Author Archives: Maham Javaid

Tapping into evidence

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A day after President Asif Ali Zardari signed the Investigation for Fair Trial Act into statute books on February 20, he told a delegation of the US Senate’s Committee on Foreign Relations that the Act would help in quick and effective prosecution of terror suspects. The law regularises, legalises and makes admissible in the court of law evidence collected by modern techniques, including audio and video recordings, still photography, documents, papers, emails, text messages and phone call records among other things. It will work on two levels: it seeks to make judicial proceedings fairer by granting law-enforcement agencies the means through which they can collect evidence in a timely and lawful manner; and it keeps a check on the arbitrary powers of surveillance that intelligence agencies have been abusing and misusing.

The debate regarding the Investigation for Fair Trial Act has centred on the constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy versus the rising threat of crime and insecurity. Here, the Herald steps beyond these two points to explore how the law has come about and whether it will be effective in achieving its stated goals.

“The Act is aimed at tackling terrorism.”
YES, WITH SOME RESERVATIONS

Members of parliament have hailed the Act as a major step in Pakistan’s fight against terrorism. Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has hailed the law as a demonstration of Pakistan’s resolve against terrorism whereas a jubilant member of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz (PMLN) says that “the need of the hour is to prevent terrorism”. But the law itself states that its objectives are to “prevent the threat or any attempt, to carry out scheduled offences” and it goes on to list five scheduled offences which include offences under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and offences under the Prevention of Anti-National Activities Act, 1974, among others.

The difference in the perception of the law and its stated intent has led some opposition politicians, such as PMLN’s Anusha Rehman, to claim that its application should have been limited to only those suspected of terrorism. Sana Saleem, an executive director of Bolo Bhi, an advocacy, research and policy organisation, has a similar view: “The law should only be restricted to terror suspects,” she says, otherwise, the phone tapping and electronic eavesdropping mandated by law could endanger the fundamental rights of all citizens.

But Tasneem M Noorani, a former federal interior secretary, believes that terrorism is not the only crime which needs to be checked. “There are many offences which are heinous but do not fall under terrorism and need to be curbed,” he tells the Herald and explains that the offences listed in the Act are all, in some way or form, related to terrorism. “All the offences the law has listed make sense because they are interconnected: prohibiting private armies, banning anti-national activities and disposing off arms are all means to curb terrorism,” he says.

President Asif Ali Zardari signed the Investigation for Fair Trial Act into law on February 20

President Asif Ali Zardari signed the Investigation for Fair Trial Act into law on February 20

“The unanimous and speedy passage of the Act is an example of responsible legislation.”
ON THE SURFACE, YES

When the Act was first presented in the National Assembly, Leader of Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, a PMLN legislator, was quick to declare it a “black law”. Even the ruling coalition partner, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), had some reservations. The party’s legislators, in particular, appeared to express the concern that security and intelligence agencies could misuse the law for political victimisation, especially since the Act fails to define the words ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorist’ in narrow terms. The bill was eventually passed into law by the National Assembly after multiple amendments. “We inserted many changes and now the law seems more transparent,” says Rehman.
One amendment which the PMLN claims credit for is the elimination of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) from the list of organisations empowered to obtain warrants for intercepting communications. “In the first draft [of the Act], 16 agencies had the authority; after the amendments, only six agencies do,” says Noorani. Authorised agencies now comprise the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Intelligence Bureau, the three military intelligence agencies and the police. The FIA was knocked off the list because it is “not necessarily a forefront agency for crime control,” says Noorani.

The amendments that transformed the “black law” to a seemingly bearable law include provisions for punishing agency personnel who misuse the authority that the Act invests in them. Punishment could go up to five years of imprisonment or a fine of 10 million rupees or both. While the opposition legislators can claim that they were able to get the government to accept as many as 32 amendments to the Act, some of them are still worried that the new law can be misused. “ Even after our amendments … this law must be used with care and consideration,” says Rehman.

Not everyone, however, believes that all the amendments sponsored by the opposition are good. “I don’t see how reduction in the period of issuance of warrants [from 180 days, originally, to 60 days] is an achievement because there is still a clause for renewal of the warrant, and there is no limit to the number of renewals an officer can seek,” says technology rights activist and lawyer, Nighat Dad. Barrister Zafarullah Khan, a Supreme Court lawyer and head of his own Watan Party, continues to describe the Act as a blatant violation of privacy rights.

With so many reservations about the Act, how was it passed without a single ‘no’ in the final voice vote in the National Assembly? According to a PMLN legislator, who chooses to remain anonymous: “We were told by the government that the law must be passed as quickly as possible. They [the government] said that terrorists were slipping through its fingers and it needed this law to convict them.” This may also explain why the ruling party accepted amendments by other parties, including the opposition, in almost no time.

“The process of gaining a warrant to intercept communications is designed to prevent misuse.”
NOT TRUE

In order to obtain a warrant of surveillance, an applicant from the authorised agency must go through a number of procedures. The first is that the personnel of that agency must first notify an officer of grade 20 or above in their own department of their suspicions regarding a possible terror suspect. If the authorising officer deems the preliminary evidence strong enough to warrant interception, he will forward a written application to the interior minister. Once the interior minister’s permission has been obtained, the officer may apply to a High Court judge for a warrant; if the judge is convinced that there is a reasonable possibility of the suspect attempting a scheduled offence, he will issue a warrant in his chambers, in the presence of the officer.

Some experts regard the process long-winded but others see it as being helpful in preventing the arbitrary application of surveillance powers. “Approval from the interior ministry is asking for too much. It is one of the slowest ministries in the country, and there will be months of delay,” says one security analyst who does not wish to disclose his name. Saroop Ijaz, lawyer and human rights activist, views the situation differently. “The process is not too tedious; it is careful and the fact that there is a judge involved is the saving grace of this law.”

There is, however, a snag in the process — the interim warrant. “The interim warrant can be issued if there is a time constraint and a reasonable threat of an offence,” says Ijaz. It becomes applicable when the agency personnel believe that no time can be wasted in meeting judges; they can begin surveillance of the suspect, after which they are granted seven days in which to make their case to the judge.

Barrister Khan criticises the interim warrant on the grounds that it would be too easy to misuse it. “When an officer arrests someone without a warrant, they only have 24 hours to present their case to the judge. Why does the interim warrant [under the Act] allow seven days?”

Ijaz is also critical of the interim warrant but adds some qualifications. “It is unacceptable in principle”, but, “in dire situations, when agency personnel believe that a bomb may go off and kill people and time is of the essence, foregoing a regular warrant may be understandable,” he says. But he cautions: “If you allow these exceptions, you put yourself on a very slippery slope.”

Apparently, the government has tried to institute checks and balances in the surveillance process but many loopholes in the law still remain which may allow its abuse and misuse.

“The Investigation for Fair Trial Act is fair, because it is based
on western models.”
BARELY APPLICABLE

One of the government’s main justifications for proposing the Investigation for Fair Trial Act was that existing laws didn’t adequately provide for, and regulate the use of, advanced investigative technology. Frequent examples of the use of comparable techniques and procedures employed by countries such as the US, UK and India – especially in the wake of 9/11 – were quoted by lawmakers to make their point. And there is a lot of debate about the extent to which the Pakistani law is modeled on the UK’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).

Manzar Zaidi, a security analyst, says that there are some major and fundamental differences between the two laws. For one, Zaidi points out in an article published in daily Dawn, on February 19, information obtained through the interception of communications is not admissible as evidence in court in the UK whereas, in the case of Pakistan, allowing such evidence to be admissible in court is the primary purpose behind the passage of the law.

