I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
Such
were the sights of the poor and the helpless children and of the
working class people in the Victorian England that led the two
contemporary thinkers Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels to study why the
capitalist system was not meant to cater to the needs of the working
class people or the poor and unemployed but only to exploit human
labour and material resources only for profit. What was true in their
day is absolutely true today in many countries of Asia, Africa
and Latin America. In my original homeland, Pakistan, I have seen
seven- and eight-year-old children doing odd jobs to earn money for
their families. They are the 'breadwinners' for their poor parents.
It is true that in the Nordic countries, the economic conditions of the
working class people have greatly improved, but the problem of poverty
and helplessness in many western countries, including Britain and
America, remains.
Dr Richard Falk's single-minded struggle to show the situation of the
captive population of Palestine stands out as a conspicuous example of a
man of conscience who has been an inspiration to so many! For long, the
Zionists and their friends have vilified him and distorted what he said
or stood for. Yet, despite all that, he has stood his ground with
courage and determination. The Zionists have even called him 'a
self-hating Jew' (!); they were not
interested in to know that he was not a self-hating Jew, but a beacon of
light for truth and justice, siding with an oppressed people, not the
oppressors!
It takes some
intelligence and much humanity to see that. The Zionists are not without
intelligence; they use their intelligence to mislead, to lie, to
cover-up the incremental ethnic cleansing of Palestine and thus further
the cause of Zionist expansion while using the name of the Jewish
people, as we all know. Their humanity? They had banished humanity for
good because of their dedicated service to the cause of imperialism,
colonialism and deception. -
"I never desired to please the rabble. What pleased them, I did not
learn; and what I knew was far removed from their understanding."
-- Greek philosopher Epicurus (341 BC - 271 BC) -
Epicurus was a renowned philosopher and he certainly was aware of the
worth of his ideas. In a simple and subtle way, he has also touched our
profound longing to be appreciated by others for our mental and
intellectual prowess and skills. Some may call it a human trait, some skeptics may call it a human weakness. Let us see what the public
approval of one's ideas, especially those of a philosopher in reality
amount to. That idea is framed and presented in such a way that they
will appeal to the feelings of the ordinary people, who, in return, will
heap praise on some ‘clever’ guy!
Can a philosopher or thinking
person really expect to validate his ideas with the help of popular
applause and praise? Epicurus reply was in the negative. So is mine,
after having seen how things work in our times!
In fact, the
cheap tricks played on the unwary and simple people (simple people never
think they are simple!) are a form of manipulation. In extreme cases
that has led to personality cults, from the olden times to the present
times, with disastrous consequences. We are still reaping the toxic
fruits of our gullibility as common people because those personality
cults are still shaping our history. The dead of the ancient and past
history still rule us from their graves. We never question them or their
motives. We simply worship them!
Recently Dr. Nyla Ali Khan wrote in The Daily Times an essay that could
be misconstrued as more of a defense of a family member than an actual
objective historical account of a politician who played a pivotal role
in the affairs of Jammu and Kashmir— that being her mother’s father,
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who eventually resigned as Prime Minister of
the State of Jammu and Kashmir, after a fallout with the Nehru
Government during the period of 1948-1953. In Dr. Nyla Ali Khan’s OP-ED
essay “In politics there are no permanent friends or foes — I”, she
stated “Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah did not lose faith in the international
system which was premised on Woodrow Wilson’s principle of
self-determination, post-World War 1. The Sheikh, I argue, sought
self-determination for Jammu and Kashmir as a territorial unit, not as a
Muslim nation. He wanted Kashmir to be an international polity. I posit
that he perceived the evolution of Kashmiri nationalism in
world-historical terms, as opposed to a domestic and local issue.”
Although the author on the Kashmir Question has shall we say ‘good
intentions’, she fails to understand that Kashmir Self-Determination and
Independence goes well beyond whether Nehru oppressed her grandfather’s
political agenda, or whether the territory of Jammu and Kashmir should
be also be understood as religious issue regarding Hindu and Muslim
faith peoples who live in that region that is located between India and
Pakistan. The Question of Kashmir is also a class struggle which needs
to be addressed in the most formidable terms.
In a response to
the issue of Nehru and the fragile situation in the Jammu and Kashmir
region, Dr. Nasir Khan wrote in a response to Dr. Nyla Ali Khan’s essay
that “However, the situation in Kashmir region was a bit more
complicated for him for a number of reasons. Despite his personal
friendship with the Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah, Nehru also thought
himself a Kashmiri. Kashmir was not only part of India, but it was also
his ancestral home! Consequently, he was not the one who would allow
anyone, even a personal friend like Abdullah to assert an independent
position for himself or for his people when it came to Kashmir. The
state of Jammu and Kashmir had become an ‘integral part’ part of India.
