Daily Times

“Dear Zia-ud-Din sb,

Assalam-o-Aliakum

You know that I have always had high regards for you both on account of your professional and personal qualities. If I go further and say that in many ways you are a role-model and an inspiration for the people in your profession it will not be an exaggeration. However these qualities notwithstanding, over the years I always had a problem with your self-righteous approach and occasionally for not bothering to understand and absorb the other person’s point of view. Your article in Daily Times dated 19 May 2017 is a case in point.

“For one, it is factually incorrect insofar as I don’t hold weekly press conferences and you can check that from the record. Secondly, I have no ill-conceived notions of my ‘honesty’ or a “human being without a single human fault”. Please quote at least a few examples as to where I have said that. The speech under reference in your article was made in the heart of my rural constituency and, yes, in the highly competitive and ‘cut-throat’ field ofelectoral politics one does ‘market’ one-self in the public mind occasionally in relation to one’s political opponents in the constituency. It is done all over the world. What is wrong with that?

“One must not intentionally confuse the concept of accountability with unnecessary criticism or character-assassination. Any such willful attempt would amount to intellectual dishonesty”

“If I said I have never changed my party affiliation in my entire political career (in spite of being offered huge political incentives), if I have said that I speak what I believe to be the truth in front of even my own party’s leadership, and if I say I have always espoused Islamic and national causes, what is wrong with that?

“However, what is particularly mind-boggling for me is that in your single-minded inclination to criticize everything about me and of me, you have gone to the extent of putting words in my mouth. Nowhere in my speech did I equate secularism with atheism. I clearly categorized them as two separate entities — but with a common agenda of attacking my political views.

“In my thirty years plus of being in politics I have never hidden the fact that I stand consistently on the right of centre of Pakistani political divide.

“No matter how some sections might take it but I feel it my religious and national obligation, as a Muslim, a Pakistani and as a politician, to defend and espouse the cause of Islam and the motherland on every platform especially where the message of Islam and Pakistan is being distorted and misrepresented.

“You have referred to some excerpts of the famous speech of Quaid-i-Azam but we must not forget the overall context and the circumstances of this speech and also that the entire struggle of our Quaid revolved around protection of the basic identity and cultural values of the Muslim community in the then united India. It is unfortunate that misquoting the speeches of the Quaid to corroborate their own point of view has become a fashion by so-called ‘intellectuals’ and for those who in their self-righteous approach don’t feel any qualms in considering themselves an authority on Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

“As far as the accountability of any organization is concerned, my past political record and public stance, as an Opposition leader, as Chairman of Public Accounts Committee and as a politician, is matter of record. But one must not intentionally confuse the concept of accountability with unnecessary criticism or character-assassination. Any such willful attempt would amount to intellectual dishonesty. Secondly if a person of your stature and caliber is unable to differentiate between accountability of any institution for its policies and the vicious campaigns that are launched these days on social media under the garb of freedom of expression, I would only blame the overall degeneration which unfortunately has permeated deep into our society and which is not inclined to seeing beyond its nose.

Yours sincerely, Ch Nisar Ali Khan (signed)”

This letter should have been published in these columns latest by 2nd June, 2017. Following is my explanation why it was not.

The letter (Rejoinder to my column: Nisar’s undergraduate blusters) was received on my WhatsApp account on May 29, 2017 at 4.02PM.

After going through the letter I felt it deserved publication but needed Chaudhary sahab’s prior permission to make it public.

So I sent the following message (on May 30, 2017 at 1:28PM) to Mr. Sarfraz Hussain, Director Media to the Interior Minister, the person who had WhatsApped the Minister’s letter to me: “Sarfraz. I think this private letter in response to my public column merits being made public. But I need Nisar sahab’s permission to use it in my next column for Daily Times, just as it is without any comments from me or the editors. Looking forward to a quick response. Rest assured I will not use it if there is no response. Regards.”

His answer (received at 3.57 PM, the same day): “Sir Salam. I will get back tomorrow IA.”

But he came back immediately at 4:21 PM the same day with the message: “We have no objection if you want to publish it.”Because of a genuine mix-up (the lapse is entirely mine) I read this message much later on August 7, 2017 to be precise when I received another rejoinder from the Minister for another of my column.

Since Sarfraz had said he would come back ‘tomorrow’ I did not bother to check my WhatsApp for his message until the next day and by the time I did the 4.21PM message of May 30 had got buried under messages that reached my account later in the day.

And I kept looking for the response the whole day on 31 May, 2017 and finding no response I concluded that perhaps Khan Sahib did not want his letter to be published and forgot all about it.

Since Khan Sahib’s second rejoinder (For my column: Nisar, the enigma political)forwarded to me on 7 August 2017 by Daily Times Resident Editor is addressed to the Editor of the newspaper, it is up to him to take a decision on the matter. I have no objection to its publication.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad. He served as the Executive Editor of Express Tribune until 2014

Published in Daily Times, August 25^th 2017.