Secondly, Zaidi explains, the power to issue warrants is used sparingly in the UK. Rehman of PMLN echoes his view, saying that in the last four years only 4,000 surveillance warrants have been issued in the UK. Pakistani experts have little confidence that local intelligence agencies will use the law in a sparing manner. As Ijaz says, “Historically, our agencies have been known not to use information in the noblest of ways.”

Another important distinction between the Pakistani and British laws, as pointed out by Zaidi, is that the courts in the latter case are not involved in obtaining warrants, while both courts and the interior ministry are involved in the former case. The biggest and most important difference, however, is that there is no concept of an interim warrant in the British law.

Not everyone, though, believes that a departure from the British template is necessarily a negative thing. Babar Sattar, a High Court lawyer based in Islamabad, believes it is a mistake for lawmakers to ignore a country’s political and cultural environment. He also says the UK’s intelligence agencies, in contrast to those in Pakistan, are structured in a way that makes laws difficult to misuse. “There are so many basic differences in the way our countries work. For example, in the West, powers were given and taken as and when the security situation demands but in Pakistan, once you delegate authority to security agencies it is almost impossible to claim it back.”

Farooq H Naek, the federal law minister, highlighted key features of the recently passed act to Dr Cyrill Jean Nunn, the German ambassador to Pakistan, on February 8

Farooq H Naek, the federal law minister, highlighted key features of the recently passed act to Dr Cyrill Jean Nunn, the German ambassador to Pakistan, on February 8

“The Act will be effective in combating terrorism by increasing the possibility
of prosecution.”
NOT ON ITS OWN

Although there are no officially verifiable figures for the conviction rate in terrorism cases, there is general agreement that the numbers are dismally low. “Currently, we have one per cent conviction rate in terrorism cases,” says Noorani.

People such as Zaidi take the view that allowing more types of evidence to become admissible may actually reduce the number of convictions even further, given that it could increase the length and complexity of trials. Others see it entirely differently. “As long as traditional evidence is not overlooked in lieu of this law, the system is safe and may even improve,” says Supreme Court lawyer Salman Akram Raja. Noorani is even more optimistic: “The admissibility of this type of evidence in court can only strengthen the process of prosecution,” he says and adds, “If the investigator is honest, this law has a chance.” Opposition politicians also agree. “If the law is not misused, it could affect the status quo in a positive way,” says Rehman.

However, others, say that the law in itself is not the solution. “This law is not the correct solution. It should not be used as a substitute for a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy,” says Ijaz. “It’s true that this evidence could prove to be the missing X factor needed to prosecute criminals, but the real, long-term solution lies in empowering the police and empowering the National Counter Terrorism Authority,” he adds.

“There are better ways to catch terrorists,” says Barrister Khan. “This Act is regressive, taking us back in time because it violates the Constitution.” What is more important is that lawyers train the police in how to gather evidence. If prosecutors and the police work together, there would be no need for such stringent laws, he says.

Banwidth

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Pakistan’s ban on YouTube has now entered its third month and is showing no signs of desisting. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) blocked the website under orders from Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf “in order to ensure that Pakistan’s religious sentiments were not hurt.”

The PTA shut down YouTube on September 17, 2012, three days after nationwide riots began against an anti-Islam video on the website. The riots took 26 lives, injured over 200 people and caused 76 billion rupees worth of economic loss.

Here the Herald takes a look at the dilemma faced by YouTube: on the one hand, the government will not allow it to be resumed unless the contentious video is removed; on the other, Google (which owns YouTube) has stated that removing the video is against its policy.

First, there was only a trailer

It all began when a 14-minute trailer for an anti-Islam film, Innocence of Muslims, was uploaded on YouTube in the first week of September; a few days later violent protests broke out across the Muslim world. In Libya, armed protesters stormed the American consulate in Benghazi and killed four members of staff, including the American ambassador. Google immediately blocked access to the video in Libya and neighbouring Egypt, which was also witnessing huge protests against the video.

As violence started erupting in Pakistan, the government wrote to Facebook and Google to remove the video from the Internet — or at least from Pakistani servers. Facebook complied within 24 hours; Google did not respond. This prompted the government to slap a blanket ban on YouTube.

Many believe that the government should have engaged better with Google on the issue. “The [YouTube] ban does not mean much to Google, but it affects Pakistani internet users very deeply so it is our [government’s] job to convince Google [to remove the video],” says Shahzad Ahmad, the head of Bytes for All, an organisation that monitors internet freedom.

Google does present an explanation for the selective blocking of the video, although it does not convince many. The company’s statement, issued on September 12, 2012 said, “the video … is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.” But then it added that the company has temporarily restricted access to the video in “Libya and Egypt … given the very difficult situation in both countries.”

Next came the puzzling backstories

The question, then, that many in Pakistan are asking is: why did the company not apply the same yardstick for Pakistan where protests, and resulting violence, were more deadly than in most other Muslim countries? “It boils down to no reason other than discrimination,” says a PTA official who does not wish to disclose his name. “Corporations, such as Google, only care about profits and since we accrue no profit to them, we mean nothing to them,” he adds.

Sources in the industry say that Google blocked the video in Libya and Egypt mainly in response to severe criticism from internet users in the country that is both its largest market and its base – the US – over the killing of the American officials. The company acknowledged that banning the video was an “extraordinary” step and in fact at the Seventh Internet Governance Forum in Baku, Azerbaijan its officials admitted that allowing access to the video in the politically charged Middle Eastern countries was a mistake.

What becomes confounded in such accusations and clarifications is whether it is legally possible to block a video on YouTube in Pakistan. Google can only take Pakistan’s request for blocking the video into consideration, if the country has a localised version of YouTube. Since both India and Indonesia have a local YouTube version, they were able to make the video inaccessible quickly. The reason is that a localised YouTube follows local web content laws applicable to a specific country whereas the global version follows global guidelines as practised by Google.

The company, however, has clearly failed to implement its guidelines across the board in this case. Internet users in Libya, Egypt and Pakistan all use a non-localised, global version of YouTube. Why did Google block the video in the other two countries but not in Pakistan? “If Google could break its rules for Libya and Egypt then why can’t [those] rules be bent for us?” asks an official at the Federal Ministry of Information Technology in Islamabad who does not want to be named.

A web of laws

This raises another question: why has Pakistan failed to get a localised version of YouTube, especially when anti-Islam web content has been such a recurring issue in the country since 2006?

Some industry insiders suggest that the reason behind Google’s reluctance in localising YouTube in Pakistan is political instability. “For Google, Pakistan is another Afghanistan,” says a South Asia representative of the company who prefers not to disclose his name.

When Eric Schmidt, president of Google, visited Pakistan earlier this year, he was told that Pakistan can offer the company a huge avenue for investment. The government was not off the mark in this assessment as the country has 23 million Internet users, according to the PTA. As a follow-up to his visit, a 10-person Google delegation came to Pakistan to assess the situation in September. “I could see that they were finally viewing Pakistan as a viable investment opportunity,” says Badar Khushnood, Google’s sole consultant for Pakistan. The protests against the video erupted while the delegation was still in Pakistan. “They witnessed the violence with their own eyes. I don’t think they will be back for a while,” he adds.

On the other hand, digital media agencies such as Digitz and media-buying houses such as Starcom explain that the real reason behind Google’s unwillingness to localise in the country is the fact that Pakistan’s digital media market is simply not large enough. According to Babar Anis, a former deputy group head at Starcom, Pakistan’s total advertising industry is worth 500 million US dollars but digital advertising is worth only 10 million US dollars. “If the digital advertising market is so small, why should Google bother investing in us?” he asks.

Zeeshan Sharfi, the chief executive officer of Digitz, also puts the size of the digital component at only one to two per cent of the total advertising market. This is further split between Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail and Google, he says. In turn, he adds, “YouTube receives about half of what Google gets.”

