sees the moon except some people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa?” he asks. “We compile scientific data from across Pakistan and supplement it with information provided by the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission and the Pakistan Navy. We reach out to key mosques in different areas where there is a possibility of moon sighting,” he says, explaining the official methodology.

Then he castigates the media for what he sees as a case of overhyping a minor issue. “You have almost 90 per cent of the country marking the fasting month together yet [the media] is obsessed with the 10 per cent.” And he insists that his disagreements with Popalzai have no personal or sectarian basis. “Learn your history and you will find out this issue has been cropping up since Partition.”

Born in February 1945 in the upper Tanawal area of Mansehra district, Muneeb-ur-Rehman has an elephantine memory: while describing details from his past, he mentions events complete with the day, month and year they happened. He grew up in a deeply religious family: his father, Qazi Habeeb-ur-Rehman, was an Islamic teacher. Muneeb-ur-Rehman received his early education in his hometown and then went to a madrasa in Lahore for further studies. In December 1964, he moved to Karachi and acquired degrees from Karachi University (in Islamic studies) and Darul Uloom Amjadia (in Islamic theology and jurisprudence). Since then, he has made the port city his home.

Muneeb-ur-Rehman taught Islamic studies at a government college in Karachi for years but does not talk much about it. He has also been heading the federation of Barelvi madrasas in Pakistan – Tanzeem-ul-Madaris Ahle Sunnat – for years and it is this position that initially brought him to official notice back in the mid-1990s. But he denies accusations that he pulled political strings to put himself as the head of the moon sighting committee. “I was travelling to Abbottabad in a rented car when the driver switched on the radio for news. My name was in the headlines, announcing my appointment as the committee’s chairman,” he says in an interview, claiming no political affiliation. “It was not something I ever planned or aimed for.”

On a quiet but sweltering Sunday morning in June, he occupies a steel and rexine chair in his two-room office at his madrasa — Darul Uloom Naeemia, set up by him and his associate Mufti Shujaat Ali Qadri back in 1973, not far from Muttahida Quami Movement’s central office, Nine Zero, in Karachi’s district central. The madrasa is closed for Ramzan break and none of its more than 500 students are around — its vast courtyard wears a deserted look.

Arranged like a library of religious books, adorned only with functional furnishing, his office is a reflection of his spartan, and academic, lifestyle. Always dressed in white, with a black waistcoat, he spends most of his time reading, writing and teaching. His only child, a son, also worked with him at the madrasa before he died of cancer in 2013 at the age of 38. Muneeb-ur-Rehman lives with his wife, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren in his house in Gulistan-e-Jauhar and does not talk much about his personal and family life beyond brief, rather evasive remarks. “It’s like what you see in most households,” he says when asked about his relationship with his family.

He shows little restraint as soon as controversies over moon sighting are mentioned, though. In a long and angry monologue, he asks why and how it is possible that one individual – Popalzai – is allowed to ridicule the state’s writ (read: the writ of the official moon sighting committee that Muneeb-ur-Rehman heads) every year. “It is the state’s responsibility to create systemic checks and balances to ensure that the official committee’s decision is considered final and binding.”

Controversies over moon sighting have plagued Muslim history since the very beginning. Al Majmu, a treatise written by the 13th century Arab scholar Muhyi ad-Din Yahyaal-Nawawi, shows the founders of various Islamic schools of jurisprudence, including Imam Shafi and Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal, respectively from the eighth and ninth centuries, to have expressed different opinions on the issue. Shafi put his entire trust in arithmetic and astronomical calculations; Hanbal deemed the physical sighting of the moon mandatory, although he did not see local sighting as necessary — once the moon is sighted anywhere in the Muslim world, every follower of the faith must accept that. Ibn-e-Taymiyya, another 13th century scholar, writing in his Risala fi’l-Hilal (Tract on the Crescent), “...categorically rejects the use of astronomical calculation in determining the lunar month.” Yaqut ibn Abdullah al-Hamawi, a 12th century Arab biographer and geographer of Greek origin, gives the government complete authority in making such decisions. He cites a legal maxim: “Hukm al-hakim ilzamun wa yarfa’ al-khilaf” (decision by a ruler is decisive and erases differences). In the 1920s, the grand mufti at Jamia al-Azhar in Cairo, Shaykh Mustafa Maraghi wrote in a paper that personal testimony of moon sighting cannot be accepted if scientific calculations conclusively prove that a moon sighting was not possible.

Between the early Muslims and their current religious descendants, multiple texts have been written and debated on the issue, each more informed than the previous one due to gradual improvements in the astronomical sciences as well as the increased reliance on technology to observe celestial objects with better accuracy. Yet controversies have proliferated at the same speed as interpretations of earlier religious texts have become sophisticated and complex.

The first official institution to decide on the sighting of the moon in Pakistan was formed in 1948; an executive order set up a central committee which would receive reports from districts committees from all the regions, including its now separated eastern part. The meteorological department, too, was consulted before a decision on moon sighting was made.

By that rule, Muneeb-ur-Rehman’s tenure at the committee should have ended a decade and a half ago.

In 1958, this mechanism faced its first reported shock as Peshawar celebrated Eidul Fitr a day before the rest of the country. This was the first of many controversies to come, created by regional, and sometimes political, differences over moon sighting. In the 1960s, Karachi differed with the central government’s decisions on the sighting of the moon three times in seven years.

On March 17, 1961, the official mechanism all but self-destructed. Ayub Khan’s military government made an announcement about Eidul Fitr and then, in a late night development, changed its announcement without consulting the committee and its chairman, Ehteshamul Haq Thanvi, a respected cleric from Karachi. The residents of the port city were already chafed by the government’s decision to shift the federal capital from Karachi to Islamabad and saw the shifting of Eid day as another political snub. As a result, most parts of Karachi observed a fast on March 18 while most of the rest of the country – except, of course, Peshawar – observed Eid that day. Peshawar had already marked Eid on March 17, following a Saudi announcement. Pakistan thus had three Eids that year.

A few years later, the problem cropped up again. Both in 1966 and 1967, Ayub Khan’s government changed its earlier moon sighting announcements, again late in the night. In the latter year, the final official declaration that the Eid moon had been sighted appeared particularly galling since the weather that day had made it impossible to see the moon. Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a Karachi-based party which was campaigning at the time for the removal of Ayub Khan’s decade-long authoritarian rule, vehemently opposed the official decision. Most residents of Karachi sided with JI and did not observe Eid on the government-designated day.

Ayub Khan’s administration saw this as an act of subversion and arrested three leading scholars, including JI founding chief Abul A’la Maududi, Thanvi and Muhammad Hussain Naeemi, a prominent Barelvi scholar from Lahore. The trio were sent behind bars for three months. The government’s jitters gave rise to the urban legend that it had changed its announcement only to avoid having Eid on a Friday — the coincidence was seen as ‘a bad omen’ for the rulers.

