Book Review: American Fever

I first heard of Dur e Aziz Amna when her essay 'Your Tongue is Still Yours' won a prize from The Financial Times (FT). I ended up subscribing to the FT for a few months because I wanted to read the whole thing and there was a paywall. It felt poignant because the day I started reading it, I was at a Christmas party in a small Texas town, with no other brown people in attendance. The essay interrogated and mused upon what happens to our ancestral language when we move abroad, a topic close to my heart. I grew up in a Punjabi household where Punjabi was reserved for speaking with house help and among my parents and relatives but never with the children. I learned Punjabi when I went off to boarding school, hundreds of miles away from my home. I remember being taught English throughout my school years, with extra coaching during summer and winter holidays. When someone in the US or elsewhere asks me how do I know English so well, it is hard to explain to them that it is as much my language as it is theirs. 

When I read on Twitter that Dur e Aziz Amna's novel was arriving a certain date, I bookmarked it in anticipation and bought a paperback as soon as it was available. It remained on my bedside table for a few months as I read it intermittently. I started off at a faster pace but there were so many resonances with my own experience that my mind would race and I would find it hard to sleep (I read the book almost exclusively before sleep), so I slowed down. Roughly, it is the story of a teenager from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, who arrives in the United States as an exchange student for a school year. My experience was visiting the United States for the first time as an exchange visitor when I was 26 and I only stayed for a month, so not exactly the same. 'Hira' ends up in Eugene, Oregon while I traveled with my peers to major cities. Here's my review and some related thought while reading the book.

The opening sequence is dramatic, with our protagonist coughing up blood and being taken to the hospital by their host mother. While the author doesn’t describe at the outset as to what caused this illness, any medical student can tell that she was referring to having Tuberculosis (TB) which is very common in Pakistan and not so common in the United States. There’s the innocence of being an adolescent girl in Pakistan (Hira) , grinding between a changing body and the ‘modesty’ culture, even mention of the infamous ‘route’ in Rawalpindi, which meant all traffic coming to a halt to give way to a senior politician or general.

I was familiar with what happens when you get a chance to spend time in the US on a fully funded scholarship. I had seen and heard some of my peers getting envious. I had felt the hesitance in my parents, I had even heard the same words as the protagonist, “will we lose you?” but not from my parents but by my then-fiancee who called me the night before departure, in tears. I couldn’t fathom why she was saying that or why she was crying and thought of it as an overreaction at the time (the “engagement” didn’t last, but that’s a story for another time).  

I am also, eerily familiar with the protagonist’s actions to Islamize herself (instead of doing the hijab, I almost joined the Tablighi jamaat and was very active in the mosque) as a way to distinguish yourself and gain some clout in the school. During the program orientation, the protagonist learns about doing chores in the U.S. I faced a similar cultural shock when I had to first do chores in a shared apartment and eventually it became part of life.

I am also familiar with the complex interplay between Hira’s parents and how they treated her, her mother acting as the voice of her father. There is subtle humor in there, some of it from Hira, some from her parents or other characters, often spontaneous.

The TB diagnosis is hinted at, while she is still in Pakistan, but not fleshed out. From the description, it sounds like she got latent TB, which is quite common in Pakistan. I highly object to her line “flying emirates wasn’t ideal, British airlines would have been better” based on recent experience on both. I could empathize with her feelings when she arrives at her host parent’s house, “the gaping wideness of such distance, the impossibility of returning home on a whim”. I felt that when I first went to boarding school, hundreds of miles away from home, as a 13-year-old.

Reading the book reminded me of my fresh-off-the-boat days as well, when I impulsively compared everything to ‘back home’. I never had to be in a locker-room in the US (or elsewhere) so I didn’t know the feeling of shame when people change clothes in front of you. During my boarding school days, we didn’t have a lot of places to do that so many of us will fold a towel around our waist before stripping down. Maybe not on my initial visits but since moving here, I have definitely met Americans who  “could talk so much, and without such little reciprocation required”.

The sneaky wine-discovery scene made me laugh out loud. Hira exclaims to her host sister, who had snuck some boxed red wine, “its not sweet”! My first wine tasting was in Turkey on a vineyard and I had similar feelings. And the “how is your English so good” comments still continue, more than six years since I moved here. I rarely answer those anymore, having tried in earnest at times, using sarcasm at other times. Hira’s little posse of exchange students at the high school and their amazement/disdain at the Americans reminded me of being in Texas for a visitor position at a cancer hospital. I met some Chinese exchange students there and we gathered more ‘foreigners’, having lunch together and all the translated gossip.

There’s a bit about Hira opining that while there are no simple words like ‘I love you’ in Urdu to express love, “there are so many words, so many proofs — just no quotidian three-word ellipsis..”. While I agree that there are no direct comparisons, I personally think the idea of ‘romance’ in Urdu, specially in Urdu poetry (but also prose) is frequently what we now call ‘toxic’. But that’s another debate for another time. 

Overall, the story flows well and the prose is easy to digest. The affect was bland. I did not like the book as much as Amna's previous work. Maybe because the book did not meet the high expectations set by the anticipation for the book. There will inevitably be rave reviews in "western" newspapers and magazines about the book, and I don't envy that. Good for her.

