Let people be

Side-effect

The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.

My sister-in-law was born to a Pakistani soldier – someone truly battle-hardened who served on the front and participated in wars with India. She once confided with her younger sister that the cricketer whom she had always adored in her youth was Sunil Manohar Gavaskar.

When Gavaskar was playing, she would pray for him to make a big score and wanted India to win the match. Whenever Gavaskar would be the captain of the Indian team, she wanted India to remain unbeaten. Of course, her prayers were not always heard by the Almighty because Gavaskar’s performance as captain was never particularly impressive. Nonetheless, he remains one of the finest opening batsmen the game has ever seen.

I remember watching him play against different teams and some of his matches against Pakistan, including the last test match of his career in 1987. If you have seen him bat, you cannot forget his gait, poise, precision and late flick. When asked by her sister – a question that was both natural and awkward at the same time – who she had wanted to win the match when Pakistan was playing India, my sister-in-law sheepishly replied that she would want Pakistan to win but still wanted Gavaskar to make a century.

From sports to cinema and from poetry and fiction to painting and sculpture, people make their own choices as individuals – sometimes the choices are subjective and based on personal likes and dislikes, preferences and priorities, but sometimes the choices are glaringly obvious due to someone’s proven excellence in a certain field. Borders and boundaries, political or civilisational, do not matter in such cases.

As the saying goes, man (and woman) is a political animal. But people are not just such political beings, who should always be driven by narratives of nationalism or identity based on faith or ethnicity. In fact, politics is not limited to these narratives in the first place. If there is a movement for labour rights, for instance in Brazil or India, many of us will feel as connected as we would to the peasant movements within Pakistan. Humans have a connection with anything that other human beings do.

In our collective pursuit for achieving excellence as humans; for making this life comfortable and enjoyable; for bringing forth the best of the talent in our species and then celebrate its success, we go beyond markers of nationalism and identity. If that challenges the set notions of patriotism, let them be challenged. If one considers Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bacchan, Waheeda Rehman and Kangana Ranaut better than any of the film actors Pakistan has ever produced, does that amount to the person being less Pakistani by any means?

The same holds true for Indians or people belonging to other nationalities. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is venerated more than many other singers or Qawwals in India and other parts of the world. He carried a Pakistani passport but conveyed a universal message in a heavenly voice. We are proud of him and feel elated when a Nigerian cabdriver plays his tunes in London.

In my case, and in the case of other students of literature, it is even more difficult to prove our patriotism all the time. For instance, I think that the novel written in Arabic, Spanish, French, Turkish – of which I read translations in English – and English is incomparable in terms of volume and literary quality, majesty and class to whatever is being written in Urdu and other Pakistani languages, including our own writing in English.

We have not produced Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Orhan Pamuk, Umberto Eco, Harper Lee, Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway, Naguib Mahfooz and Chinua Achebe – to name a few. We have some amazing writing in short fiction, ranging from Saadat Hasan Manto to Asad Mohammed Khan, but we haven’t been able to produce as many novels of worth as are produced in some other parts of the world. In poetry, yes, there are names whose contribution is certainly comparable to any poetic work anywhere. And we love it when the secretary general of Amnesty International quotes from Faiz Ahmed Faiz; or when an academic in Madison tells me that he thinks Noon Meem Rashid was the most fascinating poet in the twentieth century of any language spoken in the South Asian subcontinent. But this achievement is limited to poetry.

Overall, our prose lacks both volume and depth – given one of the languages we communicate and create in is one of the largest spoken languages in the world. In a language spoken by a billion people, we have one Qurratulain Haider and one Abdullah Hussein.

I was once vociferously told off by a bookseller in Murree, when I was trying to find a work of Haider and another book by Shamsur Rehman Faruqi that had just been released. He said that I should prefer reading Pakistani writers like Bano Qudsia and Qudrattullah Shahab, rather than searching for Indian writers. The idea of taking him on crossed my mind but, since he was too voluble and boisterous, I decided to move on to another shop.

Moving on to art, we have produced some fine painters and calligraphers, from Ghulam Rasul to Mehr Afroz. Sculptors are few and far between, but we can still boast of some, like the late Shahid Sajjad. Above all, I love Sadequain but I do not think that he was greater than Picasso, Matisse or Cezanne. Well, that is a rather odd comparison I accept, as Sadequain couldn’t paint and exhibit a La Vie in Pakistan anyway, but my assertion that Picasso could paint Fanny Tellier and Sadequain could not, would challenge my patriotism for some. But do I become a supporter of France or Spain as a result? Or, does that mean I respect and revere Sadequain any less?

Like so many of us, who are passionate about so many different things in life, be they fascinating ideas or talented people, there is a young man called Umar Daraz, who lives in a village in Punjab’s Okara district and works as a tailor to earn his living. He is illiterate like almost half of Pakistan’s population. He is an ardent cricket fan, who also plays cricket in his spare time with other friends in the village.

Daraz expressed his excitement when his favourite cricketer made a big score and won the match for his team. Perhaps he went overboard in expressing his joy by hoisting the Indian flag on his small dwelling in the village when Virat Kohli scored 90 runs in a Twenty-20 match against Australia. One of the neighbours called the police and Daraz was charged under Section 123-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and 16 Maintenance of Public Order (16 MPO). Section 123-A essentially deals with those who pose a threat to the safety and authority of Pakistan. It also speaks about sanctioning those who condemn the creation of the state or advocate the curtailment or abolition of its sovereignty.

How could that section be applied to Umar Daraz? The poor young man displayed his emotion by raising a flag representing his favourite player. That day, for him, the Indian flag was the flag of Virat Kohli and not of Bal Thackeray. Besides, India was playing against Australia and not against Pakistan. At the most, one can call the act a little idiotic because it demonstrated Daraz’s complete ignorance of political matters.

Knowing full well that the Indian police is equally smart when it comes to such matters, like caging a pigeon after alleging it was a spy from across the border, I ask the Pakistani authorities to be sane and not let Daraz end up in jail or be made to pay a huge fine. Let him be. Let people be.

Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com