Jinnah, Shariah and Secularism on December 17, 2017In his article ‘Jinnah, Islam and Secularism’ Mr Yasser Latif Hamdani asserts that ‘at no point during the 13 months that Jinnah was in power that any piece of legislation or resolution purporting to commit Pakistan to an exclusively Muslim polity was passed by the Constituent Assembly’. He also writes that in the official documents […]
Jinnah, Muslims and minorities on December 14, 2017I was planning to write on the Objectives Resolution of 7 March 1949 in the follow-up article on my previous essay, ‘Jinnah’s prerogatives’. However, as Mr Yasser Latif Hamdani has presented some statements in which Jinnah assured minorities of equal rights it is important to put those statements in perspective. These were made to beleaguered […]
Jinnah’s prerogatives on December 10, 2017I fully understand the concern of a whole range of intellectuals representing an assortment of liberals and leftists who steadfastly and heroically keep writing that Jinnah was a secularist, he wanted Pakistan to be a secular state or at least an inclusive Muslim state. As far as an inclusive Muslim state is concerned they are […]
The right to national self-determination on December 6, 2017Recently, the Pakistan-initiated resolution in the UN General Assembly on the Right of National Self-Determination against Foreign Occupation was passed by a very large majority of member states supporting it. The formal enunciation of the right of national self-determination is conventionally associated with US President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 points upon which decolonisation in Europe and […]
Barelvis and the Pakistan movement on November 30, 2017In light of the recent commotion created by some Barelvi clerics, which the federal government bungled up with its characteristic incompetence, it is time that someone speaks out the truth about the Pakistan movement and its ideology. Let me say without mincing words: Pakistan was created in negation of principles of secular democracy. Barelvi clerics […]
The mob, mobocrats and mobocracy on November 24, 2017I have been watching with utter dismay and disbelief that a nuclear power like Pakistan is so completely helpless and powerless in clearing its capital of a bellicose mob, hell-bent on challenging the writ of the government and by that token the will of the state. The government is paralysed and constantly begging Khadim Hussain […]
The historical task of the contemporary left on November 17, 2017In the wake of my article on the Centenary of the Russian Revolution many friends have wanted me to express my views on the task and the role of the Left in current times. Let me begin with by saying that from the legacy of Marx and Engels we must always value their humanism, their […]
100th Anniversary of the Russian (Bolshevik) Revolution on November 8, 2017Lest we forget, the Russian Revolution led by the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Ilywich Lenin was one of the greatest events of the last century. The French Revolution (1789) transformed the world and set in motion processes which to this day are at the core of the notion of citizenship and individual rights. The Russian Revolution […]
Marxism and the Contemporary World on September 18, 2017Marxism Aur Aaj Kee Duniya (Urdu; Marxism and the Contemporary World)Author: Aslam GurdaspuriPublishers: Dastawaiz Mutbuat 2016 Karl Marx is undoubtedly one of the greatest thinkers of all time, whose ideas have profoundly impacted the modern world. A prolific writer, theorist, polemicist and activist, his revolutionary theory of socialism proved to be the most telling […]
Beware of predators on September 1, 2017The title of this article is also the title of a book I plan to write. Henceforth, I claim original authorship of this title. It remains to be seen whether the book will be a fact-based chronological narrative of recent events that transpired in my life or anentertaining fictional novel and whether it will have […]