 

I'm back

I haven't written/posted much for this space in the last 5 years. The last things I posted here were my recollections of being in the United States as a newbie, a fresh-off-the-boat guy who was searching for a residency position, his place in this country and perhaps his own identity. In the meanwhile, I did find a residency spot, I got married, I became a citizen of the United States, and most importantly, father to a beautiful boy. I started blogging in the early 2010s because I had a lot to say and I was undergoing a transformation in my life. I started off with this blog, moved on to Pak Tea House (which is not alive anymore), then to Dawn blogs, The Friday Times, rarely Pakistan Today, and eventually to The News and The Nation. Digital media is not considered very important in mainstream Pakistani newspapers, thus a simple domain name change can wipe off decades worth of archives. If you gooogle my name today with The News and Pakistan Today, for example, you won't be able to find my work that was published there in the early 2010s. The same happened with Lok Sujag's website. 

I haven't lived in Pakistan for almost six years now, and even though I keep an eye on what is happening there in the political space, I don't have much to add. Years ago, my mentor and friend Wajahat Masood told me to avoid pontificating to "fellow countrymen" from abroad as much as possible. I took his advice to heart. I wrote occasional things in the past few years, some satirical pieces for 'The Dependent', a one-off thing for 'The News', some for 'Hum Sub' and occasional musings for 'Brown Pundits'. I still have a lot to say, but little time, with medical training and parenthood as major time-consumers. There are also few outlets for me to express my thoughts and ideas beside this blog. News media in Pakistan is constantly under threat and Brown Pundits is teeming with one-dimensional nationalists. So here it is, a second life for this space, as and when time allows.    

Facts are not always Facts

(I originally wrote this piece for Viewpointonline.com in 2012)

Writing about history takes a certain amount of knowledge and courage because non-partisanship has to be taken into account. Different people have different opinions about events as they unfold. Early Muslim Historians used to include narration of all the eye witnesses while writing about any particular event. Ibn e Khaldun, the doyen of muslism historians, postulated that history and historiography is a scientific method, and that history does not have a religion or caste.

Pakistan’s history is almost as complicated as the problems facing the country. The official narrative built up the Pakistani establishment places Iqbal as the dreamer of a separate nation for Muslims and Mr. Jinnah as the creator with everyone else as a secondary character. Another view, taken up by some on the Pakistani side, but originally espoused by Indian Establishment is that Partition was a plot by the British to divide the Muslim and Hindu Communities. This view encompasses the assumption that Muslims and Hindus never had a problem in co-existence, Partition was due to Jinnah's apparent lust for power, and the border between two countries needs to be erased. Some have even gone so far to say claim that Pakistan 'is an artificial state' created as a Cold War proxy by the West.


A third, and most objective view(in my opinion) is presented by historians including Dr.Ayesha Jalal and Zahid Chohdary which posits that Pakistan and India were divided based on the power struggle between three factors: The British, weakened significantly after the second world war; Congress, vying for a leading role in post-british politics and Muslim League, aiming to safeguard the rights of Muslims in India.

A few weeks ago, on 23^rd March, someone told me about the revelation in Wali Khan’s book “Facts are Facts” about the Lahore Resolution being composed by Sir Zafrulah Khan, under command of the British Viceroy. I wanted to confirm that version of events which led me to find the real “fact”.

Following is the transcript from Wali Khan’s book “Facts are Facts”.
From Lord Linlithgo to Minister for Indian Affairs, Lord Zetland, on 12^th March, 1940.
“Upon my instruction, Zafarullah wrote a memorandum on the subject, Two Dominion States. I have already sent it to your attention. I have also asked him for further clarification, which, he says, is forthcoming. He is anxious, however, that no one should find out that he has prepared this plan. He has, however, given me the right to do with it what I like, including sending a copy to you. Copies have been passed on to Jinnah, and I think to Sir Akbar Hydari. While he, Zafrullah, cannot admit its authorship, his document has been prepared for the adoption by the Muslim League with a view to giving it the fullest possibility”.

The actual letter, copy of which is present in the India Office Library is present, contains the following words:
“I sent you by the last bag a copy of Zafrullah’s note on Dominion States, which I remarked purported to be a statement of the position from the extremer point of view. I introduced tat qualification because I had not at that time had an opportunity of discussing its precise nature with him and certain of the propositions contained in it, were they to appear formally under the name of a Member of my council, might, I think have justified a description in those terms. I asked him yesteday to put me a little more in the picture and he told me that this is a first draft only; secondly that, provided he is protected on that point and the paper is not used publicly, I may do what I like with it including sending a copy to you; thirdly that copies have been passed to Jinnah and I think Hydari; and fourthly that while he, Zafrullah cannot, of course, admit its authorship, his document has been prepared for adoption by the Muslim League with a view to its being given the fullest publicity. I cannot claim even yet to have had time to absorb it fully and I would suspend my comment on it until later. But it is a substantial and trenchant piece of work and I shall be greatly interested in your reactions to it.” (Letter present at India Office Library and Records, MSS EUR, F/125/9)