In order to resolve these conflicts, the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto decided to give legislative cover to the official moon sighting mechanism. In January 1974, the National Assembly passed a law for the creation of a Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee as well as four zonal/provincial committees. The central committee was to have nine members, including a woman, and it was bound to consult the zonal/provincial committees before making any decision.

With this purportedly consultative and inclusive arrangement, the government expected an end to any future controversies over moon sighting. Retaining Thanvi as the head of the central committee, the law also stipulated that its members, including the chairman, would have only a single three-year tenure.

By that rule, Muneeb-ur-Rehman’s tenure at the committee should have ended a decade and a half ago.

When he first became a part of the moon sighting committee in 1997, it was a particularly fractious time. There were reports of rifts between members and then chairman Maulana Athar Naeemi. In December 1999, for instance, Maulana Mohammed Yousuf Qureshi, a member of the committee from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, accused Muneeb-ur-Rehman and Naeemi of distrusting testimonies from his home province to make a hasty announcement that the new moon had not been sighted anywhere in the country. He walked out of a meeting of the committee as did other members from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Muneeb-ur-Rehman likes to highlight the fact that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is his native province. Yes, but he comes from the Hindko-speaking area of the province, say his critics, suggesting that he exhibits an anti-Pakhtun prejudice.

He insists that his views are coloured neither by sect nor ethnicity and points out how, in the committee, he has brought together clerics from different schools of thought, from Deobandis and Barelvis to Shias and Ahl-e-Hadith, to make unanimous decisions. “It is only that one individual and those who follow him,” he says, referring to Popalzai.

Muneeb-ur-Rehman says clerics from Masjid Qasim Ali Khan have been going against the decision of the central moon sighting committee regardless of whether it was headed by a Deobandi or a Barelvi. (There have been nine chairmen of the committee, including Muneeb-ur-Rehman, since 1974 — four of them Barelvi, others Deobandi.)

He equates their act to rebellion, one that the government should put down as a matter of priority. An official of the religious affairs ministry also believes that the legislature should stipulate a penalty for those defying the official moon sighting decision.

Why, one wonders, do Popalzai and his followers always choose to disagree with the official committee’s decisions? Popalzai denies that ethnic and sectarian factors determine his moon sighting announcements. He says his differences with the central committee are religious – that it is not a Sharia-compliant institution – and cites history and geography to support his stance.

Masjid Qasim Ali Khan has been a centre for moon sighting since 1825, he points out, and local sighting is more easily possible in the high-altitude mountainous regions in the north of Pakistan where, additionally, the atmosphere is much cleaner than in the central and southern regions which are lower in altitude and more polluted.

Also, he says, people in areas such as Charsadda, Bannu, Kohat, Mardan, Tank and Hangu are far more adept at observing the moon than others in the country because they have been doing it regularly — as part of their daily life.

Evidence suggests that these moon gazers could be wrong. This year, for instance, the position of the moon on June 17 was five degrees above the horizon which, as geographers and astronomers vouch, is impossible to see except for a fleeting moment and, that too, only in coastal areas where the horizon is lower than in the mountains.

It is the state's responsibility to create systematic checks and balances to ensure that the official committee's decision is considered final and binding

Many in Pakistan argue that one way of ending the controversy over moon sighting once and for all is to follow Saudi Arabia in marking the start of Ramzan and celebrating Eid. Muneeb-ur-Rehman has countered this argument in his book, Tafheem-ul-Masail. Saudi Arabia, he says, follows a fixed lunar calendar called Ummul Qura and has an open moon sighting policy. Anybody can come up to the government claiming they have sighted the moon and if their testimony is found credible then this leads to an official announcement about the moon having been sighted.

This is not a flawless system, though. There were instances in the recent past when Saudi authorities conceded to having made mistakes. One significant incident took places 10 years ago when, on the evidence of two 80-year-old men, the Saudi government reversed its announcement about the sighting of the moon for Zil-hij, the last month in the Hijri calendar. The reversal was itself later reversed, even though this double mistake had a major impact on the timing of one of the most important religious rituals for Muslims — their annual pilgrimage in Makkah. Similarly, at least once in the 1980s, the Saudi government announced the sighting of the new moon on the 28th day of the outgoing lunar month, a scientific impossibility.

Besides these generally methodological flaws, many Muslims around the world have doctrinal reasons to not follow Saudi Arabia. Many scholars emphasise that local sighting of the moon is mandatory; others have argued that the announcement of one Muslim government is not binding for those not living in its jurisdiction. And then there are sectarian differences. Almost all Barelvis, as well as Shias, and even some Deobandis in Pakistan do not see Saudi religious and political authorities as representative of all the Muslims in the world, or at least of all those living in Pakistan. Whatever the reason, the result is that Pakistanis have had two different starts to the month of Ramzan, and resultantly two Eids, almost every year. In the last 15 years, there have been just two years when this was not the case.

“What people don’t realise is that we are doing this to serve religion and perform our religious duty. It is not meant for any personal glory or selfish reasons,” Muneeb-ur-Rehman says in a recent interview. Moon sighting, he says, “is voluntary work and involves no salary except a small amount – 500 rupees per day – as travel and daily expense for each meeting called for a sighting.”

Considering that these meetings are mere photo-ops and, at the end of the day, all decisions are based on data and scientific evidence, one wonders why Muneeb-ur-Rehman and his associates need to meet at all. Why does moon sighting require sanction by a group of religious scholars who find it difficult to agree among themselves — and always bicker with outsiders? How difficult could it possibly be to sight the moon, given all the scientific knowledge and technological apparatus to do so? Didn’t we land a human on the moon decades ago? Have we not already crossed the boundaries of galaxies? Have we not built websites devoted to tracking every moment of the moon’s orbit, as well as of countless other celestial bodies? Then why, in this day and age, does moon sighting remain a subject in which clerical decree still reigns supreme — and that too leading to divisive outcomes?

In late 16th century, Galileo Galilei was engaged in a similar contest between science and superstition, between empirical fact and Revealed Truth, mostly about celestial objects such as the moon. Thus wrote he in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: “…come either with arguments and demonstrations, and bring us no more Texts and authorities, for our disputes are about the Sensible World...”

This was originally published in Herald's July 2015 issue. To read more, subscribe to Herald in print.

As you stand before the gate, a refreshing sense of liberation takes over. You are in full view of a house. Right in front, you can see the cosy car porch and to the left, the front garden; it features a bench, cacti-like vegetation and is teeming with clay artefacts, big and small, which lead your eyes to the front steps. Everything aesthetically coalesces in a canvas of warm brown earthen colours

This is the house where Rumana Husain lives. And this is the house that her husband, architect Mukhtar Husain, designed and built for himself, his wife, their two children and Mukhtar’s mother. Until a year ago, their family dog, Cham Cham, also shared this space with them.

