Tariq Ahsan: A Forgotten Foot-soldier of Democracy

Those were politically effervescent days, back in mid seventies, when the Bhutto Phenomenon was the talk of the town, in Islamabad. We college boys were all trying to emulate the popular prime minister in every way, his dresses, his style of talking, his mannerism, and every gesture that he made. We were so freaked out on him, that, we were always trying to find new heroes in people, in whom we could find a new Bhutto in the making, and one day I, a seventeen year old, did find my hero. He came in the guise of my next door neighbour, and a class fellow of my elder brother, five years my senior. He talked in impeccable English, and looked just as brilliant and progressive as Bhutto, and could talk and argue on politics with my equally brilliant and articulate eldest brother, who is now teaching in a university in U.S.A., his political views all but forgotten. The twain could never see eye to eye about anything. Tariq Ahsan was heavily influenced by his parents, both of them very learned people, his father, was an Urdu poet of some renown, and also a director at the foreign office, and his mother was the famous Urdu short story writer, Begum Akhtar Jamal, and both of them were of progressive school of thought. My brother on the other had been reading too much from the Jamaat-e-Islami junk literature, my mother had inundated our home with.

Tariq Ahsan started studying for his Masters in International Relations at Quaid-e-Azam university, where he shone, even appearing on a television discussion program on foreign affairs, in which one of the other participants was Benazir Bhutto, then working at the foreign ministry, and meanwhile my brother became busy with his exceptional career as an engineer. They drifted apart, my brother, remained an integral part of the establishment, while Tariq Ahsan became more and more involved with the liberal elements at the Quaid-e-Azam University, but they always kept a friendly relationship, probably based on mutual respect for each other's intellect and for what each saw in the other and could not become, since I had once borrowed his beautifully prepared Physics notes, and which Tariq Ahsan had kept as a B Sc. student, and they were notes of somebody who was really fascinated with science, and on the other hand my brother was always a liberal at heart.

Now, thinking in retrospect, I realize that I should have always known that with his nonconforming views, and lack of backing from a feudal background, sooner or later this mild mannered gentle person would have got into trouble with the authorities. A decade had passed and Tariq Ahsan, after getting a masters in International Relations from U.S.A. began to teach at The Department of International Relations at the Quaid-e-Azam university, where one day I met him by chance. He was in his usual jolly mood, and talked about his job in the department, and told me with some pride that he had his own office there. He had no inkling about the multiple tragedies that were to fall on his family in a couple of years. His kid sister, who was studying at the National Council of Arts, Lahore, suddenly became ill, and passed away on reaching a hospital in nearby Rawalpindi. Tariq Ahsan was grief-stricken, and distraughtly complained to us, that the doctors had not given sufficient attention to her treatment.

I think it was only a year later, that one morning we read in the local paper, "The Muslim", that “seditious” literature had been found in the house of a lecturer from the Department of International Relations, at the Quaid-e-Azam university, and in the photograph of the seditious literature, I could easily discern the book "Not the whole truth", by Justice Kiyani. The moment I started reading the news item, I knew it would be Tariq Ahsan. We went to his house in the evening, where we found his heart broken mother, by now a widow, sitting alone in her drawing room and somewhat incomprehensive of what had happened, talking about her daughter whom she had lost, and a very large and beautiful photograph of her was hanging on the wall. She was more worried about one of the friends of Tariq, who was from a very poor background, and the sole support for his old parents. It transpired that some friends of Tariq Ahsan had borrowed his motorbike to distribute anti Zia government pamphlets, and one of them had been caught in the act. Tariq Ahsan was also arrested, and he was in the prison for two years, without any trial. Just after his release, he visited our house, and talked about his experiences in the prison. He said that he did not have a very bad time in the prison but only complained about the initial interrogation, during which they kept him constantly awake by shining a bright light inn his eyes and continued asking pointless questions.

During that visit, Tariq Ahsan seemed normal, but something must have given in during his incarceration, since much later on , after his eventual migration to Canada, I was told by a close friend of his that he had gone into a state of depression, and in Canada, could not hold a proper job for long. This kind of interrogation ought to be banned everywhere, since although it leaves no marks or injuries on the body, thus making it difficult to recognize it as a form of torture, it does irreparable damage to the mind. The establishment in our country has never realized that it is great minds that make great nations. Beginning from the great thinker Socrates, it is always the extraordinary minds that questioned the status quo, and such intellect should be nurtured, instead of destroying its keenness in order to make it conform, since dullness of mind is a safe guarantee to accept things as they are.

In nineteen ninety two, I got married, and after my second child was born, while discussing with a friend, what to name him, I stopped suddenly at Ahsan, and decided there and then that Ahsan Tariq would always remind me of my teenage hero, and this would be an appropriate and very personal way of remembering one of the foot soldiers of Pakistan's long and ongoing struggle for democracy, one of the many forgotten, whom nobody remembers for their little bits they had done for this cause. The public only remembers the big names, while likes of Tariq Ahsan go on living ignoble lives outside and within the country. My son is now thirteen, and my wife is always apprehensive that he will fall victim to the evil eye, since all her friends keep on talking about his good looks and his keen intelligence. I thank God that he is too preoccupied with gadgets, computers, and video games, to pay any attention to politics. I shudder even at the remote possibility of Ahsan Tariq becoming another Tariq Ahsan.