The Middle Eastern countries, in contrast, have huge digital advertisement markets. “It is 10-15 per cent [of their media industry],” says Anis. So even though they are ‘politically instable’, YouTube and Google have to pander to the diktats of the market there.

Furthermore, Pakistan also needs to streamline its myriad laws and regulations governing web content and online technologies. As things stand today, the country does not have a coherent set of cyber laws. At one end of the spectrum, there is no law covering cyber crime after the Pakistan Electronic Criminal Ordinance lapsed more than a year ago. But, on the other, there are laws which are contradictory and confusing — while one of them guarantees freedom of speech, another puts severe restrictions on it and both can be applicable to web content. Similarly, some relevant laws exist but they never get implemented. There is, for instance, a law to protect intellectual property rights but its enforcement mechanism is weak to the extent of being non-existent.

In the absence of unambiguous and enforceable cyber laws, the PTA employs Article 19 of the Constitution to decide what to ban. “There is no law for content regulation — all we know is that no video or website which is against the ‘glory of Islam’ should be allowed,” says an official at the PTA who did not prefer to disclose his name. But what exactly constitutes “glory of Islam” remains undefined.

The Ministry of Information Technology, on the other hand, does feel there is no need to explain such generic terms as “glory of Islam”. “It is quite clear what is blasphemous and what is not,” says Amir Tariq Zaman Khan, the acting secretary of the ministry and the head of the inter-ministerial committee responsible for monitoring web content.

But this inter-departmental wrangling over definitions – or lack thereof – can easily scupper the chances of technology companies allowing themselves to come under Pakistani laws. “How can we expect YouTube to localise itself [in such a situation],” says Nighat Dad, the founder of Digital Rights, an organisation which promotes internet freedom.

Myriam Boublil, head of communications and public affairs for Google Southeast Asia, clearly supports this point of view. In an email response to the Herald’s queries, she says that offering local versions of YouTube takes time because “we research laws and build relationships with local content creators. Regulatory mechanisms are another consideration. Eventually, we hope to be localised wherever regulation permits,” she adds.

There were some losers

As the case stands, with Pakistan being a miniscule Internet advertising market, Google does not lose enough money from the blockade to start worrying about it. “Google does not lose out when [Pakistan] bans one of its websites [such as YouTube],” says Ahmad. “It is the country itself which will suffer,” he says.

Google refuses to comment on the financial aspect, making it impossible to assess whether or not it is suffering because of the ban. But a host of YouTube-dependent users are losing out — niche-music bands such as Poor Rich Boy who depended on YouTube to share their songs and videos; students from Virtual University of Pakistan who used the website to watch online lectures; news websites such as Dawn.com that used YouTube to upload and share their documentaries. Regular internet users also suffer as they are unable to watch their favourite religious, political and entertainment programmes.

An advocacy poster by Bytes For All for the restoration of YouTube. Courtesy Shahzad Ahmad

And an obvious villain

Banning YouTube, however, could well be the symptom of the illness called social, political and religious censorship which manifests itself in many ways. “Already there are scores of Baloch and Sindhi nationalist websites which have been blocked under government orders,” says Dad. With the election right around the corner, the government may be tempted to ban more websites and may be using the anti-Islam video as an excuse to do just that, she says.

Ahmad also agrees. “I feel the ban on YouTube is just a taste of what we are about to experience nearer to the upcoming election when the government will crack down on social media,” he says.

When PTA officials say they are trying to “find a permanent technical solution” to block “blasphemous and indecent videos” activists such as Dad and Ahmad are given cause for greater worry. The authority, under orders from the Ministry of Information Technology, is developing software to monitor the uploading of content on social media forums and filter anti-Islamic content. “This is pretty much the same software as used in Iran or China,” explains a PTA official.

As in the case for these two countries, this software may also be used for filtering political content. Kamran Ali, member legal of the Ministry of Information Technology, agrees that content-filtering software is vulnerable to abuse. “Imagine, if there is an election and the ruling party [through such software] clamps down on the opposition in the virtual world ,” he thinks out aloud.

Whether such fears become a reality or not, there is no will at the official level to create a financially conducive and legally clear atmosphere for digital media. The government certainly has no incentive to allow a greater institutionalisation of web content regulation and facilitate the growth of digital media market. And without these two factors Google and YouTube will certainly feel no need to cater to the sensibilities and sensitivities of Pakistanis.

Protests in Pakistan over the anti-Islam film lasted through much of September 2012

No end in sight

When Pakistan blocked YouTube in 2008 and 2010 over similar anti-Islam videos, Google eventually threw in the towel and removed the videos. This time round, it seems the company does not have the inclination to budge, having already turned down an unprecedented request from the White House to remove the video. Perhaps this is because the company does not want to send the signal that violent objections over any real or perceived insult to any group of people can force the removal of the content, thereby compromising the freedom of speech which is at the core of phenomenal growth enjoyed by websites such as YouTube.

But the government, too, seems to be in a bind. It has to block an entire website to deny access to one single video. “Our predicament is easy to understand, we cannot allow the website to be accessed if the blasphemous video is not going to be removed and we do not have the expertise to solely remove one video,” explains Ali.

The all-rounder

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A still from the critically-acclaimed Aangan Terha; Bushra as the overbearing Bilqis Kaur; as Saima Chaudhry in Annie ki Aayegi Baraat

Striking up a conversation with Bushra Ansari is easy — she loves to talk. But she struggled with words when an American couple seated next to her on a recent long haul flight asked her how she spent her time in Pakistan. For a while, she was stumped. After some reflection, she responded: “I am an artist.” “Oh, that’s lovely! What do you like to paint?” pat came the next question. Bushra erupted into her characteristic full-throated laughter, knowing words wouldn’t do the trick this time. She zipped out her Ipad and began showing the Americans video clips featuring her varied talents — as an actor, a comedian, a playwright, a television show host and a mimic.

For over three decades, Bushra has been a constant fixture in the Pakistani media industry. Throughout her long and varied career, she has firmly held her audience’s interest, no mean feat considering that many of her television co-stars from the 1980s and 1990s have either faded away or no longer receive enough opportunities to act. Uzma Gilani, Ruhi Bano, Khalida Riyasat – three great television actresses who started their careers around the same time as Bushra – now live only in the memories of their ageing fans, while she continues to move from strength to strength.

One possible reason for her longevity at the top of television in the country could be her ability to work in different genres with equal ease. While the older generation remembers Bushra as Jahan Ara Begam, the caustic wife of a retired civil servant in the Pakistan Television (PTV) classic Aangan Terha, or her entertaining parodies of Salma Agha, Tahira Syed and Nur Jahan in Showtime, the younger people identify her as the vivacious Faisalabadi designer Saima Chaudhry in Geo Television Network’s Aayegi Baraat series or the dominating mother-in-law in Hum TV’s Bilqis Kaur and Mera Naseeb. “If you’re not a good storyteller, your acting will not have the required emotions, and if you’re not a good dancer, then you won’t have the poise that the screen requires. This is why successful stars, such as Bushra, try to push their boundaries and explore all their talents,” senior television actor Samina Peerzada says while explaining the eclectic nature of Bushra’s talents.

The other reason could be her ability to maintain a balance between her career and her home. She did not give up one for the other; in fact, she balanced the two in such a manner that she could give time to both without any regrets. At home, she is like any other Pakistani woman, for being a star has not saved her from facing the mundane monotonies of life.

