academics-from-pakistan

"In my childhood, the traditional ulema [clerics] – who are so powerful today – were regarded as rather quaint objects and often ridiculed in private. Centuries ago the greatest poets of Persia, like Hafiz and Rumi, stripped away the mullahs’ religious pretensions and exposed their stupidity. Today, however, those same mullahs have taken control of the Iranian republic. The answer lies just as much in the domain of world politics as in theology. Khomeini developed the doctrine known as “guardianship of the clergy,” which gives the mullahs much wider powers than they generally exercised in the past. Instead of being simple religious leaders, they now became political leaders as well. This echoes the broader Islamic fusion of the spiritual and the temporal.… The traditional ulema are indeed a problem, but they are not the biggest one; the biggest problem is Islamism, a radical and often militant interpretation of Islam that spills over from the theological domain into national and international politics. Whenever and wherever religious fundamentalism dominates, blind faith clouds objective and rational thinking. If such forces take hold in a society, they create a mindset unfavourable for critical inquiry, including scientific inquiry, with its need to question received wisdom."

"But Hoodbhoy declares the belief in “laws” to be the basis of physics because of his ideological and colonial commitment to slavish imitation of Christian superstitions about laws of nature, an ideology he wants to force on people using the authority of science, just like Macaulay. What he is using is just a modification of the preacher’s doomsday argument (“Covid is round the corner; repent and uncritically accept the authority of science”). Scientists are not more honest than other humans: there are any number of scientists who were and are rascals, just as there are any number of doctors today who are commercialised and dishonest. One uncritically trusts their authority at one’s peril. One can understand why Imran Khan, in a televised debate, got irritated enough to ask Hoodbhoy what he was paid for his propaganda!"

"The 'recasting' of Pakistani history [has been] used to 'endow the nation with a historic destiny'."

"Mughal's broad chronological periods are not specific enough to assist us in definitively situating the Vedic-speaking Aryans as inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization. It is significant, however, that about 80 percent of Mughal's 414 archaeological sites along a three-hundred-mile section of the Hakra were datable to the fourth or third millen- nium B.C.E, suggesting that the river was in its prime during this period."

"Archaeological evidence demonstrates that the Hakra flood plain was densely populated between the fourth and the second millennia B.C.... the Ghaggar-Hakra is ‘often identified with the sacred Sarasvatī River of the Vedic Aryans’... ‘certain that in ancient times the Ghaggar-Hakra was a mighty river, flowing independently [of the Indus] along the fringes of the Rann of Kutch’."

"‘This change ... is strongly suggestive of the dispersal of inhabitants, if not depopulation, of the Hakra flood plain during the Late Harappan. ... It seems almost certain that changing environmental conditions were profoundly affecting the long-established cultural pattern in Cholistan.’"

"In ancient times the Ghaggar-Hakra was a mighty river, flowing independently [of the Indus] along the fringes of the Rann of Kutch."

"On the Pakistan side, archaeological evidence now available overwhelmingly affirms that the Hakra was a perennial river through all its course in Bahawalpur during the fourth millennium B.C. (Hakra Period) and the early third millennium B.C. (Early Harappan Period)."

"Mughal (1993) proposes the following outline: On the Pakistan side, archaeological evidence now overwhelmingly affirms that the Hakra was a perennial river through all its course in Bahawalpur during the fourth millennium . . . and early third millennium B.C. About the middle of the third millennium B.C., the water supply in the Northeastern portion of the Hakra [the Yamuna] was consider- ably diminished or cut off. But, abundant water in the lower (southwestern) part of this stream was still available, apparently through a channel from the Sutlej. . . . About the end of the second, or not later than the beginning of the first millennium B.C., the entire course of the Hakra seems to have dried up. (4)"

