Zamir Niazi would not know that 25 years since his book, The Press in Chains, was first published, it would cause an uproar today. The journalist embodying a frail frame, a soft voice, with pen and paper as his weaponry, challenged the ruling dictator Zia by exposing his press censorship and antipathy against free speech. The year was 1986. Zia was at the zenith of his power.
His information czars were like bulldogs let loose on any publisher, editor and reporter daring to cross the red line. Tamed and terribly crushed, the media hailed Zamir Niazi as its champion, instantly canonising his book as the ‘bible’ of press freedom.
A quarter of a century later what’s the brouhaha? Agatha Christie would have loved to weave a web of conspiracy around the mystery of the two missing chapters in the second edition published 15 months ago. At the heart of ‘whodunit’ are the Oxford University Press (OUP) Managing Director Ameena Saiyid, Editor Zubeida Mustafa, and the author’s two sons, Haris and Junaid. Zamir Niazi passed away in 2004. The mystery of the missing chapters in the new edition has taken a life of its own when this newspaper published a story three weeks ago.
I emailed Ameena and Zubeida for their comment on the controversy raked up 15 months too late. Ameena gave the background, saying Zamir Niazi had requested her, in 2000, to bring out a second edition that he was in the process of revising. He wanted Zubeida Mustafa, a senior journalist at Dawn, to edit this edition. However, the unfinished second edition died with its author. Some years later, son Junaid sent the OUP the revised material in the form of an e-file on a CD, requesting Ms Saiyid to pick up the project from where his late father had left it. Missing from the e-file were the two most critical chapters on the Zia and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto period.
Confusion worse confounded set in. After a flurry of exchanged emails between the sons and the OUP, the mystery of the missing chapters remained unsolved. In June 2010, Ameena Saiyid brought out the 2nd edition minus the two ‘Zees’ (Zia and ZAB) chapters. Why didn’t Ameena or Zubeida press the sons for the two missing chapters? Here’s what Ameena emailed back to me in response: “The OUP and Zubeida Mustafa did not raise the matter of those chapters with the sons nor did Zohra Yusuf who wrote the introduction. The reason? The 2nd edition is a complete rewrite. The subjects and titles of the chapters had changed…There was no (further) conversation with the sons about this. They did not raise it [instead they] said they had given us all the material.” Zubeida Mustafa’s response to my query corresponds with Ameena’s. She confirms that she did not receive the two chapters. The back-story that she gave me of her involvement in editing the 2nd edition is straight forward.
She is therefore surprised why the whole thing has been turned into a controversy. And why is she being blamed for omitting the two most significant chapters on Zia and ZAB. “The missing chapters were not there but their contents were there in different parts of the book though they may be not in identical words.”
Now, the sons want the OUP to pull out the 2nd edition of their father’s book to include the missing chapters. Ameena Saiyid has refused. “It will be difficult to simply insert the two chapters in the 2nd edition (now). They won’t fit with the flow.”
Besides, she says “If material from the original edition was not included, perhaps that was the author’s intention. I could not, as publisher, tamper with the author’s material and add or take away from it. I had to maintain the integrity of the material and use what the family/ heirs had given me since they were now the owners.”
Why should son Haris Niazi blame the publisher and the editor for the missing chapters? “Without these chapters,” Harris reportedly said, “the current generation of readers will be deprived of an account of two crucial periods in the history of the Pakistani press.” The mystery of the missing chapters can only be solved if we find out who compiled the final manuscript that was sent to the OUP? Many months after Zamir Niazi’s death, one of his friends and admirers – he had many – had asked Zubeida Mustafa to help in finalising the book. “The material was in the form of handwritten notes in tiny handwriting all over sheets of paper. They were not organised and needed a writer with plenty of time, skill and experience to do it.” Zubeida did not agree to do the project ostensibly because it required a lot of time.
In 2009, after retirement, Zubeida eventually agreed to edit the 2nd edition after the OUP sent her a complete manuscript on a CD. Whoever compiled the manuscript sent to the OUP by the sons of Zamir Niazi, can solve the mystery of the missing chapters. Who is that person? Meanwhile, the plot thickens: While Ameena Saiyid has agreed to publish “The Press in Chains” in its original form, the permission by the heirs of Zamir Niazi has reportedly been declined.
Is it a case of nerves? Who’s afraid of ZAB? Is it the heirs of the late author or is it the publisher who may fear a backlash from his son-in-law, President Asif Zardari? “There is no question of our censoring or being ordered by the PPP government to remove the Bhutto chapter as some people are implying. No one from the government has said a word. No pressure at all,” Ameena wrote to me.
The biggest losers are Zamir Niazi, the media, and the coming generations of Pakistanis who will never know the truth as told by the man of steel and nerves who refused to buckle under pressure. Let’s then hope Haris and Junaid Niazi (two very fine people) will allow the reprint of their father’s irreplaceable book The Press in Chains, as it appeared 25 years ago.
anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
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