It was a chilly February morning in 2012 when I first stepped beyond Pakistan’s gate at the Wagah border. My companions walked across, entering Indian territory, but I stopped for a moment, standing in ‘no man’s land,’ a stretch of land that belongs to neither Pakistan nor India.

Pakistan’s flag and Jinnah’s portrait were on one end. The saffron, green and white of the Indian flag and a portrait of Gandhi were on the other end.

Standing in the middle was one of the most surreal experiences I have had. Neither here nor there. Neither at home nor in what is perceived as ‘enemy territory.’

Since then, I have crossed the Wagah border a couple of times. It is always a ceremonious yet divisive feeling. There is a clear sense of what is being left behind and what is ahead.

The flags, the gates, the guards, the Sikh turbans, the shalwar kameez, are all symbolic of what is ‘us’ and what is the ‘other.’

Whenever I thought of a border, it was these images that conjured up in my mind. I imagined all Pakistan-India borders to be as divisive, as ceremonious, and as militaristic as the Wagah border.

Related: A train ride to India in better times

But in the months and years that followed, I would come to experience — and imagine — borders far differently.

The first time the image of a border was deconstructed for me was during a visit to Kasur in the summer of 2012.

I was there to conduct an interview with a Muslim man who had migrated from Amritsar in pursuit of his love of a Sikh woman who was settled in Kasur.

1947 would, however, uproot her from Kasur and their love story would be left ruptured and unfinished, as many Partition stories were.

Since the border was relatively porous until the 1965 war, he would continue to cross over (to what was now Indian territory) to locate his love.

His efforts were futile but he decided to remain in her pre-Partition village in Kasur to keep her memory alive. It serves as a testament of his love.

It was while I was trying to locate him that another family opened their doors to us, hosting my companions and me with drinks and eateries.

After we chatted for a while, they offered to take us to the ‘border.’ Instantly, I imagined guards and gates, rigid boundaries and barriers. Instead, I was greeted with a row of plants that were meant to serve as the border.

A small white milestone indicated where the Pakistani territory ended and the Indian territory began, but I wouldn’t have spotted it if our hosts hadn’t pointed it out. I was startled by how easy it would have been for me to cross over.

Our hosts told us that people often do, especially their guests who are not familiar with the region. So do their animals, who are unable to grasp the geographical realities. Though they were not easily visible, security officials on both sides kept a lookout for such trespassing.

Animals are frequently returned but I imagine that people meet different fates, languishing in jails on the wrong side of the border for the accidental crossing over.

It is also at such borders that Indians and Pakistanis come into close contact every day. As farmers work in the fields by the border, the ‘other’ isn’t an exotic enemy, but in a way a part of their everyday lives (though they are prohibited from speaking or interacting with each other. Glances may be permitted).

In fact, the division at such villages has been so arbitrary that during the 1965 war, when the Pakistan Army took over some Indian property, Ashiq’s (one of our hosts) maternal village had become a part of Pakistan and he had narrated stories of walking around, drinking water and resting in his ancestral village.

During other time periods and in different parts of Pakistan, India and Kashmir, wars have redrawn temporary or permanent boundaries, leaving those by the border in constant uncertainty.

Remarkably, it was during this visit that Ashiq also told me of a mela that took place at this border, at a mazaar located on the line of division.

Indians and Pakistanis came together in Sahwan (a month in a local calendar, usually in July, depending on the weather) to pay their respects under the watchful eyes of the Rangers.

It was here that Ashiq's father was able to meet his relatives whom he had been separated from at Partition.

Read next: How women in Kashmir's Neelum Valley ensured ceasefire at the LoC

Over time, I would find several other such stories, of people uniting at the border that was meant to divide.

In Kashmir, the Line of Control (LoC), is ironically also a point of reunification for families. The Neelum River, which serves as the LoC in various parts of Kashmir, shrinks in the winter months.

After the 2003 ceasefire, when cross-LoC firing reduced considerably (only to be heightened again overtime), divided families would gather by the river to catch a glimpse of each other, to yell across and share fragments of their lives over the water that separated them.

A refugee from the Indian-held Kashmir that I had interviewed in Azad Jammu and Kashmir told me of how he met his mother by the river after about a decade of being apart.

"We all came together at Keran [a village by the LoC]. My mother and sisters were on the other side while my brothers and I were on this side.

"My mother became so emotional seeing her sons that she tried to jump in the river to come to us. I was trying to jump in too.

"But people were holding us back…I remember we stayed there all day…everybody was crying. One boy actually dived in. He couldn’t bear being separated from his mother in makbooza [occupied] Kashmir.

"The Indian army caught him. We don’t know what happened to him after that…"

Though social media and other forms of communication have slowly replaced these interactions, for some time the river was the only point of reunification for families like the refugee I spoke to.

It was at their point of division that they could come together. The border/LoC then stood to unite — for fleeting moments at least — the very people it had divided.

In Kashmir, and in India and Pakistan, the Partition and its aftermath pushed people out of the their homes and into alien territory.

Many times, people just hopped from one village to another, with their old home in close proximity to their new home.

From where they live, they can at times still see their past as a constant reminder of who they were and who they became as Partition survivors.

Just like their past and present, the borders here — unlike at Wagah — are blurry watery lines of what is home and what is enemy.

Did your family migrate due to Partition? Share your stories with us at blog@dawn.com

• Lahore Qalandars (Team grade: F)
• Multan Sultans (Team grade: C)
• Quetta Gladiators (Team grade: B)
• Karachi Kings (Team grade: B)
• Peshawar Zalmi (Team grade: A)
• Islamabad United (Team grade: A+)
• Pakistan Super League 2018 (Grade: A++)

The curtains fell on the third edition of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) with a spectacular final in front of a capacity crowd at the National Stadium in Karachi last Sunday.

As the month-long tournament — contested by six teams with games played in Dubai, Sharjah, Lahore and Karachi — comes to a close, let's look at how each team fared.

Lahore Qalandars (Team grade: F)

What can be said about the Qalandars that hasn't already been said. The Lahore-based franchise, for the third straight year, was a mess. Messier, in fact.

After finishing at the bottom of the table in the inaugural tournament, the Qalandars had shown some improvement in their second season — although they finished last that year as well.

It was expected of them to build on that this time around but it didn't happen. The Qalandars regressed. So much so that they lost all six of their opening matches.

They did win three of their final four matches and briefly threatened to not finish last but those wins were mere consolations and came too little too late.

Their main problem was not having a middle-order batsman who could just stay at the crease, not lose his head, and keep the scoreboard ticking. Think of a Babar Azam type.

T20 is about hitting the ball out of the park as often as possible but it is also about maintaining a level of calm and not panicking every time a few wickets fall.

Sadly, the Qalandars did not have a single player cut out for that role. They chopped, they changed, they tried everything but nothing worked.

It's highly unlikely they will retain captain Brendon McCullum, for they need to go back to the drawing board and reboot.

Multan Sultans (Team grade: C)

The league's newest franchise played safe during player recruitment, stockpiling veterans rather than youth. And their strategy reflected in the kind of debut season they had.

The Sultans started off brilliantly, winning four of their opening six games before their challenge fizzled out. Halfway through their campaign, the same experience that was considered their strength turned into a weakness.

A side chock-full of 30-something veterans and devoid of any notable young blood had fatigued. They lost each of their last four league games, eventually settling for second-last in the league standings.

The Sultans' campaign wasn't a complete failure but they must learn that T20, unlike the other two formats of the game, is more about raw talent rather than technique. Next time, they recruit, they must take risks and accommodate a few youngsters as well rather than opting for safe options with known ceilings.

Quetta Gladiators (Team grade: B)

Like the Qalandars, the Gladiators too were plagued by the same problems. They were impressive during the league stage but what's new there.

They always do well in the games held in the UAE. It's the Pakistan leg where their inability to convince their foreign talent to travel leaves them exposed.

So, like the year before, the Gladiators were without Kevin Pietersen, Shane Watson and several others as the PSL 2018 moved to Pakistan for final two play-off matches and the final.

On paper and with their international stars, the Gladiators were clearly the better side than Peshawar Zalmi. Even without key players, they lost to Zalmi by just one run.

Had they had the players who had no qualms in travelling to Pakistan, it would almost certainly have been the Gladiators playing Islamabad United in the final. This team had all the talent and grit but no luck.

Karachi Kings (Team grade: B)

The Kings were the team to beat at the start of this year's PSL, winning three straight matches and soaring to the top of the table.

They eventually finished the league stage in second spot before being knocked out by Zalmi in the second eliminator.

They were unlucky with ill-timed injuries to their captain Imad Wasim and star man Shahid Afridi, and their stand-in captain Mohammad Amir perhaps didn't have the experience to make the right calls during that high-pressure chase.

With the final held in the City of Lights, Kings' fans would have loved to see their home team play at the National Stadium. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

The Kings, disappointing in the first two PSLs, were much better this time around but were found wanting during the play-offs, losing both their games.

A bit more composure in crucial games will help them take that final leap next year.

Peshawar Zalmi (Team grade: A)

The 2017 champions were clearly not themselves in the 2018 campaign. They lost Shahid Afridi to Karachi Kings during off-season and were troubled by injuries to star players when the tournament began.

Yet, they managed to drag themselves to the final — a testament to their luck and big-game nous.

However, had things not gone in their way, Zalmi could easily not have even qualified for the play-offs, let alone make the final.

Deep into the league stage, they were second-last in the standings and better only than the horrible Qalandars.

Had they not won their last two league matches, there was a genuine possibility that they, and not Lahore, could've finished last.

But their problems stemmed from injuries, which cannot be prevented. Even then, they made it to the finals and could've won the tourney had Kamran Akmal not pulled a classic Kamran Akmal.

In all, this was a decent campaign. Zalmi should still be proud of themselves.

Islamabad United (Team grade: A+)

The champions. Correction: two-time champions.

Islamabad United have become a benchmark and an example to follow for their PSL rivals. They're an incredibly well-run franchise that goes about its business and has quickly developed a tradition of winning, just like so many other sports franchises with United as their moniker have around the world.

They managed a perfect mixture of experience and youth, with the likes of Mohammad Sami, JP Duminy, Faheem Ashraf and Asif Ali.

They barely had a tale, thanks to a long list of all-rounders they had in their ranks. They also boasted the tournament's hottest batsman: Luke Ronchi.

United were so strong, even injuries to their captain and vice-captain couldn't derail their campaign. They were a little slow off the blocks — two of their three defeats came in their opening three matches — but once they were warmed up, they steamrolled every team that came in their way.

Barring a defeat in a dead-rubber to Karachi when they rested several key players, United won eight of their last nine matches. They were by far the best side in the competition and completely deserved their second title.

Pakistan Super League 2018 (Grade: A++)

The third edition of the tournament was thrice the fun. With the addition of a sixth team, the competition was tougher and entertainment was aplenty.

While the PSL 2018 did not see a 200-run game, it had more cliffhangers, super overs and nail-biters than we've seen any cricket league produce in recent times.

One cause of concern for the organisers could be the low attendances at the stadia in Dubai and Sharjah, but with the tournament planned to be phased out of the UAE and moved entirely to Pakistan in the next few years, that one blip will go away too.

All in all, the PSL 2018 exceeded the fans' expectations and we cannot wait for it to come back next year.

Did you attend the PSL final in Karachi? Share your experiences with us at blog@dawn.com

The American West with its wilderness, vastness and pristine beauty has always attracted the trekker and hiker in me.

Those mountains, hills, deserts, canyons, lakes and rivers present an open invitation and challenge for all those who like nature in its purest form.

Every summer, while growing up in Pakistan, I felt an insistent drive to go to the mountains — I considered these to be the best days of the year.

A decade later, a visit to Yellowstone and other national parks in the western United States sparked the same energy and enthusiasm in me.

I planned to take a road trip of about 10 days exploring as many national parks as possible.

As always, being a Pakistani citizen, I was anxious about going through the security clearance before boarding the plane at the airport. However, the flight to Salt Lake City was uneventful.

I was all prepared for travelling for a few days. I knew it would be long, physically tiring and challenging at times, but the idea of a relaxed vacation is not for me.

The journey began the next day with a short tour of Salt Lake City. Then I started north towards Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

My lungs really appreciated the cool and clear air of the mountains. It took a few more hours to get to Jackson Hole.

As soon as I entered the city, we saw a moose grazing in the bushes. There was even a ‘moose stop’ on the traffic signs.

I finally reached the house of friends in nearby Wilson, an upscale and well-maintained gated community with a golf course and indoor tennis courts.

Dick Cheney, the former US vice president, also owns a house in the community.

The house was simple but elegant with high ceilings and glass windows on two sides of the house, giving a spectacular view of the Teton Mountains.

Seated in this serene location, surrounded by wilderness, a stream running through the yard, I felt connected with nature.

The interior of the house was filled with French Impressionist-style paintings and other works of art including sculpture and glass.

The next day started with a boat tour of Jenny Lake and then a 1.5-mile steep hike in the mountains. The trail reminded me of my trekking and mountaineering in Pakistan.

Many times when our host referred to the Grand Tetons as “mountains,” I wanted to correct him; in Pakistan these would be considered foothills.

I had the same reaction on the trail. I saw hikers loaded with stuffed backpacks, a Swiss Army knife on the side, a flashlight in another pocket, two bottles of water, a bear repellent spray, hiking sticks and many other small gadgets and smartphones just to hike a trail of 1.5 miles.

A couple of women had even guns hanging at their sides.

Consumerism and capitalism really drove these tourists to prepare for every possible thing that might happen on the trail.

In Pakistan, we carried less than this to walk for days in terrain that was many times more difficult and posed very serious challenges.

It seemed excessive to see people loaded with stuff to walk an hour. But the view of the lake from the top of the hill was spectacular and worth the climb.

That night we ate around a bonfire in the backyard at the edge of the creek. While we were eating dinner, a deer and her young fawn came close.

They looked a little confused at what these humans were doing in “their” place.

For dessert, I had the most delicious raspberries that I’d ever tasted. They came fresh from bushes in the front garden from which I picked more the next morning.

The next day we started our hike at the Laurence Rockefeller Conservation Area and walked for a mile and a half along the river to Phelps Lake.

Later, I spent the afternoon in art galleries and stores in Jackson Hole. Most of the art was about the American West and was overpriced.

I did not find it exciting except for a miniature truck that was painted and decorated like a typical Pakistan truck.

The famous antler arches in the main city square attracted many tourists. We also visited a local art show and enjoyed some wood and glasswork and photographs.

In the evening, we took a gondola to the top of the hill at Teton Village, where we also had dinner. From 9,500 feet, the valley looked beautiful.

The air was cold and it was chilly on top of the hill. In winter, these slopes are used for skiing and the valley for cross-country skiing.

There were many bushes with colourful wildflowers. The valley was wide open below with a river flowing in the middle, inviting visitors to explore it.

I was very excited the next morning about going to the Yellowstone Park, the oldest and most admired national park in the US.

Before entering the park, we drove through areas where wildfires had burned thousands of acres of land.

Our first major stop was Old Faithful Inn, a gigantic structure made mostly of wood and some stone, a true work of art located right next to the famous Old Faithful geyser.

As expected, the Old Faith erupted on time. Thousands of people circle around it to observe the eruption that sends water and steam more than a hundred feet into the air. There were a few Indian and Pakistani families as well, some of whom I talked to.

The next stop was the Grand Prismatic Spring, another place of geothermal and biological activity, with different bacteria giving its water turquoise, blue, orange, yellow, green and other shades of colour.

After making short stops at several small geothermal ponds, we drove to Hayden Valley where bison sighting was expected.

Sure enough, dozens of bison appeared close to the road. I found a perfect parking place and got out of the car in excitement.

To my surprise, the herd started to walk directly towards us and soon they were only a few feet away.

One of the calves started to scratch its neck against my car. Soon a papa bison came and stood next to the car.

The bison was so huge that my rental car (a Toyota Corolla) seemed small next to him. I was sure if he got his horns under the car, he could turn it over easily.

When bison come to the road, they take their time to move across, causing mile-long traffic jams.

At a pullover spot, with guidance from fellow tourists and with the help of binoculars, I was able to see a grizzly bear sitting next to an elk on the bank of a stream.

After that excitement, I drove towards the inside-the-park hotel to spend the night. There are very few lodges inside the park and the accommodations are limited.

On the way to the hotel, all of a sudden, a small grizzly walked in front of the car. He crossed the road and then disappeared into the woods.

It a highlight of my day. He was only a few metres away yet I felt safe inside the car.

The next morning, we drove over the state line and had breakfast in Montana. The next stop was Lamar Valley, where there were hundreds, if not thousands, of bison.

