‘For 3 days only death lived…’

Harish Khare

“For three days only death lived….” This fascinatingly chilling line is not from a Joseph Conrad novel. This is part of an account Shahbaz Taseer gave of the violence, torture, cruelty and inhumanity he witnessed during his captivity, at the hands of assorted jihadi groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

This was reported by almost all newspapers, including The Tribune, last Wednesday (https://shar.es/1d66sT). It made a great story, a morbidly gripping account, a classic case for any young sub-editor on how to package drama in print. 

Shahbaz was made to pay for his father’s sins. His father Salmaan Taseer was the governor of Punjab, Pakistan, and he was shot dead by his own bodyguard. Taseer the senior was deemed guilty of having committed blasphemy for opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. 

Shahbaz was abducted seven months after his father was killed in 2011. By a quirk of circumstances, he found himself out of captivity recently. 

His captors were unsparingly violent. He told the BBC the other day: “They used to flog me. I was flogged about 500 times in three days, then they cut my back with blades and removed nails from my hands and feet….”

This one man’s horrifying ordeal is worth talking about. It has to do with all this fighting, insurgency, terrorism, all in the name of religion or this or that group in this part of the world. And no one seems to know how to put a stop to the feuds among groups and factions. 

Violence casts its own spell on both sides – those who inflict and those who suffer. Once violence becomes the basic currency of conversation and contention, then there is no escape. What has been happening in Pakistan and beyond should caution us.

Shahbaz Taseer’s release and his account of what was done to him almost coincided with The Economist cover story “The War Within” (May 14-20 issue). The British magazine depicts graphically how a dream of Arab spring has gone sour and has had violent — very violent, indeed — consequences. 

It seems only the other day that the CNN-led narrative had cast such a mesmerising spell on the world. The authoritarian regimes were finally being challenged, and every Western statesman, demagogue, and journalist celebrated the “historic” moment. 

Americans and Europeans showered their subversive blessings on those trying to topple these “autocracies.” This seemed the most moral, most ethical and most politically correct thing to do. 

In our own imitative imagination, we became excited about the Tahrir Square. Our star reporters, too, rushed to report the “historic” change. 

Five years down the line, the verdict on the “historic” change is far from clear. What, however, is very clear is that it is far easier to instigate defiance, start an insurgency, revive historic resentments and rekindle national slights and grievances, real or notional. Five years down the line what is also clear is that the Americans and Europeans do not have the monopoly on wisdom; they themselves are no longer able to practise what they preach to the world — religious tolerance, respect for liberal dissent, social harmony.

A decade is not too long a time in the life of a nation. Let us recall that when “9/11” took place, many of those in authority were tempted to replicate the clash of civilisation in India. There is a new itch in the air to teach the minorities a lesson or two. We seem to be in danger of getting addicted to a language of intimidation and violence. Time to be watchful. 

A few days ago, the Haryana Home Secretary was given the boot. I have never met the gentleman and have no idea whether he made a competent home secretary or not. If he was a poor administrator, those who selected him for the job showed poor judgment; if he was not-so-incompetent an administrator, then some sort of injustice has been done to him.

Whatever the case, he deserves the boot — not because he failed to do his job but because of his own collusion in covering up the political leadership’s intrigues and failures. The most despicable of these cover-ups was the Murthal incident. I think there is a lesson here for every IAS and IPS officer. Those who choose to become the politician’s pawn must be prepared to be sacrificed if the next move so demands. A pawn can always be discarded in order to save the queen. Das himself must have been very much involved in the setting up of the diversionary Prakash Singh Committee. And now he has been made a victim of his own cleverness. There is no great honour in becoming a bad politician’s accomplice. 

The old gentleman demanded a cup of coffee. In his communication, he had mentioned that he had been reading The Tribune since the age of 16 and he was now 78 years old. He felt he had a legitimate right to my attention. 

He came and narrated his tale of woes. A long tale. Since the mid-1980s, he has been fighting a battle against the Union health ministry bureaucracy. For years, this man seems to have felt that a great injustice has been done, he has been denied the recognition due to him, and, more importantly, that the country has suffered because his ideas and plans for a “National Institute of Healthcare Engineering and Architecture” at the PGI, Chandigarh, have not been implemented.

He has convinced himself that he had been “tortured” and discriminated against by the then Union Health Minister B. Shankaranand. That was in the mid-1980s. Since then, there have been so many different political dispensations at the Centre, so many union health ministers, and so many directors at the PGI. Yet, Dr JC Mehta’s grievance remains unaddressed. When a new BJP government assumed office in New Delhi two years ago, he was very hopeful that “justice” would be done to him; at least, he would have the satisfaction of a meeting with the Union Health Minister, JP Nadda.

Dr Mehta spoke with great passion. But it was not clear to me what restitution or even compensation could be made to be him — or, was due to him. 

It was clear to me that whatever the merit in his contention, there was no way he was going to be allowed a free run at the PGI, certainly not at this age. Yet, he carries on his solo fight. He burns with indignation, seeking allies and consideration against an “indifferent” bureaucracy. 

He says his children, who have moved to Australia, periodically berate him for carrying on this pointless “fight”. I did not have the heart to tell him, also, to give up.

I have just started reading a brilliantly depressing book, Jenny Diski’s In Gratitude (Bloomsbury, 2016). Nearly two years ago, Diski was diagnosed with lung cancer. She died last April. In Gratitude is a collection of essays she wrote for the London Review of Books, chronicling her struggle with cancer.

Jenny Diski had extremely difficult and complicated early years and even when she became accepted as an accomplished writer, she remained a sort of oddity and wrote with a brutal frankness that both shocked and pleased. Recognised as an unorthodox stylist, she chose to write on a subject like depression and withdrawal. 

In In Gratitude, she writes of the three cycles of chemotherapy and the toll these take on human dignity. She recalls what she calls “daily encounters with the machine” and the team of radiographers who attended to her. She had to put on the patient’s smock. “A leaflet about the treatment ended with an assurance that maintaining my dignity was important to the team. Even if it helps patients with breast cancer who aren’t inclined to reveal their body, by the time they are on the bench, being naked is necessary. Perhaps it is more for the team’s protection, so that they don’t have to see the patient walk topless from the doorway to the machine. My modesty; their embarrassment?” A difficult but rewarding read. 

Let us talk of something else. A cup of coffee? Always rewarding! 

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