On Sunday, November 4, I wrote a small message to friends in Pakistan and abroad. It was swiftly passed on and later appeared in the media. By the afternoon, I learnt that 70 members of the HRCP, including senior citizens like Mubashir Hasan and I.A. Rehman, were rounded up by the police from the conference room of the Commission. Artist Salima Hashmi, daughter of poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, was lifted in her chair and bundled into the police van. Fifty-five of them spent two nights between police stations, Kotlakhpat jail and in residences declared as sub-jails.
By Monday, the lawyers were in full swing. They were protesting all over Pakistan. Images of lawyers beaten, bruised, dragged by the hair, kicked around, and arrested appeared worldwide. Many were young but even those old were not spared. It was agonising to see them suffer at the hands of those who ought to have protected them. Lawyers are an asset for any civil society. They are trained to use their creativity to promote the values of justice. Instead, they were being brutalised and battered into submission. It depressed me to see blood being spilt on the streets and in the courts of Pakistan.
"Why is the public not on the roads?" I was asked repeatedly by journalists interviewing me over the phone. Apologetically, I tried to defend a society oppressed for decades. "After all, there were more protests in democratic countries against the Iraq war than in the so-called Muslim world that is mostly under dictatorship," I tried to explain. Moreover, I pointed out, there were no rallies or visible support for the Emergency. In response to a similar question by an Indian journalist, I could not help remind our neighbours of the lack of protests at the time Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency. Absence of widespread protests can never justify usurpation of the rights of people. Tyrannical rules can never be justified and even a single protest against despotism is laudable.
Pakistanis abroad began to stir. Their incredibly strong support for pro-democracy forces at home bolstered our spirits. At the same time, a lukewarm call to protest by the political parties remained disappointing. I watched these developments anxiously and kept preparing myself for worse. There was no doubt in my mind that while I read, wrote, cooked, cleaned a cupboard a day and sensitised the jailers around my house, the government will clamp harder and harder. Yet as an optimist, I was, and still am, convinced that military rule will not be tolerated for long.
On November 16, I was released unceremoniously. At 2.30 am there was a loud knock on the door. I thought that I was to be transferred to prison. I heard the bell ring and wished for it to fall silent. I heard the door open and then steps moving towards my bedroom door. It was my daughter. "It is fine," she whispered, "You have been released. I heard on PTV too." I jumped out of bed, bade farewell to my jailers and went back to sleep.
The next day I dressed and went to the bar room and then to the press club. Lawyers were still active and the press defiant. Slogans were being raised. "Go Musharraf go, in girti hui diwaron ko ek dhakka aur do, we want freedom...ham nahin mangte zulm ke zabte" (To this falling wall give one more push... We don't accept laws of oppression.)"
Indeed, Pakistan's civil society has learnt a few lessons. They want an end of military rule, and not just of Musharraf. Therefore, civil society and political parties have to play their cards well and forge a consensus over the process of transition. We have to look ahead and remain positive. There is always a positive aspect behind every crisis. We have learnt that there is greater strength while struggling to uphold a principled cause. Commitment to values of freedom has deepened and strengthened the bonds of Pakistan's civil society.