The legal fiction of ‘Accession’ was always at the back on Nehru’s mind!
Many still believe in that false claim.” Actually, I would say that the
situation for Nehru, who ideologically was a socialist, but who had
been influenced in his youth by Marxism, was caught up, like the
leadership in Kashmir, with political and military intrigues that
neither parties could escape with their bourgeois fetters of governing
their two regional or state principalities.
According to Mehr
Chand Mahajan, who was the third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of
India prior to the complicated and shall one say the messy events in
Kashmir (Maharjan being the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, during
the reign of Maharaja Hari Singh, would play a key role in the accession
of J&K to India) the intervention into the affairs of Kashmir went
both ways. If we are to believe his point of view on the ‘accession’ of
the Kashmir region, let us study his memoirs on that situation, when he
wrote “Give army, take accession and give whatever powers you want to
give to the popular party (National Conference headed by Sheikh
Abdullah), but the army must fly to Srinagar this evening, otherwise I
will go and negotiate terms with Mr (Mohammad Ali) Jinnah (the Pakistan
leader) as the city (Srinagar) must be saved,” Mahajan had reportedly
told Nehru and Patel.” ” and it should be understood here that during
this period “Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, had
request that his British commander-in-chief send the Pakistani army and
take over the Kashmir state. However, the British military officer
refused to follow this order and told Jinnah that he could not do it
without consulting the Supreme Commander of all British forces remaining
in India and Pakistan, Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck. Seemingly, such
was the political and military affairs of the Kashmir Question which
had nothing to do with personalities or even class difference between
the regional warring parties.
Nehru, would not accept a military
interference by Pakistan forces, and his hand was forced to send Indian
troops into the Jammu and Kashmir region. This political and military
escalation was inevitable, as the tensions between the two nation-states
of India and Pakistan had not been resolved. One only has to look at
the situation regarding the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the horrific
political and military tensions between the fascistic state of Israel
and the fragile leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected President
of the State of Palestine by the PLO Central Council. Amid all such
chaos what is forgotten is that the people of Kashmir and Palestine are
factory workers, small farmers, students and a progressive intelligencia
in both regions that are seeking a normal life. Neither Nehru, Sheikh
Mohammad Abdullah nor any of the Pakistan leadership could stop the
unsettling and justified need for an independent state of Kashmir.
Recently on the website “CPI(M)-CPI” there was a statement on Kashmir
that was posted on September 3, 2016, which although goes back two years
ago, still has weight in my opinion, in which the author or authors
wrote:
The consistent stand the Left parties have been taking is
that Jammu & Kashmir has a special status which was reflected in the
adoption of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. At the heart of the
matter lies how in letter and spirit its autonomy and special status,
eroded over the years, can be restored. A political agreement must be
reached, which should be acceptable to the people whereby the state of
Jammu & Kashmir would remain as part of the Indian Union but by
fulfilling the commitment, made to the state and the people in 1948.
The entire geo-political situation has changed in the post-independence
decades. A solution to the Kashmir problem has also the dimension of
India and Pakistan discussing to settle long standing disputes. For the
past nearly two months Kashmir has been in turmoil. Since the killing of
Burhan Wani, a Hizbul Commander, the people in the Valley have been out
on the streets in mass protests. More than 70 people have died in the
firing by the security forces and a few thousand have been injured. Two
security personnel have also lost their lives. Pellet guns used by the
security forces have blinded and maimed many. Instead of quelling the
protesters, it only intensified with each death and injury in police
firing. The main force driving these protests are the youth. These mass
protests that have spread into rural Kashmir, graphically illustrate the
deep sense of alienation of the people from the Indian State. At no
time has the gulf between India and the Kashmiri people been so wide.
This serious situation calls for an examination of the entire Kashmir
problem.