When I catch up with her at her apartment in a swanky Karachi high-rise on a late summer day, the place is aflutter with activity. Her mother and an aunt are visiting from Lahore, the cook is pestering her for ideas about lunch, the maid is trying to make an escape without finishing her work and Bushra is fretting about how she might be required to babysit her grandchildren. Within minutes, she sorts everything out — her guests are plied with tea and biscuits, the cook and the maid are given stern instructions, and a quick telephonic conversation with her daughter concludes that Bushra’s babysitting services will not be needed until later in the day. That such dexterity should have helped her survive for so long in an industry where turnover rates are quite high, if not downright staggering, is hardly surprising.

Seated beside me in black pants and an oversized shirt, Bushra wears furrows of worry on her make-up -free face as marks of a constant struggle to juggle time between family and career. But an aura of grace surrounds her as she begins to talk about her past and present, a grace that could only have been produced through a profound sense of achievement.

Bushra was born in a talented household. Her father, Ahmad Bashir, was a left wing writer and journalist, and his sisters were also involved in creative fields. One of them, Parvin Atif, is a well known short story writer in Urdu. But instead of following in the footsteps of one of her illustrious relatives, Bushra imbibed one thing or another from each of them, mixing it with her own creative talent to become what she is presently known as — an actor par excellence, a comedian endowed with great wit, a writer with flair and a television host with a distinctive style.

Nine-year-old Bushra (second from left) with the cast of Kalyon Ki Mala. Photo courtesy Nariman Ansari

This hasn’t been easy since her father – though himself a one-time film director – was apprehensive about what society would think if “his beautiful daughters” started to appear on television. “The very idea of acting in a drama serial was sacrilegious in our household because most storylines had love scenes and our father would never allow his unmarried daughters to be a part of such dramas,” says Sumbul, one of Bushra’s three sisters. At the age of nine, Bushra, along with her mother, had to sneak out of her house without her father’s permission to give and pass an audition for a PTV music show Kalyon Ki Mala.

The change came when she met television director Iqbal Ansari and the two decided to get married. The marriage came along with a tacit agreement that Bushra could act as long as it didn’t interfere with her domestic duties. When she talks about her early years of marriage, it is mostly about how she would do everything expected of a desi housewife, tending to the needs of her two daughters and husband, before being able to make it to the set of a television play. “In the first 10 years of my marriage, I was so busy with my family that I was part of a meagre six plays,” Bushra says, without even a hint of bitterness. Her family, in return, provided her artistic opportunities which others might not have received. She made her first television appearance in a serial called Gharaunde, which was directed by her husband. Her first serial as a scriptwriter, Neeli Dhoop, telecast in the mid-1990s; was directed by her daughter Nariman Ansari.

Bushra first won critical acclaim in Aangan Terha, a social satire on Pakistan in the 1980s. While her portrayal of a sardonic housewife, constrained by economic difficulties, was outstanding, people also lapped up the play for its subtle critique of the army and the martial law regime of Ziaul Haq. She recalls those old days with mixed emotions — nostalgic about PTV’s glory days and proud of having worked with such legendary directors as Muhammad Nisar Husain aka MNH, Mohsin Ali and Shahzad Khalil, she also remembers how she would constantly run between her home and the set to ensure that both her family and her directors would receive her best.

And they surely have. Even at the ripe age of 56, she is acting, writing scripts and hosting a cookery show besides ensuring that her husband receives fresh meals everyday and that her daughters receive her active help and advice in coping with pregnancies and rearing children. For Bushra, all this has been taxing, just as it would be for any other individual. “Because of all the stress, there is always this sense of urgency in my mind. Sometimes, I go to sleep at night and wake up feeling even more tired, because all night my brain has been buzzing with creative ideas,” she says. “However, the show must go on.”

Scriptwriting is a relatively less known aspect of Bushra’s life, perhaps because it is a later addition to a career that started eons ago. Her first script, Neeli Dhoop, focuses on a middle-aged widow who devotes her life to her daughter, but does not in return receive the same kind of attention. Its overarching theme is the status of widows in Pakistan and the double standards people adopt towards women. Since Neeli Dhoop, despite their different storylines, all her scripts have one common factor — she has consistently highlighted social evils casting a shadow over so many lives. Her latest script Mere Dard Ko Jo Zuban Mile is centred on the dilemma of a young girl who marries a deaf and dumb person, but a few years down the line, is given the option to leave the marriage.

It is striking, however, that her scripts are so divergent from her happy-go-lucky persona. She appears untouched by pain, always laughing and joking and never giving the smallest indication that there has ever been sadness in her life. Yet all she writes are gut-wrenching plays seeped in anguish and misery. Bushra says she certainly does not write from personal experience, but that there is so much trouble in society at large that it becomes difficult to ignore. “There is so much that I want to write about. I just need to find the time to pen down all the ideas floating around in my head,” she says with a smile. But why has she focused so much on the tragic in her writing? “As a nation we are obsessed with pathos. Subcontinental culture allows artists to romanticise pain,” she explains, without really clarifying whether she is cashing in on this romanticisation of pain for commercial success, or employing it as a tool to highlight social problems.

Then there is her passion for singing, something she says she has never found enough time for. As she talks about this passion, her face softens and the pitch of her voice falls a few notches. As a teenager, when her father disallowed her from appearing on television, she tried to compensate by singing classical songs on the radio. Every now and then, she would plead with her father for permission to receive professional singing lessons, but he remained unwilling.

As with her acting career, marriage also gave Bushra the liberty to pursue her music. Soon after her daughters were born, she began training with composer Ibrahim Hussain. But it did not take her long to realise that singing required a discipline and a commitment that she could not afford. “That discipline and time was devoted entirely to my daughters and I knew that there was no way I could commit to anything as regular and demanding as classical singing,” she says.

Bushra parodying as singer Salma Agha. Photo courtesy Nariman Ansari

Frustration over her own inability to pursue music as a career apart, this failure hardly takes anything away from her multidimensional talents which unsurprisingly frustrate those who want to box her in as a comedian, for instance. When her comic roles in shows like Fifty Fifty and Show Sha became hits, her husband told her to focus exclusively on comedy as he regarded that to be her forte. Bushra’s reaction to his advice was to detach herself from all comic roles for the next few years and focus solely on serious plays. In 1986, she proved her mettle in that genre by winning several national awards in the best actress category for her serious role in PTV serial Raat Gaye.

Over the years, she has perfected both kinds of roles — this was quite evident when this year her two most watched dramas were Bilqis Kaur and Annie Ki Aayegi Baraat. Both serials required her to play the part of an overbearing Punjabi woman, though with vastly different characteristics. In the former drama, Billo’s character was that of a stern and humourless matriarch, living along with family in New York, a woman whose traditional beliefs clash with the modern values of her children, while the infamous character of Saima Chaudhry in the latter play was that of a flirtatious woman whose idiosyncrasies brought nothing but mirth and laughter to her family and the audience. Both characters lie at opposite ends of the spectrum but Bushra proves that she has the ability to make her fans cry in anguish or laugh with pleasure.

Having won so much acclaim for everything she has done, Bushra seems to have left no peak unscaled. For many, this would be the time to say goodbye and pack up. Not for her, though. “I’m not going to give up. I love challenges and I love the sense of achievement you feel when you successfully gain something,” she vows, adding that she does not do anything for money or glamour or for any social or political reason. “I do all the work I do firstly because I can, and secondly because it gives me a sense of accomplishment.”

Rumours abound about what she may be up to next. Some say she is going to campaign for Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf in the next elections; she denies that, saying she doesn’t have the emotional strength for it. Others, such as senior actor Javed Sheikh, speculate that she may come up with a music album; though flattered by the speculation, she dismisses it as baseless.