I was also able to spot a few antelopes and other animals from the deer family. Someone spotted a wolf eating the carcass of a bison, but I missed it. Later in the day, I saw another big black bear and spotted other wildlife.

There are several waterfalls all along the park. We walked almost a mile to see the gigantic ‘upper falls.’ There was a huge rainbow across the valley over the falls.

Over the years, I have noticed that every South Asian resident or tourist in North America wants to visit the Niagara Falls.

Here I was more excited about the geothermal activity and seeing animals like bison, bears and antelopes.

These are things you can only experience in Yellowstone; falls and trails you can see in other places too.

I spent the night in Roosevelt Lodge in Yellowstone Park. I was able to experience a wood stove for heating for the first time; it kept the room warm for a few hours.

But around 4am the room felt ice-cold even under the layers of blankets covering the beds.

I got up and threw some chips into the stove and started the fire again. Soon after the room became cozy.

Maybe it was the sight of fire or the smell of wood or smoke, but it had a calming effect.

The scenery of the mountains was beautiful, but I started to sense some disappointment building inside me.

For me, mountains present the challenge of hiking, not seeing them from a distance. Because of park restrictions, there were only a few areas you could explore on foot.

This was not my idea of visiting mountains. I knew it was time to move on and explore the deserts of southern Utah.

Fortunately, in planning the trip I had left room for the unexpected. I am very happy I did, for it allowed an unforeseen turn of events that sent us on a new adventure.

We took the western exit of the park and entered Idaho. Soon the land became flat with miles of wheat and potato crop fields.

The scenery was very different from Yellowstone, yet both were magnificent and beautiful in their own way.

After two days — and several stops — I finally arrived in Bryce Canyon, in southern Utah. It is an impressive configuration of many rock towers standing next to each other in the desert.

We took a two-mile hike, going down to the base of the canyon from which the upward view of these amazing naturally carved stone towers was spectacular.

It is amazing how nature has carved stones into these towers. It took centuries for the wind to carve these delicate sculptures. I have not visited anything parallel to these canyons in Pakistan.

On one side of the valley, the wind and erosion have done some impressive work carving tall caves reminding me of the caves of Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

After Bryce, I headed to Waves Canyon, taking a wrong turn and spotting a wolf, the best experience of the day.

I spent the night in a Spanish villa-styled bed and breakfast in Kenab, Utah. The place was peaceful and serene.

I visited art galleries and local handicraft stores and indulged in freshly made ice cream at a food parlour.

Next door was a gallery where the owner and artist were present. They provided information about some interesting local destinations that were not listed on tourist websites or in brochures. Locals wanted to keep certain things a secret to avoid the tourist crowd.

This was very useful information and we visited several sites the next day. The walk to Toadstools, a group of balanced rock formations in Escalante National Monument, started in a dry riverbed very close to different layers of red, brown, black, white and mixed-coloured rocks.

There were no tourists in the area and the internet did not provide information about it.

The trail ends on a beautiful plateau on which there were many small rock formations shaped like mushrooms.

It was a beautiful sight, but it was not possible to stay very long due to the scorching heat. I enjoyed the walk as it was the first time I was so close to nature without crowds of tourists.

After driving for an hour, we entered Arizona for the next stop at Horseshoe Bend Canyon. The Colorado River was a few hundred feet down in the canyon, following a course shaped almost like a circle.

There were no fences at the edge of the canyon’s vertical drop, and I was amazed how many tourists were standing or sitting close to the edge to get a perfect picture, just a few inches away from certain death in case of a slip.

We drove on through Bear Ears, past several lakes and valleys, on the way to Monument Valley, a symbol of the American wilderness.

I have seen it in countless movies and advertisements. A few red flat-top or tower-like rocks standing in a flat valley, it has always fascinated me.

Moab is a cool little town that serves as a gateway to Arches National Park. It has a fine independent bookstore, local handmade craft shops, and many other boutique stores.

There was also an advertisement for an upcoming music festival. The galleries sell stunningly beautiful photographs of different landscapes of the American West.

We started hiking to visit the world-famous Delicate Arch early in the morning before the temperature got high. It was a good decision. The 1.6-mile hike was all uphill with some steep parts at the edge of the rocks.

I walked through the contrast of dusty soil and soft red clay in the middle of the sandstone rocks. Delicate Arch is a stand-alone structure, probably five stories high on top of a rock which has one flat side. The other side looks like the edge of a circular trench.

Stepping just a few feet in the wrong direction can land you in a valley hundreds of feet below. I walked very carefully to the centre of the arch, and sat down in the shade of the petrified sand dunes to rest and enjoy the beauty of the arch.

Here I caught the first glimpse of a hawk on this tour. It was exciting to be part of the beauty, feeling powerful and significant as a human being, but insignificant and small in the larger picture.

Years ago I had seen this arch from a distance. This time I was able to climb right up to it. The sandstone structure seemed a beautiful piece of art; I was stunned by its beauty.

Soon the temperature soared up to 41 C; I believe it was the highest temperature I experienced in the US.

The next and last stop was Salt Lake City. We visited the Mormon Temple Square and walked near the Tabernacle and into the Old Temple, all majestic and opulent.

At the end of the trip I felt tired, physically exhausted and worn out, but my heart was happy and my mind had stored many images of fascinating scenery and exciting experiences.

It was the right way to spend my vacation as a fond reminder of those wonderful summers in the mountains of Pakistan.

Have you ever explored well-known or off-the-beaten tracks around the world? Share your adventures with us at blog@dawn.com

• A matter of principle
• Bhagat Singh’s popularity
• The rise of Jawaharlal Nehru

The reaction to the assassination was not what Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev had anticipated. On December 17, 1927 the three freedom fighters shot dead JP Saunders, assistant superintendent of police outside the Superintendent’s Office in Lahore.

The act, originally intended for Superintendent of Police James Scott, was meant to avenge the death of freedom fighter and Congress leader Lala Lajpat Rai.

Rai had died exactly a month ago, a few days after he was thrashed by the colonial police led by Scott outside the Lahore Railway Station, where he was protesting against the Simon Commission.

The British had set up the commission to report on the progress of constitutional reforms in India, but it was criticised for not including a single Indian member.

Rai had been a mentor to Bhagat Singh. He was a former ally of Ajit Singh, Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary uncle and role model.

The young leader had also studied at Lahore’s National College, which Rai had established, and had imbibed revolutionary literature at the Dwarka Das Library that Rai had set up in the city.

A matter of principle

A committed communist, Bhagat Singh had ideological differences with Rai, who was regarded as a Hindu communalist.

Besides being a member of the Congress, Rai was also part of the Arya Samaj, an organisation that had played an important role in the communalisation of national identity in India.

However, despite his differences with Rai, Bhagat Singh and his comrades felt it was essential to avenge the death of one of the leading politicians of the country.

Rai was a former president of the Congress and he, along with Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal – known as the Lal-Bal-Pal trio – had been responsible for adding fervour to the Indian national struggle.

For Bhagat Singh, Rai’s death was a blow to the honour of the people of India.

However, when the honour was avenged with the death of Saunders, it failed to inspire the revolutionary reaction Bhagat Singh had anticipated.

Many prominent leaders and politicians distanced themselves from what was described as a “terrorist” act, while numbers at the regular meetings of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, the parent organisation of Bhagat Singh and his comrades, also dwindled.

Even The People, a weekly newspaper Rai had founded in Lahore, called the assassination a desperate action.

Bhagat Singh and his comrades reasoned that a more courageous act was required to inspire the revolutionary spirit of the people – an act that would “Make the deaf hear.”

Thus it was decided that a bomb would be thrown in the Legislative Assembly in Delhi, making sure no one was harmed in the process. But Bhagat Singh realised that even that might not achieve their objective.

He then suggested that the bombers court arrest thereafter. He argued that they would use their trial to educate the people about their revolutionary ideas, thus setting up the conditions for an eventual communist revolution in the country.

However, the country’s leading politicians also condemned the bombing in the Legislative Assembly, much like they did with Saunders’ assassination.

Gandhi equated the bombing with the murder of the Hindu publisher Rajpal in Lahore for publishing a controversial pamphlet on the Prophet of Islam.

Motilal Nehru declared that the choice for the people of India lay between Gandhi (the adherent of non-violence) and “Balraj”, a pseudonym used by Bhagat Singh for the assassination.

At this stage the young revolutionary leader was far from the hero he was to become shortly after.

Bhagat Singh’s popularity

The situation began to change dramatically during the record-breaking hunger strike that Bhagat Singh and his comrades undertook in jail to protest against the deplorable conditions there.

Overnight, the public sentiment changed in their favour. Meetings arranged by the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and other organisations sympathetic to Bhagat Singh’s agenda began attracting thousands of people.

The zeal increased even further following the death of their comrade Jatin Das, who lost his life on the 63rd day of the hunger strike due to the damage to his lungs after being force-fed.

The hunger strike touched the conscience of the people, making the nationalists household names. Many argue that around this time, Bhagat Singh began rivalling the popularity of Gandhi.

In the meantime, the Indian National Congress was also experiencing a transition. A new cadre of leadership, led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, was emerging.

They were both leftist in their ideology and critical of the existing leadership, which included Gandhi and Motilal Nehru.

At this point, the Congress was demanding Dominion Status from Britain, which would have allowed India autonomy within the monarchy, like Australia and Canada.

To the younger leaders, this was a compromise. Jawaharlal Nehru particularly had serious reservations about it, but eventually accepted the idea after being persuaded by Gandhi.

However, the rise of Bhagat Singh’s popularity meant that the Congress started losing its influence over the youth, who were being increasingly drawn towards his political rhetoric.

Jawaharlal Nehru was already sympathetic to the nationalist leader, whom he visited in jail. He also published the defence statement of Bhagat Singh and his comrades in the Congress bulletin, for which he was criticised by Gandhi.

The slogan of “Inquilab Zindabad” being used by Bhagat Singh and his comrades started replacing the slogan of “Vande Matram” popularised by the Congress.

Towards the end of the 1920s, it became increasingly clear to the older leadership of the Congress that they would isolate their young followers if they did not accommodate their political agenda.

The rise of Jawaharlal Nehru

On September 28, 1929 much to the surprise of everyone, Nehru, backed by his father and Gandhi, was chosen as the new Congress president. This was to mark a shift in the Congress’ policies.

A couple of months later, on New Year’s Eve, the tricolour flag of independent India was hoisted on the banks of the Ravi in Lahore, as the Congress changed its demand from Dominion Status to Purna Swaraj or complete independence.

Bhagat Singh’s popularity was at its peak in Punjab, with Lahore being his political home. He, Rajguru and Sukhdev were executed there on March 23, 1931, a little more than a year after the Congress called for Purna Swaraj.

Their last rites were performed on the banks of Ravi by Bhagat Singh’s supporters who had snatched their remains from the colonial state.

It is impossible to predict how things would have turned out had Bhagat Singh’s rhetoric from jail not captured the imagination of the people.

Would it have been possible for Jawaharlal Nehru to rise so quickly to the top in the Congress? Would the largest political organisation of the country have changed its demand from Dominion Status to Purna Swaraj so soon after first demanding Dominion Status?

There is, however, no doubting that Bhagat Singh’s popularity and rhetoric made it easier for Jawaharlal Nehru to convince the senior leadership of the Congress to revolutionise their agenda or risk losing their popular support to other more radical organisations.

This piece was originally published in Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.

We didn’t know who we were meeting until just a few hours before. All we had been told was to show up.

Perhaps that is why when 20 of us female human rights defenders found ourselves in a room waiting for her to arrive, none of us had quite calibrated what was happening.

Women, many of whom are institutions unto themselves, were teetering with excitement, joy – emotions not common in the lives of activists.

There was Syeda Ghulam Fatima, who works to liberate brick kiln slaves, Anis Haroon, a National Human Rights Commissioner, Khawer Mumtaz, Muniba Mazari, Nighat Dad, Samar Minallah, activists from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

We all know of each other but our schedules rarely, if ever, bring us all into the same city, let alone the same room.

We started taking pictures to commemorate this moment. It isn’t often you are in the same room as all your sheroes.

As we took our seats, the doors opened.

The first thing you notice about Malala Yousafzai is how small she is – barely clearing 5’3 ft. But her effect on the room was immediate, that suddenly seemed too little to contain our shared pride. We all jumped to our feet and burst into spontaneous applause.

That after six years, she was home. That she had survived being shot in the head. That despite all the media scrutiny, the relentless bullying, the robbed childhood, she was back.

Despite a whirlwind schedule, the world’s youngest Nobel Prize winner had made time to meet the women on the ground to inspire both the old and new generations of activists.

Malala went around the room, greeting each female activist individually by shaking their hand, sometimes leaning in for a quick hug.

Some had met her before. Some, like me, had only ever seen her on television. But the delight of both was the same.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who had organised the meeting, asked everyone to briefly introduce themselves to Malala. But this moment was about Malala, nothing else.

Some told her they had not been able to sleep the night before when they found out they would be meeting her.

Anis Haroon, who has dedicated her life to the cause of human rights in Pakistan, had flown in from Karachi just that morning. The short notice had made it difficult to get a proper token of her affection, she said.

But she had brought with her the iconic Women’s Action Forum scarf, yellow, imprinted with laws and poetry that uphold the rights of women.

Malala got up and went up to Anis Haroon, who draped the scarf around her shoulders, welcoming her into this decades-long battle.

Anis Haroon then invited present and past WAF activists to be photographed with Malala, in a moment of inclusiveness that echoed the generosity and positivity in the room. That is Malala’s power.

In-depth: Malala Yousufzai

Malala is a listener. She speaks when called upon, and when she does, her words take comfort in their wisdom. She sits up straight, she makes eye contact. Her confidence is one fostered over years of experience. Only, Malala is just 20 years old.

Her small stature emphasises this. We all know the battles she has fought. We all know the enemies she takes on. We all know the ambitions she has.

I told her, you are so young. I told her that I have two daughters and as inspirational as she was for them, I hoped that she could still find time to enjoy what is left of her childhood.

There is a collective acknowledgement of this in the room, each looking at her, aware of the normalcy she has traded in for her extraordinary life.

When the introductions are done, Malala takes a deep breath. If she is overwhelmed, she does not show it. She knows how to navigate her distinction without a trace of arrogance.

She is comfortable in a room full of Pakistan’s leading activists. And surprisingly, Pakistan’s leading activists are comfortable in a room with her.

Cover story: The daughter of the nation

Earlier in the day, I had met a fellow activist at a café who was bursting with excitement at having just met Malala at the Prime Minister’s House.

I asked him how she was, and he said she was thronged by people which seemed to overwhelm her. And yet in this room, as we bonded over her arrival, she was calm, collected and eager to listen.

Malala is thrilled to be home. She has dreamed of this moment, and like many of us, can’t bring herself to believe that her dream of returning to her country came true.

She was apprehensive about her reception in Pakistan but was glad to see that she had been welcomed with open arms.

Sure, she manages the Malala Fund for Education. But, she tells us, she has assignments due at Oxford. She worries about homework.

Her friends at university have been texting her constantly, who are in disbelief that she managed to keep her trip to Pakistan secret from them.

We are heartened to hear of these small marks of student life. It is apparent that Malala can have a life, not entirely untouched by her celebrity but still pretty close.

Malala has always been serious about her studies, we know that. Even after she was shot, her first conversation with her father from the U.K. included an impassioned plea to bring her books with him. Her Matriculation exams were right around the corner, after all.

Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, sits next to her. He lets her shine, and speaks with the same respect he has passed down to his daughter.

There was something personal about how we understood what his support had done for Malala.

We all know how enabling having a father-figure that supports our work can be, and the courage it gives you to embark on a path less trodden.

Malala says her home country looks the same. Only, everything is different. There is so much hope, she finds, and is deeply touched by the kindness she has found in just this room.

I have never seen activists in such a good mood.

Last month, the civil society in Pakistan lost one of its giants. There was a sense of foreboding, as if we had lost a compass in a terrain that suddenly had become unfamiliar despite years of having walked it. Even the most steadfast of us felt broken by Asma Jahangir’s death.

Being an activist in Pakistan, being an activist anywhere, is a taxing road. But when we met Malala, the work seemed validated.

That if this young woman could find her way back, after everything she had been through, with her faith and will intact, how could we not keep fighting?

The struggle is long and often a lonely one, but how were we alone if we had each other?

And make no mistake, Malala fights the good fight. She brings nuance to the narrative about Pakistan in the West.

She is accused of being a tool for this narrative, but rest assured, she is no one’s fool.

She was not yet 16 years old when she met President Obama, who had asked her to come at the White House, and raised the impact of drone warfare on her people, reminding him of their murderous consequences.

