Since Hassan Nisar has called the entire Pakistani nation "Musalli", and has also said that anyone who so much as utters the word democracy should be stood in front of a firing squad and blown away, with the cost of the bullets recovered from his family, and since my identity and affiliation is that of a Pakistani citizen, I too am one of those 220 million "Musallis" who have been honoured with this title.
Secondly, as an educated journalist who rises above personal interest to think and write for the country and the nation, I am a staunch supporter of democracy and a firm opponent of dictatorship. I therefore take Hassan Nisar's fatwa, that people be stood in front of a firing squad and blown away, to be aimed at me as well, despite my innocence. Responding to Hassan Nisar's contempt and his fatwa is therefore both my duty and my obligation, for I am fortunate that nature has given me not only the ability to think but also the skill to write.
The first point is that if the journalistic Rasputin Hassan Nisar has called me "Musalli" in a tone of contempt, then, according to the measure of my own character, I regard it not as contempt but as an honour, because the Musalli is that helpless yet respected class of my society which, in terms of service, has delivered the most over the centuries.
The second point concerns being stood in front of a firing squad and blown away. By all means do so, but it is my right to be told my crime first. Is my crime that I refuse, as an ignoramus, to pledge allegiance to the filthy narrative of authoritarian touts, which is the reason this country is being rained on by the curse of unending misfortune? Is my crime that my mind was formed and raised not on Pakistan Studies and Hassan Nisar, but on historical facts, awareness of the affairs around me, answering the call of conscience, sincere devotion to the country and the nation, putting personal interests aside, knowledge of the benefits of democracy, and the struggle of the pen?
It is this background that makes me a fierce opponent of dictatorship and a supporter of democracy, and I will go on being so, because my faith, my law and my constitution permit me to, and my conscience is encouraging my mind.
But tell me, Hassan Nisar, who are you to issue a fatwa that I should be stood before a firing squad and blown away? It is true that in this foul system and this ill-fated country, people like Hassan Nisar are for now keeping the market in fatwas brisk, and thanks to it one has seen a farmhouse sprout at Belipur and another at Bedian. But it is because of the shameful role of these same people without conscience that the unwitting and innocent people of this country were made fuel for that "sugarcane press" whose sweetness belongs only to the "feudal lords" of this system.
Although the job of people like Hassan Nisar is merely to gather "fuel" and receive "wages" in return, it is incumbent on all the conscientious and alert-minded intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, political workers, students and educated classes of this country to stand against impostors like Hassan Nisar. And the reassuring thing is that this time it is indeed happening, which is why these people without conscience are being forced, day by day, to confine themselves to the farmhouses built with their ill-gotten earnings.
The key question is where an intoxicated and morally bankrupt man got the right to go about handing down verdicts that would stand people before a firing squad and blow them away. But in the circumstances and the system we face, it is always "judges" like Hassan Nisar who are authorised to decide. Sometimes they are presented in the robe and turban of religion, sometimes in the cloak of liberalism, sometimes in the guise of the intellectual and sometimes in the form of a political leader. They help and cooperate in advancing a particular task and, in return, serve their own interests. As for the millions of common people, they and their generations pay for the rest of their lives for the follies and emotionalism that are cultivated, under a particular plan, through the Hassan Nisars. The latest example is the present government and the people, now facing the worst crisis, into whose minds the pointless narrative of "thieves and dacoits" was drilled through TV channels and the D-Chowks.
As for Hassan Nisar himself, he certainly has the right to build more farmhouses and Bailipurs for his "Hatim Sahib". But if he does so on the basis of belittling us and depriving us of our rights, then let him remember that, though we may be only slightly educated, the natural simplicity of a Pakhtun villager and the tradition of standing firm on what is right have by no means left our temperament. Nor must every Pakhtun journalist be the kind who, out of "certain compulsions" or hypocrisy, goes about calling people like Hassan Nisar his senior and guru. (Consider what sort of disciples those whose guru is such a man must be.)
I am refraining for now from going into too much bitterness, so that Hassan Nisar may restrain himself from making such a mistake in future, because he is very short-tempered. That aside, I understood long ago that worshippers of falsehood and deceivers always keep an artificial shell of anger around themselves to protect themselves, which serves them well among unthinking people.
And play-actors like Hassan Nisar, whether in journalism or elsewhere, always target the unthinking.
∎
اگر جمہوریت اس کا نام ہے جس کا ر