in Circumspection

Two Articles from long time back…..

 

Dignify the Deaths

Media has an indomitable might. Owing to the perpetual sanguinity of the media industry, all the entrepreneurs mobilize it as a propaganda tool to conquer the world politically, commercially, spiritually and even emotionally. Thus, more often, media has become the arrow, armor and the album of the conquerors. However, this does not have any single-fold reasons and the media industry singly is not to be blamed for this. The media industry has its own financial, dogmatic and technical sets of limitation. Yet, the point is that, the media must reckon its grandeur and should not forget that its essence is not only to propagate information but also to promulgate the message of humanity, equality and justice throughout the world.

While writing this, the recent bomb blast at RawalPindi of Pakistan is in my mind.  Along with the powerful lady of Pakistan, Benajir Bhutto, many others were killed in the blast, including the suicide bomber. But the news hit the headlines as ‘ The Assassination of Bhutto’ or ‘ Bhutto Killed in the Bomb Blast’, whilst the news of the killing of other people who accompanied her even to the death was put merely in a line. Last October, when there was a huge blast in Karachi, taking toll on the lives of 140 people, the news was not headlined as ‘ The Killing of 140 people’; instead, the headline was ‘ Assassination attempt on Bhutto’.

Be it the epochal massacre of Kotparva or the Narayanhiti massacre, the death of the so called   royal-births and noble-births are mourned and recorded, whilst, there were several killed, who came from the so called lower- birth, whose deaths were never acknowledged. Their deaths are not archived as the so called high-rankers and so their memories vanished like the tiny bids of water in the ocean, giving an air of meaninglessness to their deaths.

I can not decipher, whether this legacy of ‘lightening the powerful’ and ‘darkening the powerless’ even after the death ,is handed by the society to the media or the vice versa. However, the media should not encourage this fashion of disparity. If everyone is entitled to the right to live with dignity, s/he is entitled to die with dignity too, whatsoever his/her political, social or financial position is. This may sound a bit unviable in the present situation to talk about the rights of the dead where even the livings are deprived of their basic rights, but death being a final and inescapable aspect of life, right to dignified death (at least I think) does not deserve to be denied to any soul. And media, with all its might and grandeur, should develop an attitude towards dignifying the deaths.
 

 

Killing is Seeding

Political Lineage, corruption and assassinations are some of the common fates that most of the striking South Asian political leaders could not escape. Be it Gandhis or Shahs or Bhuttos, the end has always been a beginning .And the beginning has always been a beginning of another end. History narrates that, when a particular assassination is set against a backdrop of certain political intricacy, the whole scenario suffers a sea change. Yet, the settlement of every intricacy has been a rising (or raising) of another intricacy. From socio-economic to psycho-religious, the effect of the post-assassination alteration is palpable throughout all the sector of a nation, not to mention political. Nevertheless, the kernel institution and principle remains immutable.

 If power corrupts, it assassinates as well, this holds water for most of the South Asian political leaders. And an interesting fact is that, when somebody powerful gets assassinated( most of the times predictably ) , no matter  how much s/he had mastered or slaved the power   throughout his/her political career, the power deserts him/her after the assassination and ceremoniously, as a  redemption , the power  is offered  to his/her heir , who normally comes from his/her own family lineage.

Let us remember the most recently assassinated Pakistani former Prime-minister and the most prominent leader of the People’s party of Pakistan as an instance. Julfikar Ali Bhutto, Benajir’s father, the former Pakistani prime-minister and the founder chairman of PPP was assassinated .Another Pakistani Prime minister Liaqut Ali Khan   succumbed to the same fate of assassination. Benajir’s two brothers Shahnawaz and Mir Murtaza both were assassinated. From Nawaz Sarif to Pervez Musseraf, almost everyone of the political leader, who rose into power, underwent an assassination attempt, though spared. The forces behind the attempts and the assassinations is a different issue to discuss .But, the paradigm of assassination politics, which  is looming  large in South Asian politics ,  is what this piece tries to focus on .

It seems as though, the leaders and the people of this region has taken this paradigm of assassination politics for granted. To look back the instance of Bhutto, it can be seen that, she had had long been sensed the lurking ‘ Jia Remnants’ and finally she met the tragedy which she had predicted. And typically, a file of her heirs waits to rise into the power, to exercise it. Though, not only the Pakistani political arena, but the whole world’s political conscience has been stirred by her assassination, nothing changes at the substance. Another leader of the PPP, Aitzaz Ahsan might succeed her as the chairperson of the party or, her own son Bilawal, who is graduating from the Oxford university like her may come to the scene. The PPP will be the same, s/he who comes to her place, will continue her legacy as an institution and at the end nothing will differ, despite such a huge difference. There are hundreds of Bhuttos preparing him/herself to be Bhutto in the PPP, in the universities and elsewhere. So, killing one  is ,at length, seeding a thousand  more and the politics of assassination is  merely the blowing of  the wind at  the surface and forging  an air of change , but deeper , the  land remains  firm and immutable.

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