"Vietnam is also the only country in which the United States gave substantial support to a colonial power in a war of independence. This could not have endeared America to the Vietnamese people. Then in the “Southern zone” America replaced France. To most Vietnamese the present war, therefore, is a continuation of the struggle for independence. I know how Asians feel about America’s action. They call it neo-colonialism; some think it is imperialism. I know this is very wrong because Americans are naturally sympathetic to peoples’ struggles for freedom and justice, and they would like to help if they could. I prefer the term “maternalism” for American policy in countries like Vietnam, because it reminds me of the story of an elephant who, as she strolled benignly in the jungle, stepped on a mother partridge and killed her. When she noticed the orphaned siblings, tears filled the kind elephant’s eyes. “Ah, I too have maternal instincts,” she said turning to the orphans, and sat on them."

"I think we should begin by recognizing that Pakistani and Indian rulers are caught in medieval militaristic minds. They are no more modern than the Clintons and the Bushes, who see power in terms of military prowess. We are living in modern times throughout the world and yet are dominated by medieval minds."

"…When people think of Islam and Muslims, they think normally of places like Iran and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and not of places like India and Indonesia. Secondly, when they think of fundamentalism, they always think of Islam and Muslims and not of other very menacing fundamentalist movements, such as the Hindu fundamentalists in India or the Christian fundamentalists in Serbia. So Islam is thought of in more than one distorted way… Similarly, quite frankly, if Ronald Reagan and his connections with the Moral Majority movement had existed in Egypt, we would clearly see them typed as fundamentalists, which they were. Ronald Reagan's rhetoric and policies to a lesser extent bore very much the stamp of Christian fundamentalists. The conviction, for example, that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire." It was a religious concept of evil empire that bore a certain similarity to Ayatollah Khomeini's description of the United States as the "Satanic Empire." But we don't quite see those similarities, do we?"

"The moment you find that your truth clashes with what is being peddled as their truth, intervene. So learn, look for alternative sources, for without alternative sources, without pluralism, there is no democracy. But at the same time, without intervention of the public into power, without balances, without checks, there is no democracy. The notion of checks and balances has been reduced by the powerful discourse, by the hegemonious discourse, to the relationship of the Congress, the Executive and the Supreme Court. It has been formalized. Democracy consists of understanding it in broader terms. Checks and balances consist of public intervening to check and balance out the hegemonious, the dominant discourse of the media, the speeches of the politicians, the falsehoods that are being given to us as truths. Intervention is very important. The reason I am emphasizing intervention is that only when you get into the habit of intervening would you find the compulsion to know the truth."

"I know that I shall be condemned for my position. For someone who is facing a serious trial in America, it is not easy to confront one's own government. Yet it is not possible for me to oppose American crimes in Southeast Asia or Indian occupation of Kashmir while accepting the crimes that my government is committing against the people of East Pakistan. Although I mourn the death of Biharis by Bengali vigilantes, and condemn the irresponsibilities of the Awami League, I am not willing to equate their actions with that of the government and the criminal acts of an organized, professional army…I do not know if my position would at all contribute to a humane settlement. Given the fact that our government is neither accountable to the public nor sensitive to the opinion of mankind, our protest may have no effect until this regime has exhausted all its assets and taken the country down the road to moral, political, and economic bankruptcy. However, lack of success does not justify the crime of silence in the face of criminal, arbitrary power."

"It may be instructive to recall that his father, Shāh‘Abdul Raḥīm, could have been his role model in the matter of writing letters to powerful princes to undertake jihad. For it was the pater familias who wrote a letter to Mīr Qamar al-Dīn Khān Ṣiddīqī popularly known as Āṣaf Jāh (1671–1748), the pioneer of the Deccan based state whose rulers were called Niẓāms, exhorting him to undertake jihad to weaken the infidels. ‘Abdul Raḥīm begins his letter with the assertion that it has already been decided that the infidels (kuffār) will be defeated and humiliated and if Āṣaf Jāh wants to take credit for this he should defeat them. He ends on the mystical note that ‘things said even with confidantes in secret are being revealed here on the tip of the pen so that no excuse should remain’."

