Good dacoits, bad dacoits… Ali Hassan Bangwar

Ideally and rightfully in righteous societies, the parameters of actions and actors, including those of good and evil, are determined by their relative impacts on and collective will of the larger populace. The ones producing detrimental impacts on collective affairs are treated as evil, and vice versa. In these socio-political settings, virtue makes the anti-thesis of evil and thrives at the expense of barbarisms, ultimately transforming into a transparent, just, fair and egalitarian society. However, those where a handful of exclusivists encroach on public affairs, defining the nature and legitimacy of acts based on their impact on personal stakes, ultimately turn into bastions of evil. And in such societies, the antonym of evil is rarely considered good; instead, it’s distinguished as ‘good evil’ and ‘bad evil’. The former refers to acts and actors that benefit the self-established powerful at the expense of the public, while the latter are those that do not serve the interests of the powerful. The ‘bad evil’ rarely does genuine good for the public. However, it barely unleashes barbarism on people as much as its ‘virtuous’ counterparts do. Our society exemplifies the unprecedented manipulation of widely acknowledged notions of virtues and vices.

Notwithstanding the long-professed morality and the latent canons contained in the Constitution and law, the nature of actions and their actors get ultimately judged and determined by the chronically imposed powerful lot with barbaric tendencies. So is the case with the parameters of good and evil. Resultantly, the state-sponsored glorification of evil acts and their actors has turned the country into a repository of vices so much so that honesty is rarely looked for in the midst of corrupts, but less corrupt. The same goes true for others. For instance. Good satan, bad satan. Good pharaoh, bad pharaoh. Good hypocrites, bad hypocrites. Good flatterers, bad flatterers. Good kleptocrats, bad kleptocrats. Good feudal warlord, bad feudal warlord. Good pir, bad pir. Good traitors, bad traitors. Good jurists, bad jurists. Good bureaucrats, media-persons and clergy. And yes, back then there were good Taliban and bad Taliban. Today, good dacoits and bad dacoits.

Much like their official counterparts, the lawful outlaws, appropriately termed “good dacoits”, feel more secure and content in their own treasure island: the riverine forests, also called kacha. As active organs of the offence economy, including the kidnapping for ransom industry, the good dacoits rarely make their relevance and significance skeptic. They continue their good acts elsewhere, but in the hinterlands of Kashmore, Kandh Kot, Ghotki, Sukkur, Shikarpur and Southern Punjab, they brazenly attack public lives and property at will. The latest Machhko incident, where over a dozen police personnel were martyred by these bandits, is just one widely reported instance and the tip of the iceberg. Many innocent police personnel and civilians have been kidnapped and brutally murdered in Sindh’s districts. Dozens of citizens from these four districts remain hostages by these dacoits at all times.

And the answers to why they are as powerful as the state and where they get their military-grade weapons from lie in the two suggestive questions themselves. Per a good cop, the police are constrained from acting against dacoits (bad ones) beyond certain limit. Hence, no decisive action by the good police against the good dacoits. Who sets limits? Local residents widely point towards the long-peddled version of “state” and its diversely delegated local extensions and call the “good dacoits” central to a legitimate conquering of kacha. Hence, the carte blanche.

The nobodies – the good ones in truest sense – are rarely allowed to be counted in public affairs (except for existing at the receiving end of systematic oppression). Hence, they are unworthy of words. Hence, no more words for. The utopian few, including this author, disillusioned with the hope of justice for the victims of Macchko incident, among others, don’t really know the perpetrators’ fathers. But the law, prosecution and good judges do.

Courtesy The Express Tribune