The situation of the Kashmir Question will not be
settled by legislation neither by India or Pakistan, nor by any
‘Article’ within the framework of the Indian Constitution. In my most
humble opinion, I would state equivocally that neither India nor
Pakistan will allow Kashmir to become a democratic or socialist state by
a referendum— the voting for independence at the ballot box. One only
has to look at the Catalan Question in Spain and the ongoing repression
of the Catalan people, or the decades of repression of the colonized
Mexican Americans who live in the United States, to understand that
Self-Determination and Independence is not given to any people, they
have to fight for it. Indeed, the Vietnamese peoples and their
revolutionary leadership knew that, when they undertook the political
and military struggles against the French and then the American regimes
to find their complete freedom from colonial bondage. As Stalin so aptly
put it “The principle of self-determination should be limited in such a
way as to make it applicable only to the toilers and not to the
bourgeoisie. Self-determination must be a means of attaining socialism
…” , and as I would say about the Question of Kashmir, it is the right
of the common people of Kashmir to decide their right for
Self-Determination and Independence, for their rightful place among the
nations of the world. https://dailytimes.com.pk/…/in-politics-there-are-no-perm…/… https://www.facebook.com/nasir.khan.161/posts/1958381237583206 https://www.thebetterindia.com/…/untold-story-one-note-neh…/
My introductory remarks to Dr Nyla Ali Khan's article:
Khan's article is well-written. She has given her views, fairly and judiciously, on the troubled history of the State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) since the 1947 Partition of India. The roles of Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah in the history of J&K are the focal points of her narrative.
Indeed, the tasks before Nehru as India’s prime minister after the independence from Britain were enormous. Among such tasks was the policy towards the princely states of the Indian Subcontinent and their incorporation into the Indian Union by all possible means. No one and nothing was to be allowed to stand in the way of the enforcement of such a policy.
However, the situation in Kashmir region was a bit more complicated for him for a number of reasons. Despite his personal friendship with the Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah, Nehru also thought himself a Kashmiri. Kashmir was not only part of India, but it was also his ancestral home! Consequently, he was not the one who would allow anyone, even a personal friend like Abdullah to assert an independent position for himself or for his people when it came to Kashmir. The state of Jammu and Kashmir had become an ‘integral part’ part of India. The legal fiction of ‘Accession’ was always at the back on Nehru’s mind! Many still believe in that false claim.
As long as Abdullah followed the path Delhi had decided for any political leader who held power in J&K, he was free to do some good work, including the land reforms, which Khan has mentioned in her article. But if he ever imagined that he could pursue an independent course for his state under the Union, then he was not being realistic. Perhaps, he knew he had not many options. In fact, his ouster from power and subsequent imprisonment, etc., were inevitable, and Nehru and his policymakers had no qualms about it.
Of course, Nehru and his successors always had the upper hand to use Kashmiri leaders as pawns as long as they thought them useful to their ends. Obviously, they are still in the same business, and they pursue the same policies towards J & K and its people. They can easily hire and fire any status-seeker politician in the Valley. There is not shortage of such self-serving political figures in Kashmir.
How many people remember or tell the simple facts that during the turbulent period following the Partition, the Indian army was sent to J & K, which, with the help of militant right-wing Hindu organizations, massacred from 300,000 to 400,000 Muslims in Jammu region to create a Hindu majority region versus the Kashmir Valley where Muslims were in the majority?
It was the famous British historian Perry Anderson who lifted the veil of secrecy on such pogroms in his groundbreaking three large papers in London Review of Books in 2012 which were later published as a book (LRB, Vol. 34 No. 13, 5 July 2012, LRB Vol. 34, No. 14, 19 July 2012, LRB. Vol. 34 No. 15, 2 August 2012).
These massacres took place when Nehru and Sardar Patel were adjusting the map of Independent India.
"Men make their own
history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it
under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing
already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like an nightmare on the brains of the living."
-- Karl Marx, Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) ------------
The social, political and economic factors in shaping history have been
emphasized time and again by socialist theorists. Here in this short
extract, Karl Marx points to the importance of prevailing objective
conditions that determine the course of history. How he sees a logic in
the social developments is part of his philosophy of history.
The
conscious efforts of human beings sometimes set in motion the wheels of
history and sometimes accelerate the speed of that process. But these
variables are also dependent on the major trends that already exist.
What exists is not independent of what has gone before but is rather a
result of the earlier conditions under which historical events took
place and the steady historical processes that have been in operation.
Even in the realm of speculative thought and old metaphysical issues, we
are profoundly conditioned by the old modes of thought and traditions.
Even a great thinker like Marx elaborated his thought by imbibing the
ideas of the French Enlightenment, from Montesquieu to Linget and
Condorcet, and by the Scottish historians. He took from Hegel the idea
that history is the progressive self-realization of man by practical
social activity. While Hegel's ideas were couched in somewhat obscure
language, Marx was able to find the essential meanings they contained.
As a result he developed his ideas by subjecting Feuerbach and Hegel in
matters of the role of religion, State, civil society, bureaucracy and
the class structure of the industrial society.
