A Voice Silenced

Source: The News International

Link: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=208281

Friday, November 13, 2009

Harris Khalique

Today, with a heavy heart and trembling fingers, I write another obituary. Obituary of a housing rights defender, a community rights campaigner, a voice of the poor, a beacon of hope for the downtrodden Baloch and Sindhi population of the great metropolis, whose ancestors inhabit Karachi since it was a fishing village.

Not just Baloch and Sindhi, the working class citizens of the city have little idea who they lost in Nisar Hussain Baloch. He was 46 and has left a widow, a toddler and millions of us behind him to grieve his murder and mourn our fates.

It is somewhat unbecoming to quote from one's own earlier writing but when I did a piece on Gutter Bageecha a few weeks ago which appeared in this very space, I wrote, "… the politics of intimidation, profiteering, patronage and prejudice can hold us together for so long." Those who perpetuate oppression for their short-term gains whether it be in the name of religion, ethnic identity or political ideology fragment us further and try to snatch away any hope left for peaceful solutions to the problems we confront.

I had a long telephonic conversation with Nisar in Karachi the night before I wrote about Gutter Bageecha in August last. He was agitated, unhappy and felt wounded by what was being done to the age-old public-park in his neighbourhood. Out of 1,017 acres, 480 acres were left as the amenity park already and the women and children of the area used it for leisure and respite from the heavily industrialised and polluted environs of old city. That was the night when Nisar had just returned from the Civil Hospital Karachi after attending to the wounded men and women attacked while peacefully protesting against encroachment in the name of building colonies and commercial enterprises. Law-enforcement agencies were criticised for their role during the whole episode. Nisar was strongly critical of both coercion and intolerance faced by activists like him in Karachi and of the PPP for its expediency and tardiness.

Nisar became the president of the Gutter Bageecha Bachao Tehrik (Save Gutter Bageecha Movement) and worked closely with organisations like Shehri and other citizen rights groups to marshal public support for the cause. Nisar's passion was educating the young in his low-income neighbourhood and started his illustrious career in social work by establishing a street school in Old Lyari where children were educated for free. Due to his political consciousness and a deep desire to change the world around him in favour of the disadvantaged, he soon became active in the areas of environmental conservation and provision of basic facilities to those who are kept at a sub-human level by powers that be for centuries. Even the creation of a new country and one government after another did nothing to change their fortune.

Nisar was shot dead on November 7 by killers who first intercepted his motorbike and then fired at him from close range. Old Golimar, Bada Board and Pak Colony areas were shut down in protest and people raised slogans against the city government of Karachi. With all the hype created about its efficiency and smartness, it is already accused of changing the status parks and playgrounds in middle and low income areas while developing a large tract of land in a posh area by the sea into Bagh-e-Ibn-e-Qasim. Alas! The claim of championing the rights of the downtrodden can be made no more.

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and rights campaigner. Email: harris@spopk .org