Rumana and Mukhtar Husain's residence | Syed Tahir Jamal, White Star

Because you can get an eyeful of the beautiful house standing outside, you feel warmly welcomed even before you are let in. The low gate to the house is like a garden gate; a mere demarcation of property but not of space — the space is continual. In Karachi, gates are formidable barriers to keep out thieves and burglars, voyeurs and beggars; anyone uninvited. “Mukhtar does not feel one should live inside a box, cut off from the world around us,” Rumana explains to me, after she lets me in through the gate herself. She is dressed in one of those beautiful saris she is identified by, sporting jewellery to match and a big, warm smile. These three things are quintessential Rumana. She never leaves the house without them.

The Husains are a low-key couple, well-known and beloved in the circle of Karachi’s artists, activists and aspirants. Their home and time is available for anyone looking for a bit of guidance or a spot for a meeting. Just before I arrived, Rumana had an ex-student come over; one she had taught while she was the principal at CAS School. After I leave, Rumana will be out again to attend the opening of a group show at Chawkandi Art Gallery. It is in and out of the house for Rumana, all without a hassle.

Rumana and Mukhtar Husain | Courtesy Rumana Husain

You can think of her as a multi-armed deity when you consider the many vocations she has. Writing, editing and illustrating books for children; organising multiple festivals and civic forums in Karachi, such as the annual Karachi Conference, the Children’s Literature Festival, the I Am Karachi campaign; making appearances at arts and culture shows; at school events like the Habib Girl’s School golden jubilee for which she is editing the commemorative book; protesting against houbara bustard hunting by the Arab sheikhs; going to vigils or protests: The list of her activities and engagements can be different in any given week but it will always be as lengthy as this. She warns me it will be a challenge keeping up with her schedule. So it turns out to be.

As she introduces me into her life, she is in control of what she wants to talk about and leave out. She is like this in most interactions — always keeping discussions on track. Maybe because she has to devote her time to multiple things in the day, she has to be careful about conversations drifting endlessly. And she does so effortlessly. Amra Ali, Rumana’s close friend and her co-founder for the art magazine, NuktaArt, wonders what Rumana eats to be so organised moving through a calendar brimming with meetings and events to participate in. And all that has never stopped her from sharing her time with her friends.

“One life is not enough for all the things I want to do,” is how Rumana herself explains it.

Rumana reads out an excerpt at the launch of her book, City Tales and Village Tales, at the Children’s Literature Festival 2015 in Karachi | Mohammad Ali, White Star

NuktaArt, founded in 2005, was a biannual art magazine that sought to move discourse on Pakistani art outside the artist community. The four women who founded it – Niilofur Farrukh, Sabiha Imani, Amra Ali and Rumana – lived and breathed for that magazine for a whole decade. Around a table at Ali’s house, these women discussed what to include in the magazine, what writers to get, how to grow out of a niche audience. They also enjoyed spending time together.

Initial funding for NuktaArt came from the Prince Claus Fund. It was only during the first two years of its publication that the magazine made some money and it was only for those two years that its editorial staff got paid. It made perhaps less than 200,000 rupees in 10 years, says Ali.

The magazine was founded to generate a vibrant discussion on art. “Nothing else mattered.” Some challenges faced by NuktaArt since the beginning ultimately caused the wind up of the magazine. It was difficult to convince the publishers to invest in and promote such a niche publication; it was difficult to coax advertisers and it was frustrating to deal with writers, says Ali.

Talking about her book Karachiwala | Courtesy Rumana Husain

Rumana explains that the mandate of NuktaArt was to fill the gaps in the education and promotion of art in Pakistan: “We wished to uphold international standards of publication to showcase Pakistani art and open a discourse, instead of just publishing reviews; that was the vision.” She is proud of her stint with the magazine. NuktaArt, says Rumana, “placed me at the centre of the art world”.

NuktaArt isn’t the only publication Rumana has to her name, of course. She is a littérateur in many ways, spending a huge amount of time reading and writing books. There is a mile-long string of children’s books she has illustrated, written, co-authored (over 50 titles). Like her fascination with a discourse on art, Rumana is extremely interested in diversity. “Right from my childhood, I have had an interest in the world and in different kinds of people, their customs, what they wear and eat. I was fascinated with the world.”

Her third fascination is Karachi. The city, in fact, is a common thread running through her association and involvement in various projects. Her book, Karachiwala: A Subcontinent within a City, was launched in 2010. It was very well received and Rumana was invited to talk about it at several institutions and platforms in places like Karachi, Amsterdam, Chicago and, most recently, to The Shanghai Lit Fest 2014.

A page from the book Bhooli Bisri | Courtesy Rumana Husain

One afternoon at her place, she shows me the layout and design of her upcoming book: Street Smart. And then she brings out piles of thin colourful children’s books, hardback ones for foreign publications, and teachers’ guides and books for supplementary reading that she has either authored or illustrated. Rumana goes through each book with me, relating as much detail about the concept behind it as she briefly can. There is a long list to go through, but my questions are not required. I also feel I am not allowed to touch or dwell on any book. She’d rather have them in her hands like prized possessions –—being keenly aware that each end product is her individual hard work materialised.

As you enter a colonial bungalow in Bath Island, Clifton, which houses the Karachi office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), you will see a tall and colourful mural made of fabric on your left, rising up to the ceiling. This is Rumana’s creation. It could be a piece of art that belongs in a bright and cheerful primary school, depicting the endangered flora and fauna of Pakistan, appliquéd on to each province where they are found.

There is another one on the second floor. It is a 10-foot fabric appliqué mural called The World of Nature, made similarly of cloth with figures clad in native dresses stitched onto various parts of the world, from Dutch to Scandinavian to the women of Thar and the Andes. Flora and fauna found in different parts of the world are also matched to their native countries. As Rumana tells me about this piece, she seems delighted in her memories of how well loved her creation is. It was flown to the Swiss headquarters of IUCN in Gland in 1992 where it hung until 2014.

“I asked my daughter-in-law to go see it for my sake,” she says. “Something about playing with the texture of fabric and stitching things together was very appealing to me and came to me with natural ease,” says Rumana. She seems to take as much delight in talking about her granddaughters and her children’s childhood as she does while talking about her murals.

A 10x10 foot fabric applique wall hanging made by Rumana Husain, titled The World of Nature, is on display at the Karachi office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature — Mohammad Ali, White Star

Rumana has made herself comfortable in the IUCN lobby, as if she still works here, and gives a big, warm smile to any staff member who walks by, as if she knows them closely.

