Of Sarfaraz Shah, Ishrat Jahan and the need for empathy
Every time we ignore an extra-judicial murder, it brings us that much closer to being a cold reptile.
The writer holds an MBBS (Calcutta) and a PhD (Harvard University) and is currently a postdoctoral scholar at MIT
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) of India has found that Ishrat Jahan, the 19-year-old woman killed in an “encounter” in 2004, was not a terrorist. It also found the involvement of senior officers of the Gujarat police and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). Rest assured, no other case of “encounter” involving the IB and the Gujarat police will be heard of in the near future. Everyone learns from past mistakes; institutions learn even faster to cover up tracks. However, the expose or “investigation” of the CBI has more to do with a breach of trust — that sacred pact of looking the other way.
But is there a lesson that Ishrat Jahan is teaching us? Staying clear of trouble is what Ishrat had done all her life. That did not prove quite useful. I maniacally walk in straight lines — only son, propertied family, the curly-haired dreamer and old parents — lots to lose that I deeply love. Fear, as a method of silencing, is as old as inhumanity. And I am not immune to fear. But does walking straight help? Does it ensure safety — of life and property, as they say? If Ishrat Jahan wasn’t safe, who is? There were the words — Pakistan, terrorism — words that do not need proof for culpability. Though I inhabit that cool vantage on an iceberg, Ishrat’s murder is a rare peek into that world in the submerged part of the iceberg — icy and ruthless. And what I see scares the hell out of me.
Those involved in Ishrat Jahan’s murder are not small fry. They include higher-ups entrusted with enforcing the law. Why are those, who are more likely to murder and torture than ordinary citizens, so over-represented among the ranks of certain state-funded institutions? Why are they almost always “protectors of law”? What is this “law” that they protect? What are its contours? Is this law to be found in the umbra and penumbra of the constitutional guarantee to life?
In an interview aired by the BBC, journalist Andrew Marr asked Noam Chomsky — during an exchange on Chomsky’s views on media distortion of truth — how could Chomsky know for sure that he, a journalist, was self-censoring? Chomsky replied, “I don’t say you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying; but what I’m saying is, if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.” And it is the production of this believer-citizen that is essential for “encounter” murders to go unlamented, for very few enjoy the spoils of being a cynical insider. The insiders may come in different colours, shapes, sizes, tongues and even faiths, but unless they shared contempt for habeas corpus and veneration for this “other” rule-book, they would not be sitting where they are sitting.
Similar to what Michael Moore said, I have never been slapped by a Pakistani Army man for walking too briskly on Srinagar streets, never been murdered in broad daylight in the streets of Imphal, Manipur, by special forces from Pakistan, never been tortured for days together in jails by the Sindh police. But there is no gloating to be done here by my Pakistani readers either. For Ishrat Jahan of Gujarat shares just too many things with Sarfaraz Shah, gunned down in Karachi in broad daylight by the Pakistan Rangers. Sarfaraz’s pleadings, the utter helplessness in front of the law-enforcement agencies, that moment when the gun fires, that look on the face of Sarfaraz a moment before he is shot — a look that shouts out “Please” in a way that would make the Himalayas crumble if the gods were as benevolent as they are said to be — these are all too familiar on the other side of the Radcliffe.
Every time we ignore an extra-judicial murder, it brings us that much closer to being a cold reptile. We have a stake in this. “The freedom of others extends mine infinitely,” said a famous graffiti from Paris, 1968. And when this “other” is the one where all our collective prejudices and hate converge, ensuring that “other’s” freedom has ripples everywhere. The flood of empathy needs such ripples now. We owe it to us and to the Ishrat Jahans and the Sarfaraz Shahs of the subcontinent.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2013.
But is there a lesson that Ishrat Jahan is teaching us? Staying clear of trouble is what Ishrat had done all her life. That did not prove quite useful. I maniacally walk in straight lines — only son, propertied family, the curly-haired dreamer and old parents — lots to lose that I deeply love. Fear, as a method of silencing, is as old as inhumanity. And I am not immune to fear. But does walking straight help? Does it ensure safety — of life and property, as they say? If Ishrat Jahan wasn’t safe, who is? There were the words — Pakistan, terrorism — words that do not need proof for culpability. Though I inhabit that cool vantage on an iceberg, Ishrat’s murder is a rare peek into that world in the submerged part of the iceberg — icy and ruthless. And what I see scares the hell out of me.
Those involved in Ishrat Jahan’s murder are not small fry. They include higher-ups entrusted with enforcing the law. Why are those, who are more likely to murder and torture than ordinary citizens, so over-represented among the ranks of certain state-funded institutions? Why are they almost always “protectors of law”? What is this “law” that they protect? What are its contours? Is this law to be found in the umbra and penumbra of the constitutional guarantee to life?
In an interview aired by the BBC, journalist Andrew Marr asked Noam Chomsky — during an exchange on Chomsky’s views on media distortion of truth — how could Chomsky know for sure that he, a journalist, was self-censoring? Chomsky replied, “I don’t say you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you’re saying; but what I’m saying is, if you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.” And it is the production of this believer-citizen that is essential for “encounter” murders to go unlamented, for very few enjoy the spoils of being a cynical insider. The insiders may come in different colours, shapes, sizes, tongues and even faiths, but unless they shared contempt for habeas corpus and veneration for this “other” rule-book, they would not be sitting where they are sitting.
Similar to what Michael Moore said, I have never been slapped by a Pakistani Army man for walking too briskly on Srinagar streets, never been murdered in broad daylight in the streets of Imphal, Manipur, by special forces from Pakistan, never been tortured for days together in jails by the Sindh police. But there is no gloating to be done here by my Pakistani readers either. For Ishrat Jahan of Gujarat shares just too many things with Sarfaraz Shah, gunned down in Karachi in broad daylight by the Pakistan Rangers. Sarfaraz’s pleadings, the utter helplessness in front of the law-enforcement agencies, that moment when the gun fires, that look on the face of Sarfaraz a moment before he is shot — a look that shouts out “Please” in a way that would make the Himalayas crumble if the gods were as benevolent as they are said to be — these are all too familiar on the other side of the Radcliffe.
Every time we ignore an extra-judicial murder, it brings us that much closer to being a cold reptile. We have a stake in this. “The freedom of others extends mine infinitely,” said a famous graffiti from Paris, 1968. And when this “other” is the one where all our collective prejudices and hate converge, ensuring that “other’s” freedom has ripples everywhere. The flood of empathy needs such ripples now. We owe it to us and to the Ishrat Jahans and the Sarfaraz Shahs of the subcontinent.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2013.