The session titled “Lurching rightwards: South Asia in the balance” dealt with dissipation of the Left, ascendancy of religion and communal fault lines in the region on the last day of the Lahore Literary Festival.

Dr Kamal Munir, dean of Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities & Social Sciences (MGSHSS) at LUMS, moderated the session. Panelists included PPP leader Sherry Rehman, Indian former foreign secretary and ex-high commissioner to London, Salman Haider, and economics professor Dina Siddiqi of Bangladesh.

In a lighter vein, Dr Munir introduced Ms Rehman as ‘reluctant’ ambassador to US.

Starting out the discussion, Ms Rehman said in America she witnessed religious identities were being subsumed in different conversations.

She said all South Asian states had failed to fulfill the promise to the people at large. “All countries in the region failed to cope with the demographic challenge and have become national security states. There should be a difference between hate speech and free speech. The promise held out by the Left regarding good governance and welfare was adopted by the rightists.”

She cited the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) as a step towards social welfare.

Picking up the thread, Salman Haider said: “The void created by the Left was filled by the right-wingers. Tolerance has eroded from societies. Dissent is not tolerated in South Asia. We are making things easy for bad guys.”

Speaking about popularity of religious ideology, Dina Siddiqi said: “People perhaps see fulfillment of their aspirations for equality and betterment in religion. The Left in Bangladesh dissipated in 1970’s. States have become powerful and authoritarian. Laws to silence political dissent are being formulated.”

About dissemination of information, Sherry Rehman said India was coming up with ‘trend lines not headlines.’ Elaborating the point, she said the killing of four people in Kashmir would make headlines in Pakistan and it would be business as usual there.

To a question by a member from audience about the future of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which lost election in some states of India, and the Pakistan People’s Party, Salman Haider saw hope for resurgence for both parties.

The audience burst into laughter when an attendee asked for Sherry Rehman’s take on bracketing US presidential candidate Donald Trump with Modi and Maulana Maudoodi. She said: “Maulana Maudoodi was articulate although his ideology was related to dogma and I don’t know about others guys.”

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2016