Daily Times

The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) held the second session of the workshop titled, ‘100 years of Soviet Revolution: A South Asian Perspective on Saturday. The event was hosted in the VC Office’s Faculty Lounge at the Mushtaq Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The first seminar began at 9:30 AM, and the topic of discussion was ‘Political Inheritances’. The first speaker at the event was Nadeem Khalid, and his presentation was titled ‘Left Politics in the 1980s: a CPP Perspective’. This was followed by Layli Uddin, who’s presentation was titled, ‘1969: Marxists, Murids and the Maulana in the Unmaking of Pakistan’. The third presentation was titled ‘The Problems of Liberalism and Orthodox Marxism in Pakistani Left Politics: A Legacy of Bolshevik Revolution?’

The second seminar began at 11:30 AM. The topic of discussion was Intellectual Genealogies. The first speaker was LUMS Assistant History Professor Ali Reza. His presentation was centred on the anti-communist advocacy group known as the Congress of Cultural Freedom (CCF). Reza explained that the CCF was a CIA backed cultural platform and it’s objective was to counter progressive communist ideas. The CCF’s Pakistan chapter began in 1956 in Karachi. Reza said that Pakistan’s students were the project’s main targets, not the common Pakistani. He also said that some of the leading intellectuals and educationists of that era were involved. These included Mahmood Hussein who served as Minister of Education from 1952 to 1953. Reza said that young scholars were also involved in the CCF, but most did not know it was backed by the CIA. They’re involvement was pushed by genuine convictions. Reza said that religion was used to combat communist ideas on the basis of communism’s atheistic principles.

The next speaker was Ammar Jan, an assistant professor from the Punjab University. Jan said that the 20th Century was unique because human beings had an idea that they could live, survive and thrive without a class structure. He stressed that the advent of communism was a factor in creating dissatisfaction among colonized people everywhere including India, and created the desire for freedom. However, in the 20th century world power’s engaged in self destruction through warfare and this played a role in the radicalisation of the decolonized world. He said that Marxists and Islamists had certain things in common, including the belief that an individual’s natural desires serve an ‘other’.

Marxists and Islamists had certain things in common, including the belief that an individual’s natural desires serve an ‘other’

The third speaker was Quaid-e-Azam University Assistant Pakistan Studies Professor Asim Sajjad Akhtar. He started the seminar saying that there had been disillusionment with communism and that an alternative to capitalism isn’t even conceivable in the modern world. He said the modern narrative dictates that there can be no liberation from the current system and that an egalitarian utopia is impossible. He said this is unfortunate as the extreme right does not have this pessimism and creative bankruptcy.

The final session began at 2:30 PM and the topic of discussion was Progressive Literature. The first speaker was Jaffer Ahmed, who said that there couldn’t be any discussion on progressive ideas without taking the socio-economic conditions of the 18th and 19th centuries into account. He went on to say that there were several dominant classes in Pakistani society, but there was one class which was most powerful. He lamented that Pakistan had a lack of Historians and Social Scientists because the country was a laboratory of social change due to the rapid transformation of Pakistani society.

This was followed by Humeira Ishfaq, Professor of Urdu at International Islamic University. She spoke on the difference between the rich and poor in how the perceived deprivation and suffering, as well as the affect the Bolshevik Revolution had on Urdu poetry.

This was followed by writer and archivist Ahmed Saleem, who spoke on the influence of Communism on Saadat Hassan Manto. He lamented that Manto remained trapped between the extremist’s of both the right and the left.

The final speaker was MGSHSS Dean Kamran Asdar Ali. He spoke on how progressive dissident writers were maligned by the Progressive Writers Movement in South Asia.

The writer is a staff member at Daily Times. He can be reached at wasayibrahim@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, November 5^th 2017.