Daily Times

Some people move with the wind while others try to move the wind along their desired direction. However, it requires indomitable determination and a baronial tolerance, particularly in an intolerant society. Those who learn the art of moving their life downstream by using common social tactics make their lives easier whereas those who try swimming upstream find their survival a wee bit hard, especially when they find their competitors embarrassingly obsequious to the person in authority. Same was the situation with a great scholar, academic and researcher of unique style and dignity Prof. Dr. Mughees Uddin Sheikh. His unique nature took him to perambulate the road not taken by others, and it was something that distinguished him from his contemporary scholars. In words of Robert Frost:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

He picked up a different teaching technique and was always chased and chastised by his rival academics that could literally never be at par with him. He knew just like Earnest Hemingway (The Old man and the sea) he will only be admired and appreciated after he left for his eternal journey. He strongly believed that man can be destroyed but not defeated. He was a man of very high stature and his mission was to produce researchers & journalists of world class. Whether he had to writhe or wriggle through those painful moments, he would go through every odd situation with a smile on his face as the best response to this kind of bitter query of life. He had learnt how to smile away even the hardest trouble of his field or human attitude around him. His academic response to such things was always doing something better not to please his rivals but to satisfy his own soul. Consequently, he opened up new avenues in communication studies by introducing new trends though he could not find conducive environment in his immediate surrounds of the Institute of Communication Studies of University of the Punjab throughout his tenure. He used to float ever new ideas in qualitative and quantitative researches by familiarizing his students about emerging new world trends.

Though Mughees is not alive today, while he was fighting against his death he did not know that his prediction of Chinese military expansion was proving true. His words being translated as such, the Chinese influence is expanding by leaps and bounds across the globe today

Regarding his own research achievements, all the years he studied for his PhD in the USA, he was granted the best researcher’s award of the department for three consecutive years. He contributed countless research papers at national and international levels and supervised MA, M.Phil. & PhD thesis Mughees was a man with an exceptionally sharp mind who had carved out an uncommon path even in his common life and that was dedicating his life for research activities in an era when one of his colleagues used to say, “Research is a fraud” (though he himself had done research during his PhD studies and it was negation of his own degree). Dr. Mughees was different from his counterparts in all aspects – academic, social, cultural, and above all in humanistic perspective. He would help the needy and poor students not only academically by motivating them intrinsically and extrinsically but also financially and he would do it all very silently in line with the Islamic teachings. He was not only an academic and researcher of universal approach but also a great philanthropist of his age. He was a distinguished academic and would never like to politicize his class, his judicial and perspicacious mind could foresee the world events much ahead of time. His source of inspiration were always distinguished world scholars of objective thought like Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, not Samuel P. Huntington whose thesis of clash of civilization used to offend him that “The West is now at an extraordinary peak of power in relation to other civilizations. Its superpower opponent has disappeared from the map. Military conflict among Western states is unthinkable, and Western military power is unrivaled”. Mughees’s counter viewpoint was that one day Chinese economic dominance coupled with its unrivalled human capital will transform it into a great military muscle that will challenge Western countries and none of the western power will be in a position to resist its expanding influence. Though Mughees is not alive today, while he was fighting against his death he did not know that his prediction of Chinese military expansion was proving true. His words being translated as such, the Chinese influence is expanding by leaps and bounds across the globe today.

He loved his nation and was staunch supporter of preserving Islamic values and culture. As I attended his first M.Phil class as a student almost a decade ago, I was pleasantly surprised when he started charting the effects of one way flow of Western values in the form of ceaseless bombardment by contemporary western media that were invading, eroding, displacing and subsequently replacing Islamic culture with that of Western one. He heaved a sigh of deep grief and with great pain said, “The only way to prevent our kids from mimicking cartoonistic language and shaping up their western lifestyle is by exposing them to high quality entertainment through indigenous culturally designed entertainment but it is a wee bit hard job for our infotainment industry that is fighting to survive against Indian vulgar comics” He was very touchy about the sovereignty of Pakistan and used to feel a stab of pain whenever there was extraterritorial intervention in the country. His viewpoint about the sovereignty of each state of the world was quite obvious and he would often say that when all the globally connected humanity believes in Westphalian system based on the principle that each state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs and each state, howsoever powerful, must adhere to the principle of non-interference in another country’s domestic affairs, no matter how large or small, powerful or vulnerable, no country should poke its nose in other state’s affairs. He used to get upset whenever he would see loss of human lives just because of violation of the universal principle of Non-interference by the extra-territorial masters.

He had deep understanding of psychological warfare and its terrible effects on nations. He had excellent knowledge of white, grey and black Propaganda and the tactics and techniques frequently applied by the western media to exploit Islamic states and he was extremely keen on developing possible means to counter the merciless western Propaganda campaigns against the non-western states (particularly Islamic states) as most of the victims of these ceaseless campaigns unleashes by western media were usually Islamic states. For instance, when Iraq was invaded under the pretension of Weapons of Mass destruction (WMD), and after the ruthless killing of more than 1 million Iraqi men, women and innocent children, the world came to know that it was not the issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction: it was indeed a disastrous propaganda game of Western Media of Mass Deception. In order to accomplish this objective he requested the government to establish a Media University in the country but his cherished dream of setting up an independent media university could never be materialized simply because of lack of political will.

On the destruction of Baghdad, Tripoli, Palestine, Kashmir, Kabul and Damascus, he not only bitterly denounced the massacre but also castigated openly the ruthless Western policy of the Muslims genocide like a courageous and fearless spokesperson of his community. He but also tried to awaken the slumbering conscience of the westerners who always characterize themselves as the torch-bearer of humanity and compassion, sometimes even detaching themselves from their ruthless foreign policies. He enlightened his students and tried to create an informed society but his life did not allow him to complete his mission. However, he has left behind great legacy of his students and they will shoulder this responsibility in a befitting manner.

Not to speak of his motherland, Mughees even loved those small streets of Lahore where he had spent his childhood. All his life he loved his country and never allowed anyone to say a word against it. He could qualify for the family immigration and resettlement in any rich country for better living standard of his children but he loved his motherland and would get furious if anyone ever said even single world against it. He was highly appreciated by national and international scholars and researchers after his sudden demise but is it necessary for any man of letters to die to get admiration? We as a nation don’t appreciate our fellows while they are alive and flower their graves as soon as they die.

May his anxious soul rest in eternal peace amid flowers and fragrances of heaven forever!

The writer earned his M.Phil and PhD degrees from PU and also served the Head of the Department of Communication Studies in GC University Lahore