There are many discrepencies with Mr.Wali Khan’s book, irrespective of his political affiliations.
Firsty,No reference to the letter found in the book regarding the letter, a mistake that has been present in the whole book. This is not an isolated case as most of Pakistani authors writing in English and Urdu rarely bother with the tedious task of providing references or even a bibliography.  
Secondly, it is apparent that Wali Khan concocted words in the letter which is the worst form of intellectual dishonesty.
Then, Wali Khan did not even mention the actual note that Sir Zafarulla Khan wrote, a 32 page proposal which was not a novelty at the time. In those days, countless proposals about the future of United India were written by all and sundry because of the visible lack of British Political strength due to the ongoing world war. It is also worth noting that in that 32 page scheme hatched by Sir Zafarulla, it is mentioned that “Implementation of the so-called “Pakistan” Scheme would be a disaster because it involves transfer of huge swaths of population. We can claim with authority that this scheme is impossible to implement and it would only amount to trouble and disaster.” (Zafrullah Kahn’s Note on Dominion Status; India Office Library and Records; Linlithgow Papers).   
Furthermore, this fact has also been mentioned in Dr Ayesha Jalal’s book “The Sole Spokesman” pages 55-56. It is mentioned that “In the note, Zarfullah was looking for a constitutional scheme acceptable to Muslim opinion generally, He considered three schemes. The first was the ‘Pakistan’ scheme which he swiftly dismissed as ‘utterly impracticable’. The second, closest to the League Working Committee’s brief, envisaged two Muslim federations, in the north-west and north-east, ‘in direct relation with the crown’. Zafrullah’s note was seen by Jinnah. It is reasonable to assume that the League’s constitutional cub-committee also considered it, and the Lahore resolution bears some marks of this note.” 

It is interesting to note that after publication of Wali Khan’s book in mid-80s, a less-known rebuttal was written by Ikram Ali Malik in 1990, titled “Truth is Truth” published by Book Services Publishers in Lahore.
  

What would ‘secularism’ mean in Pakistan?

In his inaugural address to the Constituent assembly of Pakistan, Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah proclaimed, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State”. It was a vision of a state where religious practice is entirely separated from the functions of state – as enunciated by the man who almost singlehandedly brought that state into existence. Mr. Jinnah knew that a clear majority of people in Pakistan at the time were Muslims. He was also well aware of the fact that almost a quarter of Pakistan’s citizens (at that time in history) belonged to various non-Muslim faiths.

 

Changed contours 

 

Over the years, the contours of Pakistan changed, geographically and demographically. According to the latest estimates, an overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s citizens are Muslims. This has led many to question whether secularism is a viable option for a polity that belongs to a particular religion.

 

Secularism is not atheism

 

Secularism as an idea has taken some beating in the Land of Pure. It is associated with atheism, debauchery and lawlessness. However, secularism, as a political ideology has nothing to do with a particular religion. It is true that secularism arose out of the Enlightenment in Europe as a counter to Papal theocracy. It evolved into different shapes based on geography thereafter. The French version of secularism (with its basis in the concept of Laïcité) is profoundly different from the constitutionally mandated secularism in India, Turkey and the United States. The charge that secularism is akin to atheism is frequently thrown by religious commentators in Pakistan. As a result, the popular narrative in Pakistan is that secularism means going against religion (Islam) which can be a dangerous notion for anyone claiming to be secularist. This misinterpretation was done with an aim to close the debate altogether about system of governance.

 

The challenge for proponents of secularism in Pakistan is to demonstrate how a Muslim-majority country that was conceived to be a place specifically designed to be a ‘laboratory of Islam’ would function as a secular country. 

 

Secularism in Pakistan - a neutral state promotes coexistence

 

Secularism, in my opinion, would mean coexistence, tolerance and a confessionally neutral state in a multicultural society such as Pakistan. Even within Islam, there are different strains of thought. In fact, sectarian conflicts within Islam over the last three decades are only one of the reasons as to why a neutral state is required to mediate the different schools of thought and the conflicts that arise from within.

 

Moreover, Pakistan still is home to millions of people who are non-Muslim. Biased policymaking and intolerant jurisprudence has made the lives of these minorities a living hell. In the age of modern technology, people in Pakistan are still arguing over interpretation of religious texts and killing each other over it. The state has abdicated its responsibility towards Hazaras, Ahmedis, Christians and Hindus. The only way we can protect the minorities and establish a rule of law is in the presence of a neutral state.

 

What needs to be understood is that the opposite of secularism is theocracy, in which religious figures control the reins of government. In countries with diverse populations, the rule of one faction over the other leads to brutality and in some cases, genocide. One of the major examples of this trend can be seen in Myanmar where Buddhist monks have aligned with the ruling government to wreak havoc on Rohingya Muslims.

 

In Pakistan, secularism would mean respect for existing religious identities

 

In a country like Pakistan, secularism would not mean erasing religious identities but a respect for existing identities and no efforts by the state to impose its version of faith on its citizens. The first attempt at reversing Mr. Jinnah’s secular message was the passage of Objectives Resolution in 1949 that foreshadowed an Islamization of Pakistan’s constitution. In the 1973 constitution, the resolution was kept as a preamble but a dictator (General Zia) made it part of the main text.

The importance of secularism for Pakistan can be understood by the way it has been opposed – tooth and nail – by the religious lobby since the very first day of Pakistan’s establishment. The poorly-constructed Nazriya-e-Pakistan (Ideology of Pakistan) was supposed to put Islam at the center of our politics. Currently, with exception of Jamaat-e-Islami and some factions of Imran Khan’s PTI, no major political party is willing to defend the ‘Nazriya’ as Zia defined it – and the sooner such a poorly thought-out concept is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better.