But then, Bushra has always been full of surprises. She surprised her father when she succeeded in her first television audition. She surprised her husband with her accomplished performances in serious roles. She surprised herself when critics lauded her for the script of Neeli Dhoop. Who she will surprise next and how she will do it is difficult to predict, but what is easy to predict is that she will continue to explore and experiment. And she knows that she is not going to go away from the national television scene any time soon, unlike so many others of her generation who have done so. When I first called her for an interview, she was wrapped up in shoots and asked me if I could wait a few weeks. Upon hearing the dejection in my voice, she cheerfully added: “Don’t worry, jan. I will still be famous next month. What’s the rush?”

Mostly Mayhem

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As a child, each summer, I performed all the requisite ‘city-girl-in-a-village’ activities: I would go swimming in my uncle’s tubewells, I would show off my latest camera and ask my cousins to take pictures of me picking cotton; I’d spend hours playing hide-and-seek in sugar cane plantations and I would eat any variety of mango that my heart desired because I have eight uncles and they each grew a different kind. But as the years passed, time constraints grew and so did responsibilities and family vacations became nearly impossible to plan.

Last month, one of my first cousins from Chishtian announced to the family that he had fallen in love and was to be married. A trip to Punjab was long overdue and this wedding was a great excuse.

My over-anxious parents, already-irate brother and I boarded the Shalimar Express to Bahawalpur at 6 am on a Thursday morning, with three pieces of hand-luggage, two cartons of presents, a potla of old giveaway clothes, a few shopping bags full of food and snacks and pillows and blankets. Twelve uneventful hours later, the train was closing in on the city where Ziaul Haq had his last meal before crashing to his death — trivia that my Bahawalpuri uncle tells us every time we visit.

Anyone who has ever taken the Shalimar Express to Bahawalpur knows that the train stops at Bahawalpur for exactly a minute and a half and it takes a great deal of expert and strategic pre-planning for four family members and their 11 pieces of luggage to find a way off the train while, simultaneously, aspiring and equally-prepared passengers want to climb aboard and other aggravated ones wish to depart. After much kicking, elbowing and wriggling, we made our way to the main gate, over which there was a life-sized poster of Benazir Bhutto saying: “Welcome Bahawalpur.”

Over dinner, we made plans for the next day: we would join the baraat en route Rahim Yar Khan in my uncle’s car, and on Saturday we would go to Chishtian for the valima.

Almost every family wedding I have attended in Punjab has been held at noon and this function was no exception. The bride was refusing to sit on stage because the sole pedestal fan was broken and she feared her make-up might melt; moreover, the women’s section wouldn’t be served food until the men had eaten. With no bride to take photographs with and no food to eat, I decided to kill time by mingling with guests, most of whom comprised distant family members.

There were a few customary inquiries about why I wasn’t yet married, but the most popular question was related to my choice of profession. I didn’t quite know how to explain the term ‘Editorial Assistant’ in Punjabi, so I decided to describe myself as a sahaafi. I hoped this revelation would start a debate about local political issues and hence pass time till the biryani was served. I was wrong. Some of the most memorable reactions I got were:

“Why beta?” asked my twice-removed great-aunt. “The media is the most shameless profession in Pakistan.”

“If you ever want to screw someone over, set a paper-waali on them,” reflected the father of the bride.

“But you’re a girl — you should teach. Does your father know you do this or is it a secret?” asked yet another worried second cousin of my mother.

“A journalist in Karachi? Didn’t you do well at college?”

At first, I tried to argue and reason with them, but after a distant and unrecognisable uncle said “Oh, so you’re the akhbaari? Tell me: is unemployment really such a problem in Karachi?” I gave up and went to hide behind my brother. He wasn’t having much luck either: they all loved that he was a trusty old banker but he would lose them the moment he mentioned Barclays — if it wasn’t a national bank, they weren’t interested.

For the valima in Chishtian, I decided to try harder. While accompanying the bride to the beauty parlour instead of making conversation, I kept silent and got my hair done, which cost a grand total of 200 rupees. I spoke (read: lied) to my aunts and uncles about how dangerous Karachi was and how I perennially fear for my life.

It seemed to work: the uncles invited me to visit their fields after the function ended and the aunts fondly retold anecdotes from my childhood to other guests. It appeared that to gain my family’s approval, instead of standing out, I needed to fit in.

The writer is a part of Herald’s editorial team.

 

 

The all-rounder

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Striking up a conversation with Bushra Ansari is easy — she loves to talk. But she struggled with words when an American couple seated next to her on a recent long haul flight asked her how she spent her time in Pakistan. For a while, she was stumped. After some reflection, she responded: “I am an artist.” “Oh, that’s lovely! What do you like to paint?” pat came the next question. Bushra erupted into her characteristic full-throated laughter, knowing words wouldn’t do the trick this time. She zipped out her Ipad and began showing the Americans video clips featuring her varied talents — as an actor, a comedian, a playwright, a television show host and a mimic.

Leap of faith

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Kiran Kumari with her husband, Shabbir Ahmed

Kiran Kumari with her husband, Shabbir Ahmed, at Mian Mitho’s residence in Daharki. Photo by Shoaib Tariq.

Ram Kori, a young Hindu girl, fell in love and eloped with Amir Noor Ali, a Muslim boy. Her mother approached the courts, pleading that her under-age daughter had been abducted and forcibly converted. The government subsequently arrested Ali and imprisoned him for two years and Kori, now Islam Bibi, was returned to her parents.

If this story sounds out of place in today’s Pakistan, it is because it pre-dates the creation of the country. The incident took place in 1936 when, in British-ruled, un-partitioned India, Hindus were in a majority unlike their numbers in present-day Pakistan. Kori was a resident of what was then the North West Frontier Province and Noor Ali came from the Waziristan tribal agency.

The tribal Muslims, however, did not take the return of the girl lying down. For the next 11 years there was a rebellion against the British, led by a local Pakhtun leader known as the Fakir of Ippi.

The story of Kiran Kumari, who fell in love and eloped with a Muslim boy from a village in the southern part of Rahimyar Khan district earlier this year, is the same as Kori’s — right down to the support that both girls received from the local Muslim population. In Kiran’s case, this support has been led by Mian Abdul Haq alias Mian Mitho, the political and religious leader of the area. The only difference is that it appears that Kiran is not going to make it back to her parents.

On a day in early September, reporters and photographers from different parts of Pakistan come face-to-face with most of the characters in her story at Mitho’s residence, on the outskirts of Daharki town in northern Sindh. As Kiran walks into a room full of journalists, she looks at everyone and smiles charmingly. She doesn’t look a day older than 14, but when she speaks she exudes the confidence of a minor celebrity.

She narrates in detail how she fell in love with Shabbir Ahmed, who told her that she would have to convert to Islam if she wanted to marry him. She then left her home a day before Eidul Fitr to join Ahmed who brought her to Mitho’s house. Once among Muslims, she hastily accepted Islam and the two were married.

Mitho, who represents Ghotki district in the National Assembly, belongs to the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party and is the custodian of a famed Muslim shrine, Bharchundi Sharif, near Daharki. He is known to convert and provide protection to Hindu girls who want to marry Muslim boys. A tall man with greying locks, a flowing white beard and a conical cap — he looks like Santa Claus dressed in white.

Mitho is unapologetic when asked why he helps eloping girls to convert. He says it is his duty to provide protection to anyone who wishes to accept Islam. “We take in the eloping couples because it is our duty to provide them with security,” he says.

By his own assertion, Mitho maintains regular contact with many of the girls who have converted recently, supposedly to ensure their safety and security. But Hindu community leaders explain that the concept of honour killing or declaring their girls as karis is foreign to the community; they insist that no convert has ever been harmed by her family following her marriage.

