Pakistan’s Freedom Struggle: The Promised Dawn is Yet to Come

یہ داغ داغ اجالا یہ شب گزیدہ سحر

وہ انتظار تھا جس کا یہ وہ سحر تو نہیں

یہ وہ سحر تو نہیں جس کی آرزو لے کر

چلے تھے یار کے مل جاۓ گی کہیں نہ کہیں

On a cold winter night, despite security threats, student activists gather on the streets of Lahore to protest yet another abduction of a fellow Baloch activist. He was young, ambitious, zealous. He was fighting for the rights of his people, for human rights. Like many others, he was picked up by unidentifiable men. Like many others, they did not know if he would return. So they did what they could. They demanded from the state responsible for protecting these rights.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz had warned us decades ago of the disillusionment of 1947’s ‘triumph’. Pakistanis had acquired some freedom but there was still a long way to go.

Almost seventy years later, we still have a long way to go.

For Pakistan, one of the largest obstacles to freedom are enforced disappearances, with no external force posing this threat and perpetrators and victims both belonging to the country.

Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) suffer prominently in this terrorizing system of repression. Witnesses of these disappearances described them as often occurring in the night when unknown men enter target homes and pick up family members they deem problematic. Many cases have even occurred in broad daylight. Parents have lost their young children, siblings have been estranged and wives left widowed. The loved ones left behind in the wake of this terror spend their remaining lives chasing an unattainable justice; from the police station to the Supreme Court, they knock every door for some reprieve. Stranger phone calls sometimes give them dishonest reassurances of their loved ones returning. The false hope worsens the anguish of the families, especially when their beloved turns up in a dumped bag, or as part of a mass grave or simply never turns up. Those who do return, as one Baloch said, “don’t remember who they are, much less their families. The torture they endure erase their identities”.

Disappearances originated with the Balochs’ political movements after 1971, which demanded political, economic and social rights. Rich in natural resources that provide for Pakistan and beyond, Balochistan is the largest and least developed province of the country. Poor living conditions prevail, with 46.6 percent of Baloch households having no electricity and 59% of Balochistan without natural gas, its main energy source. Economic exploitation and little provincial autonomy aggravate the situation. Corruption in development projects add to Baloch grievances. Continued ignorance and suppression of legitimate demands has led to unrest and even outright insurgencies in the past four decades.

The Pashtuns have a similar story. Many have been picked up and killed as part of a policy to curb the region’s militant threat, such as that from the Taliban. Naqibullah Mehsub was one such Pakhtoon who lost his life in the cross-fire of Karachi Authorities’ militancy resistance. The widely publicized case led to the “Pashtun Long March” where thousands protested for the protection of ethnic rights. The march soon grew into a nation-wide protest called the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement. Throngs of people, united by their collective pain, came out on the streets to demands reparations from the state.

Enforced disappearances are no longer a Baloch or Pakhtun problem, they are a Pakistani problem, with people now being abducted from all provinces. The terrifying reality of the ‘others’ is now our reality. That there is something beyond provincial politics here is evident when protesters are made up in large numbers of the more vulnerable groups in society; women, children and senior citizens. What drives these people out of the safety of their homes and into the streets is the reality of their lives – that their homes are no longer safe. They know the terror has reached there. How long will it take us to realize that it has reached our homes, too?

The situation is aggravated by the mass media’s restricted reporting of the daily repression these people face. State censorship is largely but not solely responsible. Ejaz Haider, a prominent Pakistani journaslist, describes the constraints local journalists face in this case, “if you are not taking sides, reporting in certain cases can be very tricky. Take, for example, Balochistan. Journalists there have to deal with the state’s sensitivities as well as threats from Baloch terror groups. A half-hour conversation in the Quetta press club with reporters brings this reality into sharp salience. It was the same for journalists in the erstwhile tribal areas when most of those administrative units were controlled partially or fully by Taliban groups. Traversing such a landscape is like walking through a minefield”.

There are indeed violent actors amidst the protesters but they constitute a fragment of the larger movement. Meanwhile, the state’s oppressive response to these violent elements is indiscriminate. The human tragedy that occurs as a consequence is now part of everyday life in Balochistan and KPK. One year later, Mehsud’s murderer, Police Superintendent Rao Anwar, still roams free. Thousands of Pashtuns are still gathering on the streets in protest. If the state continues to respond militarily to a political problem, we may see costs as grave as those incurred in 1971.

What could we possibly do about this? Baloch and Pakhtun student activists are not very different from us. They engage in activities and share interests similar to ours. However, they described life as that of constant threat because of their struggle for the protection of Pakistanis. According to them, the least we can do is to become informed and help make others aware. Information is available despite the limitations. Speaking with activists and using the internet for reliable sources are ways to educate ourselves. Human Rights Watch devised a report in 2011. Sources cited in this article are also a good starting point. We must begin speaking up. We must prove false that “in Pakistan, preservation counts for more than compassion”.

Millions envisioned the dawn of a free Pakistan in 1947. Perhaps with our collective struggle we will one day witness that promised dawn.

ابھی چراغ سر رہ کو کچھ خبر ہی نہیں

ابھی گرانیٔ شب میں کمی نہیں آئی

نجات دیدہ و دل کی گھڑی نہیں آئی

 چلے چلو کہ وہ منزل ابھی نہیں آئی