The art of blackmail The Hazara community can hardly be blamed for taking steps to demand the Prime Minister’s attention The writer is a lawyer, formerly practising and teaching law in Lahore, and currently based in Singapore. He holds an LLM from New York University where he was a Hauser Global Scholar. He tweets @HNiaziii Leadership without empathy leads to tragedy. That the Prime Minister has little patience for political dissent is clear. Yet, even his most cynical opponents must have been shocked at how he managed to make a protest by a persecuted minority all about himself. The term ‘gaslighting’ refers to a method where someone is manipulated into questioning their own sanity. A form of psychological manipulation that is abhorrent if done by an ordinary person, it is especially distressing if done by an elected Prime Minister towards an oppressed group.