The people of Lahore do not bow before highhandedness, nor will they do so before terrorism — as they have repeatedly shown in the months just past, as the going got tough. In November last year, a bomb went off at the annual international music festival. The government asked the organisers to cancel the weeklong event, but the show went on, because both the who’s-who of town and ordinary Lahoris turned up in large numbers to support the liberal values they cherish. Similar attacks outside theatres have not prevented them from going back to the stage and keeping the shows running.

Lahore’s women, equally, have braved the batons and the tear gas of dictators and autocrats. They’ve defied Zia’s Sharia laws by protesting under martial law; they’ve confounded the mullahs by running in marathons despite threats from extremists. Lahoris continue to celebrate the kite-flying festival despite similar threats or restrictions. In an act of defiance to Zia’s Islamisation policy, the city’s red district had refused to shut shop — the dictator had to leave it alone.

It is a city where ideologues like the poet Iqbal and journalist Hameed Nizami, and dissidents like Faiz, Manto and Jalib, chose to live in tolerance of one another. It cannot be bogged down by agents of intolerance.

The writer is an editor with ‘Dawn’, Karachi

express@expressindia.com