A Season for Martyrs

by Bina Shah

  Policemen and Rangers were lined up in rows, their mouths twisted into fierce scowls. The police carried lathis and riot gear, their bodies bulky in their bulletproof vests. The Rangers pointed automatic weapons at the demonstrators, who clutched handkerchiefs ready to wet with bottles of mineral water and tie on their faces in case the police decided to use tear gas.

  Other citizens had come to support the lawyers: journalists, NGO workers, human rights activists, teachers, doctors. Ali had been interviewing some of them, recording their thoughts for the camera. A doctor agreed to speak to him, a young, handsome man wearing a black armband and carrying a placard that read Democracy Now! “We started our campaign for the restoration of the judges after the emergency was declared and the judges deposed, but really, our protests have been going on since May 12 all over the country, you know. Lahore, Pindi, Islamabad, all over Sindh …”

  “Yes,” Ali said. “The day the chief justice came to Karachi.” The events of that horrible day were still fresh in everyone’s minds: the chief justice was to participate in the anniversary celebrations of the Sindh High Court supported by the PPP and ANP, but threatened by the chief justice’s power and popularity, the president instructed his own political party, the PML-Q, to hold a rally in Karachi at the same time to distract from the chief justice’s arrival. Then, the MQM, also Musharraf’s supporters in Karachi, decided to hold their own rally on that day, to show their loyalty to the president. What ensued was that first, bloody power struggle between the two factions, as MQM workers illegally blocked Karachi’s main roads to prevent anyone from getting to the airport to meet the chief justice.

  They’d held the city hostage: fifty people dead, bodies lying on the street, armed men shooting anyone who dared go to the airport. Both activists and ordinary people had to hide in their houses as if it were a siege, psychopathic teenagers taking shots at anyone passing underneath the bridges on Shahrae Faisal, the road that let to the airport. They called the people who’d died on that day the martyrs of May 12 …

  “The government should hang its head in shame.”

  “So what do you hope to accomplish by these protests today?”

  “We want the judges restored. We want those who were responsible for the violence on May twelfth to be brought to justice. And we want Musharraf to go.”

  “Do you think he’ll listen?”

  “He has to. It’s what we want.”

  When the doctor rejoined the crowd, Ali watched him for a little while, chanting and walking with the others, until he lost sight of him among the black-coated lawyers. He calculated at least five hundred people were here. The tension weighed the air down, like humidity, making it hard to breathe and think. The day had its own momentum, barreling toward a conclusion that nobody seemed strong enough to prevent. The protestors were edging dangerously close to the police, shouting at them, insulting them. The police remained impassive, although Ali could see some of the Rangers’ hands tightening on the barrels of their guns.

  The politicians had been supporting these street protests; Benazir made statements every day that the people wanted democracy, that they wanted her, and that the demonstrations were proof of how desired she was. How convenient, Ali thought to himself, to fuse the two. Or confuse them. Who decided that she knew what the people wanted—and why should it be her? That was the problem here in Pakistan; everyone thought they knew what was good for the people of this country: a nuclear bomb; or Islamic law; or to join the War on Terror, because if they didn’t, Pakistan would get bombed into the Stone Age.

  Then the superpowers were telling them what was good for them: America told them they needed democracy. China said they needed military cooperation and warm-water ports. India said they needed to leave Kashmir alone. Afghanistan wanted Pakistan to leave them alone but take in all their refugees. Was it any wonder that the nation had become completely schizophrenic?

  When was the last time someone actually cared about what the people wanted? Benazir’s father, Zulfikar, thought he had it figured out: roti, kapra, aur makan. Food, clothing, housing. A socialist’s dream, but the world was more complex than that, and so were people’s desires. Back when Jinnah was alive, it was so simple: the people wanted their own country. And he gave it to them. But after that, what next? The leaders who came after him had their own vision about where the country should go. And their visions drove it straight to hell.