Mitho also adds that his first reaction, after a girl arrives at his house for conversion, is to call her parents and inform them that their daughter is safe with him. “We then wait a few hours to see if they are interested in taking her back,” he tells the Herald. “More often than not, they show no interest because they are angry at her for wishing to convert to Islam and they don’t take action until after she has been converted and married.”

Bharchundi Sharif

Bharchundi Sharif, a Muslim shrine near Daharki under the patronage of Mian Mitho. Photo by Salman Haqqi.

In Kiran’s case, Hindu community leaders insist that she was abducted. “On the eve of Eid, she went to the fields with her mother to bring back fodder for their livestock. Four Muslim boys started teasing the girl as the two women were returning home. When Kiran told them off, they became angry and took her away on a motorcycle” — this is how Ramesh Jaipal, a leader of the Hindu community in Rahimyar Khan, narrates the case. He tells the Herald how hundreds of Hindus peacefully protested outside the house of Kiran’s alleged abductors a day after she was taken away — only to face further abuse. Many of the protesters were badly beaten by local Muslims for gathering in a Muslim area, he says.

While Kiran denies all this and insists that she left her home of her own volition, she appears confused about how to explain the reasons behind her conversion. “Did you leave home because you loved Islam, or because you loved the boy?” she is asked. “I left for the love of Islam. Shabbir was simply the route to my new religion,” she replies but cannot explain what it is about Islam that inspired her to convert, or how well she knew the religion prior to her conversion. Soon her answers begin to contradict each other — the question of how she landed at Mitho’s house, especially, becomes blurred in the thicket of her changing statements.

To divert attention from her, Mitho’s men rush in her husband. But it seems that Ahmed is not as confident as his wife; when he is asked a question, his eyes dart to the back of the room towards where Mitho is standing, for reassurance and confirmation. After much confusion, Kiran whispers something in his ear and he begins to talk about where he comes from.

A diffident Ahmed, understandably, fails to reduce the confusion in the room. At first, he says he doesn’t love Kiran; then, minutes later, after she surreptitiously elbows him, he begins to talk about how he wrote love letters to her for two years. Neither of the two have these letters anymore. In this case, the mixing of love with religion is not as seamless as Mitho and his men would like it to appear.

According to others familiar with such cases, religion or love – or a combination of the two – are not the only factors: social and economic issues are also involved. Kiran belongs to the Meghwal caste – often described by Hindus to be the lowest rung of the Scheduled Castes – and has five sisters and four brothers. She says that most of her sisters are unmarried due to economic hurdles as well as the unavailability of suitable boys within their caste. These revelations shed some light on why Kiran may have resolved to leave her home.

Amar Guriro, a senior journalist who has written extensively on such issues, recently reported that sometimes Hindu girls “convert of their own will, as dowry is a big issue within the [Hindu] community”. Many girls feel that eloping with a Muslim boy is wiser than waiting for a dowry that may never materialise, he adds.

According to most of the Hindu women interviewed by the Herald in Rahimyar Khan, these explanations are meaningless. To them, the only explanation that does make sense is that Muslims take their girls away simply because they have the power to do so.

Whatever the reasons may be, incidents of girls from Hindu families converting and marrying Muslim men have become quite frequent, especially in the adjoining districts of Rahimyar Khan and Ghotki. Earlier in the year, the cases of three girls – 19-year-old Rinkel Kumari, 14-year-old Asha, and 15-year-old Bharti – who were converted and married, made headlines. Two of them were also heard at the Supreme Court following allegations that they were kidnapped and forcibly converted.

Ramesh Vankvani, president of the Pakistan Hindu Council, claims that at least 80 such cases, involving young girls, have been reported to him in 2012 alone. Conversion cases have, in fact, increased over the years. “A decade ago, there would be one or two cases in a year but in the last few years the situation has drastically deteriorated. In 2010 and 2011, there were at least 50 reported cases of abduction and forced conversion,” says Vankawani. “We must remember that many families do not even report the abductions because they fear losing respect within the community,” he says.

Jai Prakash Moorani, the editor of Sindhi language daily Ibrat and a local Hindu leader in Hyderabad, is more concerned about the religious harassment which follows a conversion rather then the conversion itself. “We don’t have a problem with our girls converting to Islam — we don’t even mind the fact that they fall in love with Muslim men. What hurts us is the way these stories play out,” he tells the Herald.

Mian Abdul Haq alias Mian Mitho

Mian Abdul Haq alias Mian Mitho

Moorani complains about how after a conversion, truckloads of Muslims drive to the convert’s hometown to cheer and celebrate “the victory of Islam”. Through speeches on loudspeakers, these cheerleaders let the locality know the name of the girl who has converted, hence embarrassing her family, he says. Ironically enough, he adds, such pageants of triumph are sometimes the only means for parents to find out that their daughter is still alive.

Such an open display of religious hostility is not without consequences. Hindus, like other non-Muslims in Pakistan, are a frightened community. Many of them have grown too fearful to demand immediate action when it comes to conversion cases. For others, the police and courts are the only resort but the process of addressing complaints is very slow in these departments. By the time the police register a First Information Report, the girl is already converted and married, says Ali Hassan, a senior journalist based in Hyderabad who has covered many conversion cases.

Many Hindus families have started taking drastic steps. “We don’t send our children to school; most of us don’t even send our married women out of the house because if something happens to them we have no one to turn to,” says Aakash Tabassum, a Hindu farmer who lives in a village not far from where Kiran’s parents live.

He points out that it is not just legal and political disempowerment which afflicts his community. The social and cultural discrimination Hindus face in Pakistan is even worse. “We are abused and sometimes physically beaten for walking too close to Muslims. Even though we are already living on the outskirts of the villages, Muslims constantly threaten to throw us out,” he says.

In villages surrounding Rahimyar Khan, the cultural code of untouchability is ubiquitous. According to some local accounts, Hindus are not allowed to work in grocery shops or at petrol stations because, apparently, everything that comes in contact with them will be rendered napaak (impure).Their children are mistreated at school — some even doubt whether Hindu children possess the same mental faculties as Muslim children. “Why should Hindu children go to school? Their brains don’t work like ours do,” says Mohammad Ibrahim, a worker at a petrol station in a village in Rahimyar Khan district.

Dreaming of social mobility under such highly discriminatory circumstances does not come easily to low-caste Hindu children. For many young girls, marrying a Muslim man is the only way to break these shackles. “Muslim boys promise these girls a prejudice-free life; they show them that the grass is greener on the other side, and slowly brainwash them until they agree to run away,” says Hasan.

But the promised end to discrimination materialises at a huge personal cost for the converted girls. Once they become Muslims, they can never go back to their parents, not even for social calls. There is no turning back for them, even when they find themselves struggling in a bad marriage. “They are told that meeting and fraternising with their Hindu parents will make them liable to be killed,” Hassan elaborates.

Some Hindu elders say they could convince the girls to return to their families if they could access them in time. Such a thing has happened in the past. “Whenever we were able to track our girls before they reached Bharchundi Sharif, we convinced them to come back and they did,” says Tabassum. But once they are in the shrine, whose custodians combine their political power with their religious status, the equation changes. No Hindu from his area, says Tabassum, would dare walk up to Mitho’s house without police protection to even talk about conversions. “Do you think there was any point in Kiran’s father pleading his case once she was in Muslim hands?” he asks.

Leap of faith

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Ram Kori, a young Hindu girl, fell in love and eloped with Amir Noor Ali, a Muslim boy. Her mother approached the courts, pleading that her under-age daughter had been abducted and forcibly converted. The government subsequently arrested Ali and imprisoned him for two years and Kori, now Islam Bibi, was returned to her parents. If this story sounds out of place in today’s Pakistan, it is because it pre-dates the creation of the country. The incident took place in 1936 when, in British-ruled, un-partitioned India, Hindus were in a majority unlike their numbers in present-day Pakistan. Kori was a resident of what was then the North West Frontier Province and Noor Ali came from the Waziristan tribal agency.

