The Challenger

By Waqar Gillani –

The unusual story of Jamshed Dasti, both reviled and loved

Driving along the historic Grand Trunk (GT) Road, connecting the city of saints – Multan – to Pakistan’s tribal turmoil, comes Muzaffargarh. A dusty district in southern Punjab, Muzaffargarh experienced revolutionary change when an ordinary man defeated the notable political dynasty of Nawbzada Nasarullah Khan in the 2008 general elections.

Jamshaid Ahmad Khan Dasti won another landslide victory in May this year, contesting in two neighbouring constituencies simultaneously and scooping more than 100,000 votes in the process. His victory again upset the establishment of Khars and Nawabzadas, one of whom – the People’s Party’s Ghulam Noor Rabbani Khar – received only half the support Dasti did. He beat the two sons of the late Nawabzada Nasarullah Khan, and reminded the landowning class of the southern Punjab that politicians are there to serve the poor, not to rule them.

Dasti himself comes from a poor family: his father, Sultan Ahmad Dasti, brought him and his six siblings up in a mud-house located close to the Kacha area of the river. His father was a low paid agricultural worker and part-time wrestler. That same combative spirit is manifest in Dasti’s own story.

“I am fighting with the pigs,” he said referring to the landlords he regards as ruthless, and with whom he has spent his political life competing with. “And you known fighting with them is tantamount to embracing death,” he said while sitting in a car, en route to the wedding ceremony of one of his supporters on a recent humid Sunday.

“I believe that politics is there to serve people and to be connected to them,” he said, adding, “This is what I want to these mighty landlords who never used to come to these people, begging for votes, to realise.” Before he arrived on the scene, his competitors used to send chits with their messengers, imploring people to vote for them come Election Day. “One could never imagine them attending the marriage ceremonies of these poor families.”

But now, he adds, in these elections people saw them coming out of their four wheelers in guarded convoys, beseeching and begging ordinary persons to vote for them, against him.“This is the change I have brought in this area. This is my contribution. People are getting respect and realising themselves against these landlords who, for generations, have been ruling them.”

Dasti became used to seeing the actions of these feudal landlords from early in his childhood, and now challenges them with his humble background and common man credentials. He wore Western dress pants only in his college days, and on special occasions. The rest of the time, he wears simple shalwar kamiz and sandals without socks. He has only one pair of Norozi chappal, which he wears when the national assembly is in session. He does not own a house, and instead stays with his brother, or sleeps in his rented office in the town, which is open to all around the clock. He is almost 33, and plans to tie the knot by the end of this year. The wedding was arranged by his mother, a humble family background, he said.

“I have been seeing the difference [between different social groups] and since my childhood. Time is my best teacher. I learnt from circumstances,” he said recalling the start of his struggle in 2001 when he was elected as labour councillor in the district assembly of Muzaffargarh. He established the Mazdoor Ittehad (Unity of Labourers) Group to provide a platform for the area’s exploited labourers. “I was the only person raising a voice for the poor, and highlighting the exploitation at the hands of landlords in front of local landowning families,” he said.

His political struggle at the district level started when he spoke against the transfer of a female health worker, who was being punished because she did not support the district Nazim in local government elections. “There were around 50 criminal cases against me, including charges of terrorism.” He said this is how landlords suppress poor people and their advocates, explaining, “They engage in the politics of victimisation, and drag their opponents down by lodging false cases in the police stations and courts.”

With the popularity gained during to his struggle, he contested the election of the Union Council Nazim in 2005, and easily defeated a local landlord named Sardar Abdul Hai Dasti. Later, to challenge the landlords of the area further, he was among those who supported Sardar Abdul Qayyum Jatoi, a political stalwart and big landowner as district nazim. Jatoi saw a spark in Dasti, and managed to get him a Member of the National Assembly nomination in the 2008 general elections, on Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) platform.

In 2010, when his opponents went to court, claiming his degree to be a forgery, he was disqualified, but later gained permission to contest a bye-election for the same seat. This time around, he was successful, winning with a high margin against a candidate from the Nawabzada family. That time’s President of Pakistan and co-chairperson of the PPP – Asif Ali Zardari – was so proud of him that, while addressing a big public gathering in Garhi Khuda Baksh, he called Dasti a “great worker of the party.”

