“They had tied me up, gagged me began hitting me on my elbows with the butt of their pistols, until one of them received a phone call and I got chance to resist and scream,” Pakistani journalist/ blogger Asad Ali Toor recalled the attack on him in his apartment by a group of unknown attackers. “They threatened to shoot me when they were leaving… but i realised there was no point keeping quiet now… I limped out and screamed for help,” he added. The video clip, yet another distressing reminder of how vulnerable journalists reporting in South Asia are. Especially if they are perceived to be somehow ‘anti government’ or questioning government policy or politics. 

Asad Ali Toot standing bravely after being tortured by UNKNOWN GUNMEN, his blood stains from wounds can clearly be seen on his shirt. The attackers intelligently wounded his elbows to cause serious nerve injuries. #IStandWithAsadAliToor pic.twitter.com/ggs6gXSXK7

— Shama Junejo (@ShamaJunejo) May 25, 2021

Asad Ali Toor, an Islamabad-based journalist was reportedly attacked in his rented apartment late on Tuesday. The news began buzzing on social media with a number of Pakistani journalists sharing information. Eventually a formal complaint was lodged by Islamabad police after Toor underwent a medico-legal examination. According to the Pakistan journalists the CCTV footage from his apartment building shows the three intruders.

With @AsadAToor at PIMS. Three intruders forcibly entered his apartment, gagged & tied him up on gunpoint, then dragged him on the floor & brutally thrashed him up. One of them pressed his face on the ground with his feet & the one with pistol hit his elbows with the pistol butt. pic.twitter.com/s37tjXvbvF

— Haider Imtiaz (@mhaiderimtiaz) May 25, 2021

According to the information shared by Pakistan media, quoting a senior journalist, Toor was assaulted by unidentified assailants who broke into his house. It is not known if the assailants have been identified yet, even though it has been reported that they are visible in the CCTV footage. According to a report in the Dawn, police confirmed that “some people came outside Toor’s residence” and a “scuffle took place between him and these people”. The attackers then fled from the scene after thrashing Toor. The injured journalist was then taken to a private hospital for treatment. 

With @AsadAToor at PIMS. Three intruders forcibly entered his apartment, gagged & tied him up on gunpoint, then dragged him on the floor & brutally thrashed him up. One of them pressed his face on the ground with his feet & the one with pistol hit his elbows with the pistol butt. pic.twitter.com/s37tjXvbvF

— Haider Imtiaz (@mhaiderimtiaz) May 25, 2021

The amplification of this attack, by Pakistan’s journalist, created such an impact in Pakistan that the Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry took notice of the incident and has ordered the Islamabad police chief to probe the matter. According to The Dawn, this is not the first time that Toor has been targeted. According to the report, he was “accused of defaming” the Pakistan military last year and had to face a court case in this regard. The FIR, as quoted by the news report stated that Toor was accused of  indulging in “propaganda against Pakistan and its institutions on social media for long”. However, “The Lahore High Court absolved him of the charges after the FIA police told the court that no evidence was found to support the charges,” reported the Dawn.

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Pakistan’s bombers: The war of drones

Drones, machine and human, have drenched Pakistan with the blood of innocents. On the one side are US-made drones such as the MQ-1B General Dynamics Predator – a remote-controlled, self-propelled, missile-bearing aerial system. On the other side are the low-tech human drones, armed with explosive vests stuffed with ball bearings and nails.

These lethal engines of destruction, programmed by remote handlers, are very different. But neither asks why it must kill, nor cares about the death and suffering it causes.

On January 13, 2006 a bevy of MQ-1Bs hovering over Damadola launched a barrage of 10 Hellfire missiles at the village below. They blew up 18 local people, including five women and five children. Such cold statistics say nothing about the smashed lives of the survivors or the grief of the bereaved. The blame was put on faulty local intelligence.

Then, on October 30, 2006 a Hellfire missile hit a madrassa in Bajaur, killing between 80-85 people, mostly students. Even if those killed were allegedly training to become al-Qaeda militants, and even if a few key al-Qaeda leaders such as Abu Laith al-Libi have been eliminated, the more usual outcome has been flattened houses, dead and maimed children and a growing local population that seeks revenge against Pakistan and the US.

The human drone has left a far bloodier trail across Pakistani cities.

From six suicide attacks in 2006, the tally went up to 62 in 2007. According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, at least 1,523 civilians were killed in terror-related violence in 2007 and more than twice that number injured. The average is now more than one per week – the last week (early March) saw three in a row. Those praying in mosques, imambaras or at funerals have been no safer than others at political rallies or while crossing a road.