Her very existence complicates things for the very institutions that paint Pakistan with a broad brush. And she does not let them forget that.

To those who know this, her homecoming was the triumph for the years of standing up for her.

Editorial: Malala returns home

This meeting wasn’t a baton-passing ceremony. None of us marked her out to continue the journeys that many of us embarked on before Malala was even born. That is not what we were there to do.

What it was, was a moment of validation and joy, for what she meant as a global symbol of Pakistani women fighting for a just world.

It is easy to overlook how much courage it took for her to come back home, and in that room, that bravery was infectious.

The best you can do as an activist is to create a path for future activists. You are lucky if you even guide one.

And here was Malala, uniting us all to continue to march forward, demanding more, fighting back and never giving up.

When she left the room, we all looked at each other in excitement. We took some more photos, hugged each other, promising to help each other in our respective battles.

Eventually, we all got up and returned to the work that we do.

This past week, 20-year-old Malala Yousafzai made an emotional return to Pakistan. Her four-day visit included meetings with friends, family, and senior officials, including Pakistan’s prime minister.

Many Pakistanis applauded Yousafzai’s return. Some, however, did not. While she may have received a hero’s welcome, Malala is no national hero in Pakistan.

A small but vocal minority, most of them members of a growing conservative middle class, resent her. They label her as a fraud, traitor, sell-out, or American stooge.

They say that there’s nothing special about her, that many Pakistani children suffer worse fates; that she’s abandoned her nation for fame in the West. Some claim the attack on her was staged by the CIA.

This is a story about an ordinary teenager who survives an unthinkable tragedy, uses that tragedy as inspiration to become a prominent advocate, and ends up in the crosshairs of a hate campaign led by conservative compatriots.

A similar story is playing out now in the United States.

Survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School gun massacre in Parkland, Florida. have launched a powerful movement for more gun control.

This campaign has elevated them to prominence and provoked a small constituency of conservative, conspiratorial, gun-loving Americans.

These haters say the grieving victims attract attention they don’t deserve, come off as sanctimonious and self-righteous, are frauds, and are “being funded” and “given scripts.”

The gun massacre survivors are branded as Nazis, targeted in doctored photo campaigns, and even mocked for college rejection letters.

Admittedly, the analogy is imperfect. Malala suffered a more serious physical injury than did most of the Parkland survivors.

Malala is an overseas-based global activist focused on the transnational issue of education, while the Parkland survivors centre their advocacy around the US domestic issue of gun control.

Malala’s advocacy is couched in the language of hope; the Parkland activists are often emotional, angry, and overtly political.

Additionally, while Pakistanis and Americans use the same tactic—character assassination—against their objects of scorn, their respective motivations are different.

For Pakistanis, Malala represents something unusual: A successful case of upward mobility. In a nation of entrenched inequality, where 40 per cent of Pakistani children in the lowest economic quantile are expected to remain there for life, Malala’s rapid transformation from schoolteacher’s daughter to embodiment of the global elite is literally unbelievable—especially for the millions of middle-class Pakistanis who know they’ll never reach such dizzying heights.

As I wrote in an essay last year, this disorienting reality provokes admiration from some—but jealousy, skepticism, suspicion, and hostility from others.

While Pakistanis feel confused, Americans feel threatened. These impassioned, articulate students—who have galvanised many Americans, including elected officials—make them worry about real threats to their cherished gun culture. So, they lash out.

Nonetheless, the same basic dynamic is at play with Malala and the Parkland survivors: Young people suffering unthinkable tragedies and then being subjected to vicious hate campaigns—simply for the sin of being well-known advocates.

There are lessons here. One is the power of conspiracy theories. They convince people that despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, children weren’t really nearly gunned down and aren’t really innocent advocates for a cause.

In Pakistan, conspiracy theories have long been ubiquitous, thanks to a troubled education system, extremist sentiment, and the state’s tendency to blame domestic problems on foreign forces.

In America, only more recently have conspiracy theories gained such widespread prominence. Formerly fringe figures like Alex Jones and Erick Erickson have become highly influential, thanks in part to social media. Even President Trump has supported conspiracy theories. In effect, fringe has gone mainstream.

The other lesson is about civility. Restraint is dead in public discourse. No one—including young people targeted by militants and school shooters—is off limits from hate campaigns.

Tragedy is not a sacrosanct shield that confers immunity from abuse—especially when, in Pakistan, America, and beyond, people are harassed or worse simply because of their religion, ethnicity, or political views. Social media, which gives haters the luxuries of anonymity and distance, compounds this incivility.

In a video message to protestors at the March for Our Lives rally on March 24, Malala explained what she and the Parkland survivors share in common: They experienced violence and injustice, and they decided to speak out.

Sadly, something else they share in common is the hate to which they have been subjected for daring to speak out.

18-year-old Sadia (all names have been changed) was brought into a clinic at a bustling tertiary care hospital by her father Noor Khan with high fever for the past three weeks.

She was diagnosed with typhoid and prescribed the standard oral antibiotics suitable to treat this disease.

The next week, Khan returned to the same clinic with his 20-year-old son Habib who had the same symptoms as his sister.

However, his condition was considerably worse and necessitated admission to hospital and intravenous antibiotics.

“Doctor sahiba, Habib has his exams in less than two weeks. Please fix him up soon,” Khan implored.

“We will try our best,” the doctor comforted him.

On the day of discharge, Khan walked into the clinic with heavy steps. Unable to see the doctor in the eyes, he said, “Doctor sahiba, the bill for the hospital admission is Rs 15,000. And the medicine that you have given now to be taken at home is also quite expensive. Can we do without this medicine?”

“If Habib is to get better, then this medicine is required,” the doctor replied.

“I know doctor sahiba, but this will be very difficult. I work in a local factory as a worker. I make Rs 15,000 per month. I have taken out a loan to pay for his treatment,” Khan said helplessly.

The doctor stepped in and arranged for part of his medical expenses to be waived by the hospital. Grateful as he was, Khan didn’t know that his ordeal was far from over.

Related: Superbug typhoid strain behind Pakistan outbreak

After a month, he was rushing his youngest child Mujeeb, 12, into emergency with high fever and convulsions.

“Since when has this been happening?” the doctor asked.

“For the past two weeks. We were giving him medicine from the local medical shop because well…” Khan replied.

“What!?” exclaimed the doctor

“Doctor sahiba, I didn’t have money to bring him to the hospital,” a dejected Khan stated, his eyes downcast.

Mujeeb was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit where he was treated with a number of very expensive intravenous antibiotics. His blood culture indicated multi-drug-resistant typhoid. He remained in the hospital for two weeks.

He was suffering, but so was his family who was now in massive debt. His elder brother Habib had left his studies to work in a motor repair shop to help pay for the household’s daily expenses.

Khan was facing problems at work because of taking leaves for his family’s illness. The mother, Bano Jee, was convinced that someone had done kala jaadoo (black magic) on her children.

Special report: The antibiotics resistance crisis: an emerging public health disaster

Unfortunately, for those within the medical profession, this story is not fiction — it represents a terrible reality, a classic example of how some infectious diseases, almost unheard of in the developed world, have not only lingered as major threats to our lives, but have actually gained in strength to wreak havoc on our populations.

This is evidenced by the fact that 40 per cent of the disease burden in Pakistan can be attributed to infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and malaria.

Typhoid, a household term in our cities and villages, was relatively easy to treat up till recently. Two years back, multi-drug resistant typhoid was found within the localities of Hyderabad and Karachi.

According to reports, more than 800 cases of drug-resistant typhoid were found in Hyderabad alone in a 10-month period between 2016 and 2017.

This bug was sensitive to only two broad-spectrum antibiotics, the cost of which is exorbitant. Infectious disease specialists estimate the total treatment cost for 14 days to be roughly around Rs 50,000.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics are those that can kill a wide range of bugs; they are used when the bug is unknown, but these antibiotics increase resistance if used indiscriminately.

For someone who survives on daily wages, such treatment costs can put the entire household in financial catastrophe.

Read next: ‘Pakistan needs to know, tackle crisis resulting from antibiotic resistance’

What adds to the problem is that broad-spectrum antibiotics are unlikely to be found in small towns and shops, particularly in rural areas, where generic antibiotics availability ranges from 10 to 25 per cent.

Bacteria also know no boundaries — recently, the same bug was found in Swabi. The doctors in that locality reported that the patient was from Karachi.

A World Health Organization poster reads: “Our time with antibiotics is running out.” This is not a dramatic call for attention, but a tragic reality of the times that we live in.

The growing resistance among organisms to different antibiotics has developed and worsened over the course of decades due to our unfavourable systematic practices that lead to prescription of antibiotics, even when they are not medically indicated or required, such as in the case of viral infections.

Overuse of antibiotics is an increasing problem, as the recent Dawn editorial also suggests. This occurs due to the fact that patients themselves come to physicians looking for a quick fix, which they misconceive to be only through antibiotics, and demand to be prescribed antibiotics.

Alarmingly in our situation, it is easy to bypass physicians and just go to the corner store and buy any antibiotic we feel inclined to get, based on the advice of the storekeeper who may have no background even in pharmacy sciences.

A 2016 study from Peshawar demonstrated that 26 per cent of 800 respondents reported self-medication of antibiotics.

Another equally worrying factor is that many medical practitioners, amenable to the influence of pharmaceutical companies, prescribe these antibiotics in large quantities.

Such physicians accept favours and gifts — including simple office stationery, drug samples, trips to exotic destinations abroad among others — from pharmaceutical companies who, in exchange, require them to prescribe the more expensive antibiotics.

The complicity of these physicians, who are honour bound by their medical oath to put the interests of the patients above their own but fail do so, is another influencing factor within developing countries, including Pakistan.

Guidelines by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council and the National Bioethics Committee on pharma-physician interactions exist but, to date, no physician has been held accountable or had his/her license revoked, although the practice is rampant. Since these guidelines have no teeth, it is hardly surprising that the practice continues to flourish.

Prevention works better than cure and is significantly cheaper in the long run also. This is even truer in cases of infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis, and dengue and so on.

Unhygienic food and drinking water and poor living conditions create a perfect milieu for infectious agents to thrive. The response of health authorities in such situations should not be reactive, but more efforts have to be geared towards primary prevention.

Preventive efforts include measures like vaccination, which is seriously neglected in Pakistan. A vaccination drive was conducted in Hyderabad recently only after cases of drug-resistant typhoid were found by a private university and the authorities duly alerted.

However, vaccination against the more common diseases in Pakistan should become part of the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI), which itself faces a number of challenges, including limited resources and inadequate coverage.

General lack of awareness among public with respect to vaccination, along with limited effort by public health authorities, has relegated the importance of vaccination. These need to be revitalised in order to tackle this menace.

Also read: How Pakistan turned around its vaccination programme using technology

Serious efforts by the authorities to provide clean sanitation and provision of hygienic food should be done. With sewerage spilling over streets and vendors selling pakoras to eager buyers right next to a tertiary care hospital is a common site for all Pakistanis that does not even merit raising eyebrows.

While our chemists merrily dispense antibiotics to eager customers, our food stalls dispense fortified salmonella, the bacteria that causes typhoid. If we are serious in stopping infections short in their tracks, we need to get serious in preventing conditions that foster them.

The dangers of antimicrobial resistance are real with significant impacts. To combat this, the medical community has an essential role to play in limiting their prescriptions of antibiotics and raising awareness among public about dangers of self-medication and antibiotic overuse.

Health authorities also have to wake up from their restful slumber and focus their energies on preventive mechanisms as opposed to occasional stirrings when water is already under the bridge.

Are you a medical practitioner working on community and public health issues? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com

• Devotion towards fire

I have been to Sargodha many times. In fact multiple times in a year, throughout my childhood. This is where my family comes from — both maternal and paternal.

Despite all my trips, however, I have never visited the shrine of Naghyana in a village called Dharema, about 10-odd km from the city.

Composed of two graves, it is an extraordinary shrine, dating back to the 17th century. The first grave is said to belong to Prince Murad Baksh, the youngest son of Emperor Shah Jahan, who had joined hands with his older brother Aurangzeb to take on their brother, Prince Dara Shikoh.

However, after Aurangzeb defeated Dara Shikoh, he put Murad Baksh to death, clearing the way for him to become the emperor. The story of his grave being at this site, though, is unlikely as Prince Murad Baksh was put to death in Gwalior.

The second grave is said to belong to the saint Naghyana, who is believed to have given refuge to Murad Baksh. The progeny of the saint eventually came to be known as Naghyana.

The word 'naghyana' is believed to have been derived from 'naghe,' an epithet used for nanga sadhus, the naked ascetic devotees of the Hindu deity Shiva.

Covered in ash dust, sporting long untrimmed hair, and known to consume hashish incessantly, these sadhus defy all societal norms and prefer to live in seclusion.

There is also a long established tradition of naked Sufi ascetics, connecting all the way back to udasi sadhus, followers of Shri Chand, the eldest son of Guru Nanak.

In devotional art, Shri Chand is usually depicted almost naked sitting in a yogic position next to a fire. He has long, ragged hair, just like a nanga sadhu.

Like these sadhus, the Sufi dervishes too let their hair grow long, and believe that hair is the source of life-energy.

It seemed that the udasi, as devotees of Shri Chand later came to be known, also borrowed heavily from the Shaivite sadhus, just as the Sufi ascetics or dervishes did. Perhaps Naghyana was one such Sufi ascetic.

There is another legend at the Naghyana shrine about the fire that the saint lit. Fire acquires a particular symbolic and religious significance in ascetic Sufi tradition.

Many popular Sufis are believed to have their dhuan (smoke), which, in this case, specifically refers to the place where they lit their fire and sat.

For many such Sufis, their dhuan became a place of veneration after their death. The situation at the shrine is quite similar.

At the shrine, it is narrated that the fire has remained alive ever since the death of the saint in the 17th century. His devotees have made sure that his dhuan survives.

I am told the fire simmers — emitting more smoke than fire — at the centre of a room that is blackened by this centuries’ old smoke.

Perhaps the fire comes to life during the annual urs celebration, the death anniversary of the saint, the day he is believed to have become One with the Divine.

I saw another similar situation at the shrine of Shah Hussain, the 16th century mystic poet, who is believed to have fallen in love with the Hindu boy, Madhu Lal. They are buried in Lahore together, in a union that signifies the Oneness of the world — Monism.

There is a fire just outside the shrine to Madho Lal Hussain in Lahore, which is lit throughout the year by the lamps of his devotees. Much like the fire at the Naghyana shrine, this one too was simmering when I visited a few months ago.

The situation at the shrine this past week, however, was different as thousands of devotees of the saint converged there to celebrate his urs, also known as Mela Chiraghan or the Festival of Lamps, one of the greatest festivals of the city of Lahore.

The fire must have been alive, thriving, whirling and swinging, imitating the dhamaal of the dervishes around it.

Devotion towards fire

Fire has long been held sacred in the indigenous religious traditions of South Asia. The Zoroastrians are popularly and falsely referred to as fire worshippers. Their religious shrines are known as fire temples, with fire forming a central feature in their religious rituals.

At a fire temple, the fire never dies. The original fire (other traditions assert it was ash from the fire) that was brought from Persia by the fleeing Zoroastrians was set up in a temple off the coast of Mumbai, the oldest fire temple in the world.

There is a deeper connection between the Zoroastrians and the Sufi ascetic tradition of South Asia. The term 'dervish,' popularly used to describe ascetic Sufis, is derived from the Persian word 'daryosh,' which is derived from the word 'drigu,' for devotees of Zarathustra.

While there is an etymological connection between the drigu and dervish, there also seems to be a religious continuity between the two, with fire joining the knot of these two traditions.

For many dervishes, it is not just fire — the ash from the fire of a Sufi saint is also significant. Just like the Shaivite sadhus, they believe ash from this sacred fire has magical properties and use it frequently for healing purposes.

It is around these fires that different dervishes gather and engage in hashish consumption, another connection that binds them with the Shaivite sadhus. In both of these traditions, the consumption of hashish or other forms of cannabis enjoys religious approval.

Sometimes Sufi ascetics perform zikr around the fire — this involves the invocation of God in a liturgical manner, using a breathing technique in a particular rhythm.

Jurgen Wasim Frembgen, a German anthropologist who has worked extensively on the Sufi culture of Islam, finds the origin of this form of zikr — a particular feature of South Asian Sufism — in the yogic tradition.

While fire is important in their religious asceticism, so is the tong or chimta, which is used to maintain the fire.