"The Qur’ān calls upon believers to undertake jihād, which is to surrender “your properties and youselves in the path of Allāh”; the purpose of which in turn is to “establish prayer, give zakāt, command good and forbid evil”—i.e., to establish the socio-moral order. So long as the Muslims were a small, persecuted minority in Mecca, jihād as a positive organized thrust of the Islamic movement was unthinkable. In Medina, however, the situation changed and henceforth there is hardly anything, with the possible exception of prayer and zakāt, that receives greater emphasis than jihād....Every virile and expansive ideology has, at a stage, to ask itself the question as to what are its terms of co-existence, if any, with other systems, and how far it may employ methods of direct expansion. In our own age, Communism, in its Russian and Chinese versions, is faced with the same problems and choices. The most unacceptable on historical grounds, however, is the stand of those modern Muslim apologists who have tried to explain the jihād of the early Community in purely defensive terms."

"“I tell you this much that if we find that we have to fight Great Britain for placing us under one Central Hindu Raj, then the havoc which Muslims will play will put to shame what Jenghez and Halaku Khan did.”"

"The does not seem willing to shift its spending priorities despite the burgeoning COVID-19 challenges. Pakistan has emerged as one of the countries with the fastest rate of coronavirus infections in recent weeks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The country reported its first coronavirus case on February 26 and is now among the top 15 most-affected countries. More than 4,000 people have lost their lives to the disease in Pakistan since the beginning of the outbreak. Moreover, there is a significant shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators in the country. Despite all this, Islamabad allocated $7.85bn for defence and merely $151m for health in the budget for the financial year 2020-2021. This represents a 12 percent rise in Pakistan's defence spending compared with the last financial year. The single-line figure presented in the budget does not give a full picture of the amount actually being spent on defence either."

"Our country's healthcare spending is less than one per cent of GDP, even though the WHO recommends 6pc. And only 4pc of Pakistani children receive a 'minimally acceptable diet'. These poor healthcare and standards expose the flaws of the prime minister's reasoning that our youthful demography will protect us against the worst of the pandemic; malnourishment can hardly boost immunity."

"The report also focuses on failings of our criminal justice system, an issue so endemic that we take it for granted rather than consider it a rights violation. But without a functional judicial system, we have no recourse or accountability. Justice in Pakistan is delayed and denied. And miscarriages of justice — such as Rana Bibi's 19-year imprisonment for a murder she didn't commit — are not atoned for."

"Only up to 3pc of Pakistan's is unionised, and there are few opportunities for for fair wages or safe working conditions. The last year banned 62 labour unions in the province. The disregard for will take on new dimensions during a pandemic, when workers should have ample rights to demand safe working conditions and job protection in the event of sickness."

"In light of the pandemic, the plight of prisoners is particularly relevant. Pakistan's prisons are appallingly overcrowded, with an occupancy rate of 133.8pc. More than 62pc of this population comprises pre-trial detainees and those on remand. Jam-packed prisoners are more vulnerable to diseases, including , HIV and now Covid-19."

"Not surprisingly, initiatives to criminalise disappearances are stalled. The thing is, you only silence critics when you have something to hide. And the HRCP's — documenting everything from to to poor enfranchisement — gives a sense of what this might be. The sad and shocking scale of rights abuses again raises the question of how efficacious the state's censorship strategy can be. When the public narrative significantly diverges from lived experience, the only outcome is more frustration among the people, who realise that on top of being poorly served, they’re also being lied to and manipulated."

"Upholding human rights should underpin all policymaking. The challenges the report identifies will take years to address, but there are several ways this administration can signal a commitment to human rights. For starters, it can vow to protect the 18th Amendment. Such are the times, that the mere presentation of a report can be a political act."