 

Pakistan deserves a secular, constitutional democracy, instead of a narrow-minded Mullah-cracy.

 

 

Guide for students taking USMLEs

Most people who pass the USMLEs and guide other people talk about study resources, daily schedules, importance of xyz things in a CV and a host of other things. I took the USMLEs and was not a high-scorer. But I learnt more than a few thigs down this path that I think could be useful for potential USMLE candidates. Here are some of them.


You develop a daily routine and follow it as best as you humanly can. It is hard. You have good days and bad. You hope that the good days would outnumber the bad ones. It is, in the end, a numbers’ game. Every hour in the library (or your room) that you spend, adds to your preparation, unless you end up watching YouTube videos of cats or go on a Daily Show binge (or both). You learn how to spend most of your waking hours sitting in front of a computer. You get addicted to coffee, tea or whatever drug keeps you alert. You start losing hair, gaining weight, having headaches and backaches. USMLE is not just an exam of your knowledge, it is as much an exam of your patience, your stamina, your confidence. Your best friends in this ‘Brave New World’ are a book named First Aid and a software named U-World. No parties for you, no casual hangouts, family functions, holidays, weekends, nothing. You’ll have to befriend solitude. You start thinking about what you are missing out on, and what you’d like to do once it’s over. You’ll learn new words over the course of this journey, words like NBME, ECFMG, CMS, CCS, Prometric, NRMP etc. Try not to underestimate your enemy (the exam), you will have to be sharp to tackle the challenge.

I read somewhere that ‘re-education’ is tougher than ‘education’ itself and that is what you do in the course of preparation: unlearn what you’ve learnt before, add new information and then learn how to use that new info in real-life scenarios. You need a one-track mind, a state of commitment far superior to undergrad education, to go through all of this. The state of affairs drives even the most stable people, a bit crazy. No one can understand what you are going through, except the people who have crossed this river of fire. During the course of preparing for steps myself, I discovered a newfound respect for people who voluntarily go through this grueling process. It is not impossible and thousands of people across the world do it. Just beware that this endeavor is going to consume a lot of mental and physical energy. You do emerge as a better doctor (and hopefully, a better human) after this.

The whole process though, is hard to explain to your parents, your siblings, your spouse, your friends, your co-workers, what you are actually doing. There is an exam which you are preparing for, but what happens after that? Oh, there’s another one. And after that? There’s more. Right, so you’ll get a job after passing all of these? Not really. There is a ‘match process’ and it’s a 50/50 chance at best. The odds are not in your favor and after explaining this sequence for the 50^th time, you start doubting your own self. There would be naysayers, people who will try to scare you, telling you how this is an uphill battle, that you’d be competing with people from all over the world. But this is as much a battle with yourself as it is with the rest of the world. You have to wake up each day with the attitude that you’re going to win today. They’ll always give you examples of people who either left the quest midway or faced issues after they were done with steps. They’ll never tell you the success stories, stories of people who survived despite the odds, the courageous lot, the go-getters.

The toughest thing about USMLE I found was the fact that I had to choose the exam date myself. It means taking the exam when you have optimal preparation. But can you ever have optimal preparation? How can you tell when you are ready? To tackle this question, you have to choose the time of the exam wisely. Too soon and you’ll be underprepared, too late and you’ll get lax. You can always delay the exam (at a certain cost) which is another thing that tugs at your heartstrings. It gives you a false sense of security. This is the real battle for USMLE, not the exam itself. What most people do is to plan ahead and take the date when they feel they are at the peak of their preparation. It works for some people, it doesn’t work for others.

What should be the sequence of Steps? Step 1 first or 2? When to take CS? There is no fixed guideline for that. However, you should start mentally preparing yourself sometime before you start the actual preparation. In my personal view (and you can choose to ignore it), if you think you are good in basic sciences, try taking step 1 during final year (while preparing for it during 4^th year). It is probably the best time to take step 1. It doesn’t mean you can’t take it and ace it later. If you think you really liked medicine, surgery and Gynae, take step 2 CK soon after final year. This is an ideal situation and human beings are not ideal. If you can’t take it during these times, prepare later but it will require more effort, as late as you take them after Final year.

One should not forget the financial cost of the exam. Just the exam fee for Step 1, 2 CK and 2 CS is about 4 lac rupees. The cost of U-world for different steps also gets higher than 1.5 lacs. For CS you need to visit the US and the lowest ticket cost is about 80 thousand rupees. If you stay in the US, the cost of staying here every month ranges from 700-1000 Dollars.

The Exam itself is fascinating. After preparing for six months to a year, you finally enter the exam room and you take that damn test. I wish I had the words to describe the sweet feeling that descends upon you when you start attempting the test. Just being there, after all those hours you put in, all the revisions, all the good things in life that you missed out on, all the friendships that were affected, the grind of it all, you make it to the final stretch. The exam is grueling, no doubt about that. I have a theory that at least 50% of your final score depends on your test day performance (the rest on your prior preparation). You could have every single word written in First Aid and UW on your fingertips and you can still score less than expected. Just wish that you don’t have a bad day and that you perform according to your preparation. There would be times during the test that you’d be amazed at how easy some things are and within the next 5 minutes, you may be kicking yourself for taking it too lightly (because they’ll ask you something totally ridiculous). Overall, it is a well-structured exam with much higher standard than the UHS or FCPS, both of whom I’ve suffered over the years.  

