South Asia Citizens Web

By going to town as the Chhattisgarh police and media have recently done on my alleged Maoist links, the real questions have been sidelined. As citizens of this country, do we have the right to protest democratically and constitutionally, and as journalists, researchers or human rights activists, are we free to pursue our vocation?

Recently, an editor in Karachi told the well known defence and policy analyst Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa “not to bother writing anymore about the Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or any other militant outfit, religious party or even the cricketer-turned-politician’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI).” She was told not to even mention TTP and affiliated organisations.

Under the 1973 constitution, the offices of president and prime minister were reserved for Muslim citizens of Pakistan. Therefore, the attempt was to exclude Ahmedis from the highest offices in the state

People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) is greatly concerned and strongly condemns the attempt of the Chhattisgarh government to somehow implicate noted Sociologist Prof. Nandini Sundar, Head of Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics and others associated with her for alleged links with banned Maoists in Chhattisgarh.

All distinctions notwithstanding, this is where the common trajectories of modern history show themselves. A large segment of our official elites, businessmen, opinion-makers and middle classes are accustomed to the view that some amount of bloodletting is inevitable in politics, a few thousand corpses and sundry riots and "encounters" are an acceptable cost in return for the fantasy of progress, prosperity and stability. Market fundamentalists decided long ago that untrammelled capitalism is good for humanity. That it is a fantasy does not matter — fantasies are meant to deflect our minds from intolerable reality. State power is now infused in criminality; with a brazenly partisan media playing drummer-boy, its fascination with petty crime in contrast to its silence on crime in high places.