"DIRE. That’s the word the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan uses to describe the state of human rights in our country. Its annual report, released last week, makes for a distressing read, particularly in the midst of a pandemic. One wonders, given how widespread rights violations are, when this brutalised body politic will reach its breaking point. The PTI government has cited concerns of riots fuelled by starvation as a reason to impose light-touch lockdowns. But the HRCP’s report reminds us that the state's fear of its citizenry is rooted in a deeper knowledge of systemic fissures in our country; fissures produced by the disgraceful treatment of an — including women, children, dissenters, religious minorities, labour, prisoners, and more — often by state institutions themselves."

"Pakistan has the somewhat unique problem that the concept of human rights has been deemed toxic among the es because it is too often associated with curbs on media and religious freedoms. Decades of authoritarian state policy have entrenched a suspicion of democracy and secularism, and there is perversely a fair amount of support for policies targeting those labelled unpatriotic or blasphemous. But human rights are also about positive access to food, healthcare, safety, and education."

"Those closest, and so most accountable, to the people are best positioned to protect their rights."

"Islam cannot leave certain spheres of life strictly to the individual, any action which is likely to prejudice the healthy growth of Muslim society will have to be severely prohibited. We do not believe in unrestricted freedom to bring about a lowering of human standards, of spiritual values of allegiance to our common idealism. Anything which brings in germs of decay and degeneration in our physical, moral or spiritual life will have to be ruthlessly curbed and steps will have to be taken that loose talk and loose thinking are not allowed to exist. This does not mean censorship but an enlightened and sympathetic censorship with an appeal to the highest tribunal in the land."

"Interestingly enough an academic conflict is going on between those who do not wish to tamper with facts (Mohammad Habib, S.S.A. Rizvi) and those who are determined to give a benign face to Islam (I.H. Qureshi, Mohammad Mujeeb, Ashgahar Ali Engineer)."

"The Quran has always held the central position in Islamic thinking. Indeed it holds a position even higher that that of the Prophet, because the Prophet was as much bound by its injunctions as any believer."

"Islam does not distinguish between the religious and profane. There being no ecclesia, its counterpart the saeculum becomes redundant. In a sense Islam is a secular religion, because it has no church."

"They established their khanaqahs and shrines at places (i.e., temples) which already had a reputation for sanctity before Islam."

"The status and the function of the Ulema in the Muslim community have seldom been properly understood by non-Muslims scholars. Superficial observers have thought that the Ulema correspond to priests without a church; hence, they consider the presence of priesthood in Islam inevitable. The Ulema are venerated for their learning and piety, hence also they are taken to be priests."

"Hitler was not wrong when he identified the democracies with international Jewry, because high finance and big business which are the backbone of social organization in the democracies are very much in the hands of the Jews; and because finance is the real master of bourgeoisie democracy, the Jews are very much in control."

"It can be seriously contented if he possessed wisdom of the highest order. If he had, he would not have sought to weaken Islam and the Muslim community of the Subcontinent. At least he would have refrained from interfering with the established principals of Islam. Even Vincent Smith, who narrates Akbar’s aberrations from Islam with relish, concludes that ‘the whole scheme was the outcome of ridiculous vanity, a monstrous growth of unrestrained autocracy...’ How can it then be asserted that Akbar possessed wisdom in the highest degree?"

"And the achievement of that goal depends on the success we achieve in this land of India in establishing and maintaining a polity in accordance with our ideals. That depends on our will to live, which depends on our willingness to die."

"His approach is strongly communalistic... He is proud of the political achievements of Muslims in medieval India and believes that they more than satisfied modern ideas of tolerance, benevolence and efficiency... (He) treats the Delhi Sultanate as a welfare state, the Muslim community in medieval India as a nation, and the Sultans of Delhi as Muslims both in a religious and political sense."

"While we claim to live in an information age, disinformation has become the order of the day."

"Human beings have always had common purpose and destiny for which there have always been collective efforts."

