False realities, forbidden histories and intellectuals

Babarra massacre highlights how propaganda shapes Pakistan's history, erasing regional diversity and truth.

The 12th August 1948 Babarra massacre is by now a forgotten yet an essential part of our national past as are the cold blooded elimination of the sons of Sardar Nauroz Khan and liquidation of Akbar Bugti which have been systematically erased from our history books and national consciousness. Through systematic propaganda they have become a part of the so-called 'common sense' or generally accepted belief systems of our national psyche and accepted narrative.

In the Gramscian understanding such 'common sense' is the result of systematic, incessant disinformation, indoctrination and brainwashing inculcated through hegemony over the content and purpose of information through the means of family, school, church, workplace and media and suppression of the alternate truth to sustain the power and dominance of an autocratic and oppressive elite. Although Gramsci's concept of 'common sense' evolves in a setting of capitalist hegemony, it finds application in all other inequlitarian, despotic political contexts.

Much before the East Pakistan separation, the seeds of denial of regional diversity and mutual suspicion were laid. An alternate, fictive version of reality was created by total control over information and media by the hegemonic powers to the extent that while the armed forces of Pakistan were laying down their arms in surrender in Paltan Maiden, Dhaka, on 16th December, 1971, through a total shroud of fabrication everyone in West Pakistan was made to believe that the troops in East Pakistan were still winning victories.

Year 1947 saw the birth of a country with many idiosyncrasies and peculiarities: there were numerous ethno-cultural-economic and linguistic diversities, and Muslim separatism was the only tenuous tether that could give the new entity a semblance of a single nationhood. External dangers, economic and administrative threats subsisted along with domestic regional politics compounded by revanchist ambitions pertaining to Kashmir and the illusory fears of Pashtunistan from the western front. All these factors led to policies of centrism versus plural, consensualism with a view to keeping the country together in one piece. India pursued the alternate course of maintaining national unity by allowing cultural and regional diversity.

Ghaffar Khan was arrested after the Bannu jirga and was subsequently declared seditious despite his unequivocal avowal of loyalty and fealty to the new state of Pakistan which he made in his maiden speech in the Constituent Assembly in Karachi. He categorically announced that despite his opposition in the past based upon the belief that the interests of the Muslims of India would be best served in a united India, now that a Muslim state had come into existence he saw the future of Pashtuns tied to the new nation and polity.

During his visit to Karachi in 1948 to attend the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, Bacha Khan was invited by Quaid-e-Azam for a one to one meeting. Jinnah extended a hand of cooperation lauding the efforts of the Red Shirts towards education, female emancipation and social amelioration. Ghaffar Khan reciprocated by promising full cooperation in nation building. An invitation was held out to Jinnah to attend the members of the central executive committee of the Khudai Khidmatgar at their central office at Sardaryab in Charsadda during his forthcoming visit to Peshawar which the Quaid readily accepted.

But those who were opposed to Ghaffar Khan, those who viewed the national paradigm from the lenses of centrism versus pluralism went into full throttle to defeat the visit of Jinnah to the office of the Khudai Khidmatgar. The Ambassador to Kabul, Mr Isphahani, was appointed to send an official communique to the Government of Pakistan threatening that there was an assassination plot against Quaid-e-Azam in case he visited the central office of the Khudai Khidmatgar in Charsadda.

Only 12 days after the Independence Day, i.e. on 26th of August 1947, the elected government of the NWFP (now KP) was dismissed despite having support of 34 members of the 50-strong provincial assembly. Of the 34 supporters, 17 were Muslims.

There was no turning back from that point until 1971 and now the present febrile, tenuous nationwide conjunction haunts.

A nation's consciousness, soul, narrative and history is, to no little extent, shaped by the powerful, be they in the field of politics, economics or social. As Marx observed: "The ruling ideas of an epoch are the ideas of the ruling class."

Who are the ruling class in our case?

The feudals, the businessmen, the army and the salariat.

But as Gramsci observed the power structure, ideology and history of a time is manufactured and manipulated, through propaganda, by the dominant classes so that resort to use of force and violence in enforcing the exploitative system is avoided, that being unsustainable over a long time.

Thus the role of the intellectual - those who are read in history, philosophy, psychology, economics and sociology and essentially arise from the exploitative class structure - becomes paramount in trying to change the dominant narrative, or what is in common parlance, called, the 'common sense' (which is nothing but an endorsement of the interests of the rich over the poor, the hegemonic over the subalterns, the endowed over the exploitated).

What is the responsibility of an intellectual? Chomsky in his celebrated article, 'The Responsibility of An Intellectual' states that the responsibility of an intellectual is not to certain persons or parties but to truth.

If he is worth his salt, worthy of his knowledge, then the calling of an intellectual is to truth, justice and human rights, which include allowing humans the right to live a life better than animals, to provide for the children the basics of civilisation.

There is no greater moral perversity or folly for such persons to close their eyes to all that is opposed to whatever is true, just and humane.

But there are two types of intellectuals: the one who stands up to power and the other who, growing from the bowels of class inequality, understands what is required to create an 'alternate common sense' which through organisation and struggle displaces the prevalent common sense to usher in an egalitarian future based upon equality and social welfare.