In elite circles, Dasti is sometimes considered a gimmick, a thug, or even worse, a small-time mannerless hustler with a fake college degree, who represents the worst of Pakistan. Conversely, the international press portrays him as the Robin Hood of Pakistan, while those native to his underdeveloped town believe him to be a hero of the highest order.

“Dasti is from us. He is not a landlord who washes his hands after touching the poor of the area. He is not someone who would beat a motorcyclist for pressing his horn, seeking permission to overtake,” Mushtaq Hussain, a childhood friend of Dasti, said, adding, “Dasti hated these landlords since childhood and wanted to become a popular figure to serve the people.”

As a student, Dasti said he enjoys reciting poetry inspired by the Marxist philosophy of class struggle. He went door-to-door collecting donations, and started Muzaffargarh’s first free ambulance service. People nicknamed him “Rescue 15” – after the police emergency telephone number. When he was in the PPP, he established Benazir Bhutto Bus Service, a free service for poor people travelling long distances within the district. Today, he has five buses running, two of which he managed to procure through donations.

In the bye-elections held in August 2013, Dasti’s brother, Muhammad Javed Khan Dasti, lost against the Khars with a margin of 9,000 votes. He pins the defeat on a rift within his group, saying that around 20,000 of confirmed voters went to Iqbal Patafi, a former group member, who had the tacit support of local landlords.

“These landlords have been posing as apologetic to a public they never even thought to shake hands with while asking for votes against my brother, who is only 26, while the rival was a prominent senior feudal lord of the country having his third generation in politics,” he explains.

Surprisingly, during the PMLN government formation in June 2013, Dasti received an offer to join Nawaz’s party, but he made demands of Nawaz that his aides refused to even consider. His vision for his district was broad-ranging, and so he asked that an agricultural college be established, that electricity and gas networks were extended and subsidised, and that river banks were fortified to protect the poorest residents from floods.

“This is a war against feudal, violent criminals, to give poor people their rights. If this is a mutiny, then I am a rebel,” he said, adding, “I am not a criminal like Robin Hood. The accusations that I am a thug are to defame me in the international media, with whom this educated feudal class mingles with at cocktail parties in Islamabad and Lahore.”

He said he is not losing heart. “I am on my mission and will soon start a campaign going to different areas, polishing peoples’ shoes, sweeping the streets,” he said. He tells me that he understands that this is not a legislator’s job, but that he wants send a message to his community’s landlords that they are not rulers, but subservient to those who elect them. “I believe a faqir (poor man) deserves more respect than a minister,” he opines.

He said no one has pulled his strings in life. “I do whatever I like to do in my life,” he said, when asked about his recently tabled bill in the National Assembly to increase the retirement age of High Court and Supreme Court judges from 65 to 67. Obviously, this is to benefit sitting Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chuadhry, who, Dasti believes, did a great job while taking up corruption cases against the previous government.

“Chief Justice Chaudhry is vital for Pakistan, and he must be given two more years,” he said, denying that this campaign is part of a wider plan to repay the judiciary for allowing him to run in the general election. “I could have won all these cases against me, but that was a crucial time because there were only two days left to submit the nomination papers,” he argues.

In 2010, the Prime Minister opposed his re-nomination because he, being a landlord, wanted to support his class. “They also refused me a place on the ticket in the general elections 2013 against the Khar family, which forced me to leave the party,” he said, adding, “When Benazir Bhutto was alive, she was the only camera to watch over Mr. Zardari’s performance and acts.”

Perhaps Dasti’s greatest strength is in his view of Pakistan’s greatest challenges. His opinions mirror those of an increasingly disenfranchised mass, as well as the poorest sections of society. “People are poor, fed up of loadshedding, unemployment. This is one of the reasons they send their children to madrassas, where they get free food and shelter. Meanwhile many educated youths have taken to street crime.”

On the issue of regional conflict, he says, “The Taliban are the product of America. This is not our war.” He fears that talks with the Taliban will fail. “This is a game, to enable America to escape [the region], but we will be left in the middle again. They will succeed and we will be used again.”

“People are fed up. They have lost all hope, and realise that this newly formed government will not take care of them. They even cannot pay their utilities,” he said, maintaining, “We are moving fast towards a bloody revolution.”

Reflecting on the magnitude of the situation, and his own, still lowly position in Pakistani politics, he sighs, “I realise sometimes I cannot do it alone.”

The writer is a journalist based in Lahore. He tweets @waqargillani