A Season for Martyrs: A Novel (13 page)

Toobia Khan …

Benazir Bhutto, away in Dubai during the emergency, flew back immediately—a move Ali did not expect of her, but had to grudgingly admit that he admired. Oh, Sikandar Hussein would be laughing now! But it was true: if she’d wanted to run away, that would have been her chance. Instead she had returned, determined to fight to victory in the January elections, and had been put under house arrest four days earlier, when she’d tried to lead a rally in Lahore. The death threats were still on her head. The government declared that she was free to move the next day, but that no heads of opposition parties were allowed to speak at public gatherings. The rumors abounded that she’d enacted some sort of deal with America, or the army, or both, in order to eventually assume a seat of power, probably with the president right by her side.

No wonder so many people were trying to get away from this ruined, broken country, to America and the United Kingdom and Australia and Canada and any other country that would have them. The waiting room was packed with them; there were hundreds more every day crammed into every diplomatic mission in the city. But if the West had done so much to make things bad for ordinary Pakistanis, why were they all so eager to abandon Pakistan and take up residence in Western countries?

Ali squirmed uncomfortably in his chair at this thought. He’d tried to avoid confronting it, even though he enjoyed participating in America-bashing as much as the next person. The United States of Hypocrisy, they’d said at City24, Ameena, Jehangir, all of them, and thought themselves so clever for having come up with the name.

And if that were true, then Ali would fit right in, when he went to Kansas and tried to become just like them, losing his accent, learning to love football and baseball, adopting their lifestyle as if he’d been born to it, so that nobody could accuse him of not fitting in.

Wasif Mahmood …

The circus of confusion went on in Ali’s head, as the numbers were called and people shuffled to the booths in the back of the room to shout out their cases to the visa officers. There were all sorts of people in that room: educated members of the upper class who held themselves as if brushing against anyone else would give them a disease; middle-class families dressed in their best clothes, hoping to impress the visa officers; men in simple
shalwar kameez
and Peshawari sandals who could barely speak English. They spoke instead to local hires who translated for the American officers into the local languages of the area, Urdu and Punjabi, Pashto for the northerners.

Once called to their interviews, they all had to shout out the intimate details of their lives through thick glass walls and microphones crackling with static. Ali heard each person’s life story: where their children lived in the United States, how much they earned, whether or not they intended to stay in America for a short while or indefinitely, how they planned to support themselves. Babies cried and young married couples hushed them urgently; children played and ran up and down the narrow aisles, begging for water or chips from the tiny canteen set up outside. People were too scared to go to the toilet in case they missed their turn; one or two men rushed out of the toilet, hurriedly doing up their belts, cursing and grumbling but having to plaster smiles on their faces when their names were called. Ali watched as they faced the visa officers, who remained bland and polite in the face of the men who looked just like the tribals their army was fighting across the border.

Shams Siddiqui …

Ali could feel his hands beginning to curl into fists, clutching at the plastic file that contained all his documents: bank statements, acceptance letters, certificates of financial standing. Letters from his uncle and other relatives in America who promised they could guarantee financial support. Transcripts from the other universities he’d attended. Medical records. All proof of his good character, his good intentions. When, really, he shouldn’t have had to prove anything to anyone.

He stood up. He took one step, then another, his legs shaking. People were staring at him—there was little else to do but stare at everyone else in the room. He was edging away, now, even as his number was being called and his name was reverberating on the PA system:
Ali Sikandar … Ali Sikandar … Ali Sikandar …

He put a sweaty hand on the door handle and pushed it down. All eyes followed him, even the visa officers, the guards with their automatic weapons. He was terrified that they’d stop him, question him, take him away somewhere and ask him what he thought he was up to. He didn’t know what they did to people who ran away before the interview. The siren call of America was still as seductive as it had ever been, amplified by all the people in the room, their hopes and their longing for the future so clearly on display. But he knew he couldn’t face it. Not the way things stood now: with his family, with Sunita, with Pakistan.

Ali crept out the door just as the PA system clicked on again, and the next hopeful applicant’s name was called.