To decrease the misery a bit, people rely on SPs or study partners. There are Facebook groups and WhatsApp groups and a gazillion other things like that which you’ll encounter during the process. It works for some people, it doesn’t work for some. Choose what suits you. You’ll find all sorts of people during this journey. Some you’ll forget, some you’ll form life-long friendships with, some you’ll want to get away from faster than the speed of light. There is no hard and fast rules when you are preparing. Anyone that you’ll talk to, for advice, will give you their personal experience, which would be unique in each case. So be careful when seeking advice. Try to ask people whom you trust. Don’t use too many resources (unless you are absolutely comfortable), they’ll overwhelm you at the end. There is one thing though, every step is tougher than the previous one (with an exception of Step 2 CS). Remember one thing at the end though (for Steps and otherwise): the world is not a fair place, don’t expect it to be one either. Do your best and leave the rest to fate. Fight for every Inch. But if you don’t get that inch, be gracious in defeat. Use it to your advantage. Best of Luck. You’ll need it.

On the Objectives Resolution

The creation of Pakistan was a culmination of the ‘Indian Muslim National Project’ that was started by Muslim Elites primarily based in UP. It was bound to be a country where religion took center stage in the political arena. Led by a charismatic, populist British lawyer, All India Muslim League was a hotchpotch of landed gentry and titled aristocracy. The Second World War paved the way for an early exit by the British and handed a historic chance to Indian leaders to decide their destiny. It is difficult to predict if a ‘United India’ would have survived for some time in the absence of British interlocutors since fratricide and ethnic cleansing in Potohar had started much before the actual partition. The Muslim Elite (Ashraf) that founded Pakistan decided that the country would be an ideological state, the ideology was chosen to be Islam. Not because the elite overwhelmingly consisted of Islamists (with a few exceptions) but because religion is an easy way to manipulate people. The Khilafat movement had provided a glimpse of what mixing religion and politics could achieve and Muslim Leaguers were well-aware of its power, which is why they used the ‘Islam in Danger’ card during the 1945 election.

Objectives Resolution was the foundation on which this building was to be erected. It was presented a few months after Mr. Jinnah had passed away so minimal opposition was expected. It was the first effort of its kind among the newly established Muslim-majority nation states. One could argue that even if the Objectives Resolution was not passed when it was, situation in Pakistan would have been similar to what it is today. I completely agree with this sentiment but now that we have a starting point, we should examine what happened there and if it would have been possible somewhere along the line to course-correct. There are more reasons than one to explain Pakistani society’s ‘right-ward’ turn including Islamisation from the top, financial requirements (we always needed Dollars or Riyals in absence of a proper industrial base) and opposition to a ‘Hindu’ India. One factor that is implored much less is what I call ‘de-novo Islamisation’, i.e. Islamisation from below, by Islamic organizations in different guises. Outside of big cities such as Karachi, Pakistanis were always religious and conservative. It didn’t occur with Zia and Objectives Resolution before him. I fail to explain why ‘modernization’ has only been tried under military dictators while most politicians (despite being secular in private) turned religious in public, once they were in power. Anyhow, I wanted to plug a two-part commentary I wrote on the proceedings of Constituent Assembly following the presentation of Objectives Resolution by Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan.

The creation of Pakistan was a culmination of the ‘Indian Muslim National Project’ that was started by Muslim Elites primarily based in UP. It was bound to be a country where religion took center stage in the political arena. Led by a charismatic, populist British lawyer, All India Muslim League was a hotchpotch of landed gentry and titled aristocracy. The Second World War paved the way for an early exit by the British and handed a historic chance to Indian leaders to decide their destiny. It is difficult to predict if a ‘United India’ would have survived for some time in the absence of British interlocutors since fratricide and ethnic cleansing in Potohar had started much before the actual partition. The Muslim Elite (Ashraf) that founded Pakistan decided that the country would be an ideological state, the ideology was chosen to be Islam. Not because the elite overwhelmingly consisted of Islamists (with a few exceptions) but because religion is an easy way to manipulate people. The Khilafat movement had provided a glimpse of what mixing religion and politics could achieve and Muslim Leaguers were well-aware of its power, which is why they used the ‘Islam in Danger’ card during the 1945 election.
Objectives Resolution was the foundation on which this building was to be erected. It was presented a few months after Mr. Jinnah had passed away so minimal opposition was expected. It was the first effort of its kind among the newly established Muslim-majority nation states. One could argue that even if the Objectives Resolution was not passed when it was, situation in Pakistan would have been similar to what it is today. I completely agree with this sentiment but now that we have a starting point, we should examine what happened there and if it would have been possible somewhere along the line to course-correct. There are more reasons than one to explain Pakistani society’s ‘right-ward’ turn including Islamisation from the top, financial requirements (we always needed Dollars or Riyals in absence of a proper industrial base) and opposition to a ‘Hindu’ India. One factor that is implored much less is what I call ‘de-novo Islamisation’, i.e. Islamisation from below, by Islamic organizations in different guises. Outside of big cities such as Karachi, Pakistanis were always religious and conservative. It didn’t occur with Zia and Objectives Resolution before him. I fail to explain why ‘modernization’ has only been tried under military dictators while most politicians (despite being secular in private) turned religious in public, once they were in power. Anyhow, I wanted to plug a two-part commentary I wrote on the proceedings of Constituent Assembly following the presentation of Objectives Resolution by Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan.
Objectives resolution, Part 1: http://dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/03-Jul-17/objectives-resolution-i