  Ali’s skull ached thinking about all of this, in the heat of the afternoon, seeing all those angry people, the barrels of all those guns. Benazir, Nawaz, Musharraf, Imran, the army: each one proclaiming himself the savior of this nation. Instead of having the answers, they thought they were the answer. And when you asked people to put their faith in a leader instead of in the institutions he or she was supposed to lead, you ended up with the country that they had today: Pakistan, going up in flames, falling apart at the cracks and the seams.

  The shouting was getting louder, building into a crescendo that had lost its edges: instead of words, there was one long howl of fury, the sound of a people utterly frustrated, utterly betrayed. It made Ali want to cry. He didn’t know where to go. Twenty-five years of age, and his father was dead to him, his love was gone, his dreams defeated.

  Then, in the din, he could hear someone reciting poetry. That’s odd, Ali thought, and turned around to see a man standing a few feet away in a lawyer’s coat. He was middle-aged, probably the same age as Ali’s father. Slightly receding hair, wrinkles around his eyes, two sharp lines etched from the sides of his nose to his mouth. His eyes were closed, and he was speaking Sindhi in a strong Larkana accent, half-reciting and half-singing some lines Ali recognized from Shah Abdul Latif’s Risalo:

  The birds in flocks fly;

  Comradeship they do not decry

  Behold, among the birds there is more loyalty

  Than among us, who call ourselves humanity!

  Ali stared at him. Could there be anything more absurd than someone standing here in front of the Sindh High Court during a protest march with rows of policemen ready to storm in at any minute, declaiming the lines of a classical Sindhi Sufi poet? It was surreal. And yet, completely fitting for this moment, this place—this country, which was like living in some surreal dream, or a nightmare from which it was impossible to wake up.

  “Film him,” he said to Arif. “Get him on camera.”

  There was a sharp beeping coming from his pocket. It took Ali a minute to realize that someone was calling him on his mobile phone. “Hello?”

  “Ali,” said the voice on the other end, so disembodied that Ali couldn’t tell at first whether it was a man or a woman. “Come back to the station.”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Jehangir, Ali.” He always had a high-pitched voice, Ali thought to himself.

  “It’s over.”

  “What’s over? What are you talking about?”

  “We’ve been shut down. Mazhar just announced it. We’re off the air.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. Come back, Ali.”

  Ali switched off the phone. Hassan and Arif were staring at him. “What happened?” said Arif.

  “We’re off the air,” Ali replied.

  There was a moment of silence between them, while the crowd roared all around, a young lion testing the power of its new voice. The three men didn’t know whether to rage or mourn. “I guess that’s it, then,” said Arif as he slowly put down his camera.

  Hassan let the boom come to rest against his shoulder. “And I just got this job. How am I going to feed my family?”

  Roti, kapra, aur makan.

  Ali gave Hassan the microphone. “Take this.”

  “Where are you going?”

  But he was already striding away from them, breaking into a run. He was only a few yards away from the protestors.

  Now it was just a few feet.
r />   Now he was in their midst.

  Ali raised his fist and added his voice to theirs. “Go, Musharraf, go! Go, Musharraf, go!” He walked with them shoulder to shoulder. Men, women, old, young. The lines blurred, the boundaries between him and them dissolved. He was losing himself in the crowd, in their passion, their desire. Not even making love with Sunita could surpass this union, or the feeling of being raised to a level where he was but an instrument through which the plans of the world were realized. It was annihilation. What they wanted was what he wanted. What he wanted was what they wanted.

  Maybe it was exactly how Benazir felt, when she was leading one of those rallies. If that was the case, then Ali could wholeheartedly understand.

  Saeen

  LARKANA, SINDH, 1920

  There were many important men who decided to attend the Khilafat Conference of February 1920; the dusty Sindh town of Larkana had to spruce itself up to receive so many men of such stature. Pir Turab Ali Shah Rashdi and Jan Mohammed Junejo, the organizers, personally traveled around the town in a bullock cart the week before the conference, issuing orders to their murids following on foot next to the cart as they bumped along the kaccha roads, inspecting lanes, walls, buildings, and open squares for any sign of garbage, dilapidation, or anything else that would bring shame to them in front of their honored guests.

