Daily Times

The shock and horror at the death of Sabeen Mahmud is not fading even days into the horrible incident. What is terrifying about the incident is the fact that she got killed right after hosting a talk on the issue of Balochistan. It is the timing of this assassination that makes it so terrifying. Many, at home and abroad, pointed fingers at the country’s security establishment or elements within for the assassination. Some called it an act of enemies to sabotage Pak-China cooperation, which centres on Balochistan. And then there is evidence that Sabeen was receiving death threats from sectarian and extremist organisations for bold discussions at The Second Floor (T2F) on issues related to minority rights and religious intolerance. She was also instrumental in organising anti-extremism protests in the aftermath of the Army Public School massacre. All said, for now, we cannot say for sure who killed Sabeen. Sabeen Mahmud’s assassination, in all its tragedy and horror, calls for the asking of a few key questions, questions that are linked to our peace, harmony and existence.
First off: are we fine with the worth of human life and level of violence in our country? Is it okay to live in a country where sanctity of life is close to nothing and anyone at any moment can take the law into one’s own hands and kill someone for showing dissent from what is the norm? Can our state survive this disregard for law and life? This disregard for law and human life is equally prevalent within the state apparatus and outside. How else can one explain the assassination of Salmaan Taseer at the hands of his own police guard and people holding positions in the country’s highest courts defending the act? The question is not whether Salmaan Taseer committed blasphemy or not or whether he should have been punished or not; the question is: when did the state become weak enough for a state employee to take the law into his own hands and others in more prominent positions coming to defend his actions? And with that precedent set, how unlikely will it be that some employee of some law enforcement/security agency decides on his own that the actions of any Tom, Dick or Harry are against the interests of the state or are damaging to the interests of the religion or social order, and thus should be taken out? In the name of religiosity and patriotism, this state has created a monster that becomes a pretext for anyone to take the law into his own hands and be a vigilante. And if vigilantism keeps growing at such rapid a pace outside the ambit of the state’s legal and constitutional structure, you do not need to be a sage to predict the collapse of the state.
Linked to the first issue is the other issue of tolerating dissent. This overzealous religiosity and patriotism has left our society unable to deal with dissent except through silencing it. That the state’s security apparatus is jittery about talk on human rights in Balochistan is a no brainer. Many a journalist and rights group have raised the issue of intimidation for giving space to activists like Mama Qadeer and highlighting human rights issues in the country, particularly Balochistan. During last week itself, Altaf Hussain, the leader of the country’s fourth largest political force, said that he has to prove his patriotism time and again despite being a political force in the country because he does not conform to the establishment on every issue. Not only that, last week saw a typical knee-jerk, patriotism-soaked reaction to an op-ed piece that Hussain Haqqani contributed to The Wall Street Journal. For one, it is a failure of the established order if a major political force in the country is questioned for his patriotism. And just when one can refute Haqqani’s claims on merit through argumentation, resorting to patriotism rhetoric proves the lack of critical thinking on the part of state and society. When the state shows heavy-handedness in matters of dissent, it has two obvious consequences. First, it weakens the ideological narrative of the state because a strong ideological narrative can always be defended based on reasoning. Second, it incentivises people to take the law into their own hands, starting with the pretext of patriotism or religiosity, in our case, but leading to matters far more trivial. And both of these bode ill for the survival of the state.
The second set of questions deals with Balochistan. What is our ideological narrative on Balochistan? Do we have one? Do we even understand what the fundamental issue of Balochistan is or will we hush it up with usual military solutions that have been tried and have failed time and again? And if at some stage it comes to settling the issue through greater autonomy for the Baloch, how will the state sell it to the rest of the country without the necessary narrative groundwork?
We are approaching 70 years as a state. We ought to be mature now. Wiser, mature states do not need to hide behind patriotism for survival and security. The strength of the state should emerge from tolerating dissent and ensuring enforcement of law through the defined mechanism. Adult supervision can protect children despite their childish behaviour but no amount of adult supervision can protect an adult who is bent on acting childish.

The author can be reached on twitter at @aalimalik