The chimta is an essential possession of a Sufi dervish. It is used to announce the arrival of a dervish into a village. It is used by him for rhythm when he sings Sufi songs. Often, it is the only instrument a Sufi dervish possesses.

The chimta is also kept by sadhus who not only use it to maintain fire but as a percussion instrument when need be. It is also part of the Sikh tradition where it is used as an instrument to perform religious music, following a trajectory that has its origin in the Shaivite sadhu tradition and their fire-tending necessities.

Scratching beneath the surface, one would find similar traditions of fire veneration in Buddhist and Jain traditions. Moving beyond the demarcations that divide these religions, it becomes impossible to maintain these boundaries in the ascetic realm.

Where does the Shaivite sadhu tradition end and Sufi dervish tradition begin? How does one begin to differentiate between the dervish and the udasi devotees of Shri Chand?

While there are several traditions that join together the threads of these indigenous religious practices, one of those traditions is their communal devotion towards fire, perhaps a tradition all of them borrow from Zoroastrianism.

The article was first published in Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.

• Which countries have had some success in broadening the tax base?
• Which countries have not had much success in this endeavour?
• What are the key lessons in tax reforms attempting to broaden the tax base?
• Any lessons on why and how some countries have been able to address corruption in the tax administration?
• Is it necessarily politically harmful for an elected government to attempt to broaden the tax base?
• Is there a significant role for information technology here?
• How would you summarise your views on success stories in broadening the tax base?

Broadening its tax base is perhaps the most significant economic challenge facing Pakistan. After 70 years of existence, the country has less than two million income tax filers, one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, and a tax system which riddled with inequity and corruption.

But we are not the only country struggling with tax reforms; other have faced this challenge too. The question is what can we learn from them.

To answer this question, I reached out to Dr Mark Gallagher, an economist who has spent three decades in dealing with tax reforms in developing countries.

He has served as a consultant for different organisations, including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter American Development Bank, USAID, US Treasury, German GIZ, and the European Commission. Here is how Dr Gallagher responded via email to my questions.

Which countries have had some success in broadening the tax base?

Many countries have had success in broadening the tax base. But first, it is important to understand that there are basically three ways to do so:

One is to get people into the tax system who have been outside of it but are supposed to, by law, be paying taxes.

Two, reduce tax incentives that allow businesses that are economically active to not pay taxes. These tax breaks or reliefs include measures such as tax holidays that say that, if you invest in such and such area, industry or for export only, you don’t have to pay tax or you can pay a reduced amount.

And three, reduce the number of goods and services that are not taxed or are taxed at a lower rate than others. For instance, basic foodstuffs in some countries are exempt from value-added tax.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 2000s, a big push was made to get businesses to register. This worked and revenues rose quite quickly. Later, they reduced tax holidays for corporations and lowered the corporate income tax rate from 30% to 10% and revenues increased.

In Rwanda over the years, the tax administration broadened the tax base by getting more and more people and companies registered, but they did not reduce exemptions and exoneration; revenue rose steadily for a decade.

In Georgia, the government issued a new tax code, I think in 2009, which lowered the corporate tax rate, but also applied the tax rate to all companies in all industries.

This broadening the tax base by eliminating preferential rates coupled with a lower headline rate for all resulted in considerable revenue increases over the subsequent years.

Which countries have not had much success in this endeavour?

I would say the Philippines. There, tax revenues reached their pinnacle (in relation to the overall economy) in 1997, then dropped for the better part of two decades.

Tax revenue has only recently begun to increase, but remains below the 1997 level. Tax incentives run rampant, as does complexity, and some complain of corruption and evasion.

Afghanistan is another country that has not made much effort in broadening the legal tax base, actually since 1965.

Of course, the tax administration was rebuilt over the past 15 years, but other than reaching out to taxpayers around the country, tax law has remained fundamentally unchanged.

What are the key lessons in tax reforms attempting to broaden the tax base?

I would say:

• Improve the taxpayer registry to make sure it works well. Make special efforts to identify people who are not registered or paying taxes, including identifying companies hiding in the so-called informal sector.

• Take a careful look at all the tax incentives, centralise tax incentive authority in the hands of the Ministry of Finance, but impose a rigorous mechanism for their authorisation.

• Report every year on tax expenditures (the revenue lost to these incentives) to add transparency to the system and help build support for reducing tax expenditures and thereby broaden the tax base.

Any lessons on why and how some countries have been able to address corruption in the tax administration?

This is hard to respond to, but there are some cases and some inklings. Perhaps one of the most successful cases is that of the Georgia, where after the overthrow of a sclerotic, corrupt, long-entrenched regime, the country implemented revolutionary change throughout, including cleaning up its tax administration.

Crooked tax officials were either tossed or prosecuted. Most tax officials were fired and replaced with new professionals. Systems of internal control in the tax administration were strengthened.

In El Salvador, in the 1990s, just after the end of the long civil war, the tax administration and other parts of government took pains to root out corruption.

Similarly, in Rwanda, after their terrible genocide of the early 1990s, top to bottom reform of most public institutions included deep anti-corruption measures.

This is how the tax systems in both these countries were able to produce more and more revenue without raising tax rates.

I don’t want to say a country needs to have a revolution to address its corruption problems, but in these cases, it seems to have set the stage for broad reforms.

That said, from my experience of 30 years, all real efforts to fix the tax system also include efforts to impede corruption.

Is it necessarily politically harmful for an elected government to attempt to broaden the tax base?

No, but it is not easy. Strengthening taxpayer registration can be done without any real political push back, but it is not likely to have great financial return, though in Bosnia and Herzegovina it did.

Reducing tax incentives is very difficult politically. Usually the people who benefit from these so-called incentives are very well placed and wield considerable power.

Going after these tax incentives is very important and needs to be done. But it needs to be done very carefully, with full consideration of who loses, how much, and what will be the force of their opposition and how can this be overcome.

Is there a significant role for information technology here?

Yes, but this depends upon the country. The more backward the country, the less scope there is.

On the other hand, IT systems, and especially linking the taxpayer registry to other information sources, such as vehicle registration, air traveller information, real estate or property registration and transfer systems, can help a savvy tax administration identify people who are likely under-reporting income as well as identify people and activities that should clearly be in the tax system but are not.

I explore this a bit in my article Big Data and Domestic Resource Mobilization: How Donors Can Help Developing Countries Increase Revenue.

How would you summarise your views on success stories in broadening the tax base?

Broadening the tax base is the best way to reform a tax system and to increase domestic revenue mobilisation, which is needed to fund our governments and to invest in the future.

Base broadening allows us to raise more revenue without raising tax rates and without harming the economy and national competitiveness.

Broadening the tax base increases the fairness of the tax system, since it shares the tax burden with more people in the economy. It reduces the distortions caused by tax and investment policy that seek to favour one investment or industry over another.

It's something righteous, but tough. The most powerful interests in any economy tend to be those who benefit from tax incentives and they are not going to release their grip from the throat of the political system easily.

Are you an expert working on policy reforms? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com

A significant portion of cricket viewers have the perception that roughening the ball on one side and shinning it on the other will inevitably lead to reverse swing. Herein lies the problem: It's not true. Not even partially true.

It's true that aerodynamics explain why the ball will reverse towards the shiny side, but this doesn't mean that any person who can hurl a ball at the batsman can make it reverse too. Bowlers need to master the art of reverse swing just as they have to perfect it for conventional swing.

The pace must be quick enough, the wrist must be at an angle between 20-30 degrees, and the length the ball pitches at should be full enough to allow the ball maximum time in air. Only then can physics take over.

Not to mention that the ball must be taken care of by the entire team to make sure that one side of it retains some shine while the other one is roughed up, as the ball gets older.

If the skills required to make the ball reverse is as hard to master as conventional swing — if not more — then it begs the question as to why tampering the ball to prepare it for reverse swing is illegal.

As long as no foreign object is used, such as the piece of sandpaper that has put the career of three Australian players into jeopardy, altering the ball otherwise shouldn’t be a problem.

Just like reverse swing, maybe all we need is to re-brand ball-tampering for it to become acceptable by the cricketing fraternity.

When Pakistani fast bowlers wreaked havoc by inventing the art to make the old ball swing, it was labelled as cheating by the English players — only to re-name it as reverse swing when they finally learned how it's done. No surprises there.

I understand that it's extremely difficult for the International Cricket Council (ICC) to draw the line between what are 'natural' means of ball-tampering and what aren't.

Players use all sorts of methods to alter the ball. Some are more subtle about it, such as when Faf Du Plessis had mint in his mouth and he used his saliva to shine the ball, while others like Shahid Afridi prefer to do it more brazenly on TV by sinking their teeth into a leather hardball.

The blurriness between acceptable and unacceptable means of altering the ball is probably what has kept the ICC adamant on not allowing any sort of ball-tampering whatsoever.

I, however, argue that the ball is the bowler’s property and that he should be allowed to tamper it with at least some 'natural' means.

This may spur another debate on why foreign objects shouldn't be allowed if altering the ball isn’t cheating. But in the case of foreign objects, it's important to understand that it takes away hard work from the players because countless tools can help prepare a ball within minutes.

The beauty of reverse swing lies in the fact that it must be earned with whatever is available on the field and watching teams work in sync to reinvent swing from a dead old ball is part of the magic of this dark art.

While the ICC takes a firm stance on zero tolerance over ball-tampering, the game is losing its balance between the bat and the ball, especially due to a surge in flat pitches around the world.

The Test format certainly is in dire need of attracting bigger crowds to keep its relevance alive. Just like T20s are inherently designed for batsmen to entertain the crowd, Test matches can only penetrate the market for viewership if bowlers have the liberty to experiment with the ball.

If tampering the ball can lead to more thrilling Test matches then I am all for it because I will never sign up for watching a five-day run fest on a flat deck that eventually leads to a draw.

Why does the ICC need to go into unknown territory by introducing four-day Test matches to revive Test cricket? Why can't it allow bowlers to have the tools they need to produce exciting bowling? It’s not cheating; it’s a skill to make use of a tampered ball. Know the difference between the two.

To add more flavour, taking a new ball after the 80-over mark could be made mandatory and not optional for the bowling side. This would add new dynamics to the game where the captain would have to decide whether to use his fast bowlers with a reversing ball or keep them fresh for a new one depending on which skills his bowlers bank more on.

The batsman that survives this battle on the other hand will become highly valued. It would take a fighting spirit and immense skill for the batsman to stand his ground while the opposition works on the ball to take him down.

A hard-fought 50 from the batsman will bring more life to Test cricket than a double-hundred on a flat deck in front of empty stands.

To put everything in context, reverse swing is an art and a tampered ball is just a tool that can only do as much as the person using it can make out of it.

Owning a bow and an arrow doesn’t make one a hunter; a tampered ball served on a platter won't make an ordinary bowler extraordinary.

Let bowlers tamper the ball with 'natural' means so that we can get some excitement, balance and fairness back into the game.

• Electable needed
• Why Aamir Liaquat
• But … Aamir Liaquat! Why!?

I have said many things in the past about the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its politics. However today, instead of taking apart the PTI, I will try to do something different: I will explain why the party is opening the floodgates to let the likes of Aamir Liaquat in.

The not doctor, Aamir Liaquat, recently joined the PTI flanked by Imran Khan and other senior leaders. Unlike other instances of people joining the party, this time around the reaction was completely different.

Instead of latching on to whoever was joining the Tehreek, PTI supporters spoke out against Aamir Liaquat jumping ship.

The resentment against allowing the not doctor to join was real and people even pulled old tweets of his against the PTI to explain why they were not in favour of the move.

And while eventually, like good partisan folk, the PTI cadre online accepted Imran Khan's decision, this whole exercise highlighted two things.

Firstly, the PTI's vocal support base, at least the one online, is idealistic and still sees the party as something unique and different.

Secondly, the PTI leadership is acting like a political party and focusing on trying to win elections in real life rather than Facebook. This is progress for the PTI and future elections in Pakistan.

As we transform Pakistan into a stable democracy with two potent parties at least at the provincial level, a strong PTI with actual seats in assemblies is a good thing.

You might ask why I say that? Well, a strong opposition is the best check on the government.

Op-ed: PTI’s Punjab dilemma

Take for instance every single province in Pakistan at this point. The reason the provincial governments get away with doing whatever they want is because there is practically no opposition to them.

In Punjab, the opposition is negligible. In Sindh, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is so well entrenched that there is hardly an opposition to push back. Balochistan has a negligible opposition and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's (KP) opposition is too splintered to do anything.

In such a scenario, at the national and provincial levels, a strong PTI in Punjab and Sindh would be a good thing for the country because we can have a real opposition that can force the government to think twice before underperforming.

PTI winning votes would make it a credible opposition and that is a good thing for Pakistan.

So, to get to that point, the PTI is finally making peace with the fact that they will have to take people in no matter who they are and do what needs to be done.

Even if those people include Aamir Liaquat, the PTI has an incentive to have them in the party because they can contribute in one way or another.

We might not like their contributions, but let’s not pretend that Aamir Liaquat's Ramzan transmission is not watched by a massive audience across the country.

Electable needed

To contest elections and give the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) a tough time in Punjab, PPP/Awami National Party in KP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement/Pak Sarzameen Party/Musharraf in Karachi, the PTI needs electable candidates: people who have their own vote bank and can realistically utilise the PTI vote to win a seat. This is not really rocket science.

Idealists believe that somehow if the PTI gives a ticket to its loyal workers, they will magically win a seat or keep integrity even if they lose.

Related: What's behind the rift?

The thing about this myth is that loyal workers, unless they are Jahangir Tareen or Aleem Khan (technically, ‘loyal’ is a stretch for both), lack the financial resources and the political capital required to successfully contest elections.

I am not talking about winning, I am talking about contesting elections only. Let me explain this claim in detail.

A National Assembly (NA) constituency has anywhere between 300 to 400 polling stations in it. For instance, NA-154 had 338 polling stations.

For a candidate to successfully even contest elections, they need hundreds of polling agents. Polling agents do not work for free and do not just pop up on the day of elections. They need to be paid, trained and need transport for their services.

Similarly, at every polling station the candidate needs some sort of a setup: a tent and some staff to help prospective voters cast their ballot or choose.

With an average of 300 plus polling stations, it is not exactly a middle-class person’s game to play. So, while we all enjoy bashing the PTI for welcoming every Tom, Dick and Harry, they are simply doing what reality dictates.

The PTI is trying to win elections, if they happen, this year. The idealistic delusions and moral high ground are finally getting pushed aside in favour of winning seats in assemblies.

In such circumstances, even if Bilawal Bhutto wanted to join the PTI, they will welcome him with open arms.

Why Aamir Liaquat

Simply put, it's cheap publicity. The not doctor is not going to contest and win elections on his own. But what he does bring to the PTI is a foul mouth that can go toe to toe with the new breed of rabid partisanship popularised by the PML-N courtesy of Talal Chaudhry and Daaniyal Aziz.

In a political culture like Pakistan where dignity and decency have nearly been wiped out in favour fanatical cult-like partisanship, the PTI needs someone like Aamir Liaquat to fight back.

Aamir Liaquat might not have a steady vote bank or even a constituency, but what he does have is celebrity. And that has been a permanent fixture for the PTI not only for fund raising purposes but also publicity.

The decision might look wrong on the face of it, but think of it this way: the PTI gets front and centre coverage during Ramzan simply because one of its leaders is on TV every day for four to five hours.

Every single time people look at Aamir Liaquat, they will associate the PTI with him. That association helps. Not as much as a steady vote bank, but it does make a difference.

Secondly, he opens an audience to the PTI message that is currently closed off to them. I am not saying he will put the mohajir vote in play; I am saying he at least gives the PTI a window into that audience that so far has refused to even hear them out.

Given Karachi’s current political engineering work, that kind of window could make a difference between zero seats from Karachi to three seats from Pakistan's largest city for the PTI.

Satire: Diary of Aamir Liaquat

As I mentioned earlier, the news focus may be Aamir Liaquat, the real story here is the flood of potent candidates joining the PTI. Within the last quarter, Saleem Shehzad of the MQM (Karachi), Mian Tariq of the PML-N (Gujranwala), Malik Shakoor of the Jamiat Ulema-e Islam-Fazal (Charsaddah) and Malik Aftab of ANP (Nowshera) are just some of the seasoned politicians who have joined the PTI.

They are doing so because of their own reasons in each case but they are being taken in by the PTI because the party needs a stable of candidates that can realistically push its seats count up in the Parliament.

And yes, by doing all this, the PTI is moving past its naïve approach to politics that existed pre-2013.

They are trying to recruit across the country and most of what they are getting are second-string or third-string candidates, but that is still better than no candidates at all.

But … Aamir Liaquat! Why!?