It is possible to imagine how an American soldier or CIA operative controlling a Predator drone can distance himself from the death and destruction it causes in a remote country on the other side of the world that they imagine is full of enemies. For them it is a job and a way to defend their country. What is harder to understand is how the Pakistani suicide bomber can kill people who are so close to him in so many ways.

A spine-chilling suicide bomber training video, one of the several videos that freely circulate in Pakistan’s tribal areas, offers the beginning of an explanation. About 30 masked fighters are filmed in this video, speaking a language that is not any of Pakistan’s regional languages, Arabic or Persian. They are training in some barren mountainous area.

One fighter, randomly selected by their leader, proceeds to climb a huge rock, perhaps 100 feet high. He reaches the highest point and then stands motionless. His arms are outstretched as though on a diving board. On a signal from the leader below, without hesitation and without closing his eyes, he hurls himself into the void.

The camera cuts to the body lying on blood-soaked ground. It slowly pans over the faces of the other masked fighters. Their eyes betray no emotion. A second signal from the leader and they trot, military-style, to the body, dig a shallow grave, toss their dead comrade into it and cover it up.

Then, amazingly, they march over the grave several times, chanting Koranic verses. This is astonishing because to trample a grave is the ultimate mark of disrespect in a Muslim culture.

Why sacrifice a human life for a few minutes of footage? English subtitles reveal that this is obviously a propaganda video. Its message: the group’s fighters have overcome the fear of death and have willingly surrendered their lives to the group leader, and their individual powers to reason and decide.

As troubling as the murders is the response of Pakistanis. While the murder of innocents by the MQ-1B has rightly led to condemnation in Pakistan, the even greater carnage by suicide bombers has provoked less criticism. Some editorials, mostly in English language newspapers, have been forthright. But there are few full-throated denunciations to be found in Urdu newspapers.

Why do so many Pakistanis who should know better suddenly lose their voice when it comes to condemning suicide bombings? Is it because the bomber kills in the name of Islam? Are people muted in their criticism lest they be regarded as irreligious or even blasphemous? Or is the silence political?

On the other hand, implicit justifications abound. In January 2008, 30 leading Deobandi religious scholars, while declaring suicide attacks ‘haram’, rationalised these as a reaction to the government’s misguided polices in the tribal areas. They concluded that "a peaceful demand for implementing Shariah was not only rejected but the government was also not willing to give ear to any reasoning based on the Koran and Sunnah in support of the Shariah demand. Apparently, these circumstances led some minds to the frustration that manifested itself in suicide attacks."

What are these ulema telling us? That we should adopt the Shariah to avoid being attacked? This amounts to encouragement and incitement, not condemnation of the suicide bombers’ actions. But even civil society activists, who have bravely protested against the dismissal of the chief justice by General Musharraf, have not held any street protests against these ghastly crimes.

Why do so many Pakistanis who should know better suddenly lose their voice when it comes to condemning suicide bombings? Is it because the bomber kills in the name of Islam? Are people muted in their criticism lest they be regarded as irreligious or even blasphemous?

Or is the silence political? Many choose to believe that the suicide bomber is a consequence of Pakistan’s acquiescence to being America’s junior partner in its war against terror. Conversely, there is a widespread opinion that suicide attacks will disappear if Pakistan dissociates itself from this war. But few admit the brutal fact that even if America retreats or an elected government calls off the army, the
terror of jihadism will remain.

It is true that suicide bombings were a rarity in Pakistan until the army acted against Islamic militants in the tribal areas on US prodding. Army action against the Lal Masjid militants was another turning point. But the majority of today’s dead and wounded are perfectly ordinary people. Many were pious Muslims and some were killed in the act of prayer. They had absolutely nothing to do with American or Pakistani forces.

Even with evidence staring them in the face, most Pakistanis seem locked into a state of denial. They refuse to accept the obvious fact that more and more mullahs have created cults around themselves and exercise control over the lives of worshippers. An enabling environment of poverty, deprivation, lack of justice and extreme differences of wealth is perfect for demagogues.

As the mullah’s indoctrination gains strength, the power to reason weakens. The world of the follower becomes increasingly divided into absolute good and absolute evil. Doubt is replaced by certainty, moral sensibilities are blunted. Reduced to a mere instrument for murder, the bomber-to-be is left with no room for useless things such as judgement, doubt or conscience. As other human beings become mere objects rather than people deserving of love and compassion, the metamorphosis from human to drone becomes complete.

