I’ve spent the past two weeks trolling around and about Islamabad, publicly declaring my dislike for the city. Just when I was about to give up on ever finding common ground with the Capital, I was asked to meet a few people in Wah. Now, I’d never been there before, and the only image of Wah in my head was that of a garrison town, populated either with boots or people favoured by boots. Aslam saheb, however, changed my mind forever.
This 63-year-old bloody civilian has spent the past several decades crusading against corruption within the ranks of the armed forces. His most recent battle is against a certain General who headed a certain operation in Balochistan in August 2006. General saheb wants to use his ‘discretionary’ powers to hand over a piece of very valuable real estate to a crony. Aslam saheb is having none of it. When ‘talks’ didn’t work, Aslam sought help from the legal justice system. The courts surprisingly did not disappoint, as evidenced by a stay order that the petitioner proudly showed me.
This, like I’ve said earlier, is not Aslam’s first battle; it is merely the latest. During a similar ‘skirmish’ a few years ago, he ended up being shot six times in the torso. A bullet went through his heart, several pierced his lungs, another tore a hole in his jugular vein and the muscles of his right fore-arm. Doctors offered little hope, but given that it was Aslam saheb, a man they adored as well, they decided to give it a shot. Surgeries were conducted through the night in a blood-drenched operation theatre. “They’d keep giving him bottles of blood to keep his heart going, and it would keep gushing out of his jugular vein,” his friends explained. Word spread about the attack, and people rushed to the hospital. “There were people everywhere! In the corridors, in the rooms, in the waiting areas — it was like a sea.”
Forty eight bottles of blood were needed, along with 10 packs of plasma. Well-wishers lined up to donate blood. Police officers, clerics, teachers, pushcart vendors begged the doctors to ‘allow [them] to serve Aslam saheb’. Eventually they got so much blood — despite the immense demand — that people were actually turned away. But they did not leave. The surgeries were over, and doctors said that even if Aslam saheb lived, the right side of his body would be permanently paralysed. But Aslam saheb wasn’t giving up so easily. He lived, and recovered completely. No paralysis, no complications, only marks that he now displays proudly like trophies from a battle well-fought and justifiably won. The only thing that the attack did was display the immense affection that people had for him.
This is the Wah that I discovered earlier this week: a quiet little city where clerics line up to save the life of a pastor accused of blasphemy; where during anti-Ahmadi riots some decades ago, friends moved into Ahmadi friends’ houses and dared anyone to attack them; where people such as Aslam saheb have worked tirelessly to erode the effects of sectarian hatred bred by groups with no interest in the welfare of the people. In the city that was once rent asunder by periodic Shia-Sunni conflict, the two communities now march together during Muharram. Here, people dare to stand up for their rights; and people like Aslam saheb stand up to those whom even our politicians in power dare not question. Aslam saheb is not ‘rich’ by any stretch of the imagination; he does not come from an ‘influential’ family. But he has support — from people on behalf of whom he fights. People whose battles he takes as his own. Those were the people who lined up to try and save his life when there was no hope of him making it through to the other side.
All of this begs the question: if someone like Aslam saheb can take such principled stands, what is stopping people whom we elected from doing the same? Is clinging to power willy-nilly the sole purpose of democracy? And is that really more important than the welfare of the electorate?
On a side-note, I’m curious: which political party was General Ashfaque Pervaiz Kayani representing during the recent All-Parties Conference?
The writer is a freelance journalist based in Karachi. She can be reached via Twitter (@UroojZia) or email (contact AT uroojzia.com).