Her creative works and her contribution as an educator and citizen of Karachi are inextricably linked with children. After her first exhibition of stuffed toys in 1981, she was commissioned by the Aga Khan University Hospital at the time, to produce 55 wall hangings for its Children’s Ward. Rumana was crestfallen after a recent visit to the ward; her murals were absent from the corridors. After 25 years, the new administration had taken them down and done up the hospital in kitschy, “tacky” fashion with Disney cartoons painted on the walls that gave off a hollow plastic cheeriness. “I am so keen on promoting Pakistani-ness in children’s imagination,” she tells me on more than one occasion. “You see that I have even made a figure of myself on the bottom right of The World mural, wearing a shalwar kameez.”

In all her children’s storybooks, too, the characters display their Pakistani identity. They travel across Pakistan in her City Tales and Village Tales, for example. Their dolls are not Western plastic dolls with blond hair and blue eyes but ragdolls that any child can make at home. They have black hair and eyes, and wear local dresses.

In the yellowed pages of an issue of the Herald from October, 1981, Najma Babar writes on Rag Dolls and Cuddly Crocs. This must be it — I was looking for a review of Rumana’s exhibition of stuffed toys that year. It all began with making a stuffed hippo for her one-year-old son Adil. Soon, as the article reveals, her house was filled with colourful playthings made of cloth, big and small, sea animals, rag dolls, including “golliwogs”.

Rumana Husain at Arts Council, Karachi | Mohammad Ali, White Star

“Many things have not come to me through planning. My life has taken its course. Just because I wanted to make a stuffed toy for my son, that made me make so many.”

When we are discussing the article at her house, she tests my memory about which stuffed toys were photographed for it. I am relieved to be able to recall the opening picture — Rumana holding up a friendly, arm-long red lobster in it. But that picture made an impression for another reason. Seeing the youthful Rumana was somehow an original experience of all the energy that she carries today. As a young woman with vibrant large eyes, which now eagerly peer out from behind a pair of thick spectacles; a straight delicate nose on an angular olive skinned face that has now rounded out, and a pursed but mirthful mouth which is now even more expressive and turns into a wide grin easily; there is a certain sprightliness in young Rumana that has remained alive still, although it may be less visible in her sari-clad avatar that resembles a dignified school principal.

When Rumana joined CAS School in 1986, it was just being set up in a house in Defence Housing Authority. She was hired as the arts teacher, but moved up over the years to become the headmistress and then vice principal from 1995 to 1996. Her decade at the CAS was a time for nurturing others and also pursuing a simultaneous path of bookmaking. As the headmistress, Rumana implemented creative and innovative methods of learning and introduced artistic subjects for children. “I was learning the sitar then, and I would play it in the morning assembly for the children,” she says. She hired the late Musadiq Sanwal as the music teacher, who was a creative artist always ready to think out of the box, and Syed Mohammad Ahmed, who is now a television playwright, actor and director of children’s television programmes, as the dance teacher.

“One life is not enough for all the things I do,” is how Rumana herself explains it.

The academic standard and calibre of students was less than exemplary back then. The institution was going through teething troubles and couldn’t control the quality of students who enrolled. But the school boasted of a “nice library,” recalls Rumana, this being another collection of books that set her thinking. The library had beautiful books for children; all western literature. In an attempt to promote learning in Urdu, the books had Urdu translations stuck next to the original English text. Rumana found this endearing and it made her go home one day and dig up the collection of children’s books her husband had put together over the years from his trips to various countries. She came to CAS the next day with an armful of books from China, India and Russia to show to the school owner, Sami Mustafa. This was the start of what came to be known as the Book Group. They decided to create and sell their own books, of which Rumana and Mustafa co-wrote the first.

The Book Group is an integral part of Rumana’s life. She may not like to term it so. Perhaps, it was the only episode in her life when her calm and collected persona was not enough to protect her. This may also be the only phase in her life that didn’t run its natural course. “I look back at it with a bitterness which continues.” During her work for The Book Group (“I never made any material gains” in the form of royalties), Rumana was already well branched out as a resource person in the field of education and children’s publishing. Whereas she was invited to represent Pakistan at literary and cultural platforms abroad, at her own workplace, she was being “persecuted”.

In all my encounters and conversations with Rumana, this is the only grey cloud that overcasts the sunny personality — to a surprising degree in fact. But it is less surprising that this experience taught her an enduring lesson. Once she was back on her feet and delved into researching for Karachiwala, “I realised I had the capacity of reinventing myself.” The book’s success was an endorsem*nt.

A page from her book series Hop on the Story Truck of the City Tales | Courtesy Rumana Husain

In 2011, Baela Raza Jamil, an education activist and head of Lahore-based Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, requested Rumana to visit Lahore for the Children’s Literature Festival, the first-ever held in Pakistan in November that year. This led to the next big idea, the next project in her life. Soon she was working on having a Children’s Literature Festival in Karachi. “We formed a board of directors and it became part of the KLF [Karachi Literature Festival]. This way I began taking ownership of some things,” says Rumana.

Ameena Saiyid, the doyenne of publishing in Pakistan, who also collaborated on the Children’s Literature Festival once under the umbrella of Karachi Literature Festival, has known Rumana for over 20 years, and considers her a social asset. “She is very sensitive and really listens to children. She has an endearing way of speaking to them. It is evident that children are drawn to her.”

Rumana recited a poem on child marriage at last year’s Children’s Literature Festival at one of the sessions:

Rumana Husain uses poetry as a tool to help highlight the issue of child marriages

In its simple and direct versification, the poem drives home some important messages.

For the festival last month, Rumana transformed into a singer for the sake of doing a session on composer Sohail Rana’s popular children’s songs recorded for Pakistan Television in the 1970s and the 1980s.

Rumana is working on a series of illustrated books (in a format similar to that of graphic novels) on eminent personalities of Pakistan for the Oxford University Press. She was also the juror for the KLF Peace Prize, and had her plate full – as per usual – with 18 books to peruse before February this year. This coincided with planning for a film festival in early March under the I Am Karachi banner. “My love affair with documenting different aspects of Karachi will continue,” she shares with me when I ask about her future plans. “Maybe there is a third book soon. This city has so much to offer.”

Rumana, however, is not just a starry-eyed lover of art, culture and books. She is also interested and active in many social causes such as protesting against houbara bustard hunting and voicing her concerns about the security of children and teachers after the Peshawar school attack.

“She has a lot of ideas, and is passionate about whatever she undertakes. At one point, I believe, she was working on a museum for children,” says Saiyid (referring to the Children’s Museum for Peace & Human Rights for which Rumana worked as head of activism and outreach section from 2001 to 2008).

Arshad Mahmud and Ghazi Salahuddin, join Rumana Husain as panelists at the Children’s Literature Festival | Mohammad Ali, White Star

Like Rumana, her contemporaries strive to inculcate what is seen as ‘bohemian’ learning. Along with composer and actor Arshad Mahmud and seasoned journalist Ghazi Salahuddin, she was at a panel at the Children’s Literature Festival last month, discussing her dreams for Karachi. Daydreaming is important, they told the teachers and pupils alike. So is watching plays for entertainment. Karachi is important, they added, and you can help it improve.