The last thoughts of a suicide bomber cannot be known but remorse or doubt is unlikely. There is no lower depth to which humans can fall to.

Except, perhaps, those who control them – and towards whom we still dare not point a finger at.

Courtesy: Dawn; www.dawn.com
 

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Classical music is standing on its last legs in Pakistan. The sarangi and vichitra veena are dead. There is only one sarod  player in the entire country, Asad Qizilbash. Tari Khan is the only tabla player who can play a complex rhythmic cycle. Ashraf Sharif Khan Poonchwale is the only sitar player who can rub shoulders with sitar players of international repute.

The saddest aspect is that none of these artistes has a successor and their art will be buried with them. Vocal music is also in shambles. The progeny of Fateh Ali Khan and Salamat Ali Khan have been a great disappointment to their gharanas. Thus, the gaiki (style) of Patiala and Sham Chaurasi is literally dead. Ghazal and thumri are also on the deathbed, ever since the incapacitation of Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Farida Khanum and Iqbal Bano due to age.

Pakistan inherited classical music, like other assets, at the time of partition but did nothing for its development. It was unable to retain even a genius like Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. Bureaucratic arrogance forced him to surrender Pakistani nationality and settle in India where he was revered like another Tansen. Ustad Alla Rakha received much the same treatment as Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. His greatest contribution to the world of music is his son, Ustad Zakir Hussain, who is regarded as the tabla player of the century. Alla Rakha could never have made this contribution had he lived in Pakistan.

Some 20 years ago, a great Indian sitar player, Rais Khan became a Pakistani national after marrying our Bilquis Khanum. Neither the music institutions nor the artistes in Pakistan bothered to benefit from this opportunity. He was given the same treatment as Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and as a result his music never witnessed further progress. Rais Khan, by becoming a Pakistani national, deprived his son Farhan of the vast exposure he could have had in India. His son can never be a good sitar player while he lives in Pakistan.

The mindset of musicians has also caused colossal damage to music in Pakistan. Pakistani musicians deliberately kept their art secret and made no efforts to pass it on to coming generations. A friend, Hassan Azad, a mathematician and a student of sitar, was always curious about the secret behind the systematic expansion of ragas. No Pakistani musician was willing to share this knowledge with him. It took Hassan 45 years to learn the secret after he was able to instantly notate the music composed by stalwarts such as Ustad Fayyaz Ahmed Khan, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan, Ustad Inayat Khan, Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Shahid Parvez. (See Hassan’s work at http://faculty.kfupm.edu.sa/ math/hassanaz/essays-music.htm.)

Musicians like Ustad Amir Khan, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and Roshan Ara Begum never vocalised their bandish (compositions) clearly. All their music was in aakaar (improvisations that involve using vowels alone). Perhaps that is why classical music could never attract a lay audience. Moreover, not a single musician documented the music of his gharana. As a result, their gharana gaiki passed away with their death.

Pakistani musicians have been extremely miserly about teaching music – even to their own sons and daughters – so that no one could overshadow them. A well-known tabla player from Lahore who is given to challenging everyone has recently been challenged by his own son! Music is not impossible to learn but the attitude of musicians has made it so. When one hears from an ustad (teacher or master) that it took him 20 years to perfect the first note, sa, who would want to learn music? And if at all one still persisted, musicians employ other deterrent tactics. They start fleecing you in the name of gunda-bandi and nazar (tutelage and gifts). A friend, Nazir Khan says he spent about one million rupees on a well-known Rawalpindi musician to teach his son tabla and classical vocal music. The musician literally ‘robbed’ Nazir Khan for eight years to teach Khan’s son what he could have learnt from an attai (non-gharana musician) in three months.

Naqi Khan, grandson of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, wanted me to become his gunda-band shagird (committed disciple) before he answered my question pertaining to voice culture. On the other hand, a leading sitar player from India, Ustad Shahid Parvez had no reservations about giving me the right tips on the telephone! He was in fact magnanimous enough to teach me a 13-beat rhythmic cycle that he had himself composed and which had been played by Vijay Ghate in one of his recordings of raga Rageshri.

I asked Tari Khan, who is also a good friend, what the first lesson he had learnt from his guru had been. "I don’t remember," he said, thinking I might benefit from his reply. That is the mindset of Pakistani musicians. The result is that classical music is declining in Pakistan and thriving in India.

Archived from Communalism Combat, August-September 2007, Anniversary Issue (14th), Year 14    No.125, India at 60 Free Spaces, Pakistan 2

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