As I often mention, elections are not won based on how nice and well spoken a candidate is or how good they make you feel. The PTI is doing its job as a political party preparing for the next elections.

Be it Zaid Hamid or Aamir Liaquat, if the party can get any publicity and opening into a new voter segment, they will take them in.

The problem is not the PTI accepting people like Aamir Liaquat; the issue is the delusional understanding of what elections and democracy should look like held by a clear majority of people on social media and in expat communities.

Elections are ugly and ruthless. You cannot expect to stay clean while you dig for coal. And that is the dilemma the PTI’s base needs to get over.

Democracy is a coal mine and you are wearing white; either stop digging or get used to soot.

Sher Muhammad is Kanizan Bibi’s father, a Pakistani woman who has been on death row since 1989. He wrote this letter to the president of Pakistan in 2016, translated here by Rimmel Mohydin of Justice Project Pakistan.

Dear Mr President,

I’m a poor man. I don’t have much. But what I do have is a daughter. Kanizan is my only child. Even when she could talk, she wouldn’t speak much.

She was a timid child, who never talked back. She would do as she was told, and never say no. She would cry easily, as fragile as her little wrists.

Because Kanizan was so delicate, she was very attached to her mother, often seeking shelter in her arms. She looked just like her mother, the same complexion, the same round face.

But this comfort was taken away from her all too quickly. My wife died very suddenly, leaving Kanizan and me completely alone in the world.

I was a farmer, but money had become tough. What little I had eventually turned to nothing. Luckily, I still had Kanizan.

She used to help me around the house but when she saw how difficult it had become to put food on the table, she told me she wanted to work. I hesitated at first. I had been unable to put Kanizan in school. What would she do?

Kanizan began working as a housemaid for a rich, landowning family. She was little more than a child herself.

It is no wonder that she quickly befriended the very children she was charged with taking care of, the children of Muhammad Khan.

Their mother would often admonish her for not being more responsible with them, considering she would play with them more.

She began contributing what little she could. It was not much, but it was a helping hand. I could not be more grateful for this lifeline.

But Sir, this did not last.

The murder took place not too far from where we lived in Kamaliya. I will never forget the way Muhammad Khan screamed when he saw his wife and children murdered.

Muhammad Khan and his family had been involved in a property dispute that had started to get uglier by the day. The police had asked him at the scene of the crime if he had any enemies. He had named four of them, all his cousins. The police registered a case against them.

They were in jail for about two days. Bail is easy to come by when money is not a concern.

One night, Kanizan and I were about to have dinner when there was a knock on our door. Our village elder, Allah Yar, was at the door. He looked solemn, but determined.

He told me that people had started to talk, that someone had to be punished. He looked at Kanizan, who was sitting in the corner of the room.

Allah Yar looked me in the eye, put his hand on his heart, and said, “I swear by the Quran, I know your daughter is innocent, but let me take her to the police station.” They’ll question her, and she’ll be home in the morning, he promised.

She never came back.

Kanizan had played with those children, loved them, cared for them. She would tell me all about them. When she heard of their killing, she was utterly distraught. Naively, she thought she would be helping the police find their killer. She agreed to go.

Allah Yar took her to the police station, and left her there. Kanizan was 16 years old. The police recorded her age as 25.

My nephew lived very close to the police station. He trembles when he tells me of what he heard they did to her.

Women in our village, never interact with men outside of our immediate family. But Kanizan spent nights trapped in a jail cell with strangers. When I went to see her, they didn't let me meet her.

They hung her from a fan with ropes thicker than her tiny wrists, beating her small frame with all their might. They let mice loose in her pants, which they tied from the ankles so that they could not escape. Kanizan had been terrified of mice her whole life.

They electrocuted her repeatedly. I can only hope that she fainted during this ordeal. This is how I comfort myself as a father, forcing myself to believe that my daughter was not conscious during this abuse.

When they had broken her, they forced her to sign a confession. It’s not difficult to see how her mind gave up on her.

I didn’t have the money to go see her for her trial. I did not even know that she had been sentenced to death until much later. I borrowed money from everywhere. Whenever I would have enough, I would try to find my way to her.

But every time I met her, Kanizan was a little bit less. Soon after, her mental state began to deteriorate. Even the jailers were concerned, so much so that, in 2006, she was transferred to the Punjab Institute of Mental Health.

Today I'm told she hears voices, trembles, can’t clothe or feed herself. The hospital wrote a letter in 2015 to the Superintendent of Lahore Central Jail saying she was not fit to be executed.

Mr President, my daughter hasn’t said a word for years. She is terrified, and cries all the time, and needs me and her family to take care of her. She is an unwell woman who does not belong on death row.

I'm a poor man. I can’t do anything in return. But I humbly beg you to find it in your heart to grant mercy to a poor woman who has spent almost her life in jail. Her silence shouldn’t silence what you can do for her.

I know that if this letter reaches you, your good heart will follow.

Yours Humbly,

Sher Muhammad

Sher Muhammad died in 2016. Kanizan continues to languish on death row, despite her diagnosis, strong evidence of innocence, and nearly 29 years behind bars.

The president of Pakistan has not granted mercy in a single clemency appeal since the uplifting of the moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014, as documented by Justice Project Pakistan in their new report, No mercy: A report on clemency for death row prisoners in Pakistan.

Addendum: Chief Justice Saqib Nisar approved Kanizan’s transfer to a secure mental health facility on April 21, 2018, urging the Punjab Mental Health Institute to ensure she receives medical treatment.

There is a lot to commend the Asim Abbasi-directed and Sanam Saeed and Aamina Sheikh-starring Cake for.

There is its deftly constructed story, the varying strands of which creep up on you in an organically and satisfyingly slow way as the narrative progresses.

There are the carefully explored relationships – between sisters, between parents and children, between friends and lovers – that have enough room for complexity and contradiction within them to make them feel real and lived in.

There is the film’s insistence on touching upon difficult issues of class and privilege, of aging and accountability, and of our obligations to the people we love, and its subsequent refusal to resolve those issues neatly.

Review: Cake raises the bar for Pakistani cinema and left me wanting more

But there is also something else – not entirely unconnected to these strengths of the film – which is noteworthy, and that is the film’s quiet feminism, which can be seen not only through the two main characters but also through their relationship to the wide narrative of the film.

Feminism, particularly as it relates to popular culture and the media, is a tricky thing to talk about. The term has become highly charged and often contentious, particularly in the context of social media, with its rapid, unnuanced, meme-efied reactions and rampant misinformation.

It is a term that both Sanam Saaed and Aamina Sheikh have publicly grappled with and distanced themselves from, ostensibly due to this same misinformation.

But while the stars’ lack of clarity about the term is unfortunate, it is also somewhat irrelevant to the film’s ethos, whose feminism is subtle and quiet and, I would argue, no less potent for that.

In that regard, the film can be seen as the cinematic heir of Haseena Moin’s television dramas of the 1970s and ’80s, whose feminism, like Cake’s, also lay in fully formed, multi-faceted female characters who went about living their complex lives, building careers and falling in love, being sisters and friends and children and parents without feeling the need to monologue bluntly and grandiosely about things like Female Empowerment and Women Are People, Too.

Read next: 4 important themes in Cake that you may have missed

Cake begins with a series of scenes exploring an ordinary day in the life of Zareen (Aamina Sheikh), as she goes about managing the needs of her exuberant, aging parents (Beo Raana Zafar and Mohammad Ahmad) and looking after the family’s landowning business in the absence of her two siblings who live abroad: Zain, her brother (Faris Khalid) with a young family of his own, and Zara (Sanam Saeed), a sister with a high-stakes career who, the narrative implies, left the country and the family in difficult circumstances.

In the midst of this, Zareen carves out quiet moments of privacy for herself, exchanging emails with her confidante and friend-but-almost-something-more, Romeo (Adnan Malik), furtively enjoying a cigarette in the bathroom and then flushing away the evidence.

These first few scenes manage to convey a lot about Zareen – how she has taken up the mantle of caretaker for the family, how she feels alternately proud and resentful of her indispensability in the smooth functioning of her family, how she longs for things for herself that she isn’t sure she has a right to want.

The film shows fully formed, multi-faceted female characters without feeling the need to bluntly monologue.

Things come to a head when her father’s already fragile health takes a turn for the worse, prompting Zara to return home after a long absence.

The sisters’ loving but contentious dynamic, and each sibling’s own specific relationship to their parents and their role within the family is what the rest of the film explores, with a difficult family secret that informs all of this in different ways.

It is this deft centring of these two complex women and the conflict between their own selves and the roles they have to play within their family and the larger world that feels truly feminist.

It is the way in which Zareen is allowed to be difficult without being demonised that feels refreshing, almost revolutionary, considering the kind of roles women are allowed to inhabit in Pakistani media today.

She feels specific, her class privilege, her place within her family and within the larger Pakistani society and her own self coming together to form a multi-dimensional, complete person.

She takes care of everyone, sure, but she is not depicted as a self-sacrificing martyr or a saint (a reductive trope that, unfortunately, a plethora of contemporary Pakistani television and film relies on).

Instead, the film allows her moments of unkindness towards the people close to her, and she grapples with the weight of her own wants in ways that frequently come across as unfair to those around her.

It is the deft centring of complex women that feels truly feminist.

In her relationship with Zara, too, the film triumphs. When Zara first returns to Karachi, their relationship is strained and somewhat cold, with grievances both said and unsaid hovering between them. As the narrative progresses, their dynamic is explored and deepened.

A scene with the two of them driving home from a party is a good example of the way in which the nuances of their relationship are brought to light without necessarily offering a neat resolution to their conflicts.

The car ride, with Zareen driving and Zara beside her, has moments of them arguing balanced by moments of vulnerability as well as moments of levity and silliness, and the way in which both sisters weave in and out of these range of emotions rings true to the way relationships between sisters – or indeed any relationship between women which is loving and complicated – really are.

Related: Pakistan hasn't seen a film like Cake before, says Adnan Malik of his debut film

In many ways, the Zareen-Zara duo are the contemporary descendants of the sisters of Haseena Moin’s Tanhaiyan (1985). In that drama, too, two sisters (Shehnaz Shaikh and Marina Khan) grapple with personal ambitions and obligations to each other and to their family, and like Zareen and Zara, their relationship, too, was at turns supportive and difficult.

Cake’s treatment of its women is reminiscent of Haseena Moin’s dramas in other ways as well. What makes Moin’s dramas so beloved and enduring is that they felt real and true in the casual manner in which they afforded their female characters the right to be difficult, to be conflicted and unfair and wrong, to make mistakes and learn from them.

It didn’t come across as Moin trying to Make a Point. It was subtle and quiet and it made her characters human, and that’s what made her work so feminist.

Feminism boils down to an argument for refusing to deny women the fullness of their humanity.

Subtlety and quiet moments that ended up saying a lot is a trademark Moin move, especially when it came to her women characters falling in love – and in that regard, Cake feels reminiscent of Dhoop Kinaray (1987), where Zoya (Marina Khan) falls in love with Dr Ahmer (Rahat Kazmi) in a series of small, intimate and largely quiet moments.

In Cake, the primary romance between Zareen and Romeo develops quietly, such as the scene where Romeo joins Zareen in her house’s courtyard at dusk as she is reading a book, and wordlessly, sits by her and opens a book of his own.

Even the complications of their potential romance, with the class difference and consequent power imbalance between the two of them (Romeo works as a nurse to Zareen’s parents, and his working class family has long been in service to Zareen’s much more privileged and affluent zamindar family), is explored with a lightness of touch that nevertheless seems cognisant of the social inequities within which their romance exists.

Despite what the confusion and mistrust of the term that is rampant on social media circles would have you believe, feminism really boils down to an argument for refusing to deny women the fullness of their humanity.

Cake feels feminist not merely because it puts women, their interiority and their relationships at the centre of the narrative, but because it does this quite casually and organically, giving, without much fanfare, the stories of Zareen and Zara the narrative empathy that is commonly and widely given to the stories of men. For this alone, the film deserves to be applauded and celebrated.

Are you a researcher or enthusiast with insights on Pakistani cinema? Write to us at blog@dawn.com

• Politician soldiers
• Jind Kaur’s revenge

Maharani Jind Kaur could only look on as her brother and the wazir of the Lahore Durbar, Jawahir Singh, was executed by soldiers of the Khalsa Empire in 1845.

The Khalsa Army was no longer under the command of the crown or its appointed commanders. In the years following Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, as the empire went through a period of political instability, the soldiers had found themselves increasingly drawn into the political arena.

In quick succession, various claimants to the throne had bribed segments of the army to back their claim. Their numbers had increased drastically since the days of Ranjit Singh.

Towards the end of the maharaja’s life, the Khalsa Army was around 80,000-strong. It was an overgrown military machine that had helped Ranjit Singh expand his empire from a small fief to an area that included parts of Kashmir, Afghanistan, Punjab and Bahawalpur.

Many claim he would have swept the entire Indian peninsula had he not been hemmed in on all sides by the British. Unlike the Marathas, Ranjit Singh realised that his military might will not withstand a British onslaught. Hence, he chose to sign a peace deal with them rather than go the way of confrontation.

On the eastern bank of the Sutlej river, the British monitored the unfolding of the Lahore Durbar carefully. They had seen the assassination of one maharaja after another. They observed as powerful wazirs found themselves at the mercy of the Khalsa soldiers.

At the time of Jawahir Singh’s assassination, the army had expanded to 120,000 soldiers with their salaries increased manifold since the time of Ranjit Singh. But despite their size and the fact that they possessed the latest technology, the British did not think much of the Khalsa Army.

Various British officers, in their letters, referred to the army as a mob. The British were of the impression that the increasing political role of the soldiers had rendered them ineffective on the battlefield. Thus, in the years following Ranjit Singh’s death, the British started the process of militarising Punjab.

Politician soldiers

With their growing involvement in politics, the soldiers had developed a bureaucratic mechanism of their own. Instead of exhibiting loyalty to their commanding officers, they reported to panches selected by themselves.

These were soldiers appointed from within their ranks to represent the grievances and concerns of the soldiers. The system was modeled on the panchayat system from where the word panches is derived.

Given the political turmoil that followed Ranjit Singh’s death, the soldiers took it upon themselves to protect the sanctity of the Khalsa Empire, a glorious empire bequeathed to them by their Sher-e-Punjab.

Shortsighted nobles were sabotaging the crown for their own interests with the commanding officer a part of this corrupt elite.

And with the grave threat on the eastern frontier in the form of the British, the soldiers started believing they had to take charge to ensure the empire’s survival.

The ruling elite also knew they needed the support of the soldiers if they were to secure the throne for themselves. After the freak death of Ranjit Singh’s talented grandson Nau Nihal Singh in 1840, Sher Singh, one of Ranjit Singh’s sons, started vying for the throne, convinced he was the right person for the job.

However, in Lahore, Nau Nihal Singh’s mother Chand Kaur had taken over the throne as regent, as she claimed her daughter-in-law was pregnant with Nau Nihal Singh’s son.

To weaken the Lahore Durbar, Sher Singh started bribing sections of the army. And in 1841, he besieged the Lahore Fort, capturing the regent and her supporters. The Khalsa Army had already been bought.

But even with the rise of Sher Singh, the panches remained an important, independent power house.

Maharani Jind Kaur, the youngest wife of Ranjit Singh, also knew where the real power lay when in 1843, after the assassination of Sher Singh, the army declared her six-year-old son Duleep Singh the maharaja.

She turned to the army to get back at the wazir, Hira Singh, for a slight. She appealed to the passion of the soldiers, protectors of the Khalsa Empire, to avenge the humiliation the wazir had wrought on their maharani, the wife of Sher-e-Punjab.

A decision was made and the panches put Hira Singh to death. The maharani had won her battle. And her brother, Jawahir Singh, took up the post of wazir.

Jind Kaur’s revenge

But the tide soon turned. This time, the panches wanted to put her brother to death. The justification was another insult, meted out to another family member of the great maharaja – his son Peshura Singh no less.

After the ascension of the boy king, Peshura Singh had risen in rebellion against the Lahore Durbar and was put down by the wazir. He was captured, ordered to be brought to Lahore and executed on the way on the orders of Jawahir Singh.

The panches would have none of it. How dare a wazir take the life of a scion of Maharaja Ranjit Singh! The panches met and it was decided that Jawahir Singh would be put to death.

The maharani pleaded with the soldiers but they had made up their minds. On September 21, 1845, Jawahir Singh was executed outside the walls of the Lahore Fort.

A new wazir, Lal Singh, was appointed. He was rumoured to be the lover of the regent. But it was the soldiers who held the true power.