The tribal Muslims, however, did not take the return of the girl lying down. For the next 11 years there was a rebellion against the British, led by a local Pakhtun leader known as the Fakir of Ippi. The story of Kiran Kumari, who fell in love and eloped with a Muslim boy from a village in the southern part of Rahimyar Khan district earlier this year, is the same as Kori’s — right down to the support that both girls received from the local Muslim population. In Kiran’s case, this support has been led by Mian Abdul Haq alias Mian Mitho, the political and religious leader of the area. The only difference is that it appears that Kiran is not going to make it back to her parents.

An idea that does not hold water

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Illustration by Sabir Nazar

Throughout the 1980s, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a scientist working at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, conducted government-funded research about how energy could be harnessed from djinns. At the end of his seven-year research, he presented a paper claiming that this was possible “if we develop our souls [and] develop a communication with them [djinns].” Two decades later, the level of scientific ingenuity remains much the same. With the desperation for a cheap source of energy heightening in Pakistan and the government anxious to rid itself of petrol worries and the impending compressed natural gas (CNG) crisis, it seems we are willing to believe in anything, even the existence of miracles.

Some in Pakistan have become devout followers of a police stenographer from Khairpur, Agha Waqar Ahmad, who claims to have invented a kit that enables automobiles to run on distilled water. If the invention’s efficacy can be proven in front of competent authorities, it will be nothing short of the technological equivalent of the Holy Grail. “My job has nothing to do with engineering,” says Ahmad, who has worked with the Khairpur district police department since 1993. His scientific knowledge, he explains, comes from a diploma in mechanical engineering. Ahmad’s water-kit works on the basic principle of electrolysis: an electric charge is passed through water to separate the hydrogen and oxygen molecules, and the resulting hydrogen gas is used to fuel the automobile.

In theory, there is nothing amiss; in fact, there are hundreds of ‘inventors’ across the world who have created exactly the same device. The problem, however, lies in sustainability. Energy produced through electrolysis is not efficient, which means that the amount of energy spent in the process of electrolysis is greater than the amount of energy produced. The Western world encountered this problem decades ago, leading to the creation of hydrogen fuel cells and the establishment of hydrogen filling stations.

Ahmad, however, maintains that no one in the world has created a water-kit such as his. “Everyone uses hydrogen gas in automobiles as a ‘side fuel’, but no one has been able to solely employ hydrogen to run a car,” he says. Ahmad has been unable to convince his sceptics. Mohammad Bilal Khan, director of the Centre for Energy Systems at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), says Ahmad’s ‘unique creation’ is a half-baked experiment. “If Agha Waqar is producing the entire quantity of hydrogen gas that is needed to propel the vehicle within the car itself, then the water tank would have to be bigger than the boot of the car,” he argues.

Major General Obaid bin Zakariya, commandant of the College of Electrical & Mechanical Engineering at NUST, has his own suspicions. “I can’t really be sure how Agha Waqar does it; maybe he keeps a large battery hidden somewhere in the car which runs the engine, or perhaps he disconnects the CNG line but keeps the car working on petrol,” suggests Zakariya.

Amer Iqbal, a theoretical physicist at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), believes Ahmad’s water-kit is a fraud. After all, this would not be the first scientific fraud in Pakistan. In 2004, Aurangzeb Hafi, a scientist, claimed to have discovered a formula to increase crop yield by tenfold and successfully scammed money from various organisations. While Ahmad denies asking anyone for money, he is still waiting for funds from an unnamed source. “I have not asked anyone for any money – not the government or any private company,” he reiterates, adding cryptically, “I will make the water-kit available in the market in two months; I am just waiting for my funds to arrive; I will receive them soon.”

Ahmad’s ‘invention’ has more supporters than critics and he cites this as proof of his kit’s authenticity. “Out of a population of 180 million, if a handful disparages my invention, it does not dishearten me,” he says. Among those supporting him is Dr Samar Mubarakmand, a nuclear scientist who is carrying out a project to produce natural gas from Thar coal and is a member (on science and technology) of the Planning Commission of Pakistan. Mubarakmand has commended Ahmad for his discovery, saying it will save Pakistan millions of dollars in oil imports.

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, a metallurgist and the ‘inventor’ of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, is another enthusiast, appearing on news channels to congratulate Ahmad and express his faith in an invention he has never seen, much less examined. The Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR), the highest government research organisation in scientific fields, has also been dishing out praise for the ‘inventor’ from Khairpur, with Shoukat Pervez, the PCSIR chairman, appearing on national television to voice his support for Ahmad.

The last time the government supported a similar ‘miracle’ was in 1968 when Zohra Fona, an Indonesian woman, was invited to Pakistan on an official visit, as she claimed that the child in her womb could recite the Quran out loud. She met the then-president General Muhammad Ayub Khan and was asked to lead men’s prayers. Pakistani scientists back in the 1960s stepped up, unravelled the mystery and declared Fona to be a fraud. However, in the case of the water-kit, many government scientists see it as a potentially ground-breaking discovery. “We are very excited and hopeful,” says Professor Mudassar Israr, the chairperson of the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology. “Even though we think it is against the law of thermodynamics, we are still checking its practical application,” she says.

Ahmad is also enjoying the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF). “The theoretical background of the project will have to be examined, but there is no doubt that Agha Waqar has used a different geometry and created something unique,” says Masroor Ahmad, the joint technological adviser of the ministry. His department was scheduled to test the kit on August 15th but this was delayed as Ahmad needed more time to “convert his model from a rough form to a fair form.” But even before the test is conducted and its results are known, the PSF seems to have placed its trust in the kit. “Didn’t we all see it [the water-kit] working on television?” asks Mirza Habib, the principal scientific officer at the foundation.

Ahmad’s detractors point out that the problem does not lie in his flawed invention, but in its marketing — if a car is said to be running on water, why wouldn’t it appeal the public imagination? Despite the fact that the fuel being used by the car is hydrogen gas, not water, the catchy slogan of a ‘car running on water’ persists. Some believe that the government, desperately hoping to divert attention from its failure to address the energy crisis, is behind Ahmad’s promotion as a public hero. A more simple explanation may be that the people who initially examined the water-kit were either incompetent or lacking a solid scientific background. And as the idea has gained popularity, renowned scientists such as Mubarakmand and A Q Khan did not seem to have the courage to call a spade a spade.

Popular hankering after cheap and abundant energy is understandable. But there are no magic formulae for this, nor are there any short-cuts. Instead of chasing fancy fuels that don’t exist, the government should invest in developing technology to exploit resources that are already known. “Solar and wind energies are good options,” says Ali Kabeer, the general manager of Renu, a private organisation which specialises in research about energy diversity. But the technology required to reap benefits from such alternate energy sources is close to non-existent in Pakistan. “Right now there is only one company in the country which locally manufactures solar cells,” he says.

Bilal Khan describes alternative energy as “next generation energy” and argues that this is where our focus should be. But he warns that the path to alternative energy is long and needs large investments in its initial stages. It will take many years before Pakistan can solve its energy problem, he says. Bilal Khan’s personal favourite alternative fuel is bio-diesel extracted from the Jatropha plant. “The world uses 20 billion litres of biofuel in a year; this must be a useful and economically viable fuel then,” he argues and adds that NUST has acquired 5,000 acres of land for Jatropha plantation.