Rahila Elahi … Rahila Elahi … Rahila Elahi …

He stumbled from the dark, cooled room into the blinding heat and made his way to the exit gate, breathing as heavily as if he’d just finished running a race. He promised himself that he would go to America, but now was not the time. Ali knew he could only make the move when the world swung back into balance again, when nobody had to feel like a criminal just because they wanted to cross borders, to gain an education or to be with the people they loved. America would have to wait until things were better, for Pakistan and for himself.

Outlaws

FROM
THE
DIARIES
OF
WILLIAM
HENRY
LUCAS
,
DEPUTY
DISTRICT
COMMISSIONER
,
SINDH

Sukkur, Sindh, 1895

… the desert of Thar has one of the harshest climates ever seen by Man, for in addition to the extreme temperatures (more than 50 C during summertime) the soil is dry for much of the year & the sands are continually shifting (a mere 100–500 mm of precipitation in the short July–September southwest monsoon). Not many trees grow there, & those that do are very slow-growing:
acacia tortilis
may prove to be the most promising for desert afforestation; while
prosopis cineraria
provides fodder and wood for construction. The locals have a saying: that death will not visit a man if he has a
prosopis cineraria
, a goat, & a camel; for these will sustain a Man in even the most trying of conditions. …

There is fine hunting in Thar, despite harsh conditions: last Tuesday Williamson & his hunting party were led to a fine plain by their guides, pagans of the Bheel tribe who were hoping they would find a herd of wild boar & slaughter it & gift them the meat, which is tough and gristly and inedible, as payment for their assistance. The pagan tribes throughout Sindh enjoy the meat of that lowly animal, & make grand feasts out of the occasion, with much consumption of local liquor made from fermented crops. Williamson reported that he killed a chinkara in the early morning & saw blackbuck in the grasslands beyond the camp on the outskirts of Mithi; falcon-hunting will be great sport in the winter-time, as there are many migratory as well as resident birds in the desert.

I asked Williamson if he encountered any trouble along the way, disorder of any general sort; but specifically I wanted to know if he heard, from the villagers or any passing travelers, or had seen for himself any sign of the Hurs, those wretched outlaws who have been rampaging the districts of both Thar Parkar & some areas of Hyderabad; and whose existence poses a grave threat to the control which we have fought long & hard to establish in this savage Land.

England too has seen its share of outlaws, & one might make the mistake of comparing the tales of Robin Hood & his band of Merry Men, who roamed Sherwood Forest and “robbed from the rich to give to the poor,” to the situation in Sindh. But those fictitious outlaws operated to right what they saw as the wrongs caused by an unjust and illegitimate king. & as soon as justice prevailed, the outlaws gave up their marauding ways & settled into a life of peace & tranquility. …

Sindh, on the other hand, is a land of intrigue and suspicion, where we have had to resort to a mix of influence & force in order to maintain law and order, a delicate balance which requires both an iron first & a stern heart. The outlaws which I speak of, the Hurs, are no genteel brigands with a code of honor to be strictly adhered to, as can be expected only from a country with principles & honor; but are in fact the worst sort of fanatics that I have ever had misfortune to come across.

It is also our misfortune that we are required to rely on the Pirs, those so-called descendants of Sufi saints who are imbued with tremendous influence over their followers, to help us maintain our control over Sindh. Were it up to me, I would eliminate them entirely from Sindhi society, & thus establish our writ directly, without need of these middlemen. But the truth is that they have become our collaborators in our rule over Sindh.

The system we have established since Sir Charles Napier first conquered Sindh has served us well; the Pirs command obedience from their followers, from the poor & uneducated simple man to the highest and wealthiest
Zamindar,
or land-owner, derived from the
murids’
religious devotion to the Pir, which gives him tremendous influence over all the residents of Sindh. In turn the Pirs deliver this obedience to us, along with their prayers for our continued well-being, which means nothing to us, being of a vastly superior faith, i.e. Christianity, but is of tremendous significance to those ignorant masses. …

Yet in order to maintain their economic & social power, they must keep up good relations with British authority. We may offer a friendly Pir a seat at our Durbar, or allow him leave from civil court appearances (a Humiliation they find too great to bear, we have discovered). A rebellious Pir receives treatment of a different sort: threatening to revoke his arms licenses, or even choosing to disallow him from touring his own territory robs him of that respect by which these savages live and die, by God! By a judicious use of reward & punishment, the Pirs keep themselves in our good books, so to speak, & we maintain a subtle but strong hold over this Godforsaken land.