His ideas of
revolutionary Socialism became clearer in his thought by his critical
assessment of the older socialist thinkers. The same thing applies in
his understanding and explanation about the capitalism by his close
scrutiny of the earlier economists.
“Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.”
― Jamaican musician Bob Marley (1945-1981) -----------
To gain freedom from social, political and religious oppression is a
great thing for every sentient human being. As we know we are living in a
world where the 'ruling ideas of the age' we are living in, are related
to Power - in all its nefarious forms. Political power, economic power,
social power, religious power - all such different faces of power are
intertwined; they contribute to the same goals and the same targets.
Politically conscious people know that the targets are the ordinary
people of any given society, whether in the advanced capitalist
societies or the 'developing' countries. If the people became aware of
the overall bondages they are subjected to, they will strive for
freedom.
The fact remains that only a very tiny minority develops
such consciousness; for the vast majority the established order is more
like the divine writ, which none should question. However, the ideas
and actions to challenge the established order are not easy either; they
often have unexpected harsh reactions and consequences. The
revolutionaries of the past ages have shown that nothing comes without
struggle. In our age, it is still the revolutionary thought and praxis
of Marxism that has to 'bear the cross’. This is despite all the howling
of the jackals of reaction and their ilk.
“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from
these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in
blood for centuries. [Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]” ― James Madison (1751-1836). He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America and its fourth President. -------------
While underscoring the importance of the separation of Church and
State, James Madison had in view the gory history of Europe over the
course of at least 18 centuries of political strife, horrifying torture
and violence because of the unquestioned power of the church over the
states and within the political systems of states. The rulers had to
obey the commands of the Catholic Church. After the Reformation, the
Lutheran including the Calvinist churches also had immense power over
the states.
In fact, the question of the separation of Church and
State in a broader sense is the question of the separation of Religion
and State. After the end of the medieval times, there was a movement
towards the freedom of conscience. The people had to be freed from the
suffocating clutches of Religion.
It meant a challenge to the
clerical authorities that had imposed their will and their
interpretations of what God may have said or ordered. Thus, the chief
custodians of the divine truth, who had arrogated all powers on behalf
of God to themselves for so long found themselves confronting a new
situation. Their monopoly over what God said was under question. That
was dangerous, very dangerous!
Now some thinkers and enlightened
people said what people believed in matters of a Divine Power or
Religion was a personal matter; this was secularism. It was no business
of the state to impose the will of the clergy on the people. According
to them, people should have the freedom of conscience.
For most
people, it was a novel idea; they never had anything like this for so
many centuries. Thus, a revolutionary idea was introduced that had
far-reaching effects. Consequently, the process of freedom of conscience
and the secularization of the state and society gained more ground in
most of Europe, North America and Australia, etc.
While the
western countries made such inroads into enlightenment, freedom of
conscience, and gave legal protection to people to believe or practise
any religion, the vast majority of Muslim countries has followed a
different course. The ruling classes and the Muslim clergy became
close partners to advance their respective agendas. In fact, they found
Islam as a convenient tool to gain power and influence over a people
who had a strong cultural identity with Islam. This they exploited to
the maximum. That opened the way for the fanatics, misguided and
indoctrinated people to clamour for an Islamic polity under the rule of
God.
As a result, we see the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
the terrorists of the Islamic State in many countries and many Islamist
groups and organisations causing havoc. One thing: They are convinced
they represent the 'light' of Islam. They are offering the salvation to
worldwide Muslim community people (the Ummah); the golden age of
‘Islamic truth’ and ‘Islamic justice’ is near when the Sharia laws of
the seventh-century Islamic Arabia will be enforced. In fact,
many ordinary Muslims think that the era of the early Caliphs of Islam
of the seventh-century Arabia will solve all their worldly problems. It
is logically possible that such a golden age can emerge if there was
anything like this before!
However, we may pause for a second and
think (not easy though): The world has moved with the times, including
the Christians of Europe and their descendants in North America and
Australia, etc. How will Islamists go back from the 21st century to the
seventh-century Arabia? The only possibility I can see is if Aladdin
with his magic carpet appears and transports us back to our golden age,
back in time. If he does that I’m sure he will give me some space on his
magic carpet; I promise to report back to all of you my story from
there! ---
It may come as to jolting shock to many civilized human beings in the world that hundreds of thousands of Muslims of Pakistan are protesting, not against something awful that happened, but because an innocent Christian women, Aasia Bibi, who had falsely been accused of blasphemy was acquitted by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on her appeal.
