The way it was: Of pride and prejudice
Mian Ijaz Ul Hassan
It is so easy to live with prejudice and so difficult to live a life without it.
It is so convenient to surrender and hard to resist a prejudice
Bobby who has recently retired from service recounted a rather interesting
dialogue he had with a village notable who boarded the bus Bobby was travelling
in from Faisalabad to Lahore. Then a young college student, Bobby has aged
rather well and has acquired a weightier presence over the years. It took some
time for the village notable to collect himself and descend on the seat, which
bore his weight with some protest. But as soon as he had managed the difficult
operation of seating himself next to Bobby, with his servant obediently sitting
immediately behind on the rear seat holding a live hookah, he asked Bobby
‘tussee kaun haunde o’ (who might you be).
Mind you he did not ask ‘who are you’ or ‘what do you do’ or’ where
are you coming from or going to’. The question was clear, demanding of Bobby
to divulge his caste or baradari. Bobby without batting an eyelid replied, ‘We
are Changars’, considered by some as a low caste. The village notable felt
absolutely scandalised. He was put off by the offensive reply but kept silent
realising that he had been rebuffed. Unfortunately the servant who sat at the
back, the idiot, in order to curry favour with his master rejoined ‘This
cannot be true! You are too fair of skin to be a Changar’. Bobby pausing only
for a moment to look into the inflamed eyes of His Village Highness replied,
‘That is because we are bastards’. Our distinguished village notable stunned
in total disbelief at what Bobby had so proudly divulged, but considered it
wiser to shift to a seat where people were better bred.
It is so easy to live with prejudice and so difficult to live a life without it.
It is so convenient to surrender and hard to resist a prejudice. It is such an
inebriating feeling to look down on others. An individual who wishes to elevate
himself can only do it through courage, intelligence and humanity. Of course
there is much greater satisfaction in denigrating others, because you can
elevate yourself without having to do anything.
I must say most children can be quite amazing in their want of prejudice, unless
their elders inculcate it in them. My four-year-old grandson amused me no end
when I saw him, without encouragement from anyone, first balance himself on his
feet and then lean forward on his toes, in order to kiss a she donkey on her
hairy left cheek. Naturally, the lady used to being thrashed all the year around
was taken aback and turned red in the face.
On another occasion someone else’s grandson in an interview for admission to a
prestigious school was asked by a Lady teacher, ‘Son, How old are you?’ He
lisped candidly without the slightest hesitation, ‘Actually I am six, but my
mother told me to tell you that I was five. ‘What a handsome thing to say. If
I were taking the test, I would have without any reservation whatsoever admitted
the lad, even if he was a year older than the unreasonable five-year age
restriction. Speaking the truth certainly needs to be encouraged but it is not
always easy to face the truth. In the same interview another child was asked,
‘What does your father do?’ ‘He drinks’ was the candid reply. The moral
is to think twice before you ask a question and remember to frame it well.
On another occasion a young mother accompanied by her young son and daughter
visited her bank to enquire whether the cheque she had deposited a day earlier
had been cashed. The banker who was a friend of her husband enquired ‘Why are
the children not at school?’ The mother replied, ‘Because they are not
feeling well.’ At this point her son, the younger of the two chimed ‘But
mama you didn’t send us to school because you got up late. ‘This is what you
get for pampering your children. A slap a day would certainly keep the truth
away and make life easier to live.
But who has the heart to slap a child? Only those who are personally frustrated
or those who hate themselves for not having the means to embrace them. Life is
full of trials and contradictions, which cannot be individually resolved but can
possibly be addressed if society as a whole has the will to do it. I have seen
poor children share space with dogs. The children play their own games and dogs
play theirs. By the end of the day the dusty naked bodies of our children
resemble the dung-brown coat of the dogs. A young lady who worked among the poor
once tried to educate local mothers about personal hygiene and benefits of
washing and cleaning the children. One of the mothers replied, ‘ Bibee Jee! Do
you really think we don’t try to keep our brats clean? Almost the moment they
have been bathed they go out in the street and cover themselves with dirt. We
can’t make them sit on a charpoy the whole day, can we?’
Mind you the street she was referring to is one of our typical streets with
waste and dirt, with dirty black water gurgling out from shanks in open drains
onto the street. A nice place for our children to play! The rich send their
children to expensive nurseries while the poor children play on mounds of filth.
This should be unacceptable. If nothing can be done, at least let us begin by
separating the humans from animals, separating the dogs from the children. Let
the rich be rich, buy as many toys or tanks as are wanted, but let us jointly
cry out and say, enough is enough! People are people and not cockroaches! Treat
them with respect. By all means say no to even their legitimate demands, but say
No politely. Have them out of your cool comfortable offices with patience,
without hurt and insult. Treating them with dignity and self-respect needs no
budgetary allocation or foreign assistance. There is of course one flaw in this
argument. If we start treating people with respect, they may very well start
believing they are our equals. How can this be acceptable? So let’s keep them
where they are, at any cost.
Prof Ijaz-ul-Hassan is Pakistan’s leading painter. He is a teacher, art
critic and political activist. He was awarded the “President’s Pride of
Performance” in 1992. He is currently the president of the PPP Punjab’s
Policy Planning Committee and Chairman of the party’s Manifesto Committee