As for the maharani, still reeling from the loss of her brother, she had other plans. She decided, along with Lal Singh and the head of the army Tej Singh, that it was time to cut the power of the soldiers.

An anti-British frenzy, which had been part of rhetoric for a few years given their rising military presence on the eastern front, was unleashed from the top, while representatives of the Lahore Durbar started reaching out to British officers across the Sutlej, expressing their fidelity.

The plan was to put the soldiers in a war in which their defeat was assured.

On December 11, 1845, urged on by their commanders, the soldiers crossed the Sutlej and thus began the First Anglo-Sikh War. A few months later in March, the Treaty of Lahore was signed, assuring the British over-lordship over the affairs of the Lahore Durbar.

The maharani and her entourage had achieved their purpose of reducing the might of the soldiers but a new setup brought with itself a whole new set of problems.

In April of 1848, a little incident in Multan provided the British with an excuse to begin the Second Anglo-Sikh War, paving the way for the annexation of the Khalsa Empire on March 30, 1849.

Cover photo and thumbnail from Wikipedia.

This piece was first published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.

• An interrupted legacy
• The purge of progressives
• Engendering retrogression
• A constrained renewal
• Towards redemption

Much has been said about what the lynching of Mashal Khan revealed about Pakistani society – from the brutal consequences of mob hysteria to the degree to which fanaticism has seeped into the social fabric.

That the tragedy took place in a university, however, spoke to another process that has helped bring the country to its current impasse – the political and ideological brutalisation of its students by the state.

The on-campus lynching of a student by a mob of his peers solely on the basis of his progressive ideas was chilling to all who witnessed it; yet it was also simply the logical culmination of a decades-old state project to neutralise the potential of student politics for resistance and dissent in Pakistan.

This project has largely been successful. Today, with the exception of a few campuses, the Pakistani university is not a space of freedom for learning, ideological debate or critical thinking, but one of apathy, ideological conformity, and moral conservatism, often enforced through a nexus between the state, university administrations and unelected right-wing student groups.

Also read: At Pakistani universities, fear rules supreme on Valentine's Day

The Pakistani university has become a space of institutionalised apathy, where students can be arrested with impunity for celebrating Sindhi culture; where they can be attacked by rightwing vigilantes for performing Pakhtun dance or for talking to a member of the opposite sex; where they can get killed for playing music; and where bright, progressive young men can be mercilessly lynched simply for imagining a less bigoted and unequal society.

An interrupted legacy

How did it come to this? Such poverty of political imagination among students was not always the norm. From the 1950s to the 1980s, Pakistani students were not a rag-tag mob but a collective, organised force to be reckoned with. They stood up to exclusionary education policies, organised strikes in support of organised labour and formed the core of the movement that brought down the dictatorship of Ayub Khan in 1969.

Campuses in the 60s and 70s were rife with healthy ideological contestation between Left and Right, with progressive groups like the Democratic Students Federation (DSF) and National Students Federation (NSF) often electorally ascendant over their right-wing counterparts.

Explore further: I was handcuffed and tied but it was worth my fight against One Unit

At the zenith of student politics in the 1970s, student power could be gauged from the presence of union representatives in all university decision-making bodies through legislation that mandated student consent for university policies.

Some student radicals even got elected to Parliament, like the NSF socialist Mairaj Muhammad Khan, who won on a PPP ticket from Karachi and became Labor Minister under Bhutto in 1971 (eventually resigning after 2 years once Bhutto began to renege on his socialist pledges).

Things changed drastically of course under Zia. As an autocrat opposed to the very idea of popular democratic participation itself, Zia saw student unions, dominated as they were by the Left, as a nuisance that required a permanent solution.

His regime began by arming right-wing groups like the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) in 1979, which started conducting armed assaults on progressive student leaders in major universities, fueled by the anti-communist hysteria of the Afghan War.

When this failed to stop the progressive fightback, in 1984, soon after the country-wide electoral rout of the IJT by the student Left in union elections, student unions were permanently banned by the military regime.

Predictably, the regime cited campus violence – that it had itself initiated and facilitated – as the basis for the ban. The actual reason of course was Zia’s fear of the risk posed by a young, well-organised constituency that had publicly committed itself to his downfall.

Zia’s ban – briefly removed by Benazir but ultimately reinstated by the then deeply conservative and compromised Supreme Court in 1993 – was more successful than he could have imagined. It fundamentally transformed both popular student culture as well as progressive politics, which relied heavily on student cadres in its mass organising efforts.

Over time, campus character mutated from the ethos of politico-ideological resistance of the 70s to the puritanical right-wing conformism of today. From once being a bulwark against military dictatorship and religious extremism, the majority of Pakistani students transformed into unthinking imitators of state ideology – formally disengaged from politics but channeling the dominant religio-nationalist discourse through both their actions and inertia.

The purge of progressives

Campus politics did not disappear altogether after the ban but, over time, gradually degenerated to a shadow of its former self. Unions had allowed students a reasonable amount of collective power – they were institutionally recognised as collective bargaining agents by universities and could negotiate student concerns from fees to accommodation to broader policies that affected them.

They had also allowed a recognised space for ideological debate and non-violent electoral competition, which meant students from varied ethno-linguistic and religious backgrounds could form coalitions around common ideas – as they did in the diverse array of independent student organisations that existed.

When this space was snatched away, the ties that it facilitated for students across ethnic and religious lines also withered. The basis for the informal student politics that remained gradually became reduced to the lowest common denominators – those of ethnicity, religion or sect.

In depth: Mob mentality: How many hands is Mashal's blood on?

While progressive groups were violently persecuted under the ban’s cover, student organisations under the patronage of the military or ruling parties – such as the IJT or the Muslim Students Federation – were allowed to operate.

A steady stream of funds and arms enabled such organisations to continue functioning informally, reinforced by the state where necessary (particularly in the smaller provinces), to eliminate any remaining progressive resistance on campuses.

Without formal, elected organisational structures and legitimate collective authority, student organisations turned into personal mafia-like fiefdoms, sustained by distributing patronage – in the form of hostel space, university admissions or physical protection – and establishing their authority through the exercise of brute force, mirroring the clientelism logic of the state and ruling parties.

Over time, groups like the IJT helped realise what the state had set out to do – wipe out progressive campus politics while ingraining a popular suspicion of the very idea of student politics in the wider social consciousness.

With institutional student politics now a distant memory, the idea of student unions came to be synonymised with the violent thuggery of groups like the IJT. It was, in part, this embedded perception of the illegitimacy of student activism that allowed Abdul Wali Khan University (AWKU) to demonise Mashal as a blasphemer simply for raising legitimate concerns about financial corruption on campus.

Engendering retrogression

Of course, the union ban and its prejudicial implementation did not, by itself, achieve the state’s objectives. It was accompanied by Zia’s manipulation of the education system through policies that sought to induce in students a ‘loyalty to Islam and Pakistan’ and ‘a living consciousness of their ideological identity’.

The social and natural sciences came under particular attack in universities, as anti-communist and anti-science propaganda funded by Saudi petrodollars came to replace critical scientific inquiry.

Ideological conformism on campuses was reinforced by hounding out leftist teachers, replacing them with conservative hardliners, and introducing retrogressive content into the curriculum that demonised religious minorities, vilified critical thinkers, glorified war, and erased popular movements.

On the same topic: Promoting anti-science via textbooks

This legacy of thought control did not die with Zia – as recently as 2014, the Higher Education Commission issued a circular prohibiting educational content that ‘challenged the ideology of Pakistan’ in universities.

It was this same anti-progressive venom that reared its head in AWKU, evidenced by one of Mashal’s professors reportedly declaring at a faculty meeting that the university ‘did not need communists on campus’ even as the leftist student was being hunted by the mob.

As is now evident, the impact of this curricular propaganda on students’ ideological worldviews has been deeply damaging. Instead of being equipped with the analytical means to understand and critically engage with their surroundings, most students have been conditioned to think of complex natural, social, economic and political phenomena in black and white terms – and to conceive of most social contradictions as requiring simplistic moral, technical – and often violent – solutions.

This conservative shift in student opinions has been well-documented. A study by scholar Ayesha Siddiqa found that majority of Pakistani students were suspicious of the democratic process, supported the military’s role in politics, harboured nostalgia about a romanticised theocratic past, agreed with the Clash of Civilisations thesis, opposed a federalist decentralisation of power, and considered political parties to be ‘inherently corrupt’.

Concerns about students’ own rights and collective well-being did not rank highly among student priorities; especially ironic in an era where students have suffered from breakneck educational privatisation and skyrocketing costs, plummeting public standards, on-campus repression by paramilitary forces and even murderous attacks by the Taliban.

A constrained renewal

In this historical context, Mashal Khan’s lynching represents the grisly depths to which student political culture has regressed. Yet, there have been some glimmers of hope amid the gloom in the past decade.

Several campuses rose up briefly against Musharraf’s 2007 emergency, a process that helped weaken the dictatorship and politicised a new generation of student activists, albeit a minority.

Sporadic protests have been generated by Pakhtun, Sindhi and Baloch students against the hegemony of fundamentalist groups in Punjab or state's high-handedness in Sindh. The Baloch Students Organisation (BSO) has continued its politics of resistance to atrocities in Balochistan, often in the face of brutal repression (including enforced student disappearances).

More recently, progressive student organisations of the past, including NSF and DSF, have also seen a revival, while new ones like the Democratic Students Alliance and the Progressive Students Collective have been formed to reorganise students and revive their alliances with workers and farmers.

However, the ban on unions continues to prevent these periodic expressions of progressive student action from coalescing into broader movements. The continued absence of both institutional legitimacy and inter-campus networks for student politics hinder generational continuity, coordinated action, and solidarity.

Unlike in 2016 in India, when thousands of student across dozens of Indian campuses demonstrated in solidarity with Jawaharlal Nehru University students facing a state backlash for questioning the dominant narrative on Kashmir, few Pakistani campuses rose in solidarity with LUMS students when they faced similar state censorship for attempting a dialogue on repression in Balochistan.

Towards redemption

Today, fascism is on the rise globally; yet from the United States to Greece to India and elsewhere, it is being met with stiff opposition whose ranks, more often than not, consist of thousands of progressive students.

In Pakistan on the other hand, the state has stunted the political imagination of the bulk of its students and snatched from them both the capacity to think critically and the mechanisms to act politically, such that they are either indifferent to or complicit in the rising fascist tide.

Reversing this decades-long generational rot will take time, but there are ways forward. In the first instance, this history must be popularised among students as a central component of the answer to why Pakistan has fallen prey to such violent radicalisation with such weak progressive resistance.

The destructive ban on unions has to be overturned. The decrepit curriculum that produces the poisonous bigotry that killed Mashal needs to be comprehensively overhauled. The armed thuggery of groups like the IJT and other vigilantes needs to be met with stern state action and the concerted de-militarisation of campuses.

But there is little evidence in the hollow words and actions of the ruling elite that they will willingly undertake these tasks. A pliant and conservative student body is far too convenient to their interests for them to realise that its character has jeopardised the very future of the country.

Ultimately, these tasks will have to be taken on by students themselves; those who recognise what the state has done and possess the will to become, like Mashal, the conscious agents of history that will help reverse the tide.

This article was first published in April 2017

Are you a student or teacher in Pakistan who wants to see progressive changes in universities? Tell us about it at blog@dawn.com

• Post-Nawaz PML-N
• Survival guaranteed?
• A new PML

As they say, the second shoe finally fell for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The disqualification of Nawaz Sharif is for life. That effectively means that the PML-N is in its post-Nawaz era and things are not looking good.

The narrative that is being pushed through the mass rallies has created differences within the party. Chaudhry Nisar as well as others are against the harsh tone taken against the judiciary and the military.

Their argument is that the narrative being peddled is putting on edge any chances the party has of survival in the long run.

Even the current president of the party, Shahbaz Sharif, seems to be reluctant to follow Nawaz's narrative as he sees it as a threat to the future of the party under him. They are not entirely wrong.

Editorial: Unsurprising verdict

In a country like Pakistan, going up against the security establishment is not the most ideal path and often hurts any party. And this is where the biggest divisions in the PML-N are coming to the front.

Most of the defections seen in recent days, from Gujranwala as well as Sheikhupura, have made a point to explain that their reason for defection is partly that narrative.

The question then is what now? What is the future of the party given these splits that are becoming clearer by the day?

Post-Nawaz PML-N

Nawaz Sharif is gone. Next up may well be Maryam Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif. Maryam has a contempt of court petition against her in the Lahore High Court, as well as a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) case in relation to the Avenfield apartments.

Shahbaz has enough cases against him that any one of them around the Sasti Roti Scheme, Multan Metro, the Ashiana Scheme or the Model Town case can render him useless.

And while the talk of bringing in the grandson, Junaid, into politics may seem like an option, it is too early and will not have the expected impact.

Part of the reason being that, like the rest of the world, Pakistan is slowly moving to a point where the average voter is over the family business model of political parties.

People associate corruption with dynastic politics as a given and the appetite to tolerate that is no longer there.

Secondly, in the absence of party professionalisation, party members have little incentive to be loyal as there is no growth potential for them.

Unfortunately, the political dynasties are too insecure to let anyone else head the government or the party.

Read next: A fake crisis created to justify the exit of Nawaz Sharif has now morphed into a real crisis

That creates a situation where an electable with their vote bank would rather contest as an independent and then choose where they wish to end up rather than opt for a party. And those that do wish to join a party have very limited options.

In the post-Nawaz era, the PML-N will witness a lot more defections, but a bulk will come in the shape of electables choosing to go independent before the elections.

We can realistically expect a group of 40-50 independent candidates contesting under the same symbol and as an informal group that will have more sway rather than being associated with a party.

This will create a new set of issues for a PML-N that is still not over the idea that they are being taken to the cleaners.

With the family out of the party, what will be left is a PML-N with senior leaders, all battling to keep the structure in check.

And with the rising threat of further defections, the party may be contesting elections against its former candidates in a host of constituencies across the country.

Survival guaranteed?

With the prospect of key disqualifications and contesting against its own former candidates, the reality has still not sunk in completely. The party is fighting for its survival.

The loyal workers are disgruntled, in large part, about being dumped to the way side for the last five years. The provincial assembly candidates have their own set of grievances for being completely forgotten by the chief minister.

That creates a realistic situation where Punjab is ready to vote in a different group of people to power.

Explore: How Pakistan's Panama Papers probe unfolded

The PML-N has held Punjab for over 10 years and in that period, a certain part of Punjab has seen explosive growth while other parts have been ignored or forgotten. The neglected parts are unlikely to fall in line through the power of the narrative alone.

They need clear incentives and in case of further disqualifications, the biggest question would be, who is going to give the guarantees and the incentive? Whose word are they supposed to believe?

That is the kind of unpredictability the party is not thinking about right now. They are no where near having a plan for that. Because the advisers around the leadership lack the capacity to think that far out.

In such a scenario, one must then ask about the survival of the party going forward. Yes, it will survive, but not with the same kind of influence or might.

Punjab is likely heading towards a coalition government if the elections are to happen on time, and the most probable chief minister seems to be coming from the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

Similarly, at the centre it seems that with the falling fortunes of the PML-N, we are looking at a hung parliament where independent candidates will have the role of kingmakers in whatever party comes to power.

And while the PTI and Pakistan People's Party are refusing to consider a seat adjustment right now, there is a good chance that they may think of coming together to form a government with the help of the independents.

A new PML

I realise that the picture I am painting is a grim one but that is the reality we are dealing with. We can fawn over the narrative and question the judiciary and the military, but that really does not change the facts.

A PML without the Sharifs is going to happen because the wheels are in motion to achieve that. Once that takes place, the question the party would need to ask is how they plan to function and operate. Who will take the lead and what kind of agenda are they willing to work on.

Analysis: What next for Nawaz Sharif?

Chaudhry Nisar is one good option to head the party but so are people like Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Ahsan Iqbal. The party any of them inherits will be a distinctly new party.

There will be a need to come up with new decision structures, brand new ways to push the message, and creation of new party leadership that can move forward. That is a daunting task and will not be achieved any time soon.

What has hurt the party the most over the years has been the clear lack of succession planning; now that the time is here, the problem is hitting home harder than people had assumed.

We are in for a period of political restructuring not just at the PML-N, but also at other parties.

The PPP will have to also go through a similar fate eventually whether they like it or not, because dynastic politics is done given the trajectory of democracy in our country.

The sooner parties realise that, the better it is for them.

In 1970, Rasheed Araeen stood at St. Katharine Docks, near his studio in London, and invited friends to throw 16 fluorescent red discs in the water.