Excerpts in Italics..
In this milieu, Objectives Resolution was a pioneering effort to define and crystallise Muslim Nationalism and an effort to ‘Islamise’ the society. This effort naturally faced opposition from members of the assembly who didn’t belong to the Muslim faith and were not enthused by the wording of this resolution. The debates that took place foreshadowed discussions about the Islamist-secular dichotomy as well as the status of minorities in a Muslim-majority society and role of religion in a society that had barely recovered from the shock of a violent partition based on religious affinity.

Objectives Resolution, Part 2: http://dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/06-Jul-17/objectives-resolution-ii

Following is a concise account of the reaction that the Resolution garnered among members of the Assembly.
Bhupendra Kumar Datta said that if this Resolution is approved, it will open the door to political adventurers such as Yuan Shikai (Chinese General who attempted restoration of monarchy while crowning himself the Emperor) or Bacha Sakka (Habibullah Kalakani, an Afghan warrior who briefly became the King).
He warned against the deification of the state, citing Nazi Germany as an example. He delineated the core problem of mixing religion and politics as: “All our religious scriptures are subject to different interpretations by different theologians and divines. It, therefore, becomes a difficult matter when you speak of those ‘limits’ prescribed by the Almighty.”
Prem Hari Barma said: “The Objectives Resolution is not meant only for Muslims but it is intended for non-Muslims of Pakistan also. If the Honourable Mover has in his mind any limitations stated in the Holy Quran or any other scripture of Islam, then those limitations are known to Muslims only”.
Kamini Kumar Datta said: “Though supreme sovereignty rests in God, God doesn’t rule directly. The people have to exercise the right of sovereignty through its chosen representatives.” He demanded an explanation of the concept of Zimmis and the status of minorities in Pakistan.
Other members of the assembly suggested different amendments to the Resolution. Dr Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi, Pakistan’s first Education Minister, defended the Resolution. He rejected the theory that faith and politics belong to different spheres of life.
Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, a cleric with a dubious past, said in his speech: “It should not dismay us if we are branded as conservatives and reactionaries. We should try to unravel the tangled skein in the spirit of a seeker after truth”.
He went on to proclaim that “the Islamic state was the first political institution in the world which abolished imperialism and installed a caliph elected by the people in place of a king”.
He further elaborated upon his idea of an Islamic state as “a state which is run on the exalted and excellent principles of Islam. People who do not subscribe to those ideas may have a place in the administrative machinery of the state but they cannot be entrusted with the responsibility of framing the general policy of the state or dealing with matters vital to its safety and integrity”.
..
The penultimate speech was delivered by leader of the opposition, Sri Chandra Chattopadhyaya, who warned the ruling party in no uncertain terms what the future held for the country if the Resolution was passed without amendments.
His advice fell on deaf ears and all amendments were rejected by the Assembly. Pakistan officially took its first step towards becoming an ‘Islamic state’ on 12th March, 1949. The rest is history.

Thoughts welcome!

Story of Communism in Pakistan

Yeh fasal umeedon ki hamdam,

Iss baar bhi ghaarat jaye gi,

Sab mehnat subhon shaamon ki,

Ab kay bhi akaarat jaye gi

(This crop of aspirations

will be ruined once again,

the toil of day and night

will be wasted another time.)

(Faiz, Montgomery Jail, 1955)

The view from jail

The year 2007 was eventful in Pakistan’s recent history. Political upheaval coupled with a rise in terrorism and a lawyers’ movement for the restoration of the judiciary gripped the country for most of the year. Musharraf, the military dictator, had forcibly removed the Chief Justice of Pakistan — sparking a movement led by lawyers across the country. Amidst all this kerfuffle arose a new band called ‘Laal’ with their song ‘Umeed e Seher’ (Hope for a new Dawn). The song became a sort of anthem for the lawyers’ movement alongside slogans against military dictatorship. The song was based on a poem written by Pakistan’s foremost progressive poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and the band consisted of young academics who openly declared themselves Marxists. One of the band members was the General Secretary of a Communist Party in Pakistan. A communist party in Pakistan? That seems like an oxymoron, does it not?

Laal performs in Karachi, Pakistan. Lead singer Shahram Azhar and guitarist Taimur Rahman take a curtain call with key leaders of Pakistan’s lawyers’ movement, Ali Ahmed Kurd (left) and Aitzaz Ahsan. (Source: Nighat Chaudhry/for NPR)

Today, the international media has no space for stories that contradict the dominant narrative of Pakistan as a fountainhead of extremism. In order to understand the current trajectory of Pakistan, it is imperative to discover the alternative discourse that existed in the days gone by. While it is an established fact that the All India Muslim League played a pivotal role in the movement that led to the 1947 Partition of India, the contributions of the Communist Party of India are often neglected in this regard. The Communist Party of India (CPI) was established in the third decade of the twentieth century. Initially, the CPI aligned itself with the progressive section within the Indian National Congress consisting of people such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose and Jayprakash Narayan. CPI adopted a ‘United Front’ tactic and sought positions within the structure of Congress. This relationship remained intact till the Second World War (WWII).

