As war drums beat, remembering three departed comrades who stood for peace

Posted on April 24, 2025 by beenasarwar

It has been a decade since we lost Sabeen Mahmud to a targeted attack in Karachi and since we lost Shayan “Poppy” Afzal Khan to cancer. It is also 20 years since the pioneering environmental journalist Saneeya Hussain died in Brazil. Their peacemongering legacies live on.

Personal Political
Beena Sarwar / Sapan News

On 24 April 2015, a valiant crusader for peace, social justice, creativity and human dignity was killed in Karachi. That tragedy ten years ago deprived a mother of her only child, and many of us of a dear friend.

Social entrepreneur Sabeen Mahmud, 40, was driving home with her mother Mahenaz next to her. A motorcyclist approached while they were stopped at a red light, and shot Sabeen at point blank range. She died on the spot. 

  • Sabeen. Photo by Zaheer Alam Kidvai.
    Sabeen. Photo by Zaheer Alam Kidvai.
  • Mahenaz at Creative Karachi Festival 2016: Sabeen would hate for any of us to give up. Photo: Beena Sarwar
  • A poster with Sabeen’s photo at Creative Karachi Festival, 2016, Alliance Francaise. Photo: Beena Sarwar
  • Pakistan: Countrywide demonstrations for Sabeen, 2015
  • Protest for Sabeen in Delhi, 2015. File photo

I had known Sabeen since she was a teenager. We were comrades together in several peace initiatives – part of a large, cross-border tribe of ‘peacemongers’ as I call our community. 

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Filed under: Art and activism, Balochistan, Pakistan-India, Southasia, Terrorism, Violence in the name of religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

‘I want India and Pakistan to make peace in my lifetime’ – Zehra Nigah

Posted on February 28, 2025 by beenasarwar

Some thoughts emerging from a chance encounter with one of Pakistan’s most respected and iconic progressive poets.

Indian and Pakistani writers and a filmmaker at the Faiz Festival, Lahore: (l-r) Dr Saif Mahmood, Atul Tiwari, Dr Arfa Sayeda Zehra, Dr Arvinder Chaman, Nandita Das and Zehra Nigah. Photo by Zarminae Ansari / The Joy of Urdu

Personal Political
By Beena Sarwar / Sapan News

“It’s the girls that give me hope,” says the celebrated poet and writer Zehra Nigah.

She leads a quiet life at her home in Karachi, without a mobile phone or email. Yet those who seek her are able to find her. Besides the school and college students who look to her for guidance, there are advertising companies looking for classy jingles. And there are organisers of literary festivals wanting to invite her.

These include Jashn-e-Rekhta, the three-day annual festival that celebrates Urdu — subtly countering the rightwing narrative that Urdu is a ‘Muslim’ language while Hindi is for ‘Hindus’.

When it started in 2015, Rekhta invited several prominent Pakistani poets and writers to participate. Its third edition in 2017 was the first time that there was no Pakistani participation in its sessions – due to the “prevailing atmosphere” in India, the organisers took “a considered decision” to not invite Pakistanis as “participants” but only as “guests”, reported Anita Joshua in the Telegraph, India. 

“Some see in this an instance of self-censorship to avoid trouble of the sort that has recently beset Bollywood films starring Pakistani actors,” commented Joshua.

The only Pakistani who accepted the invitation was Kishwar Naheed, then 77, another iconic Pakistani poet, for whom being invited as a ‘guest’ meant that she would at least be able to recite at the ‘mushaira’, the poetry recital session addressed by several poets, as she told me later. 

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