It was an exercise in breaking the symmetrical structure of the discs and observing how they created their own random movements in the water.

This performance, titled Chakras, can be considered one of the originating points of Pakistani performance art.

Of course, it feels inappropriate to anoint Araeen as the beginning of any canon: his life and artistic practice have been dedicated to destabilising the canons of the art world.

As a pioneer of minimalist structure as well as public and performance art, Araeen worked tirelessly against racist and exclusionary art institutions.

His performance work, which includes Paki Bastard, where he put on dark glasses and gagged himself, and Burning Ties, where he set fire to a row of red neckties, took on increasingly radical tones.

Araeen is not alone in this. The history and practice of public and performance art is intimately tied with transgression and subversion, especially in the Global South.

A worthwhile step in this direction was taken by the initiative House, in March at a house in EME-DHA, as a collaborative effort by writers, thinkers, artists and designers to study the relationship between the body and its environments through performative means of expression.

The organisers and participants of House set out to explore sites outside of galleries and museums for the production and performance of art in the city of Lahore.

The series culminated with a performance inside a suburban house, where many of the performances, which had previously been performed in public, were repeated with slight alterations.

By domesticating their work of art in such a direct, forceful way, the performance provided insights into how performances are received differently in public and private settings.

According to Natasha Jozi, founder and creative director of House: "A house is a unique communal space which brings together living bodies and objects. Inherently it serves as a fulcrum for initiating dialogue, interactions and shaping identities. You often tend to question, what houses you? Which house do you belong in?"

Upon entering the house where the performances were taking place, I immediately came across a woman bound from head to toe in a long, brown rope, the kind often used to secure large packages of cargo.

Over the course of the performance, participants untied and tied her again and again, applying the rope to her body in different arrangements and configurations, securing the artist to different walls, sometimes even securing her to the installations of other artists.

The haunting, visceral passivity of the performer invited participants to move her, rearrange her, untie her, re-tie her in different styles, and in these ways, change the scope of her mobility.

This tension between the interactive openness of the performance and its physical restrictions allowed for a complex, even contradictory, array of meanings to develop: both playful and painful, both unfixed and restricted.

This performance, Abeera Saleem’s Tie Untie, was first performed inside Lawrence Gardens.

Abeera tied herself to a tree in this famous, historic park, which is central to the geography and community of Lahore, and attracts hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors on any given day.

Lawrence Gardens was first developed in 1863 as part of the modernising and civilising mission of the British colonial forces, which saw the Lahore of Mughals and Sikhs as insular, chaotic, and backwards.

Curators were brought from the Kew Gardens in London to give the park an ordered and symmetrical geometry, which was opposed to the organic growth of the older, walled city of Lahore.

In fact, the supposed contrast between the order of the new British developments and the chaos of the older parts of the city became an accepted trope, constantly invoked by historians, novelists, tour guides, administrators, and policymakers — in short, the whole gamut of colonial functionaries.

This Manichaean division between the good, modern, British section of the city and the bad, backwards, native section of the city is typical of colonial missions in India and Africa.

It often masked the reality that the native sector was deliberately underdeveloped, ignored and exploited, not to mention policed and surveilled.

The site of Lawrence Gardens is a vital reminder of the way violence is engineered by such hierarchical binaries of colonialism as good/bad, modern/traditional, chaotic/ordered, private/public.

Developed soon after the 1857 War of Independence, in which Indian sepoys rebelled against their colonial masters, the park was meant to serve as a memento of British superiority, of their ultimate victory in a ruthless campaign that destroyed cities and whole communities.

By tying herself to a tree in Lawrence Gardens, a possible descendant of the trees planted by experts from the Kew Garden, but also — at the same time — a local variant, an adaptation, Abeera embodied and performed the binds that keep us attached to the violent histories of colonialism.

It is also crucial to understand that the history of colonialism — at its fundamental core — is a gendered history.

The binaries that upheld British colonial efforts were mapped onto gendered bodies. Abeera’s performance doesn’t just centre any post-colonial body, but a body identified as female.

It is an unapologetic comment on the way these histories are not simply abstract texts or ideas, relegated to an unknowable past, but embodied experiences, painful and vehement, felt and lived every day by gendered and racialised bodies.

At the same time, I do not want to limit the interpretation of Abeera’s performance to a narrative of powerlessness.

Abeera’s interactive performance also enacts a resistant playfulness, handing over agency to other participants, especially women, who could change the narrative of the performance with their own engagement.

As I was leaving the house where the exhibition was taking place, I noticed two women making intricate patterns with the rope and adorning the performer with them.

When I asked them what they were doing, they simply responded: “We’re just trying to give her a pretty headdress; make some jewelry.”

Another performance that caught my eye was Abrar Ahmed’s Untitled. Abrar set up nine slates on raised platforms.

He drew a grid on each one, like a hashtag sign, using colourful chalks, and invited the participants to play a game of goodkata — similar to tic-tac-toe, but played with ticks and crosses instead of zeros and crosses.

At the beginning, the participants played with Abrar, but gradually, the participants began to play by themselves, inviting each other.

Abrar explained to me that he preferred ticks and crosses because he grew up playing with those symbols in his neighbourhood in Lahore.

He wanted to explore how certain supposedly universal signs — specifically, for this performance, the hashtag — are evolving, their historical and semiotic trajectories hybridised by routes of colonialism, capitalism, globalisation, and urbanisation.

The invitation to play with the sign within the performance felt like another attempt to explore the semiotic fluidity of the sign.

In fact, participants intuitively interacted with the hashtags in multiple ways, drawing and mixing different symbols to create their own games. Some used the sign to express famous Twitter slogans like #BLM.

The final game, played with acrylic on a canvas, resulted in ticks and zeros, a curious combination of goodkata and tic-tac-toe: a chance encounter with the syncretism of symbols.

A few days later, Abrar took me to the Taxali Gate in the walled section of Lahore, where he initially performed the piece by painting the hashtag sign on a public wall.

He was interested in the hyperreality of places like the Taxali Gate, curiously located between fact and collective fictions.

The area around Lahore Fort is a place that seems almost unreal, or, we can say, its actual reality matters little when faced with all the fictions attached to it.

I felt that the Taxali Gate itself had disappeared under its own narratives and representations. All that was left — even as I walked around the place itself — was a tourist brochure.

Abrar’s hashtag, conspicuously announcing itself on a public wall, became a co-conspirator in this game of invisibility, highlighting how our contemporary world often privileges a tidy and accessible virtual reality over the complexities of centuries-old cultures.

On our way back, we came across Lahore Fort Food Street. The space has been recently gentrified to attract tourism in the area, with no efforts to confront any of the various economic, political, and social problems afflicting the surrounding communities.

And what did we find at the very entrance of the Food Street? A big hashtag sign, proclaiming #LOVELAHORE, the O’s in love and Lahore substituted with Pepsi’s round logo. Reality, unfortunately, really was disappearing.

People inside the Food Street sat on the rooftops of old havelis, looking around at even older neighbourhoods, concocting fantasies from a safe distance without stepping into the streets.

As I walked, feeling myself part of a modern, developing city, observing neighbourhoods designated as "antique" and "traditional," I was reminded of the colonial juxtaposition between the new, ordered Lawrence Gardens and the old, chaotic areas around Lahore Fort.

It was easy to see in that moment how colonial and patriarchal binaries continue to inform our ideas and policies, interminably repeating their violence.

• The PAS’ reaction to [Ahad Cheema’s arrest by the National Accountability Bureau][12] over the Ashiyana scam seems to suggest the truth of this perspective. Elite bureaucrats are unused to having their (allegedly 'corrupt') actions investigated.
• But, in fact, bureaucrats’ responses to *sifarish* varied, as per the instructions of the department secretary.
• No questions or reassurances were necessary — this was a *sifarish* that would be fulfilled regardless of merit and transparency.

In December 2016, Shahbaz Sharif declared (as he has many times before and since) that transparency and merit were the hallmarks of his government, and that the Punjab government’s zero tolerance for corruption from the bottom to the top of the administrative hierarchy was producing results.

Certainly, a number of schemes were introduced to ensure that 'corruption' was eliminated across the administrative departments that make up the government of Punjab, most prominently through the use of monitoring and technology (e.g. the use of smart phones and computerisation of records).

In 2017, the chief minister declared that his government’s policies have led to there being "no room for corruption as idols of sifarish, nepotism and corruption have been broken in the province."

However, a problem arises where the CM’s plans for transparency run into electoral realities, particularly politicians’ desire to dispense patronage to voters.

Well aware of this clash, Sharif and his allies developed a method to have their cake and eat it too — they started differentiating between 'good' sifarish and 'bad' sifarish: the latter was to be condemned and dismissed as 'corrupt', but the former was to be catered to with speed and efficiency.

This distinction allowed the government to achieve success in select anti-corruption measures while simultaneously ensuring that some, favoured politicians’ patronage demands were met.

In what follows, I will briefly outline the market for bureaucratic appointments in Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Punjab, and then focus on reforms introduced in the name of merit and transparency in teacher appointments in the School Education Department.

By making strategic appointments to key posts within the bureaucratic hierarchy, the CM Secretariat was able to control the implementation of its anti-corruption measures.

As a result, the CM Secretariat empowered a group of politicians and bureaucrats above others, while still maintaining the government’s image as an advocate of merit and transparency.

The PML-N is not an ideological party. Its appeal to voters (particularly those in urban areas) lies in the ability of elected party members to 'get things done' — the laying of a sewage line, acquiring an electricity, gas or telephone connection, and, most importantly, getting a voter (or their family member) a job with the government.

Therefore, moves to eliminate corruption and improve transparency may sound wonderful in theory, but in reality, they do not sit well with constituency politicians seeking to dispense patronage amongst voters.

Government jobs, ranging from Class IV posts such as cleaners or watchmen to teaching staff, are particularly in demand as a form of patronage for a couple of reasons.

The first is relative security of tenure and a pension, attractive prospects for anyone looking for some long-term stability for themselves and their family.

And second, government jobs allow the person being posted to exercise a bit of power themselves, particularly if they manage to advance up the bureaucratic hierarchy.

This power may be nothing more than getting a family member or friend an audience with a senior bureaucrat, but the ability to do even this much denotes prestige and access to power within the person’s immediate social circle.

Therefore, the distribution of government jobs by politicians has long been a means of winning votes within communities.

The reality of patronage politics in Punjab outlined here will come as no surprise to any observer of Pakistani politics.

What is of interest is how a government touting its anti-corruption policies (transparency, monitoring, open access to information, etc.) balanced the introduction of these measures with the demands made by politicians of their own party’s administration.

The uniform implementation of anti-corruption measures would close down avenues of patronage, threatening the political economy that exists in constituencies (and by extension, the province as a whole), thus endangering future electoral prospects for not just the Members of Provincial Assembly (MPA) and the Members of National Assembly (MNA), but eventually the party itself.

So, in implementing these measures, the government determined who must conform with anti-corruption policies when it came to distributing government jobs, and who may be exempted from having to do so.

During the time that the PML-N felt secure in its political position in Punjab, the provincial government’s implementation of favoured policies, projects, and anti-corruption measures relied on appointing a group of favourite bureaucrats (most of whom belonged to the Pakistan Administrative Service – PAS) to key posts – e.g. departmental secretaries, heads of authorities, and district coordination officers (DCO).

These would typically be officers who had worked closely with the CM or the chief secretary in the past and had a proven record of ‘getting the job done’.

As one example, Fawad Hasan Fawad was such an appointee. When the PML-N formed the government in Punjab in 2008, he was posted as Secretary Services where he was in charge of assembling the team of bureaucrats who would staff senior district posts (DCOs and divisional commissioners) in Punjab.

A few months later, Fawad was appointed Secretary Communication and Works to 'accelerate the pace of work and purge the department of corrupt officials and contractors'.

It is important to note here that the appointment of these bureaucrats by the CM Secretariat (often through the manipulation of regulations on bureaucratic appointments) was not regarded as 'corrupt'.

For example, Fawad Hasan Fawad’s appointments to various Secretary posts (Services, Communication and Works, Health) were made while he was still too junior (in terms of Basic Pay Scale) for these offices. However, no action was taken to prevent this widespread practice.

Instead, appointments that are not strictly in line with the rules — for instance, the hiring of retired bureaucrats on contract basis or the appointment of junior bureaucrats — are justified as discretionary, made to ensure that the government has access to the best officials to carry out its mandate.

Bureaucratic reshuffles that take place after an election is held are a key example — they allow the new government to assemble their own people around them.

In 2013, for instance, the PML-N was on the hunt for "a team of experienced and honest bureaucrats," particularly for the federal government under Nawaz Sharif.

In light of these practices, the feeling amongst the mid-tier and junior bureaucracy I interviewed was that anti-corruption policies that enhanced monitoring and transparency targeted them but left the higher echelons of the bureaucracy — where ‘corruption’ usually involved having a finger in the pie alongside senior politicians — largely untouched.

The PAS’ reaction to Ahad Cheema’s arrest by the National Accountability Bureau over the Ashiyana scam seems to suggest the truth of this perspective. Elite bureaucrats are unused to having their (allegedly 'corrupt') actions investigated.

This attitude is by no means unique to the Cheema case though — in 2015, for instance, the senior bureaucracy resisted attempts to make officers in BPS 20-22 subject to investigations by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The bureaucrats appointed to key posts in Punjab emulated the CM’s missionary zeal and micro-management within their own departments, and followed the CM Secretariat’s instructions on the implementation of policy.

Mirroring the actions of the CM, the secretary of a department would influence appointments to posts in the department’s secretariat offices and in key districts.

The secretary would be under pressure to ‘deliver’, and, in turn, he would pressure the officials working under him in secretariat offices and in the districts to ensure that targets set by the CM Secretariat were met.

In return, the CM Secretariat protected the secretary from investigations, smoothed the way for him in the implementation of policy, and ensured that, once he ‘delivered’, he moved on to a lucrative new post.

For instance, Ahad Cheema was transferred from the post of DCO Lahore when the legality of his appointment was questioned before the Lahore High Court and was appointed the director general of the Lahore Development Authority and put in charge of the Lahore MetroBus project.

And when Cheema was in charge of the Lahore MetroBus project, the CM took a personal interest in the project, pushed for its speedy completion, ensured that financing (including compensation payments) was swiftly approved, and dealt with questions regarding the project’s transparency quickly and quietly.

The dynamics between bureaucrats and the CM Secretariat allowed the former (and through him the CM Secretariat) to shape the behaviour of bureaucrats throughout the department’s hierarchy, thereby ensuring that the work of the department was transparent and merit-based, but only to the extent desired by the CM Secretariat.

When the PML-N formed the government in Punjab in 2013, the government implemented policies that regulated the recruitment and transfer of frontline staff — teachers — in the School Education Department.

Rather than allowing politicians to influence the recruitment or transfer of teaching staff for personal or electoral gains, the department decided to improve the recruitment process by computerising merit lists and displaying them publicly for candidates to check them.

In addition, the department decided to control teacher transfers by imposing a ban on all transfers during the academic year. Transfers would only be permitted during department announced transfer windows, and teachers would have to apply for a transfer by identifying an appropriate vacant post.

In my observations of bureaucrats at work in the School Education Department, however, it soon became evident that, for all the claims of merit and transparency in teacher appointments, the reality was much more mixed.

In theory, bureaucrats in the department were not permitted to entertain politicians’ requests (made either in person, on the telephone, or through parchis attached to an application form) asking them to expedite an application, to give an applicant a few extra points on his interview, or just give the applicant a job or transfer.

But, in fact, bureaucrats’ responses to sifarish varied, as per the instructions of the department secretary.

The department secretary at the time had a reputation amongst his colleagues for resisting political pressure, a function of his close ties to the CM Secretariat from a previous posting as DCO Kasur.

This connection between the CM Secretariat and the secretary of the School Education Department was critical to the regulated implementation of anti-corruption measures in the appointment of teachers.

Certainly, bureaucrats in the department offered no hope to ordinary citizens asking for jobs and teachers asking for transfers, stating that there was a policy that had to be followed, that the secretary would not bend, that things had changed as per the CM’s emphasis on merit and transparency in appointments.

A few people were given the courtesy that bureaucrats hung on to their parchis till after they had left the office, as if they really meant to at least think on their sifarish.

These applicants were junior bureaucrats or applicants whose sifarish came from politicians that bureaucrats considered insignificant to the CM Secretariat.

As soon as the door closed behind these people, the slips of paper joined the rest of the parchis on the floor under the bureaucrat’s desk.

But I observed a third category first hand — those with a sifarish from a prominent politician or bureaucrat — caused the official to sit up straight and immediately summon a member of his office staff to usher the person, parchi in hand, to the office of the secretary down the hall.

