When Will Sindh 's Night of Sorrow End?
MY heart is not in it today. Not after what has happened in Hyderabad and Karachi . How can man do this to man? How, how, how? I ask you.
And for how long can I take it? For how long can the country take it? Begum Bhutto says the Indians are behind it. Like the Indians say Pakistan is behind it in Kashmir and East Punjab . Put the blame on me, boys, and go home and sleep, the sleep of the innocent and the just.
No, sirs. The Indians may or may not be behind the Hyderabad holocaust and the Karachi carnage, but the entire political leadership is behind it. The Press , especially the Urdu Press, is behind it. Not one political party has shown the will to discipline its rank and file. We have no political party. We have political mobs. Leaders do not lead. They are being led by circumstances.
No one has vision. No one has wisdom. Everyone in authority is for himself and his plots of land, sugar plants, cement factories, permits, and parchis. These are the games we play, and who the hell is bothered about Hyderabad ?
A newspaper picture shows a distraught old woman being consoled by an army officer in Hyderabad . A big bold caption on top of the picture says: WELCOME TO ARMY. The betrayal of secret desire? If the army comes to Hyderabad, can it be far behind elsewhere? Are all political parties working for the re-imposition of martial law? Have we all forgotten 1958, 1971, and 1977?
Friends in the People's (sic) Party say that the IJI is working overnight for a return to military rule. There is truth in the charge, let us say, for the sake of argument. In that case then, I would say that the IJI is being nobly aided and abetted by the PPP itself.
The way things have been going on in Singh ; I would say there is no PPP Government in that unfortunate province. I would go one-step further and say that there is no PPP in Sindh . On paper, the party has a brute majority in the Sindh Assembly. In reality, the Party is non-existent in Karachi , Hyderabad and in the interior of the province. Had this not been so, violence of that scale we have seen recently in Hyderabad and Karachi would not have taken place.
Let me give you an example here. It was in 1946. The place was the Lahore Railway Station , the Quaid -e-Azam had arrived, and there was a milling crowed around his saloon, in the platform, and outside the Railway Station.
One of my uncles, who had gone to the Railway Station to have a glimpse of the Quaid , tells me that there was no way he could get out of the train. The Quaid stood at the door of his compartment, waiting for the crowd to give room. When it continued to surge forward, he made a brief speech in Urdu : "People of the Punjab , I know you love me greatly. Love me by all means but don't break my ribs. Make way so that I can leave."
Recalls my uncle: These words worked a miracle. As if by magic, a four-feet lane was created. The Quaid got down and walked calmly through the corridor, walled on either side by a massive crowd, refusing all requests to shake hands.
The Quaid was in command. He was not being led by a mob. Here the situation is different, a friend tells me that at one of the recent rallies of the Mohtarima, even Governor Tikka Khan could not get on to the dais.
Again, when the Quaid was mobbed by reporters seeking his views on the Punjab situation, he dismissed them curtly. "I have only just arrived. How can I give you an assessment of the situation unless I have met the Punjab leadership of the Muslim League?"
Not only this. The Quaid used the Press of the party platform when absolutely necessary. He never jumped the gun like the PPP , IJI , COP, and other leaders do day in and day out.
Time is running out, gentlemen. Sindh is burning even as you stoke political, ethnic, lingual, and sectarian fires to stay on in power or to grab it.
When will the long night of sorrow end in Sindh ? Are these the last day of Pompeii? Why must I die a thousand deaths every day? Like Mirza said:
Mujey kya bura tha marna agar aik bar hota
Friday, June 1, 1990