“There must be more entertainment than just television,” said Mahmud. They all agreed and Rumana wondered at the lack of interest in children’s entertainment on television. “You can set your ratings aside for a one-hour show for children from which they can learn something,” she said with a trace of indignation and exasperation. “We say we love our children but I don’t see us taking care of them very much. These are the things that show our neglect of them,” she had said earlier on in the discussion.

As the Children’s Literature Festival is coming to a close, I leave Rumana in the hubbub of uniformed girls and boys, filtering in and out of the Arts Council gates, excited to be at a festival on a school day.

This was originally published in Herald's March 2015 issue. Subscribe to Herald in print.

A 19th century water bottle made of Chinese porcelain containing Zamzam water. Courtesy The British Museum

London’s British Museum announced this August that a new exhibition entitled Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam will open at the museum in January 2012, bringing together historic and contemporary objects – including contemporary art, video, pilgrims’ testimonies, manuscripts, textiles, archaeological items and photography – to explore the experience and importance of the annual pilgrimage. Visitors to the exhibition can also expect sound-cones emitting the labbaik prayer, extracts from The Autobiography of Malcolm X (he went on Hajj in 1964), the Kiswah (the cloth covering the Kaaba) and the bottle that explorer Richard Burton filled with water from the Zamzam well in 1853. The show is scheduled to run from January 26 -April 15, 2012.

Venetia Porter, responsible for the British Museum’s collection of Islamic and modern Middle Eastern art and also chief curator for the exhibition, spoke to the Herald on how this exhibition will focus on the history of Islam and the region, while looking at the material culture surrounding the religion.

Q. Why has the British Museum chosen to stage an exhibition of this scale on this particular subject?

A. This exhibition came about as Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, thought it would be a good idea to do a series on spiritual journeys. We’ve been working on this exhibition for two years. We began looking at different subjects and realised the subject of Hajj had not been extensively covered before. This was a subject of personal interest for me as well — I was born and brought up in Lebanon and studied Arabic and Islamic art. I knew what Hajj was. However, it was only when I started to do preliminary research that I realised I knew practically nothing about it — it was extraordinary to me. The sense of the journey and the notion of people coming together at one time in the year, travelling extraordinary distances, saving for years in order to make the journey — I found this astounding. You read accounts of people who died on Hajj or journeys that took up to two years and feel a great respect for those who were doing this. Even when you hear modern accounts of the journey or speak with pilgrims today, such as my fellow curator Qaisra Khan, you understand that the journey is still incredibly arduous, and despite changes over the years, it is something people want to do as a renewal of faith. I find it very powerful that the rituals have remained unchanged over the years and the process allows hajjis to feel connected to their past.

Q. How do you hope to convey the spiritual and inherently physical nature of the journey?

A. The exhibition has been organised in three main sections — the preparation for Hajj and the journey, reaching the heart of Islam and, finally, what it means to be a hajji. With an exhibition as extensive as this, you do not need more than 180 objects, but each one must tell a story — it must serve as a springboard for the visitor, taking him or her in a particular direction. The exhibits must work as a jigsaw, the pieces coming together in order to tell a story, and you must choose the stories you want to focus on. I realised that there were thousands of stories of journeys — how do you represent them and, more importantly, which ones do you represent? We have divided the journeys into four main stories, focused on geographical hubs — the journeys Mecca from Egypt,Africa,Syria,Iraq and so on. The challenge is to narrow down these stories and find voices that will engage the public. Conveying the spiritual aspect of the journey has been one of the most exciting parts of this exhibition and we’re in touch with Muslim communities in order to capture the experiences of hajjis. Pilgrims can send us their stories through the British Museum website and so on. It is a challenge to convey the spiritual nature of this event and that’s what we’re really working on right now. When you come in to the exhibit, you’ll find text on the walls, verses from the Quran, the words of those who have experienced Hajj, multi-media guides that allow you to hear peoples’ experiences and sound-cones that convey the auditory experience of being present in that space.

Q. Can you talk about the process of gathering material for exhibition?

A. We have borrowed material from the British Museum’€™s own India Archives, the Imperial War Museum, the Royal Geographic Society and so on. We’ve received material from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, manuscripts fromTimbuktuand the Khalili private archive of Islamic art has generously loaned us material. The Saudis have been guiding us in terms of the organisation of modern Hajj — details about how three million hajjis are accommodated annually, for example. I’ve been travelling to Saudi Arabia for two years in order to access collections and working out agreements for loans. Some items, such as the key to the Kaaba, will also be displayed in the exhibit. We’re working with roughly 35 lenders. In terms of modern material, people will soon be asked to send us their images via our website. The exhibition will also include the work of Saudi artists Ahmed Mater and Shadia Alem (who representedSaudi Arabiaat the Venice Biennale earlier this year), the Morroccan-French artist Kader Attia and Iraqi artist Walid Siti.

Q. The British Museum’s Facebook page has received comments from users who say this is a “placatory exhibition” — how do you take into account such comments? And how do you cater to Muslim and non-Muslim visitors while also considering a generation that has grown up in a diaspora, not identifying with their Muslim roots as their parents may have?

A. We’re dealing with two kinds of publics here. A non-Muslim public knows that Hajj exists, but knows very little about it. We conducted numerous focus groups in order to find out what people already know and what they are interested in finding out about. Non-Muslims often do not distinguish between the monotheistic religions — for example, they may not know that Abraham was a central figure in all three monotheistic religions. It is very important in our world to understand the importance of this religious experience, to understand Islam. This has actually been one of the interesting aspects of this exhibition — to create something that someone who knows nothing or very little about Islam can see and appreciate. The British Museum is secular — we are striking a balance between the historical and religious perspective, examining the relationship between faith and society. I don’t think we are trying to force people to visit a religious exhibition — the Hajj exhibition is a way of looking at Islam through the material culture surrounding the religion. We focus on the incredibly interesting history of the religion and the region — for example, we take a look at the British colonial period, when companies such as Thomas Cook arranged travel, or when the Dutch controlled the travel routes in South east Asia. What we’re doing is opening a window into the first year of Islam – the beginning of the seventh century – using Hajj as a prism through which to view these moments in time. As for those who say it is a “placatory” exhibition — I would ask them to give us the benefit of the doubt.

As for Muslims, we’re obviously dealing with different generations. We want them to feel we’ve got it right — we want them to recognise facets of themselves in the exhibition. We’re working with a range of Muslim scholars and advisory groups, including Hajj organisations. Qaisra Khan has been in touch with different community groups and people have been so enthusiastic to give us advice and relate their experiences that it’s been very heartening, especially when you’ve got such a steep learning curve. It reinforces what we’re trying to do.

Q. You have not travelled to Mecca or Medina or undertaken Hajj. How do think this has affected your role as curator of an exhibition that is steeped in the experience of the event and history of the space?

