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By Afiya Shehrbano Zia OUT of all of Gen Zia’s children of dictatorship, M. Hanif, the author of the new novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, is the lost sibling I’ve been searching for most anxiously.
Of course, given that we grew up in an era of sexual taboos and forced abstinence, the state made sure I could imagine no other social relationship with him (or any man, for that matter). So brother it must be. I say ‘lost’ because as a generation to find us you will have to search deep inside the closets of depoliticisation, cultural vacuity or, increasingly, layers of beards and hijabs.
Hanif is amongst the few of us who didn’t recede into any of these. Instead, he rescues those years and writes about how they made us damaged goods. No one from the next generation will get the real importance of his title, but in our politically incorrect hearts of the 1980s, only we know how we waited for that crop of mangoes for 11 years.
In Mangoes, Hanif’s strength is his complete and unapologetic irreverence. Every page reeks of a historical mockery of the Gen Zia years and the plot revolves around a reinvention of political moments and opportunity. It is as if the novel is trying to reclaim the dark years of militarisation, drugs, lies, torture, cultural asphyxiation and most of all religio-political hypocrisy. But not in the way that we activists, sociologists or researchers do.
In my attempt to search for the cultural impact of the Zia years and as I look to further my activism which germinated in that political wasteland, I am always too earnest, trying too hard and getting nowhere.
Hanif doesn’t insult the ‘oriental mind’ by explaining to any western audience about the twisted laws or bizarre social and political culture that suffocated us. He doesn’t look to be rescued either. He merely recollects and laughs while doing so. While we struggle to document and learn about ourselves from history, this novel is mostly a political mystery.
In those years of secrecy, anonymity, a complete media blackout; with literature, dance and song as underground as leftists; women the nemesis of the state and students academically lobotomised, how were we really expected to know what actually happened? So the lesson of historical amnesia that we were so skilfully taught is used to advantage here. The events are subverted and personalities caricaturised, with no special regard for historical accuracy. This story weaves together fact and possible fiction — just like our history lessons.
Set in the military of Gen Zia, the book draws heavily from the author’s own early career as an air force officer. There is a poignant camaraderie in the brotherhood but at the same time one can see through the hollow purpose of any war, particularly the proxy one we led against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
This surrogacy continues even now while the insidious process of militarisation of society and relationships as well as the lost youth of that period are the realities of today. Look into the soldier’s mind. There is Gen Zia’s fear-ridden mind, complete with the ‘holy tingling’ the author imagines the dictator felt in his backbone, as he benevolently hands out money to widows. Those were times when the Muslim male’s fear of emasculation, the politics of piety, suppressed sexuality, collaboration and class were all present and in a big way.
Equally the novel is about taking opportunities and converting them into historical relevancy. There was subversion and dissent within the military as dictatorship emerged as a method of leadership that merely sapped the collective potential of a nation with regard to all institutions. The plot revolves around multiple potential assassins of the president each with a pressing reason to commit the crime, each representing institutions and causes destroyed by the politics of dictatorship. Which eventually succeeds is not the point. That dictatorships continue to haunt us, is.
There can be no record of that period in Pakistan’s history without mentioning the single-minded destruction of the fourth estate by Gen Zia and his sycophants. The general managed to ‘cultivate’ with ease the newspaper editors who vacillated between prayers and boozing sessions.
Of course, I remember this is a novel and I read all these characters who are superbly representing a broad political principle. Consider Major Kiyani of the dreaded ISI, a man who “runs the world with a packet of Dunhill, a gold lighter, and an unregistered car”.
If he can remind me of the truth of that in one sentence, why does the novel fail to capture how the women’s movement became such a threatening reality in Zia’s conscience? Hanif can’t get the woman question convincingly. I read this as a biographical comment about the men of his/our generation.
This is especially so, since the general came down even harder on women. In one television broadcast, the general reportedly warned the nation not to be misled by the 200 elite women of the Women’s Action Forum who had become a street nuisance for him. The point being that misogyny isn’t always rooted in fear of the stereotypical dominating wife, nor does it always emerge from patriarchal religion.
The comment that Gen Zia eliminated from his daily routine all things that break an ablution — “garlic, lentils, women who didn’t cover their heads properly” — is clever but misplaced. Rather, Gen Zia made women very serious targets on which he hinged the legitimacy of his Islamisation project. Men eagerly ate this idea up and colluded with the misogynist state to accuse women of sexual transgression for their own (often material) advantage. I wish Hanif had shamed them here too.
But more than that one feels personal frustration with those of Zia’s children, who having suffered a stunted youth under his dictatorship, grew up and still romanced with the next dictator — merely because unlike his predecessor, the new millennium autocrat liked women, drink, dance, India and Israel. If anyone wants to be reminded of the true nature of military dictatorship, regardless of its pious or liberal masks, read Hanif’s book. Then you can welcome Musharraf’s children into the family.
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