Maulana Fazal is a very broad man. He wears a beard which is the broadest of those worn by any of his competitors. And he is a broadminded man on all issues save those that concern his narrow self-interest.
Ever since he lost in the elections, he is not as pleasant as he used to be. The special object of his ire is Imran Khan. From cursing him in mellifluous tones, he has begun going after the P.M hammer and tongs. And he has now ordered battle stations, by drafting religious rhetoric into the fray. If he carries on the way he is, there is likely to be blood on the streets. Incitement of raw religious sentiment when added to wretchedness, hunger, and poor governance becomes a toxic mix. This must explode. The damage that such an explosion will cause, is anyone’s guess.
As I think of Maulvi Fazal today, I recall to mind another Maulana whose speeches against Z.A. Bhutto were pure fire and brimstone. He did not threaten a movement. He did not have madrassas whose students could be mustered and unleashed as street power. But his speeches against a supreme egotist like ZAB, I thought, were certain to elicit a a response.
I was then serving a five-year prison term in Campbellpur Jail for my part in what came to be called The Attock Conspiracy. At the time of the story I am about to relate, the “class” of my imprisonment had been elevated from C, to B, and then A. The same was true of my compatriots who were convicted with me.
The “mushakti” assigned to me was a chap called Niwaz Sialkoti. He was doing life for murder. In jail, murderers were at the very top of the pecking order. They never wanted to be seen with common thieves, whom they considered as Untermensch. This being the case, I often wonder how these very same people are quite O.K with electing master thieves to assume the leadership of the state. But that is another story.
Coming back to Niwaz, like me he too was from the infantry and thus there was a special bond between us. It was his duty to cook for me. And what he could put on my table was two dishes, baingan-aloo and aloo- baingan. His culinary expertise being very limited, despite his best intentions, could never transcend the barely passable. Yet he was always solicitous of finding out how I’d liked the “bhaji”. And I never failed to compliment him.
But what made him indispensable was his skill at making roti, without which nourishment even at subsistence level could not be thought of. The roti made in jail often had a rich admixture of sand, earth, and flour so that it was not easy to chew on and take down.
One day when I was about to go and see the jail superintendent, Ch Ayub, Niwaz came all excited, and sniggering. He informed me: ” saab jee Maulvi Chishti ander ho gaya ae”. He was talking of Maulana Bashir Ahmed Chishti, a firebrand Mulla of rich renown in those parts.
I asked him where they had lodged the Maulvi, and he pointed to the far “hata” or compound.
I asked him why was it that he could not suppress his snigger. He said that the Maulvi was very fat and very angry, and was cursing Bhutto like hell. And then for good measure, he acquainted me with a sampling of the curses that the mad mullah was hurling. Some of these were novel indeed even by the standards of the ribald lingo then prevalent in “our” jail.
Ch Ayub, the superintendent, was a tall man always dressed in a suit and tie and his Jinnah cap. He was an exceedingly polite man, given to smiling and invoking “Allah Ta’la” in every second sentence which he uttered.
When I went to his office, and after having done with the business I went to see him about, I mentioned Maulana Chishti and remarked that finally his tongue seemed to have landed him in the jug–and perhaps that Ch Sahib had been appointed to dish out due comeuppance to the Maulvi. “From what I hear,” I said, ” he is a fairly large man, so I guess the comeuppance will have to be fairly large as well?”
Ch Sahib gave me one of his smiles, and as always his eyes closed as he did so. “Allah Ta’la, ” he informed me, ” always gives aid to those who ask for it. And not every nut needs a hard blow to crack it open. Often it takes soft power to do the trick much more effectively.”
This was the first time I had heard the term ” soft power.”
A little after sunset the moans of Chishti Sahib began to rend the air. Softy at first, and growing progressively louder. Niwaz was quick to inform me that the moaning was on account of hunger. The Maulvi was extremely hungry he informed me, and taking jail food down, “especially prepared for him”, was beyond him and he was naming dishes he would prefer to eat!
The situation remained unchanged the whole of the next day. But his moans and groans, though audible, when the din of day died down, had muffled considerably as his strength demonstrated signs of having ebbed.
The next evening as the sun set, Niwaz came to me very excited. “Saab jee,” he told me, “two trays full of some very nice smelling dishes have been sent to the Maulvi’s cell….and Saab jee, Superdent Saab has ordered his commode removed from his cell.”
That night no more moans issued from the Maulvi’s cell. It was obvious that he had been well fed. Peace had broken out in the jail.
But this did not last long. About dawn the next day, with his batteries energized afresh, the Maulvi really began hollering. He hollered the whole day. Often what rent the air were blood curdling screams. I was certain that he was being subjected to the worst of the third degree. I sent out Niwaz to investigate more than once, but each time he returned, he informed me that the compound door was locked shut, and no one was allowed in. This was confirmation to me that Ch Ayub had decided to opt for “hard power” instead of soft.
By about ten at night the moans and screams stopped. Niwaz came and described the scene. Maulvi Sahib was sitting on his haunches, perched on one corner of his bed, sobbing, with his shalwar soiled. All around his bed on the cement floor there lay, what can best be described as a veritable minefield of human excrement.
He had overeaten–every last morsel of fare on the two trays had been consumed. And then he quite literally “shat” his brains out. But because the commode in the cell had been removed, he had to do this all over the floor.
This was a demonstration of “soft power” I have not seen again. The next day Maulana Bashir Chishti signed a pledge of good behaviour, and disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Later one was to hear about the “hard power” administered to the venerable Maulana Tufail of JI on Bhutto’s orders. This reportedly entailed pushing ice cubes in his rectum when he was dumped in Lahore fort! Different approaches to achieve the same goal.
Today we are hearing from another Maulvi–i. e Maulvi Fazal. To protect his ill-gotten gains, he is squealing and threatening the state with anarchy. His weapon of choice is religion. Obscurantism, nurtured among the students of his madrassas, has created just the right soil in which poison can germinate and then be brought to explode.
Before Maulvi Fazal takes one more step in a direction which is to the detriment of the state, he needs to be given a real serious talking to. It must be made clear to him that when he opens his foul mouth again, he will be whisked off and offered a simple menu from which to choose i.e to opt for the ice in the rectum treatment in Lahore fort, or the one which will lead him to lay a minefield of refuse around his bed in some remote jail.
It is my belief that if such a warning were to be credibly administered to Maulvi Fazal his behaviour is apt to show great improvement. And this improvement is needed when there is a very clear danger that Maulvi Fazal can quite conceivably allow his tongue to run away with him which could result in bloodshed on the streets and serious fracturing of the polity.
Sometimes patience is just the wrong policy. This is one of those times.