once interviewed IA Rehman sahib for a TV show. We discussed the state of human rights in Pakistan. As a curtain raiser, I began by inquiring about his personal life. He almost declined. His response was succinct and discouraging. I got the unsaid message that he preferred to talk about his work rather than himself. That is why I was taken aback when I learned about his memoir. His book, however, is as sketchy as his response to my question that day. The book’s title, The Lifetime of Dissent, also shocked me. I was certain that Rehman sahib had not chosen the title. I was right, it was given to his book after his death. Had he been around, he would have changed it. Rehman sahib was not the type to brag about himself. I am grateful to everyone who convinced him to write about himself, not so much to learn about his personal life but to learn about how to dissent in a country like Pakistan. Fortunately, despite being brief, the book allows one to infer some ways of dissent.

Syed Shafaat Ali, my father, was close to Rehman sahib and his younger brother, Ather Rehman sahib. Rehman sahib‘s father, the late Abdur Rehman sahib, had trained my father in the early days of his career as a lawyer, which explains his relationship with the Rehman brothers. My father and Rehman sahib held fundamentally divergent opinions on the Pakistan-India relationship and some other matters relating to our political history. However, that never caused any bitterness in their interaction. I am aware that my father was not the only one with whom Rehman sahib enjoyed a half-century friendship despite their political ideas and ideology disagreements. Though he did not discuss this characteristic of him, I believe this is an essential trait needed in a dissenter. He never let his political opinion threaten his social interactions. He would never antagonise acquaintances due to an ideological divergence. Several situations are described in the book where one may perceive their enduring impact on Rehman sahib. He lived nearly his entire life in Lahore in a rented apartment on Temple Road. It is sad that a journalist of his standing did not have a home until his son built the house where he breathed his last. In the final chapter of his memoir, he discussed a dispute among his uncles (who happened to be quite religious) following the death of his grandmother. The somewhat acrimonious disagreement made him face the unpleasant reality of how worldly gains had a bigger pull on the faithful. This experience, consciously or unconsciously, made him abhor the gap between belief and behaviour. This may have had two important influences on his entire life. He could not fathom the disparity between conviction and behaviour. He held steadfast in his beliefs without putting them on a show, with a high level of civility and without criticising those with contradictory views. Second, by fighting the desire for one’s own possessions. I had no idea which category or type of Marxism he belonged to. However, reading his memoir and learning about his life, one can easily see his thoughts and behaviour regarding wealth.

A public intellectual is required not to yell or wield a rifle but to identify the oppressor for the common man. Rehman sahib accepted that responsibility, fully aware of the hardships that come with it.

Many politicians, army officers and bureaucrats have written memoirs. Most of them have attempted to illustrate their role in crucial events in our sociopolitical history. In those memoirs, one can plainly see the enormity of a magnified sainthood. Officials from the corridors of power and political leaders have brazenly exaggerated their accomplishments in their autobiographies. Rehman sahib, on the other hand, defied the trend. He avoided highlighting his position and contributing to the cause of rebellion against the power centres. He wrote two chapters on Life under the Ayub Regime, which is correctly identified as the launch of the country’s everlasting power imbalance. How he shied away from writing about the struggle he and his comrades put up against Ayub’s attempt to control the press is a disfavour, in my opinion, to students of political history. He was one of the primary dissenting figures who observed and battled oppression and set standards to struggle for a free press. If he had still been alive, he would have been the greatest person to chronicle the history of that time.

In my opinion, confining Rehman sahib’s contributions to journalism would be a grave injustice. He outperformed himself in that capacity. I just reviewed the Palestinian scholar Edward Said’s definition, role, and function of a public intellectual. I am convinced that Rehman sahib fits Said’s definition. His substantiated views on the country’s power centres were the most crucial component of his lifelong struggle. He never wavered in his dedication to the common man, especially those who were more marginalised than the others. The HRCP annual report, which he co-wrote with Aziz Siddiqui, was always believed seen as a charge sheet against the power centres. In this report, he and Siddiqui sahib created a pattern of saying the truth without rhetoric and narrating facts without fiction. He chose to survive in order to continue speaking over perishing in silence. He never fought as a lone soldier because he knew such an attempt would fail. He established an institution to engage in a collective and perceptible resistance against power. Asma Jehangir’s vigorous activism and the ideological clarity of IA Rehman, Aziz Siddiqui and Hussain Naqi inspired the current stature of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. They made the HRCP a moral compass for wanderers in the midst of confusion and chaos.

Dissent is not merely a passion but also a form of art. Identifying the oppressor has become a far more difficult undertaking in our time than it was two decades ago. A public intellectual is required not to yell or wield a rifle but to identify the oppressor for the common man. Rehman sahib accepted that responsibility, fully aware of the hardships that came with it. He did all of this without becoming bitter or critical. I wish he had been more upfront about naming the names and more descriptive about the historical events he witnessed. However, he always was known for not uttering a single word unnecessarily. Can you feel the power in his brief sentence to the chief justice? The CJ apologised for being unable to offer him a cup of tea in his court, Rehman sahib spontaneously responded, Chai naheen insaf chahiye.

More than anything, Rehman sahib has left a legacy and manner of dissent.

The Lifetime of Dissent

A Memoir

Author: IA Rehman

Publisher: Folio Books, 2023

Price: Rs1,995

The writer is a clinical psychologist. He lives and works in Ireland. He can be contacted at  akhtaralisyed@gmail.com