Pakistan’s Legends:Salmaan Taseer (1944 - 2011)
*In view of Defence Day, we will highlight some legends and eminent martyrs of the country, who laid down their lives for the motherland. Our seventh and last Pakistan's Legends feature is on the brave and mighty governor of Punjab, Shaheed Salmaan Taseer, who was assassinated for his humanitarian advocacy
“Tell me about your father," I said to Shehryar Taseer. We both lapsed into memories of our childhood.When I was a child, I was taught martyrs do not die because the sacrifices they made for the protection of innocent people enables them to live forever in our hearts and history.It is for that reason I will write about Salmaan Taseer in the present tense.
Capturing the vibrant talents and enthusiastic personality of Salmaan Taseer is about as easy as sweeping the ocean into a bottle. The magnitude of his work, the scope and scale of his accomplishments - in business, in politics, in media and more- and that too, spanning decades, has led him to mean different things to many people. Close friends and family say that to this day, new tales of his wit and accomplishments come to light from all corners of the globe.
His own tale begins in Simla in 1944, the city of his birth, and he was raised in Lahore, the city of his heart and home. Born to Muhammad Din Taseer, popularly known as MD Taseer, a national poet and leader of the Partition-era progressive writers' movement, and Bilqis Christobel George, the sister of Alys Faiz, herself the wife of beloved Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the fates of his family and Pakistan were readily intertwined before Salmaan Taseer was even born; the nikahnama of his parents was officiated by no one other than Allama Iqbal.Salmaan Taseer's sharp mind and overflowing charisma earned him a respected reputation early on, and made him a natural supporter of the populist socialism of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his Pakistan People's Party (PPP). He authored the first biography Bhutto: A Political Biography of his icon, chronicling the political landscape Bhutto hoped to change with a progressive vision for Pakistan.
The fervour would never abate.
After Bhutto's devastating hanging, orchestrated by the vile dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq, Salmaan Taseer endured jailing and torture by a regime that did not take kindly to his pamphleteering for the restoration of democracy.
For months, Zia's thugs kept him in solitary confinement in a dungeon in the old Lahore Fort, allowing him half a plate of lentils a day. His new bride, Aamna Taseer, imbued with a natural grace and strength of spirit, went each day to ask after her husband, only to be told by sneering guards he had been killed. Meant to break her indomitable spirit, these lies only fuelled her search and she managed to relay a note to her young husband by befriending a cell sweeper. Salmaan Taseer wrote back one of his iconic lines: "I'm not made from a wood that burns easily." He withstood constant jailing, at one point kept in shackles for six months, yet remained undeterred activist and defender of democracy.
In time, and with Benazir Bhutto's rise to prominence and the resurgence of the PPP, Salmaan Taseer was back centre stage in politics as the prime minister's aide. He won the election to become a member of the Punjab Assembly from Lahore in 1988, forging close ties with a democratic government in a time where everything must have seemed upward-bound and anything must have seemed possible.
"You live life once, you live it by your principles and you live it courageously. That's what it's about"
All along, he pursued his passion for business. His skill and acumen, coupled with his keen enterprising instincts, led him to establish First Capital Securities Corporation, a full service brokerage house with equity participation by Smith Barney, Inc, US and HG Asia Hong Kong and Worldcall, a telecommunications network. His forays into media included Pakistan's only business channel, Business Plus channel as well as his successful leading English newspaper Daily Times.
For this son of the soil, it was only right to take these successes and return them back to Pakistan, leading by example and respecting men and women of all faiths, backgrounds, religions in his dealings and generating livelihoods - not just jobs - for tens of thousands of employees.
His mighty voice speaks for a gentle heart.
He said as much himself; newly appointed as the Governor of Punjab by a PPP-led coalition government in 2008, he stated on the show 'Meena Bazar' with Ayesha Sana that he had no intention of being a ceremonial Governor. In fact, he continued, the doors would be opened and the Governor's House and gardens would be made accessible to the public, just as his offices would be to their grievances. Political friend and rivals alike acknowledge this was done with masterful care and compassion, in a country where this is the exception and not the rule.
