KARACHI: A book titled Pakistan: Inteha Pasandi Ka Ubhar, Urdu translations of Prof Hamza Alvi’s essays by Dr Riaz Shaikh was launched at the Karachi Press Club on Saturday evening.

Former Senate chairman and senior Pakistan Peoples Party leader Senator Raza Rabbani, who was the chief guest on the occasion, said to sum up the book it could be inferred that it emphasises on unity through diversity. There’s a need in the country for a synthesis of the different ethnic and cultural groups which would bring about Pakistani identity.

He said Prof Alvi (1921-2003) penned down his ideas while living in England where he spent most of his life and even today a majority of books written in the English language are being written abroad.

This goes to show that there doesn’t exist academic freedom or the culture of questioning in Pakistan’s educational institutions, because if one does that one will be counted as a missing person. All of it started to happen when the purpose of making Pakistan was changed from a progressive welfare state to a security state. The civil-military bureaucracy at the time promoted one of the stakeholders, the religious right, and the rest of the stakeholders, too, used them from time to time, he said.

However, Mr Rabbani mentioned that the culture of resistance that civil society was once known for has also finished. He asked where was that culture when labour unions were being crushed or when student unions were banned from functioning.

Urdu translation of Hamza Alvi’s essays Pakistan: Rise of Religious Extremism launched

He disagreed with a previous speaker (Dr Jaffar Ahmed) for saying that the 18th Amendment was retrogressive. He argued that the fact that religious provisions weren’t touched in the amendment was a ‘trade-off’ in order to get provincial autonomy. “We saw practicality, we kept the compulsions of time in mind.”

Dr Mubarak Ali, in his recorded message, said Prof Alvi’s writings are important to understand Pakistani society. Religious extremism is one of the subjects he’s written about. It all started from the time Pakistan came into being. The state put curbs on enlightened minds at the time which weakened the progressive forces. Extremism will keep increasing. It’s a disappointing environment. But books such as the one Dr Shaikh has come out with will teach people to fight extremist ideas.

The author, Dr Riaz Shaikh, said the basic idea of Prof Alvi’s essays was that the Pakistan movement wasn’t a religious one; it was carried by the salaried classes of UP and CP provinces that needed a safe area for their well-being.

Dr Jaffar Ahmed said Prof Alvi belongs to those social thinkers whose writing did not just benefit his contemporaries but a vast array of readers. He was a Marxist thinker and did not accept Marxism and Marxist concepts as a faith (aqeedah). He, in fact, made addition to those ideas. He penned 100 theses and taught at several universities.

He said the subjects that he discussed on a regular basis included colonial mode of production and the nature of Pakistani and Indian states in the post-colonial era. In the late 1990s he got in touch with Pakistani thinkers and it was on Dr Mubarak Ali’s insistence that his works were translated into Urdu. The last four books of translation are by Dr Shaikh for which he should be commended.

Dr Ahmed, continuing with the topic of Z A Bhutto initiated by journalist Mazhar Abbas before him, pointed out that Bhutto’s role in the whole saga needs to be revisited. He remarked that after East Pakistan’s separation, Bhutto did three things (one practical, two ideological). One, he approached the Middle East for economic assistance. Two, he adopted the ideology of Pakistan. Three, he introduced the idea of nuclear nationalism. “Gen Ziaul Haq benefitted from them.”

Mazhar Abbas, Sohail Sangi, Anis Haroon, Prof Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan and Saeed Sarbazi also spoke. The launch was moderated by Dr Irfan Aziz.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2023