In 1942, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) met in Bombay and passed a resolution condemning the British involvement in the war. All communist members of AICC voted against the resolution because the Soviet Union had entered the war by that time. This was a momentary divorce between the two parties and CPI sought other allies in their anti-fascist stance against Germany. By that time, the Muslim League had decided to support the British government’s war effort and proposed the formation of ‘Pakistan’, consisting of the Muslim-majority areas in British India. The British government and the Muslim League were the unlikely ideological partners that the CPI decided to support. In 1942, the CPI held a meeting of its central committee during which G.M. Adhikari presented a resolution indirectly endorsing the idea of ‘Pakistan’. Adhikari viewed Muslim nationalism as a reflection of uneven development of the bourgeoisie amongst the Muslim masses in British India. In an article published in the CPI’s Urdu newspaper Qaumi Jang, Sajjad Zaheer (member of CPI’s central committee) praised the Muslim League faction in Sindh for pursuing progressive politics.

The Muslim League never enjoyed electoral success in the province of Punjab before Partition and the Muslim-majority province voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Unionist Party that ruled the province during the years 1936–1946. Before the 1946 elections, the CPI asked Muslim communists based in Punjab (including Mian Iftikharuddin, Daniyal Latifi and Abdullah Malik) to support the Muslim League in their electoral efforts. There was, however, a reversal in the CPI’s support to the Muslim League in later part of 1946, due to a change in the Soviet attitude towards such ‘liberation’. Sajjad Zaheer then wrote an article criticising the Muslim League’s strong-arm tactics such as the call for ‘Direct Action Day’. During the Partition of India in 1947, the CPI failed to have any significant impact on the larger political stage and the ensuing violence.

Sajjad Zaheer

Mian Iftikharuddin

Daniyal Latifi

Abdullah Malik

Faiz Ahmad Faiz with jailmate Sajjad Zaheer

Ye daag daag ujaalaa, Ye shab gaziidaa sahar

Wo Intazaar thaa jiskaa, Ye wo sahar to nahi(n)

Ye wo sahar to nahii Jiskii aarazuu le kar

Chale the Yaar kay mil jaaye gi kahi(n) na kahi(n)

(This blood stained light, this dark-stained dawn,

this is not the destiny we were waiting for.

This is not the Destination towards which

we travelled in hope and anticipation.)

Faiz, “Subhe Azadi”, August 1947.

In the year 1932, Urdu’s literary landscape was jolted by the publication of a collection of short stories aptly titled ‘Angaaray’ (Embers). The topics covered in the stories included gender, sexuality, women’s rights and a critique of religion alongside traditional Indian customs. The publication of this book divided the Urdu literati in two camps. On one side were the naturalists or people who favoured “Art for art’s sake” while the other side believed in “Art for humanity’s sake”. The second group, composed mainly of Marxist Indian students and aspiring writers, formed the All India Progressive Writers Association. Their manifesto was first published in February 1935 in Left Review and the Hindi translation in October 1935. From its inception, the movement had a core group of committed communists but its larger membership was not limited by political ideology. Writers and poets focusing on the miseries of the proletariat and mocking the bourgeoisie and ruling classes joined the movement during that period. The movement was not an offshoot of the CPI but worked closely with the communist party.

Sajjad Zaheer was one of the Indian students at Oxford who became a founding member of the Progressive Writers Movement. He described the movement in the following words: “We can only call that literature successful, that knowledge true knowledge, that art real art, which benefits the tree of humanity, which soldiers against capitalist violence and oppression and is a blessing for the working class.”

After the Partition of India, progressive writers who were based in areas that became Pakistan and those who migrated from India formed the All Pakistan Progressive Writers Association. There was no official presence of the CPI in Pakistan but APPWA worked as a cultural representative of left-wing politics in Pakistan. A new manifesto for writers was issued by the CPI which declared that all writers had to take sides in this new battlefield between the people and the ruling elite; neutrality was not an option. In the post-Partition era, debates about the future of Pakistan were going on in political and cultural spheres.To quote Saadia Toor, “one of the most pitched political/ideological battles of the post-independence period was conducted between two literary camps — the left-wing members of Progressive Writers Association and their liberal anti-communist detractors.”

The liberal writers considered themselves first and foremost as patriots who were committed to putting their energies and talents in service of their new nation-state. They defined this project of nation-building as being incompatible with the socialism and anti-imperialism of Progressives. The Progressives went on the offensive and boycotted writers who deviated even slightly from ‘party policy’. This led to them ostracizing luminaries such as Manto and Noon Meem Rashid. These writers were denied any space in the magazines and newspapers controlled by Progressives. In a 1984 interview, Faiz Ahmad Faiz decried the ‘extremism’ that had gripped the PWA in the early post-Partition years. Faiz was never formally a part of the PWA or Communist Party.

