“Main afsana nahi likhta, main sach likhta hun”, sums everything about Manto. He strikes the sleeping conscience of the readers with the filthy reins of reality. Manto’s boldness came from empathy: “Main Bhagwat chahta hun, haar uss fard ke khilaf bhagawat chahta hun jo humse mehnat krwata hai magr daam nhi deta”. He wrote about the outcasts and forgotten ones in the context of humanity, challenging the readers to confront their biases. He uncovered the brutality of sexual violence in Partition in his story “Thanda Gosht”. In his work, Ganjay Farishtay, he condemned the hypocrisy of the Bombay film industry. These stories screamed the pain of realities, crumbling the power structures of the societies.
Qamar’s “boldness” is of another order. Women in his dramas are saints or sinners, mothers who sacrifice or wives who betray. In Mere Paas Tum Ho, the penalty of betrayal is disgrace. In Pyaray Afzal (2013), the male tragic hero’s love is noble, and the women are caught up in his suffering. In Sadqay Tumhare (2014), women function primarily as vehicles for male fate. Qamar’s dramas, while wildly popular, recycle fixed stereotypes that resonate with diaspora audiences precisely because they echo patriarchal “realism.”
Manto depicts the vulgarity of reality, and Qamar thinks “Vulgarity is reality”; the difference is clear. The destruction Manto inflicts in Khol Do is understated. When Sakina answers the call of her father unconsciously, the illusions about the moral victories of Partition are shattered. In Toba Tek Singh, the denial of the borders by Bishan Singh transforms him into a mad and sane, the ultimate criticism against nationalism. They are universal indictments, beyond politics. On the other hand, the most memorable quote by Qamar, “do takay ki aurat”, leaves a woman as an object of her price tag. This phrase was less meant to show the wounds of society and more to get people applauding.
Such lines as truth have been vindicated even by Qamar himself. He insisted in an interview of 2020: “A woman who betrays her husband is worthy of such words. It is not misogyny; it is reality”. He has referred to himself as the protector of family values, having once said: “Main Pakistani culture ka flag bearer hoon”. Just the very moment, he rejected the feminist slogan of “Mera jism, meri marzi” by screaming on live TV: “Main zameen mein gaad doonga un logon ko”. Where Manto expanded the boundaries of human dignity, Qamar narrows it.
The cultural impact is profound. Qamar’s dramas have a great viewership, consumed by millions across Pakistan and its diaspora, and shape perceptions of gender roles. Young viewers consider them as scripts for relationships; older audiences validate them as “reality.” He reinforces the narratives through his dialogues.
Manto never used embellished language against the brutal hypocrisies. Manto suffered from six obscenity trials, and these were not random retributions but a response of the scared society trying to hide the smell of their decaying bodies. He wrote, “Agar ap in afsano ko bardasht nahi kar saktay to iska matlab ye hai ke ye zamana Naqabil e Bardasht hai.” His sentences carried the urgency of a witness who had seen too much to stay silent and blind.
Qamar’s writings hold the weight of performance. His dialogues roll like thunder, filling the room, engineered for claps and hashtags. A Manto’s line lingers in conscience; a Qamar’s line trends on Twitter. That distinction separates literature from spectacle. And yet, Qamar often frames his bluntness as Manto-esque courage. He has said in interviews that his honesty offends people “because they cannot handle the truth.” Here lies the irony: Manto’s truth was self-destructive empathy; he drank himself to death, persecuted for stories no one wanted to hear. Qamar’s “truth” often flatters power structures, echoing patriarchal conservatism rather than challenging it. His bluntness is posed as bravery, but it risks little. Where Manto exposed wounds to heal them, Qamar scratches scars for applause.
Manto never wrote for comfort. His Letters to Uncle Sam mocked American imperialism when Pakistan sought its aid. His sketch “Jinnah Sahib” dared to satirise the founder of the nation. His empathy extended to those society condemned: prostitutes, lunatics, and thieves, because he believed their stories carried the weight of humanity. He died in 1955, shunned, impoverished, and ravaged by alcoholism. Yet his stories live, translated across languages, taught in classrooms, and discussed in journals from South Asian Review to Modern Asian Studies.
The temptation to call Qamar “our Manto” stems not from similarity but from absence. Pakistan’s cultural landscape today rarely produces dissenters of Manto’s kind. In a vacuum, arrogance can be mistaken for defiance, and thunder mistaken for depth. But history is not fooled. TRPs crown a dramatist for a season; literature crowns its rebels for eternity.
Manto’s epitaph, which he drafted himself, reads: “Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short story writing. Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who was greater, God or he.” It was a final irony from a writer who mocked his own audacity while claiming his place in posterity. Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar, however prolific, cannot lay claim to that lineage. His legacy may be etched in viral clips, but it will not echo in conscience.
Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar is many things: a prolific dramatist, a provocateur, a master of soundbite dialogue. But he is not, and cannot be, Manto. Because Manto’s rebellion was born of empathy, while Qamar’s provocations spring from contempt. Literature, in the end, only remembers those who risk everything for humanity’s sake. Manto did. Qamar does not.