His conscience guides his public service. When floods ravaged parts of Punjab, the Governor rallied the province, leveraged his business contacts and expertise, to respond to the crisis, making several trips himself to follow up on relief and rehabilitation efforts for the affectees as well as the resurrection of their destroyed crops. In the wake of a brutal sectarian attack against followers of the Ahmedi sect that left 86 people dead, the governor went to condole with the families of the slain and to support the injured survivors. When rioting mobs torched house and after house in Joseph Colony, a Christian neighbourhood, the Lion of Punjab, as he had come to be known, was among the first to show up to the scene and demand justice.
Perhaps because he believed in a more progressive Pakistan, perhaps because he lived in a time where there had been such promise and possibility, Salmaan Taseer is braver than many of our generation. When Aasia Noreen, a poor, illiterate Christian mother of five was sentenced to death under Zia's outrageous blasphemy laws, the case became a national lightning rod. Salmaan Taseer went immediately to visit Aasia Noreen, holding a press conference the morning after Christmas 2010 to champion her cause, believing that this might be the case that would finally allow the misuse of these laws to be stopped once and for all.
Upon learning the details of this case, he understood the allegations were fabricated, based on a ploy for a land grab if Aasia Noreen and her family were forced to relocate. While the case of Aasia Noreen attracted global attention, with Pope Benedict XVI appealing for her life, the Lion of Punjab was one of a select few willing to discuss it in Pakistan.
These laws, he said in interviews and town halls, are unfairly used to convict minority Pakistanis for insulting Islam, and in this case especially, there was no evidence that Aasia Noreen had committed blasphemy, which carries the penalty of death. A logical mind can never accept hearsay as admissible in a civilised court of law, knowing that countless people languish in prisons, sure to live in fear for their lives if they ever are freed.
This strong stance invited a tidal wave of fury from the religious right-wing of Pakistan. Fatwas were issued condemning the Governor and those who supported Aasia and other minorities; in some cases even read on air by representatives of a newly-free and sensationalist media. Mosques and madrassas whipped worshippers into a frenzy based on misinformation and outright lies, pulling them into forceful demonstrations across the country to protest the actions of Salmaan Taseer. As they burned him in effigy, he took to his Twitter and said, "Religious right trying 2 pressurise from the street their support of blasphemy laws. Point is it must be decided in Parliament not on the road (sic)," he wrote on December 26, 2010.
"I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing (sic)" he posted on December 31.
Just weeks after his public stance, he was assassinated on January 4, 2011, his son Shehryar's 25th birthday.
Perhaps he did not know - how could anyone have? - that deeply pervasive religious extremism was lurking nearby. His death came at the hands of his own bodyguard, a man who gleefully takes pride in his actions. Salmaan Taseer had said, "Covered in the cloak of religion even a puny dwarf imagines himself a monster." This devastating assassination in the heart of the capital ruled by his party shook Pakistan to the core, further cementing the deep polarisation and instability of the country. The country's progressives were left stunned speechless, or otherwise grappling with a totally changed political landscape. Other national leaders, who had been following in the confidence and benevolent tradition of the governor, withdrew into a shocked silence. On the streets, supporters of Salmaan Taseer carried signs asking, "Who will protect us now?"
Then Senator John Kerry issued a statement declaring, "The best way to honour his legacy is to continue resisting violent extremism and supporting the core principles on, which Pakistan was founded." Here at home, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari declared his pride that "Salmaan Taseer and other brave leaders like him were the part of Pakistan People's Party and its leaders and workers who cared little for their lives but gave sense of security to the toiling and innocent people of the country."
It was said that a light had gone out in our country, that this was perhaps the final nail in the coffin for a progressive Pakistan. For many people, and for a long time, this seemed to be true. A sympathetic public oscillated between grief and despair. Yet, as time pulls us, our eyes adjusted to this darkness and that stubborn voice of justice calling beckons in the hearts of many. I often find myself wondering what the governor would have thought about this issue, or that Middle East political tangle, or the trends in the national economy.
We don't have him anymore, but as his daughter Shehrbano Taseer wrote, "But we buried a heroic man, not the courage he inspired in others." It has been hard to summon that sort of bravery but I have learned one thing about courage: it is contagious.
As we talk, Shehryar Taseer, transported by time, comes back to the present and catches my eye. "A self made man, who always did things, when people said they can't be done. He would hope when there wasn't any left. He would stand up when standing wasn't the easy option. He was Pakistan's brave heart."
"Martyrs never die," I remind him.
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