Dr. Tariq Rahman

Farewell to Zamir Niazi

He was an institution in himself; he was an archive of the pres; he was the voice of freedom—but he was also a man. So he had to die and he died on Friday, the 11^th of June in Karachi. But people like Zamir Niazi try to make the world a better place to live in. That is why they are distinguished human beings. Zamir Niazi earned this distinction by writing the history of the freedom of the press in Pakistan.

The first book, Press in Chains (1985), chronicled the history of the press since James Augustus Hicky’s Hicky’s Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser (1780). This was the period of the East India Company’s rule which was in the process of consolidating its power over India. Under the circumstances it could not allow even the obvious villainies of its functionaries to be exposed. Hence the restrictions and the clamping down of quasi-legal restraints on the press.

But Zamir Niazi was not only a historian of journalism. He was a man with a mission. He wanted to prove that the rulers of Pakistan, despite having legitimized themselves in the name of ‘democracy’; were no less averse to the freedom of the press than were the British. Thus, from chapter 2 onwards, this book concentrates on Pakistan and dwells in detail on Ayub Khan’s martial law and his draconian measures to gag the pres.

The idea of the history was born in 1965 when ‘press advices’ were issued to the press. Altaf Gauhar, the Information Secretary who was the architect of this system of control, later met Zamir Niazi in his (Niazi’s) modest Gulshan-e-Iqbal house. At that time Altaf Gauhar had come to seek material on the press from the Grand Old Man of journalism. And Zamir Niazi showed him much of this material. Altaf Gauhar also tells us how Zamir Jafri retuned the pride of performance he had been given on 23 march 1995 in July the same year in order to protest the excessive use of force by the state in Karachi (in Hikayat-e-Khounchkan, 1997).

Zamir Niazi’s second major book was the Press Under Siege (1992). This book dealt with the violent post-Zia years up to 1991. These were the years of the rise of the MQM in Karachi and hardly anyone dared to report, much less criticize, the violence of the MQM against the press. Zamir Niazi, despite his support of the ordinary people of Karachi and some of the issues the MQM dwelt upon, did not hesitate to write against the high handed tactics of the MQM workers just as he reported such events elsewhere. The book ended with a moving appeal to the civil society to value the press. He wrote:

… we all have to stand up today against the twin menace of state restrictions and street barbarism. Perhaps it will be our last chance to do so. Perhaps tomorrow it will be too late. Perhaps tomorrow will never come.

What ominous words but how moving—and how true!

The third major book the Web of Censorship (Oxford University Press, 1994) goes over much the same ground as the previous ones but from a different angle. It does not occupy itself so much with individual acts of censorship, suppression and violence as with the nature and the process of censorship. In a word, the book connects violence with the lack of democracy which we have been experiencing. In a sense, this was a sequel and a theoretical analysis of the data marshalled together in the earlier books.

These are Zamir Niazi’s major works and I have given a gist of them because the Zamir Niazi who is a public figure, the Zamir Niazi I know, lives in his work and through his work. I do not know his personal life beyond such anecdotes or glimpses which are provided by other people such as in Hikayat-e-Khoonchikan. But I know that his trilogy is the best thing which happened to journalism in our part of the world.

I have been saying earlier, and many journalists have agreed with me, that the standards of Pakistani journalism have improved over the last twenty years. This is worth reiterating because other institutions do not seem to have improved noticeably. And why journalism has improved is because there were very brave and intelligent journalists around. This is really remarkable because the state does not protect or promote journalists, especially these who adhere to the truth despite the dictation or will of the functionaries of the state. Even parents do not encourage their children to become journalists. And still, despite the high risk and low pay, journalism has improved. Zamir Niazi’s books tell us exactly how much journalists have dared, and in what incredible ways they have suffered, to have earned respect in the eyes of those who cherish a free press.

The merits of a free press are so well known that it would be unnecessary to emphasize them but for the fact that many Pakistanis want the press to remain ‘in chains’. It is only the press which can present any country from becoming a concentration camp. The press should be free to publish what it likes, barring ordinary libel, even if this leads to yellow journalism and the sensationalism associated with tabloids. In time the tabloid form will find its lowly place and the reliable paper will assert itself as the voice of truth. The only homage we can pay to Zamir Niazi is to value cherish and preserve a free press. Than this, there is no greater homage.

Dr. Tariq Rahman