A. Of course, I’m so curious about the experience and I would love to travel to Mecca, but that is not possible. I’m fortunate to work with Qaisra, who is a hajji, and gives me a sense of the experience. While this is a strange experience for me, I’d like to think that it is helpful having a distance as a curator — as an art historian, I can deconstruct the objects in a different way, without that sense of personal connection to them. We have a team of 10 or 12 people working directly on this exhibition and others peripherally – on the website, for example – and several have never experienced Hajj. However, everyone has been captivated by the experience. We all recognise that we’re doing something that hasn’t been done before and conveying an atmosphere of this space in a way we have not done with any of our other exhibitions. An exhibition we did in 2007, The First Emperor, exhibited incredible world-famous objects; the Hajj exhibition is different from our other exhibitions in that we’re focusing on the atmospheric side. The beautiful objects are not all world-famous and we’re spending a lot of time choosing old photographs and objects as well as modern stories that will really give you the sense of people from Malaysia to Pakistan to Bradford converging on this one place.

Q. The exhibition is bringing together objects from as far asIstanbul’sTopkapiPalaceMuseumto collections inTimbuktu— what are some of your personal favourites to be exhibited?

A. I think some of the textiles we have borrowed are just incredible. There is also a Hajj certificate we borrowed from a woman who could not go on Hajj and sent a proxy instead. I think the depictions of the sanctuary at Mecca in manuscripts are beautiful. The guides to pilgrimage – they tell you where to do your tawaf or the location of the Muqaam-e-Ibrahim, for example – are so rich in colour. I love the modern art because the artists’ responses to this experience and space are very interesting. I think I have a new favourite object every day.

Q. Do you have any favourites in the Pakistani art world?

A. I’ve been slowly learning about Pakistani artists; at the Sharjah Biennale, I had the chance to see Imran Qureshi’s work and I loved it. I love the combination of these contemporary artists working in the karkhana tradition. I saw an intervention by Rashid Rana at the Musee Guimet in Paris and thought it was amazing. These Pakistani artists are hugely talented — I’m just at zero at the moment and am slowly discovering their work.

Atif Aslam, Photo by Fuzzal Ahmed

His vocals traverse borders through to India and Bollywood, travelling into territories unexplored by Pakistani artists: Trinidad, Hong Kong and Bali are just three of the places Atif Aslam has recently performed at sold-out concerts. He is touring the US with 15 different gigs as we speak. Not even a decade into his career, this firebrand has hit another high with his first film appearance, cast as the voice of moderation in Bol.

Atif Aslam’s fame is at an all-time high but he prefers to remain deeply grounded. He drives from Lahore to Islamabad alone; that sense of control over his life is what he wants to hold onto. He may be staying at the Serena hotel in Islamabad, as impossible to access as Fort Knox because of its tight security, but he is just as approachable as the next guy at the gym. But he is not the next guy at the gym. He is Atif Aslam and the consistent stream of fans asking for photographs is proof of his fame. He puts smiles on girls’ faces and pride in young boys’ eyes. They all want to be like him and he wants them to know that they can. If his journey began on a mini-bus to college only to continue on a jet plane to Trinidad then anyone’s dream can be realised.

Q. What would you say is the demographic of your fan following?

A. Statistics say that I have fans in the bracket of two to 60 years. I have two million fans on Facebook. I’m more popular than Pervez Musharraf. That’s a huge fan following. It’s also a tremendous responsibility.

Q. As a celebrity in the industry, what responsibility do you feel you have?

A. I’m not making hospitals or schools, if that’s what you mean, but I am doing my own thing and I don’t want to talk about it. People who follow me take me seriously.

Q. And the message you hand out is…

A. That it’s not impossible for anyone to be a star. You just need dedication. I’ve had ups and downs in my career and people have always urged me to give up singing. But I didn’t. I try to make a difference everyday. I want my fans to connect to me, to relate to me. I try to keep my life as normal as possible.

Q. How can you lead a normal life when you have fans following you around for autographs and pictures all day?

A. My dad, being the perfect dad, pushed me to live life the hard way. Changing buses to get to college or standing in the heat has made me tough. At times those days seem like a world away but I can still relate to them. My family helps me stay grounded. I hardly take them to my concerts as I don’t want them to relate to this world. They are my home and I want them to be there to pull me back when they need to.

Q. But life has turned around for you.

A. It has. It was always easy for me to go on a date before becoming a star. That has changed now. It has become very difficult for me. I have had a steady girlfriend for two to three years but not before that. I couldn’t handle it two years ago. I’m a people’s person now. In fact, I’m public property.

Q. It’s no secret that Junaid Jamshed’s rejection of music scarred Shoaib Mansoor enough to deal with this issue in both his films. You come across as moderately religious, performing naats for commercials at Ramzan. So what’s your take on music and Islam?

A. As long as I’m not harming anyone, it’s perfectly fine. Drugs and sex would push me down the wrong road; I would waste away. One has to control relative evils that are stereotyped with musicians but otherwise I feel there’s nothing wrong with music. Even the mullahs relate to me. A man with a very long beard walked up to me at a petrol pump last night and said that his wife always wanted to meet me. You’d think he wouldn’t let his wife talk to another man. I’m setting a new standard for people. They haven’t seen a star this big and I want them to also see the balance I maintain.

Q. What’s the message in Bol?

A. Well, women’s rights. Talk about respect. Talk about what we’ve been doing to our families and talk about the biggest problem on our hands — population control. My friend, who is a teacher, thanked me for taking his class to watch the film. One of his students, a 17-year-old boy, had the same story as Saifi in the film – and so many children do – and he had never spoken about it. He started talking about it after watching Bol.

I didn’t want to do commercial films but I did Bol to create awareness and give back to society. People are relating to the film. Teenagers aren’t complaining that there is no masala in the film. They relate to me and my music. The message in Bol has changed their thinking.

Q. But many have a problem with the character you play – Mustafa – because he leaves Saifi at a truck stand when truck stands are infamous for paedophilia.

A. When Mansoor gave me the script I asked him the same thing. A shot has been cut, which would have made things a bit clearer. But I think Saifi’s drawings could only have come to use at a truck stand. You have to understand that Mustafa is not Atif Aslam in the film; he didn’t have access to the National College of Arts (NCA) and prestigious art schools.

Q. But Atif Aslam does permeate the character of Mustafa with his music.

A. Yes, but he’s not a star.

Q. What are you doing for the elevation of music in Pakistan when there seems to be very little hope?

A. There’s always hope. Bands are not ready to give up. They tell me I am their hope as I have kept music alive for so many people. I’m working with Duff McKagan (a former Guns N’ Roses bassist) and will release that music with a big bang. My album will be out by the end of this year or early next year. I’m not in a hurry. I’ve also hired Mekaal Hasan as a sound engineer and that has elevated my sound quality. I’m one level up.