Manto wrote a scathing critique of the Progressive Writers Association and its admirers in one of his essays titled “Jayb-e-Kafan”. He wrote, “What kind of progressives are they, when all they advocate is regressive. Why does their ‘redness’ point towards darkness? How can they be friend of the proletariat when they urge working classes to demand their due rights before starting work? I can’t seem to fathom their innovations through which they want to turn the Ghazal into a machine and a machine into Ghazal. I was fed up of their ever increasing manifestos, their lengthy resolutions. Most of their statements arrived from Kremlin through Mumbai and reached McLeod Road (in Lahore). All they care is what this Russian writer wrote or what that Russian intellectual prophesized. I was frustrated on realizing that these people don’t talk about the land we inhabit. If we have stopped producing intellectuals, is becoming a ‘Red’ the only antidote to this malady?”

Wo Baat Saray Fasanay Main Jiska Zikr Na tha

Wo baat unhain bohat Na-gawar guzri hai.

(The issue that was not even mentioned in the story

has bothered them the most).

(Faiz, 1951)

In the second post-Partition CPI congress held in Calcutta, three people represented West Pakistan and 32 people represented East Bengal (later named East Pakistan). After the main congress, the Pakistani delegates convened and held the first meeting of a ‘Communist Party of Pakistan’. Sajjad Zaheer was chosen as the General Secretary. Sajjad Zaheer and two other people migrated to Pakistan to run the day-to-day affairs of the new party. After independence, only 1% of Pakistan’s population was working in industry and among those, only 25% were unionized. Apart from engaging in debates about the future direction of Pakistan via the Progressive Writers, the Communist Party of Pakistan motivated labourers to unionize. By 1950, almost 150 unions had been created in East and West Pakistan. Under the party’s tutelage, a Civil Liberties Union, a Peace Committee, a Women’s Democratic Union and a Democratic Youth League were also formed.

Among students, left-leaning students had formed the Democratic Students Federation (DSF) in Karachi and Rawalpindi. While the party didn’t gain enough mass appeal, it focussed on particular areas to conserve its limited resources. Soon after Partition, Pakistan had sent irregular troops into Kashmir but the mission had been aborted after the Raja acceded to India. An adventurous veteran of the first Kashmir war, Major-General Akbar Khan, talked to some people — including the top brass of the Communist Party of Pakistan — about a possible plan to overthrow the government and attack Kashmir again. This foolhardy plan was unanimously rejected by the Communist Party of Pakistan.

But the matter was not to end there, given the Cold War environment.

Following the Second World War, the world was divided into Capitalist and Communist camps led by the United States and the Soviet Union respectively. After Partition, Pakistan was looking for a benefactor to aid its economy and armed forces. A witch hunt was taking place in the United States against communists in Hollywood and the intelligentsia through the House Un-American Activities Committee and Jospeh McCarthy. In an effort to ingratiate themselves with the Americans, Pakistani authorities (in full know of General Akbar’s plan) arrested the General, some other military officers, the top brass of the Communist Party of Pakistan and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. This case became famous as the ‘Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case’. All of the accused were sent to jail but were released after serving less than their sentence. In 1954, Pakistan finally signed a Mutual Defence Pact with the United States. The Communist Party of Pakistan was officially banned in the following month. The Democratic Students Federation was also banned.

Sajjad Zaheer left Pakistan after getting released from jail in 1955. In the absence of a communist leadership, many political activists from the party formed the National Awami Party (NAP) in the 1950s. Students formerly in the DSF joined a new student organization called the National Students Federation (NSF). NAP consisted of political heavyweights from East and West Pakistan. The party opposed Ayub Khan’s martial law in 1958 and supported opposition candidate Fatima Jinnah in the presidential elections held in 1965. After leaving Ayub’s cabinet in the aftermath of the Taskent Agreement with India and before forming his own party, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto wanted to join NAP. Mr. Bhutto was deterred by the fact that the party was not willing to accept him as a ‘leader’ without first coming through the party’s ranks.

NAP split into pro-Moscow and pro-Beijing factions in 1965. The pro-Beijing faction further split and Major Ishaq alongside Afzal Bangash formed the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP) — a party of Maoist leanings that fought against entrenched landlordism in Hashtnagar, which is part of today’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Many left-wing ideologues, meanwhile, also joined the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founded by Mr. Bhutto and were a vital part of the party. In the 1970s, Pakistan needed benefactors beyond the United States and Mr. Bhutto started envisioning himself as the leader of the ‘Islamic world’. Left-wing ideologues in the PPP were tortured, jailed and abandoned as a result of this paradigm shift. The Progressive Writers Movement failed to have much impact on the literary scene beyond the initial years and wilted completely during the oppressive Islamisation under Zia’s dictatorship. Women’s rights organizations that started in the 1970s consisted of women with mostly left-wing worldviews. The only mainstream left-wing party working in Pakistan is the Awami Workers Party, a coalition of three leftist parties.The Lawyers’ Movement was hijacked in the later stages by right-wing parties and the Chief Justice was only restored after intervention of the military establishment.

The demise of Pakistan’s left has been blamed on many factors, including but not limited to the lack of an industrial base in the country. A former member of the party joked that when the Communist Party didn’t find industrial workers, they started recruiting railway workers (who were government employees). Another frequent criticism is the lack of adaptability shown towards local conditions and political economy while preaching ‘class war’ to people. Despite all these factors, there is still political space for progressive parties with workable ideas. After all, as Faiz would have reminded us, this stained dawn is not what we were waiting for!