But in the area of Thar Parkar, which is a district in the desert of Thar, the Pir of Pagaro treads a dangerous line, for his band of followers have been indulging in criminal activities of the worst sort, & he does precious little to rein them in, much to our dismay.

Almost forty years ago, the British Government made Pir-jo-Goth (the Pir’s ancestral seat) part of the British directorate of Rohri, near Sukkur.

But, the present Pir of Pagaro seems to have forgotten our largesse, or that if he loses our approval, his own physical seat is in danger. For he overlooks the activities of the Hurs, & they roam up and down the countryside, enacting a reign of terror upon the hapless peasants, Hindu merchants, non-Hur
zamindars,
& anyone they perceive as a threat to their
Murshid
.

Last year, amongst conditions of drought & famine, the Hurs formed gangs to squeeze Hindu moneylenders & merchants, to show their own anger at God & His will—an illogical reaction indeed, but then the Sindhis are an illogical people & the Hurs—(but more on their nature later, as I must not get ahead of myself in this account). Before the difficult times they had attacked anyone they saw as a threat to the Pir of Pagaro, as well as anyone they proclaimed a spy or government informant, & those
zamindars
who were not followers of the Pir of Pagaro. They started to attack & murder police men. As further proof of their cowardice, they attacked women too & mutilated the bodies of their victims in a most vile & disgusting manner. They have even murdered non-Hur
khalifas,
who are the most high in status of the Pir of Pagaro’s followers. …

A note here on the nature of the Hurs: they are the wildest & most intensely devoted to their
Murshid,
the Pir. The Hurs look down upon non-Hurs & will not even eat or drink with them. They organize themselves in a brotherhood known as the Hur Union; they are
fanatics with murder and revenge more to their heart than mere plunder,
as the District Magistrate of Hyderabad wrote in one of his police reports to the Commissioner of Sindh earlier this year. Clad in green clothes & a specially-tied turban, they salute nobody but the Pir by hand or voice; they flock to see him as if performing religious pilgrimage (men & women who go unveiled too, an unheard-of thing for a Mohammedan woman). He basks in their lavish gifts, their vast amounts of tribute in the form of land, cattle, & money.

What is vital to understanding the mentality of the Hurs is that they give their Pir a quasi-divine status that would shock most orthodox Mohammedans to know of. The majority of the Pir’s followers, 200,000 of them, are known as the Salima Jamiat, and respect the relatives of the Pir; but the Hurs, only a small minority who call themselves the Farq Jamiat, revere no one but him. & defy
all other sources of authority
.

They have been compared to the followers of the Aga Khan, or perhaps the Hashashin of the Ismailees, & yet they are ready to sacrifice themselves on the altar of his faith in a way unrivalled by any other sect!

In return for this single-minded devotion which could only be seen as madness by a sane Englishman, the Pirs of Pagaro also begin to see themselves as something approaching royalty: they peacock about in long coats and even a crown, enjoying elephant riding, shooting, hunting & archery, & have built a huge shrine at Kingri, their residence in Thar Parkar. …

We decided at once to attack the problem directly, & on my orders, the number of both armed and mounted police was increased, with police posts being established in those villages and hamlets of Thar Parkar where Hurs lived, & where support & hospitality was given to the criminal Gangs. The locals bear the costs of the increased police presence: 50,000 Rupees in Thar Parkar District and a further 200,000 in Hyderabad district alone. We have also taken action against leading Hurs: our informants have helped us compile lists of terrorist sympathizers; we shall revoke guns licenses & sequester land, withhold canal water, & initiate legal action against them.