People have been approaching Tips [an Indian music company] and me with film offers but I think I’m a very immature actor and there’s tremendous room for improvement in my acting skills. If I like a script, I’ll do it but I’m happy with making music right now. I never want to do Indian co*ke Studio. In fact even in Pakistan, I’m bored of co*ke Studio. It’s becoming dull. What I want to do is go around the world – to places like Brazil – and perform there as well as mix hybrid genres of music.

Q. What is the most interesting place you have performed at?

A. I enjoy concerts around the world. Bali is a place where no Pakistani musician has ever been. We’ve performed there. We went to Hong Kong, where South Asians are elusive. Our concert was a sell-out and they stood and danced throughout it. I’ve been told that not even Shahrukh Khan or Akshay [Kumar] gets that kind of reaction.

Mahira Khan, Photo by Malika Abbas/White Star

Bol has turned VJ Mahira Khan into an actor and, therefore, a star of another world. She is suddenly a role model known to everyone, piquing their curiosity as to which role she will undertake. She is very clear about the figure she wants to cut: one of no glamour, no fuss and no pretence. She wants to continue wandering around in jeans and a T-shirt. She wants to convey a strong message that women in films can be real.

Real life for Mahira is her family: her childhood love of a husband Ali who is working on creating Pakistan’s first animation series for television. Family is also her 20-month old son Azlan, who accompanies her on foreign shoots. And, of course, her friends – Feeha Jamshed being one of her closest – for whom she has also sacrificed mid-term exams for they are inseparable. She is a role model for the modern Pakistani star: beautiful, confident and great at multitasking.

Q. How did you find working with Atif Aslam?

A. Atif keeps denying it but there was a lot of quarreling. But he is amazing. I keep telling him that he’s God’s favourite child. He touches something and it turns to gold. He’s great and he’s sorted.

Q. Would you have made any changes in Bol?

A. I feel that they should have made the love story a bit stronger and I wish that I had been slapped at least once. I’m the only one in the film who doesn’t get slapped and my friends came out of the cinema saying that I never cooked, I never cleaned and I never got slapped around. All I did was scale walls.

Q. Where does an oppressed girl find the confidence to sing at an open concert?

A. That was the only place I disagreed with Mansoor’s vision. I wanted this girl to sing in her shalwar kameez and dupatta. I didn’t want to give out the message that to sing, play the guitar or pursue your dreams you have to change who you are.

Q. Your second acting experience after Bol was with Mehreen Jabbar.

A. I shot Jabbar’s [television serial] Niyat in New York this March. My second acting experience was very different from my first.

Q. How?

A. I learnt how to act with Jabbar. Mansoor treated me like a baby; Bol didn’t depend on me. Niyat is different and I play the central role of an immature girl studying for her masters at Columbia. It’s a complicated, urban love story and in a way too close to reality for comfort.

Q. Does the immature girl reflect your own personality?

A. No, considering I dropped out of a full scholarship at UCI [University of California, Irvine] to get married.

Q. Has working with Jabbar spoilt you?

A. Once you’ve worked with MJ [Mehreen Jabbar] you have to unlearn everything she’s taught you. She pushed me to stay natural whereas other directors push you the other way. She grilled me. She had a tough time taming my eyebrows that she said had a life of their own, for instance. I’m only doing two series; the other with Sarmad Khoosat, who is Irfan Khoosat’s son, and thankfully both my directors are gifted in their own way so I’m lucky.

Q. You have also done the Lux advert with Meera, Reema and Humaima. Are you the next style and glamour icon?

A. I’m constantly told that I’m unstarlike and that I don’t have the attitude that it takes to be a star. I’m constantly told I need to be more like Meera or Reema or Iman and I’ve thought about it. I spent a day giving this some serious thought. And the answer to your question is no. Why can’t I, the next generation of film actors, change the way people think of film stars? That is my responsibility. The reason we were taken for the Lux campaign was because we were all cast in a film. That’s it. Even a two-part role makes you a film star and overnight you’re a third-world celebrity. It’s stupid. So I thought about it and take it upon myself to change the perception of what a film actress in Pakistan should act like, think like, speak like and dress like. But I’ve decided every once in a while I’ll turn up in a gown with coiffed up hair and fake eye lashes.

Q. How do you want your fans to perceive you?

A. I’d rather people were curious about what I have to say rather than what I am wearing. We’re not living in the fifties anymore. We have to come to terms with the fact that stars nowadays will be different. They will not have that enigma about them because there’s no way the media will let them be. I would like to be true to myself. I’d like to be a role model for the youth so that they can connect with me.

Q. What is the strongest message for you in Bol?

A. That would have to be stereotypes. My favourite character in the film is the brother and I wish he hadn’t died and that they showed a solution to that problem. But for me the film is about stereotypes. The biggest message in Bol isn’t about women’s rights – it’s far from a feminist film – it’s about killing stereotypes and stopping oppression on a daily basis. It’s a gutsy film.

Q. Was it difficult to act in a gutsy film?

A. It was difficult to act. Atif and I had it the hardest because we had never read lines before. Even the kids in Bol were theatre actors and experienced. We had to work much harder.

Q. Did the hard work affect your personal life?

A. Oh yeah, absolutely. I did the film then I took up the serials but after completing them I’ve decided that I won’t take any more serials till October. I want to put Azlan into a schedule. I can’t do what someone who is single would be doing.

Q. Is it worth it?

A. It’s worth it as long as I know my child isn’t suffering which I don’t think he is. There are days when I go back and I know he needed me and I wasn’t there. When you work for more than eight hours a day you return and get the ‘silent treatment’. They look at you differently.

Q. Is it just the child or the husband too?

A. Of course it’s the husband as well. They can be much more difficult than children. A man is a man is a man. But because he’s the creative type, he has his own dreams and he understands mine. And we’ve been together since I was 14 and he was 16. He understands me.

It is difficult to reconcile Mohammed Hanif, the author of the biting, satirical A Case of Exploding Mangoes, with the soft-spoken, unassuming man sitting across the table from me. Fueled almost exclusively, it seems, by cups of black coffee and nicotine, Hanif is almost painfully easy to talk to yet, as a friend once put it, interviewing him is a little bit like “trying to nail jelly to a wall”.

It does not take me long to realise that this is because Hanif has no real agenda. Incredibly candid, he deflects questioning inadvertently because he does not try to hide anything, leaving anyone seeking his deep dark secrets completely disarmed. What you see is what you get and, in this case, what you get is an individual who, despite his avowals to the contrary, seems to have an uncanny knack for writing about topics that electrify the imagination and well before anyone even realises that they could be ‘issues’ for discussion.