The judges of the Supreme Court found that she had been falsely charged by some Muslim co-workers on some very trivial dispute; the trial judge had sentenced her to death on the basis of false accounts of the witnesses of the true nature of the petty dispute. Aasia Bibi, a married working-class woman, had languished in prison for the last eight years in solitary confinement.
Now, so many Pakistani Muslims are protesting and threatening to bring the country to a standstill for the acquittal of Aasia Bibi!
It is difficult to believe this, but that is exactly what these people are doing, and they think they are doing it to 'defend and exalt the honour of Prophet Muhammad'.
The events in Pakistan show how the Islamic clerics, with the support of the Pakistani ruling elite over the years, had a free hand to spread the poison of religious fanaticism among the ordinary people and turn them into extremists, who, apparently have become indifferent to the distinction between right and wrong because of their religious indoctrination.
Islamabad, Pakistan - Thousands of far-right religious demonstrators continue to block major roads across Pakistan in protest against the acquittal of a Christian woman in a high-profile blasphemy case.
The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan
(TLP) political party, led by firebrand Muslim leader Khadim Rizvi,
organised rallies in cities across the South Asian country on Thursday,
despite a warning from Prime Minister Imran Khan not to "force the government to have to take action".
Aasia Bibi, 53, who was on death row for eight
years, was acquitted by the country's top court on Wednesday, with
judges saying the prosecution contained "glaring and stark"
contradictions.
Shortly after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling
was pronounced, Rizvi led a major protest outside government buildings
in the eastern city of Lahore, with fellow TLP leaders declaring the
three judges who acquitted Bibi to be "liable to be killed". The sit-in protest in Lahore remained the largest TLP
demonstration on Thursday, with other major demonstrations being held in
the southern city of Karachi, Pakistan's largest. Protesters are also
blockading a major highway into the capital, Islamabad. Most schools and many businesses remained closed in all three
cities through the day, with hospitals on high alert in case the
protests turned violent. Highways were partially shut down and the
federal cabinet held an emergency meeting to discuss the law and order
situation.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, in a televised address to the nation, accused the TLP of attempting to stir religious sentiments for political gains. "I say to these people: do not confront this state ... do not damage this country for your vote bank," said Khan. "If you do this, I promise that the government will do its duty
… I ask you: do not force the government to have to take action," he
added.
On Thursday, Shehryar Afridi, Pakistan's minister of state for interior affairs,told parliament that talks were under way with protesters to end the standoff.
'Watershed moment'
Blasphemy against Islam and its prophet is a sensitive subject in Pakistan, where the crime can carry a compulsory death sentence. Increasingly, blasphemy accusations have resulted in mob lynchings and extrajudicial murders. At least 74 people have been killed in violence related to blasphemy allegations since 1990, according to an Al Jazeera tally.
PM Imran Khan urged calm since Bibi's acquittal but his call has fallen on deaf ears so far [Saudi Press Agency via AP]
There are still roughly 40 people on death row or serving life
sentences for blasphemy, in Pakistan, according to the US Commission on
International Religious Freedom. Bibi's case had become emblematic of fair-trial concerns in
cases related to the country's blasphemy laws, with two senior political
leaders who stood up for her gunned down in 2009 for supporting her. Rights groups have hailed her acquittal as a watershed moment.
"Justice has finally prevailed. The message must go out that the
blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the country's most
vulnerable minorities," said Omar Waraich, deputy director for South
Asia at human rights group Amnesty International.
Tense calm
At the protest at Islamabad's Faizabad interchange, roughly
2,000 TLP supporters had gathered to block a major road into the federal
capital. TLP volunteers had visibly beefed up security at the
demonstration's entry and exit points. They barred entry to journalists,
saying they would only be allowed to pass after surrendering cameras
and other equipment. Among the protesters, a tense calm prevailed, with many young men interspersed among the crowd carrying sticks and metal rods.
Many sat on reed mats, listening to devotional poems and sermons extolling the virtues of loving Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
The TLP mainly represents the Barelvi sect of Sunni Islam, which places
a particular importance on the veneration of the personage and honour
of the Prophet. Overhead, two military helicopters flew low over the crowd,
prompting shouts from many protesters. Two young men manning a barricade
angrily shook their sticks at the aircraft. Further protests are expected on Friday following midday
prayers, with other right-wing religious groups joining the TLP in its
rejection of the verdict. Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera's digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim
![Most schools and many businesses remained closed in three major Pakistani cities on Thursday [Akhtar Soomro/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2018/11/1/f84d203449f246c69c48b9a23f98a5a2_18.jpg "Pakistan: Thousands protest blasphemy acquittal, ignore PM's call")