No questions or reassurances were necessary — this was a sifarish that would be fulfilled regardless of merit and transparency.

Such variations in bureaucratic behaviour came as no surprise to opposition MPAs and MNAs, nor to ruling party MNAs and MPAs, who did not have a close association with the PML-N leadership.

They were well aware that their demands for teaching jobs or transfers for their voters were not considered sufficiently pressing by the CM Secretariat and would therefore not be accommodated by officials in the School Education Department.

Their discontent sometimes arose in the form of complaints to the press regarding the CM’s disinterest in his own party’s politicians’ electoral needs, or privilege motions in the Punjab Assembly regarding bureaucratic high-handedness.

In 2017, for instance, an MPA complained through a privilege motion that the regional manager of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd in Sargodha had made him wait for an hour despite not being busy, and then responded rudely to the MPA’s queries about public works.

In another case, an MPA complained about the behaviour of a superintendent in the Communications and Works Department through a privilege motion, claiming that the officer had refused to act in accordance with the law and had said that he would not follow the law because "it has been created by those without any shame."

In both cases, the bureaucrats had to present themselves in front of the Committee on Privileges and apologise to the MPA.

Though privilege motions allow politicians to impress their dignity and position on bureaucrats by dragging them in front of the committee, and press interviews allow them an avenue to vent their grievances, the politicians I spoke to were nonetheless well aware that any sifarish they made would be subject to the rules set by the CM Secretariat.

While a sifarish from an ordinary citizen, or someone not close to the CM could be ignored, a sifarish from someone in the CM’s inner circle would be catered to immediately.

The sheer volume of appointments that go through the School Education Department’s bureaucrats (with over 400,000 employees across the province and teaching posts in such high demand) make the distinctions drawn between different kinds of sifarish particularly visible.

However, these distinctions were not unique to the School Education department — similar practices prevailed in the Higher Education Department, and likely in others as well.

They allowed the CM Secretariat and its chosen bureaucrats to maintain the veneer of reform, touting merit and transparency as its hallmarks, while consolidating power in the hands of the CM and his closest political and bureaucratic allies.

Those with access to the CM were still able to dispense patronage at will, meaning that teacher appointments continued to be politicised.

But the exclusion of ordinary citizens and some politicians and bureaucrats from government largesse allowed the CM Secretariat to claim that the government’s anti-corruption measures were producing results.

As the Punjab government became more and more centralised, entwining the party’s leadership with a small coterie of politicians and a cadre of politicised bureaucrats, excluded politicians had to either seek alternative means of satisfying their voters or convince the CM to compromise his anti-corruption measures in order to accommodate electoral realities.

Luckily for the ruling party politicians at least, political realities change and the party leaders’ priorities change with them.

With the 2018 election approaching, and the party facing a leadership crisis, the electoral calculus shifted.

Though the CM continues to advocate for merit and transparency, the PML-N government can no longer afford to ignore its politicians.

Are you a researcher or policy advocate working on government reforms? Share your insights with us at blog@dawn.com

• From *kirtan* to *qawwali*
• A dying connection

"Why weren’t the Muslim rubabi protected? They held such high status in Sikhism? Why were they allowed to leave East Punjab at the time of Partition?" I asked.

The question was directed at Ghulam Hussain. I was in his home, deep within the older part of Lahore, close to the shrine of Data Darbar, the city’s patron saint.

Dressed in a white shalwar kameez and maroon waistcoat, a white scarf tied around his neck, the octogenarian had only recently recovered from what had become for him a recurring sickness. He had nevertheless agreed to my request for an interview.

Behind him, the walls and cupboard were adorned with symbols of the Sikh religion — a picture of a kirpan, the Golden Temple — and numerous awards he had received from Sikh organisations over the years.

Along with them were a few Islamic symbols, including a poster with a verse from the Quran. It was February of 2014 when I met Hussain. He died in April the following year, and this was possibly his last interview.

I had searched for Ghulam Hussain for a few years, having heard that he was a descendant of Bhai Mardana, Guru Nanak’s Muslim rubabi.

Bhai Mardana played an important role in the development of the Sikh religion. Not only did he accompany Guru Nanak on his travels, he also played the rubab while Nanak sang his divinely inspired poetry.

Since their time, Muslim rubabi had been given the responsibility of performing the kirtan at gurdwaras — till the tradition was abruptly disrupted during Partition.

From kirtan to qawwali

"Everyone was only concerned about their own selves at the time," Hussain recalled.

"We were Muslims, therefore we had to leave. It did not matter if we were rubabi. What mattered was our Muslim identity. That became our only identity. In fact, a couple of our rubabi even lost their lives during the riots. My father-in-law, Bhai Moti, was one of them. He used to play tabla at a gurdwara in Patiala. Another rubabi who used to perform at Guru Amardas' gurdwara at Goindwal was also killed."

He continued, "My chacha, Bhai Chand, was a rubabi at the Golden Temple. He had three houses in Amritsar, all of which were three storeys high. He was a millionaire at that time. He used to live in Bhaiyyon ki gali, named after the rubabi family. He became a pauper in Pakistan."

Elaborating on his Sikh heritage, Hussain said his family’s ancestral gurdwara was Siyachal Sahib, which lies between Lahore and Amritsar. His father was a gyani — one who leads the congregation in prayer — who also gave lectures on Sikhism.

"My father was the gadi nasheen of the rubabi seat there, which meant I would have taken over his position eventually," he added.

But Partition changed all that.

"Not only did we lose our money, we also lost our profession," Hussain said. "While we knew the [Guru] Granth by heart, we knew nothing about being Muslim, besides the kalma. The Muslims had no interest in our profession. Thus, we began doing odd jobs — selling samosa, kheer, meat."

However, Hussain soon found a second calling in qawwali, after receiving an invitation to a performan at a local cultural organisation called Nizami Art Society.

"At one of these meetings, not many years after Partition, I was invited to perform qawwali," Hussain said.

"In those early days, I struggled because my Urdu pronunciation was weak. I couldn’t even read the script, having been trained in Gurmukhi. However, I practised and gradually mastered singing in Urdu. My financial condition also began improving."

I asked him, "How similar or different are these two traditions, of kirtan and qawwali?"

He answered, "There is an old Punjabi saying — a hundred wise men sitting together will end up saying the same thing, while in a group of a hundred fools each one will say a different thing. Bulleh Shah reiterated what Nanak said. Guru Arjan’s and Sultan Bahu’s message is the same as that of Shah Hussain. Their kalam overlaps. In fact, I would go to the extent of saying that Guru Nanak expounded the Quran. Thus, to answer your question, qawwali and kirtan are part of the same tradition."

A dying connection

But not everyone shares his view of syncretism.

Hussain’s son, sitting quietly with us as the interview progressed, suddenly jumped into the conversation.

"A few Sikhs say Mardana was nothing but a funny character in Nanak’s Janamsakhis, who was always either hungry or thirsty," he said. "I would choose to disagree. It was Mardana who brought out the divinity of Nanak. It was for Mardana that Nanak turned sweet the bitter fruit of a Kekkar tree."

Hussain had a personal story of his own about Mardana’s importance in the history of Sikhism. "Once, before Partition, my father was at Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Hassanabdal," he said.

"He was in the sacred pool taking dips when one Sikh got offended and complained to the office. He accused my father of polluting the water. My father was summoned to the office. When questioned why he had taken a dip in the water, he asked the official, 'Who did Nanak create this pool for? To quench Mardana’s thirst. This is, therefore, Mardana’s pool and I being a rubabi am his descendant. Now let me ask this question, who are you to claim ownership over this pool?'"

He let out a loud chuckle at the end of this story, but quickly became serious as he spoke of his visit to India and to the Golden Temple in 2005 — for the first time after Partition. "I wanted to perform at the Golden Temple," he said.

"My family had performed there for seven generations. We are the descendants of Bhai Sadha and Madha, who were appointed at the Golden Temple by Guru Tegh Bahadur. Such was our honour that we used to receive a share from the offerings at the shrine, which was then equally distributed among all the rubabi families. Throughout Sikh history, the rubabis have displayed their loyalty to the gurus. It was Bhai Bavak, a rubabi with Guru Hargobind, who rescued his daughter, Bibi Veera, from the Turks, when no other Sikh dared cross into their territory."

But Hussain’s wish to perform at the gurdwara was not to be fulfilled.

"Our family has a deep connection with the Golden Temple but now it has become extremely difficult for a rubabi to perform kirtan there. The officials there told me only Amritdhari could perform there," he said, referring to Sikhs who have been initiated or baptised by taking amrit or "nectar water".

He added, "I wanted to tell those officials that my ancestors had been performing kirtan here before Gobind Rai became Guru Gobind Singh. There is no tradition of any rubabi ever converting out of Islam. When the gurus never asked us to become Sikhs, then what right did these officials have?"

The article was originally published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.

• What the law says
• Recognising convicts on bail as a risk to society
• How gaps in the law leave victims vulnerable
• US federal courts have held that no right to bail exists where charges against a defendant indicate a strong threat to society and where a defendant poses a threat to a key witness.¹
• However, the notion that persons convicted of a crime of neglect against a minor child under their care are roaming free, and that too on the submission of a paltry surety bond of Rs50,000 each is concerning.
• Pakistani law has not developed jurisprudence focused on convicts/accused being required to prove and establish that they do not pose a substantial risk of harm and safety to the public and/or the victims.

Last Tuesday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) sentenced additional district and sessions judge Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife Maheen Zafar to one year in prison for neglecting their 10-year-old maid, Tayyaba.

The case had sparked outrage in December 2016, as it brought to further light the rampant but often ignored illegal practice of child labour abuse.

At one point, the Supreme Court had to intervene suo motu to set aside the convicts’ compromise with the accused.

The IHC held that the evidence exhibited beyond a shadow of a doubt that under Section 328-A of the Pakistan Penal Code, the convicts "neglected and/ or willfully harmed and abandoned Mst. Tayyaba Bibi which resulted in harm to her or had the potential of causing harm."

The IHC did not find sufficient evidence to convict on other charges (wrongful confinement, criminal intimidation, shajjah-i-khafifah and damihah etc; classifications of physical harm, or hurt, defined by the Pakistan Penal Code).

It can be reasonably inferred that the convicts were convicted under Section 328-A due to the specific crime requiring a lower threshold of culpability.

What the law says

A reading of the section demonstrates that an accused’s act of omission, which has the potential to injure a child by causing psychological injury, may be punishable by imprisonment.

Within a few hours of the verdict, however, the IHC accepted the convicts’ application to suspend their sentences and granted them post-conviction bail against surety bonds of Rs50,000.

The accused were given seven days to appeal the verdict. During the seven days, the accused were released on bail, not in jail and were free to roam in public with no restrictions.

Today, the division bench of the IHC suspended the IHC's one-year sentence, and adjourned the next date of hearing till the second week of May.

The appellate bench’s rationale for suspending the original IHC verdict is not yet clear. Questions remain unanswered.

However, the whole matter highlights an unnoticed disturbing fact: courts granting bail after conviction in potential matters of public safety.

Section 426 (2-A) of the Pakistan Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) empowers a court to exercise its discretion to suspend a convict’s sentence under certain circumstances pending appeal, while allowing a convict to be released on bail.

The period during which a convict’s sentence is suspended and the convict is released on bail is excluded from the total period of sentence the convict has to eventually undergo.

Recognising convicts on bail as a risk to society

The legal remedy of bail pending appeal after conviction is not exclusive to Pakistan. It is a well-recognised doctrine throughout the world.

Since the defendant's conviction rebuts the prior presumption of innocence, the defendant bears the difficult burden of convincing a court to grant an appeal bond after conviction. Courts throughout the world are careful in entertaining such bail applications.

For example, under the United States federal criminal law, a defendant’s eligibility for bail after conviction depends on whether the defendant poses a flight risk, a safety concern and/or whether the defendant’s appeal raises substantial questions that offer the prospect of success.

US federal courts have held that no right to bail exists where charges against a defendant indicate a strong threat to society and where a defendant poses a threat to a key witness.¹

Individual states within the US, which have their own laws, often prohibit bail after convictions for certain serious offences, which include child abuse or neglect.²

English jurisprudence is similar to the extent that bail is only granted in exceptional circumstances, such as where the merits of the case are overwhelming (e.g., good past behaviour, strength of case on appeal) or where the applicant will otherwise have served his sentence before the appeal can be heard.

In Pakistan, the model is somewhat similar. Interpreting Section 426 of the CrPC (except for 1-A), the SC has held that bail pending appeal is not allowed unless it is shown that the conviction was based on no evidence, based on inadmissible evidence or that it is ultimately not sustainable.³

A court examining suspension of sentence/bail application is only required to tentatively assess the evidence, as the court is not deciding the innocence or guilt of the convict.

Therefore, an appellate court through a cursory glance ascertains whether there exist strong grounds for suspension of judgment.

High courts have granted bail after convictions in certain fact-patterns that showcase glaring errors on the surface (e.g., appeal not disposed of even after expiry of three years,⁴ glaring contradiction in trial record as to arrest,⁵ accused having gone through significant portion of sentence,⁶ no overt act attributed to accused in the First Information Report⁷ and prosecution suppressing evidence).⁸

How gaps in the law leave victims vulnerable

Interestingly, there is no real jurisprudence in Pakistan on a convict’s bail being linked with safety risk, threat to the society or threat to victims or witnesses.

In 1999, the SC, without getting into the merits of a convict’s case, granted bail on the basis that the convict’s sentence, which was increased from three to five years, was fit for exercising discretion of bail in favour of the convict.⁹

Although the SC did not address it, the fact that the convict was convicted for criminal breach of trust (as opposed to a more heinous crime) may have played a part in the granting of bail without getting into the merits of the case.

In light of the above and otherwise, high courts within Pakistan have exercised suspension of sentences/bail application on a liberal basis where original sentences are short.

High courts have cited the aforementioned SC judgment to suspend various kinds of short sentences that span up to five years (e.g., mischief, carrying unlicensed firearms & bribery) whereby the hearing of the appeal would take some time.¹⁰

While the rhetoric on the surface is sound (i.e., short sentences are related to crimes of a less heinous nature), it is not entirely applicable towards the Tayyaba case.

The judge and his wife were sentenced to a short term imprisonment (i.e., one year) and reportedly have no criminal history. Their appeal was theoretically accepted by the division bench due to flaws apparent on the surface in the original IHC verdict.

However, the notion that persons convicted of a crime of neglect against a minor child under their care are roaming free, and that too on the submission of a paltry surety bond of Rs50,000 each is concerning.

With the acceptance of bail, the victim and her family may be exposed to potential threats by the convicts.

This is especially in light of the fact that the apex court in 2017 set aside a coerced compromise agreement between the victim and the accused, along with the chief justice of the SC insisting that there was no doubt that a criminal act had been committed.

Furthermore, since the appeal has now been entertained within seven days, it could not have been argued that bail last week was granted due to an uncertain time-frame for the appeal.

Courts, in deciding whether to suspend a sentence and to grant an appeal bond, must take into account various factors.

This includes the exact nature of the crime, whether there is a substantial risk that the convict will pose a danger to others in the community, whether there is a substantial risk the convict will intimidate the victims/witnesses and whether it appears that the appeal is filed only for the purpose of causing delay.

Pakistani law has not developed jurisprudence focused on convicts/accused being required to prove and establish that they do not pose a substantial risk of harm and safety to the public and/or the victims.

Instead, a suspension of sentence/grant of bail is based primarily on the merits of the convict’s case, the time-frame of appeal and a de facto statutory reading of the term of sentence.

Such standards of law, while beneficial, do not address the underlying adverse consequences of post-conviction bail, as showcased by the Tayyaba case.

For now, the victim, through the operation of law, stands potentially vulnerable in more ways than one.

¹Bail, 45 Geo. L.J. Ann. Rev. Crim. Proc. 383, 407 (2016)

²§ 31:3. Release pending appeal, Tn. Criminal Trial Practice § 31:3 (2017-2018 ed.)

³2007 SCMR 246, Supreme Court of Pakistan (Javed Hashmi v. the State)

⁴1999 MLD 351

⁵1991 P Cr. L.J. 1352

⁶2006 YLR1211

⁷PLD 2008 Lah. 306

⁸2006 P.Cr. L.J. 749

⁹1999 SCMR 2589, Supreme Court of Pakistan (Abdul Hameed v. Muhammad Abdullah)

¹⁰2005 PCr. LJ 657, Sindh High Court, Karachi (Nazeer Ahmed v. State), 2017 YLR Note 241, Sindh High Court and 2016 YLR 2600, Sindh High Court

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