“I don’t know if it’s me that’s messed up, or the times that we live in,” he says quietly when asked about how his novels seem to correlate to ‘hot topic’ items. A Case of Exploding Mangoes was published just as a fascination with the roots of the Taliban and Pakistani complicity from the Zia years became noticeable. His new novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, is almost diametrically opposed to his last book; it is, as he puts it, a love story first and foremost but its eponymous protagonist, Alice Bhatti, is a female Christian nurse in Pakistan. In the light of events in 2011, from the assassinations of Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti (governor of Punjab and minister for minority affairs, respectively), it is easy to see a corollary between Hanif’s work and the current wave of theological zealotry that sweeps across Pakistan with depressing regularity.

“It takes about a year once you’re done writing,” Hanif continues, “to go through the publishing cycle. So I started writing this book four years ago, right after I finished the last one, and it went to the publishers last year. All this started happening and I thought, oh no … it’s going to be like I’ve been writing about this with some sort of agenda. There’s no agenda! It’s a love story and one of the characters happens to be a Christian. I can shout from the rooftops that it’s not a ‘minority’ story but I’m also somewhat reconciled to the idea that people are going to read whatever they want into it.” He shrugs, adding, “If I have the right, as an author, to write about whatever I want then my readers also have the right to read my work any way they choose … you can’t dictate the meaning that you want them to take away from it.”

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti will be available in Pakistan and the UK in September. When asked why his publications have to go through Random House India, Hanif sighs heavily. Surely, I go on warming to my cause, given how Pakistan-specific his work is, there must be someone willing to publish his books here? “I tried desperately to get my last book published in Pakistan,” he says, starting on his second cup of black coffee. Clearly, the way to get answers here is to keep him well-caffeinated. “But no one would publish it; some of the bigger presses just didn’t consider it, some of the smaller, private ones had excuses: oh, our printers have read the book and won’t publish it; or our marketing people think it’s not going to work out, so it’s not really feasible for us to do this.” He starts laughing. “When this [his second novel] was done, I went to a publisher again here, the largest local publisher, and the only question they asked me was ‘oh, it’s not like your first book, is it?’ and I couldn’t believe them. I just didn’t bother after that. I mean, of course you want your book coming out here first, it’s natural, but when no one is willing to help you to accomplish that, then at some point you have to move on.”

The problem, he notes, with writing books is that people don’t always understand how fiction is just that: fiction. “At the most”, he chuckles, “all I can be accused of is having a uniform fetish, what between the military characters and the nurses. When I wrote my first novel, I sat there and wondered who would want to read about Zia? There’s no real interest outside the occasional op-eds, he’s been forgotten about. It’s not as though the Taliban wander around with pictures of him on placards. I thought I’d just go off the beaten path; I was there in the Zia years, I really lived through them so I was obsessing about something that I recognised as irrelevant. You just happen to be influenced by the times you live in, past and present.”

And clearly sometimes, I point out, you happen upon the future. Religious and ethnic groups in Pakistan are being marginalised to an incredible extent; people who stand up for what they believe in are killed brutally and their murderers are extolled as heroes and defenders of a faith that seems to need blood to maintain its sanctity. The trend towards Pakistan becoming a theocracy was lent momentum by Zia’s governance and rewriting of the legal code, so it is easy to see the links between both novels. When I pause for breath, he asks me very seriously, how old I am. “Oh God,” he says, when I tell him. “You’re so young. I don’t know why I’ve been taking you so seriously all this time.” I feel flattered for a moment. “But you don’t seem so young. Look, think about it this way.” He stops and lights another cigarette. “What is marginalised here? What isn’t? Especially here, in Pakistan, we don’t know what ‘marginalised’ means any more, anyone and everyone and everything can fall into that category.”

He is frank about the timing of his novel, admitting easily that if he had still been in the process of writing Our Lady of Alice Bhatti now, he would have stopped. “I probably wouldn’t have written it; or maybe I’d have done it as a non-fiction piece. It’s too immediate and in your face to sit down and think ‘Oh hang on, there’s all this terrible stuff going on, let me just mine it for my fiction.’ But it’s not unusual — this was a hot topic four or five months ago but what’s happening now? I don’t think it really is any more, even though the issues haven’t gone away. This was a really hot topic some months ago, but now…?” his voice trails off.

“When you get to my age, you start to regress and all these childhood memories come back. When I went to school, in Okara, all of us children and our families, we knew one another. And I was pretty competitive as a kid — at least until I was 16 or 17, then I don’t know what happened,” Hanif says. “Anyway, there were these two Christian children who were always doing really well, always at the top of the class. But we just knew – all of us, mind you – that they weren’t really going to go anywhere, literally or figuratively, after class five. They all started working then and I don’t think any of us even knew how to vocalise this but we all just knew that we were going to move on.”

It is these unspoken myths around minorities that Hanif is struck by. In the case of his old classmates, it was just an understood fact of life, this comprehension that there was an expiry date attached. “I think that may happen with this book,” he says quietly. “People will probably think that I’ve written about a Christian nurse because once upon a time, as far as we can all remember, it was very common for nurses to be from the Christian community. But look around now: this isn’t common. The world has moved on, nursing is a competitive field, your mainstream Muslim girls and boys are competing to get these jobs. The reality doesn’t match with the archetype and I think it’ll be hard for people to break away from that.”

When I point out that writing a novel about a Christian nurse might feed into that stereotype, Hanif is characteristically disarming. “It wasn’t that. You know, my mother had cancer when I was in my late teens and I spent all this time in the hospital with her. There would be nurses doing late-night rounds and I had these hazy recollections.” He stubs out his cigarette and looks up. “Sometimes when something really bad happens, you remember one particular detail; it’s like a way to deflect. I remember those nurses, sort of all rolled up into one kind person. It never occurred to me before but I’ve almost blocked out the image of my mother sick; I remember other little details of the place. I think that’s why I chose to write about a Christian nurse, not because I was trying to reinforce a stereotype or be ironic. It’s just something that I remember so well, something that has stayed with me.”

He reminds me again that Our Lady of Alice Bhatti doesn’t actually have an agenda: that it is a book, a story; that he is not trying to be a spokesperson for anyone or any group. “I’m a special correspondent for the BBC”, he points out. “My job – vague though this may sound – is to work for the BBC, to be the person they contact when they want to know more about Pakistan.” This is, he reiterates, something that drives his writing.

“In some ways, it’s harder to write now, than when I was living in London. There, I had a proper office job and when your life is somewhat structured, you’re forced to carve out time between work and commuting and everything else — and you actually use it and value it. Now, there are days when I have hours to myself and my wife [the actress, Nimra Bucha] is busy with her television work and I’m relaxed. Almost too relaxed!”

I wonder if this is a hint that a next novel may be delayed. Hanif cracks a smile. “I’m sure there are people out there who think ‘I will write a novel about X’ and then they do it. Me, I’m too haphazard. Something will catch my fancy and I’ll scribble something down and then it’ll all just sort of come. At least, I hope it will.”