"Millions perished in the two s and upheavals for an equitable world, their sacrifices have gone in vain."

"Hopelessness is becoming the hallmark of the 21st century."

"Faiz’s revolutionary poetry was still banned by the regime, but one woman, a singer, defied Zia. It was always the women of Pakistan who gave the dictator the most grief. A year after the poet’s death, Iqbal Bano, a national icon, obtained rare permission to hold a concert in Lahore. There were some things even Zia couldn’t refuse. And there was a way of getting around the ban of singing and dancing: asking for permission to hold a “cultural event.” Bano wore a sari, a dress forbidden under Zia both because it was associated with enemy India and because it showed a woman’s midriff. And then she lent her voice, powerful but melodious, controlled but emotional, to the most defiant of all of Faiz’s verses, written in 1979 in protest at Zia’s authoritarian Islam. Hum dekhenge, she sang, we shall witness. For ten long minutes she sang the verses as the emotions of the crowd of fifty thousand Pakistanis rose and swelled with her, applause punctuating every pause."

"One of Pakistan’s greatest Urdu poets of the twentieth century, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, had spent the first few years of Zia’s time in power in prison and then in exile in Beirut, preferring the chaos of Lebanon’s civil war to the darkness of repression. An uncle and mentor of Taseer, the leftist poet of love and revolution had embraced the intellectual effervescence of Lebanon and found kindred spirits among the Palestinian revolutionaries sitting on café terraces during cease-fires. But the Palestinians kept attracting worse and worse Israeli retaliation and, in the summer of 1982, Israeli tanks reached Beirut. Faiz and his wife were forced to flee and return to Pakistan. He died in his home country a month before Zia’s referendum, perhaps in anticipation of the unbearable realization that the general had found a way, yet again, to stay in power."

"Faiz’s verses were deeply subversive. And they seemed directed not only at Zia the oppressor but also at those who proclaimed themselves the guardians of sacred places: the Saudis. There were screams of Inqilab zindabad at the concert: long live the revolution, in Urdu, long live the fight against Zia. A live recording of the song was smuggled out, and copies made on cassette tapes were passed around secretly and copied again until they had traveled well beyond the country’s borders. The Pakistan that Faiz had known was dying. So was the Beirut he had loved and left. The Lebanon of Musa Sadr and Hussein al-Husseini was no more."

"Last night your lost memory so came into the heart As spring comes in the wilderness quietly, As the zephyr moves slowly in deserts, As rest comes without cause to a sick man."

"I had to listen when my friends told me to wash my eyes with blood Everything at once was tangled in blood — each face, each idol, red everywhere. Blood swept over the sun, washing away its gold. The moon erupted with blood, its silver extinguished."

"Love, do not ask me for that love again. Once I thought life, because you lived, a prize— The time's pain nothing, you alone were pain; Your beauty kept earth's springtime's from decay, My universe held only your bright eyes— If I won you, fate would be at my feet. It was not true, all this, but only wishing; Our world knows other torments than of love, And other happiness than a fond embrace. Dark curse of countless ages, savagery."

"Human ingenuity, science and industry have made it possible to provide each one of us everything we need to be comfortable provided these boundless treasures of nature and production are not declared the property of a greedy few but are used for the benefit of all of humanity… However, this is only possible if the foundations of human society are based not on greed, exploitation and ownership but on justice, equality, freedom and the welfare of everyone… I believe that humanity which has never been defeated by its enemies will, after all, be successful; at long last, instead of wars, hatred and cruelty, the foundation of humankind will rest on the message of the great Persian poet Hafez Shiraz: ‘Every foundation you see is faulty, except that of Love, which is faultless."

"If ink and pen are snatched from me, shall I Who have dipped my finger in my heart's blood complain— Of if they seal my tongue, when I have made A mouth of every round link of my chain?"

"No matter what I do I could never become an English man. If you paint stripes on a donkey, that doesn’t make it a zebra."