  Jan Mohammed Junejo clutched a telegram in his hand and shook it at Turab Ali Shah. “Look at this, Saeen! It’s from Bombay. Gandhi is coming! Gandhi … Gandhi-ji. Delighted to accept … look forward to convening with our Sindhi brethren … Hindu-Muslim unity tantamount to our goals …”

  “Gandhi? What interest would he have in seeing the Sultan of Turkey restored to the Caliphate? It won’t make the British change their minds about forbidding them to burn their wives on their funeral pyres … This is a Muslim movement, is it not?” said Turab Ali Shah.

  “Gandhi-ji has been extremely supportive of the Khilafat Movement, Saeen. He told the conference in Delhi last year that they must start a noncooperation policy toward the British. He’s always been in favor of Hindu-Muslim unity.” Jan Mohammed struck a pose that he thought was reminiscent of the eminent lawyer. “‘Unconditional help alone is the real help’ …”

  “He cares more for his precious cow than for our religious sentiments, Saeen. More bunting there, I think,” said Turab Ali Shah, pointing at an area between two neem trees providing a rare patch of shade to an overheated square. A murid shouted “Ji Saeen!” and ran to instruct the village men who were struggling with a rope of white banners wound around their shoulders. Turab Ali Shah watched their efforts to tie the banner to the trees. “Higher,” he called out to his murid. “No, higher—lower—higher—a bit lower …”

  “And only yesterday I received the letter from the Sirhindis, and the Ali brothers, saying that they would be honored to attend. Honored! And our guest from Lucknow—Abdul Bari Farangi Mahali, Saeen, Abdul Bari himself! It’s going to be a truly magnificent affair, Saeen. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Let’s hope the trains aren’t delayed,” said Turab Ali Shah. “No, fools! It’s upside down!” The murid conveyed the message to the villagers, who fought valiantly with the banner until it was turned right side up again.

  “Oh, don’t say that, Saeen,” cried Jan Mohammed. “I’ve been making mannat at Sehwan every month for the past year. If it goes well, I’ll feed a hundred people. No, two hundred! Shahbaz Qalandar wouldn’t let us down like that.”

  Turab Ali Shah frowned. “And if the trains aren’t delayed, there might be rain.”

  “But there isn’t a cloud in the sky!”

  “Or the angrez will make some sort of mischief.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!”

  The two men argued like this, back and forth, for some time. They had been compatriots and friends for thirty years, but nobody could figure out how the friendship had endured, because they were as alike as night and day, or the sun and the moon: one always smiling, optimistic, the other dour and given to finding a flaw in every plan. Jan Mohammed was tall and thin, while Turab Ali Shah carried himself around like a billiard ball, portly and unable to move at any great speed. Squabbling like an old married couple, they continued on their tour of inspection: Jan Mohammed praised every flower and every fruit hanging from the trees, while Turab Ali Shah’s face grew stormy with every heap of garbage he spotted from the height of his vehicle.

  The mood in Sindh, in fact all of India, matched Turab Ali Shah’s more than Jan Mohammed’s, for scarcely a year had passed since General Dyer had instigated the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, ordering his troops to fire upon a group of men, women, and children who were participating in the yearly Baisakhi festival. Only a coward and a tyrant could command men with Lee-Enfield rifles and kukri knives to shed the blood of innocent Punjabis who had gathered to celebrate a cultural and religious celebration. Although opinions were divided on whether or not the general had done the right thing—for talk of mutiny, as well as the assault of a British woman had been the match struck to the tinderbox of the general’s emotions, and Dyer was called a murderer by some Indians and a hero by others—the massacre greatly strained the cords that tied the Indian nation to their British masters.

  But that was not all. The Great War had seen Turkey lose its prominence as a world power, after the defeat of the Central Powers at the hands of the British, French, Russian, and American allies. Muslim leaders in India grew worried at this, and issued a call to their followers that Islam had to be defended at all costs. Turab Ali Shah watched in astonishment as the mullah made a fiery speech at the mosque after Friday prayers, crying out that the British were already encroaching on their schools and their laws, and their troops were desecrating the Holy Lands! He ripped up an English newspaper in front of the entire congregation to show his displeasure. Turab Ali Shah could not help but feel an answering cry in his own breast, one that seemed to encompass not just a protective feeling for the faith but a resentment against the British he did not even know he possessed.