Zakariya, however, does not see bio-diesel as sustainable because Jatropha plantation will take place at the cost of cultivating food crops; while this may bring the price of fuel down, it will certainly increase the price of food. Zakariya believes water energy is the most sustainable choice, explaining how in 2001, NUST installed a number of solar-water pumps which are proving to be highly-efficient sources of energy. The pumps use energy derived from solar panels to pump water which in turn moves a turbine and generates electricty. “We have so many model projects that have been tried and tested, we just need government help in the form of incentives and subsidies and we can make these forms of energy available to industries,” says Zakariya.

The problem with such solutions is that they are not quick fixes and need considerable financial backing. In the 2000s, seeking a similar quick fix, Pakistan’s government allowed the rapid sprouting of CNG stations across the country. It did not occur to the policymakers at the time that gas reserves may one day run out, leaving consumers and station-owners of CNG high and dry.

If past miracles are anything to go by, the water-kit and Ahmad will soon fade away until the next great miracle is discovered. The real solution to our energy crisis lies in something that is scientifically sound and technologically viable, regardless of the time and money spent on putting it together.

Noori

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Noori has been off the radar for about a year but that didn’t stop them from doing what they do best: making a comeback with a new song. From lyrics to composition, Taaron Say Aagay has Noori stamped all over it, even though Ali Noor, the elder of the two brothers in the band, says that Noori fans should no longer confine them to one genre.

Indeed, Noori has much more to offer than the new single: they have also launched their own record label, BIY records, which is releasing Qayaas’ album soon. But their most exciting venture is a live album, recorded as the band performed at Islamabad’s Rock Musicarium on February 25 this year.

Noori has survived a decade in an industry which is ironically bursting at the seams with talent while simultaneously struggling to sustain itself. Between jam sessions and concerts, the band that won thousands of hearts when they released Suno Key Main Hoon Jawan in 2003, caught up with the Herald to discuss their music.

Q. Until 2006, Noori was all the rage and in 2009 you guys made a ‘comeback’ with Coke Studio. What happened in between?

Ali Noor. Well, at the end of 2008, we released two singles. But for about two years before that we didn’t create much music. In March 2006, Noori parted ways with Gumby and then at the end of 2006, Ali Hamza ran away from home two days before we were supposed to go on tour to Canada. And he ran away in such a way that we thought he was dead … I mean who runs away just before a tour?

Ali Hamza. Everything except for music was happening. It was the ‘dark ages’ for Noori.

Q. Most bands that got together at the same time as Noori have fallen apart. Has Noori survived because you believe in comebacks and new beginnings?

AH. I think that is what will define us when we die. We really like starting afresh. Maybe that’s why we have moved 11 houses in five years and 22 houses in 25 years.

AN. To tell you very frankly, the ‘comeback’ for me is necessary. Let’s put it this way, my favourite activity is reformatting computers. A new beginning is always fresh. Having said that, I feel this time round it will be different as the three of us are developing musical chemistry.

Q. How were you able to achieve this chemistry?

Gumby. Initially, Ali Hamza was writing, composing and singing. Now Ali Noor is writing the songs and we have divided our responsibilities evenly; more importantly, we now have a policy of not fixing something which is not broken. Last time around we would keep trying to fix our music compositions even when all of us didn’t agree that there was a need to change them.

AN. Initially, Gumby would just play the drums and go to sleep; now he acts like part of the band.

AH. Look, when you start doing creative work, there is a journey you take. With time you start realising your responsibilities and whether there is room for improvement. You recognise that it is the music which is important and that is the common aesthetic we share this time. If it’s about music then the band will have chemistry. This time around we are all a lot more devoted. Previously, if we disagreed about something, we would have a cold war. This time, we fight straight out and resolve the issue immediately. Before, we had a value-based chemistry between us but we were not in sync with who was putting in how much effort to help the band grow.

Q. What helped you realise the importance of teamwork?

AH. It was Gumby. We realised it instantly when we saw him put together his production team [Uth records].

G. I saw teamwork at Coke Studio. Rohail [Hyatt] was running the show but he would let everyone do their job. He never imposed any kind of power on anyone except when there was chaos. And that worked so well. Starting from the technical guy and ending at the singer, it was like a smoothly functioning engine.

AN. This time, I’m learning how to be part of a team as opposed to just being a leader. I am now realising that I really enjoy being part of a team. Being the leader was never an ego issue — I just thought it was necessary for someone to lead us at that time. Now I can feel sparks of teamwork developing.

Q. You were all part of Coke Studio at one point or another. How did that help your music?

AN. Personally, Coke Studio helped us gain experience as musicians, as artists and as people.

G. When Rohail first spoke to me about the project, my reaction was very negative. I said, “That’s so clichéd. Fusion has been happening since the 1970s and people have been kicking a** at it. What will make this any different?” But by the time the second season came it was a huge success. I mean, how many people from the younger generation had appreciated Arif Lohar before Coke Studio? He released Jugni a while before Coke Studio and people laughed at him and he knows that. Post-Coke Studio, the same people are offering him thousands of dollars for shows.

AH. Very simply put, it was like the match that lit a huge fire of creativity across the country.

Q. Noori released Peeli Patti aur Raja Jani in 2005. You have made music since then, but you haven’t released an album. Why is that?

AN. For the last year we have been recording lots of songs and we have about 10 to 12 songs, but we are not sure if these can take the shape of an album. The public needs to reconsider the whole concept of an album. There is just so much pressure — putting together an album is like putting together a book about your life.

G. It also has a lot to do with circumstances. Right now inPakistanthere is no distribution network or proper record label that can help us launch an album. All the factories that used to manufacture CDs are either struggling or have shut down completely. The industry is dying. A lot of people who were earlier pursuing distribution have now stopped because people just download songs.

Q. Does this mean that hoping and waiting for Noori’s third album is futile?

G. Well, we have material for the album; it’s just that some detour always prevents us. We don’t get the time to focus on the album.

AH. All these songs are singles in their own right; we didn’t put any fillers in them. Plus they are so disconnected and diverse — to put them together is wrong. I wouldn’t even be able to decide which one of the songs I like the most. They would compete with each other. It’s like giving a child six toys at the same time, he won’t know which one to play with first.

Q. So when do you think you can release it?

AN. Gumby has this amazing date for everything:13th of never. You know what else is also scary? Musicians release albums, and sometimes they just slip through the cracks. If the album is not valid for that time period, it won’t work.

Q. What is the difference between problems that existed when you entered the industry and the issues encountered by musicians today?

G. A decade ago, the government messed it up for everybody. Now, the musicians have messed it up for themselves. The quality of music was much better earlier, which is what encouraged me to be a musician. There were places where musicians could showcase their talent. Everything was not about sponsorship or brand ambassadorship. Artists like Mehdi Hasan and Abida Parveen used to sing whether there was a sponsor or not. Now there is so much pettiness; we don’t realise that it’s a very small industry and we need to help it grow. The problem now for the youth is that they have nowhere to play and there is no one to help them play. They don’t know what to focus on. For example, I recently met a kid who is bursting with talent, but he is obsessed with how he is going to make money. For the first 10 years of my life I didn’t even care how much a gig was paying me. I just wanted to show off my skill.

AN. You can’t run after money in this industry; it’s fundamentally illogical. If you want to pursue money, become a businessman.

An interview with Gumby about the second season of Uth Records:


 

Interview with Noori

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Noori has been off the radar for about a year but that didn’t stop them from doing what they do best: making a comeback with a new song. From lyrics to composition, Taaron Say Aagay has Noori stamped all over it, even though Ali Hamza, the elder of the two brothers in the band, says that Noori fans should no longer confine them to one genre. Their most exciting venture is a live album, recorded as the band performed atIslamabad’s Rock Musicarium on February 25 this year.