  The newspapers were printing the news from all corners of India and the trains were bringing them to Sindh from Quetta, from Bombay, from Calcutta; the message from Lucknow, Delhi, and Allahabad began to reach Sindhi ears: word of a great movement that would see the Sultan of Turkey restored to his rightful position as khalifa of the Muslim world.

  The Pirs of Sindh began to tell their murids, in the Deobandi-influenced madrassas and mosques, and at the shrines where thousands of them flocked for festivals and pilgrimage, of this great new Khilafat movement. All Sindhi Muslims, conservatives, radical nationalists, Westernized secularists, rich Sindhi Memon businessmen, zamindars, the poor of the cities and the countryside were infected by a wave of agitation in support of the Pan-

  Islamic movement. Successful conferences in Delhi and Allahabad inspired Pir Turab Ali Shah and Jan Mohammed Junejo to organize a similar conference in the Larkana Town Hall, and it was this for which they were preparing with such zeal.

  The two men finally arrived at the Town Hall for the final walk-through, Jan Mohammed leaping down and extending a helping hand to Turab Ali Shah, who squeezed out of the bullock cart with difficulty.

  The main hall was high-ceilinged, with long electric fans that rotated slowly, and in summer it grew unbearably warm. But this was February, a cool month, and there was no other place with sufficient gravitas for such an important event. Jan Mohammed pointed out that additional floor-standing fans could be brought in if the room became stuffy. “We’ll have the walls sprinkled with water every half hour, to keep everyone cool.” He turned to face the back wall. “We need more bunting here! The Welcome banners. Where are they? I had them specially printed, there’s even one with Gandhi’s name on it!” He whirled around to face Turab Ali Shah, his features twisted into a worried frown. “Oh, I do hope Allah Saeen ensures that we are not shamed in front of our guests—the honor of the Khil
afat Committee is at stake …”

  Turab Ali Shah allowed himself a small smile at his friend’s sudden panic. Jan Mohammed worried about the oddest of things: Did animals have souls, and if so, was it haram to kill them for sport? Did women mind it when their husbands took second and third wives, and if it hurt their feelings, was it unlawful? When the Prophet, peace be upon him, had told Muslims to “seek knowledge, even if it means going as far as China,” why were so many of the Pirs proudly illiterate? He lost sleep over these and a million other trivialities, sometimes he even forgot to eat his meals, and he walked for miles in the fields belonging to his family, pondering questions that had no logical answer.

  Turab Ali Shah, on the other hand, had never been curious about anything; the tutors who had been engaged to come to his grand home in Larkana and teach him Sindhi and Persian had given up after six months, telling his father that the young Turab showed no interest in learning anything beyond the rudiments of reading and writing. Perhaps if he was sent to the madrassa, he might be inspired to do better in front of his peers?

  “Out of the question!” his father had roared. “How can you expect the scion of this illustrious family to attend the village school with the children of peasants?” And so Turab Ali Shah had been relieved of any scholarly duties, leaving his mind free for the more important pursuits of hunting and falconry and meeting with other members of the biraderi, that extended family system that made brothers out of all sayeds from the same kin.

  Heaven knows how Jan Mohammed Junejo had convinced him to participate in the Khilafat Committee, but once he’d given his word, he stuck to it, for loyalty was one of his strengths, even if learning was not. Jan Mohammed would never have been able to organize this conference on his own without Turab Ali Shah’s solidity, both physical and moral. Besides, Turab Ali Shah liked the idea of a struggle: it gave him the chance to take out his many swords and ancient muskets and have them polished and oiled, and imagine himself a lieutenant in the Army of God that had been so enthusiastically put together a few years ago; it had seen no action, but you never knew. He had even gone without food for one day in October of last year, on National Khilafat Day, when the Muslims had prayed and fasted to show their solidarity with Muslims in Turkey and the Arab world. He had been mightily depressed that day, but Jan Mohammed cheered him by telling him he was a hero of Sindh for the sacrifice he was making.