Peace and Justice Post

Nasir Khan, July 16, 2016

Today Professor Raj Bhat, himself a Kashmiri, raised a few questions and asked for my response. I am repoducing his comment followed by my reply. Our readers will see that we two have different views on the Kashmir issue:

Raj Bhat: Nasir Khan Sahab: I have raised human issues which deserve your attention. Otherwise, it becomes supportive of frenzy and genocide. As a kid in Poonch, do you remember the condition of people who were displaced/ uprooted from Bhimbar and Muzzafarabad? The survivors of the ethnic cleansing from these regions are stateless in 2016 too! The frightened, terrorized. traumatized non-muslims of the Indian Kashmir valley are called ‘migrants’! This ethnic cleansing took place in 1990. Please relate the issues and go ahead.
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Nasir Khan: Raj Bhat Sahib, here I am not going to enter into any lengthy discussion about the issues you have mentioned as questions of human rights. Yes, in 1947/8 I had seen how the Hindus in our areas in Poonch were treated, some cruelly killed, their houses burnt. But as a young boy, I had no means of seeing things in Muzaffarabad and Bhimbar because they were far away from our district. Much atrocities were committed against the Hindus and their properties burnt or plundered. But I also saw the destitute refugees in our village and adjoining areas who had come from the Indian administered Kashmir to our areas in Poonch and their stories of deaths at the hands of non-Muslims. I can never forget the conditions I saw them in and their miserable existence as refugees.

As I understand you are only concerned about Hindus, not Muslims of Kashmir. About 100, 000 Kashmiris have died as a result of Indian military violence and the lives of millions of innocent people destroyed. Kashmiri Pandits have also suffered much. Yet, despite all the bloodshed, the Kashmir conflict has not gone away and it will never go away as long as Indian government does not find a political solution. The only way forward is to let the people of Kashmir decide their future by plebiscite.

The tragedy of Kashmir has seen much blood shedding and destruction. Without any political solution to this conflict, the future generations of Kashmiris will continue to resist the Indian occupation and India will continue to kill those who do not submit to the Indian rule. We should keep in mind that these conditions will not bring peace and joy to any.

You may be speaking as a Hindu and you have every right to do so but I do not speak as a Muslim but only as a Humanist and a Socialist who is well-wisher of all – Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and freethinking people, etc. etc. – in Jammu and Kashmir and other places.

Nasir Khan, July 15, 2016

The partition was India in 1947 was because of a number of factors. As a child living in Poonch (Kashmir) I had seen the destructive blood-letting and communal frenzy. The so-called ‘Two-Nation Theory’ was a misleading and absurd idea to start with. But there was not only one party to advance this perspective, as many people think.

Ninth class student Insha Malik has lost vision in her left eye that was pierced by pellets fired by forces, and doctors say there are “zero chances” of the teenager regaining vision in her right eye, also badly damaged by the pellets.

14-year old Insha, one of more than 100 pellet victims, is lying unconscious in the Surgical ICU of general specialty SMHS hospital here. Her face and neck resemble a wire-mesh with dozens of holes made by pellets therein.

Nasir Khan, June 23, 2016

The tragedy that started in 1947 in the shape of Pakistan and in the name of Islam has continued uninterrupted since then. In this country, Islam was transformed into a cult of ignorance and darkness and then into a cult of death and violence.

Muslim leaders and politicians initiated their political agendas by using the Islam card when the British Raj in India was on its hind legs. They galvanised the conservative Muslim clergy to support their call for a separate homeland for Muslims that was to be modelled on the Islamic principles of laws and polity.

But none of these shrewd leaders explained what those principles of religious laws were or how a political system based on those seventh-century Arabian laws and mindset would operate in modern times. They gave the poor and ignorant masses cheap slogans to repeat, which they did. But the masses had no clue what these laws and system of government would be like.

What the misguided and morbid extremists are doing in Pakistan in the name of Islam and their brigands kill innocent people when they choose to do so is a natural unfolding of the dark force that was unleashed by manipulating religion. The tree of ignorance and darkness is bearing its bitter fruit.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/22/famous-pakistani-sufi-singer-killed-by-gunmen-in-karachi.html

Famous Pakistani Sufi singer killed by gunmen in Karachi

Amjad Sabri was shot several times Wednesday while driving his car.
Pakistani investigators and journalists gather around the car of famous Sufi singer Amjad Sabri after an attack in Karachi on Wednesday.
Police officer Arif Mahar says Amjad Sabri was shot several times Wednesday while driving in his car. Sabri’s brother, who was also in the car, was wounded.

Sabri and his late father, Ghulam Farid Sabri, were well-known qawwali singers, a style of music rooted in Sufism, or Islamic mysticism. Islamic extremists reject Sufi traditions and have targeted Sufis in past attacks.

Karachi has long been gripped by violence, with attacks carried out by Islamic militants as well as ethnic separatists, criminal gangs and rival political parties. On Tuesday, gunmen killed a member of the Ahmadi religious minority, and the son of a provincial judge was abducted. No one has claimed the attacks.

Nasir Khan, June 13, 2016

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The massacre of so many innocent people at the hands of Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old US citizen was a deplorable and savage act. What made him commit such a horrendous crime is not clear. The pieces of information we saw on the telescreens show him to have been a mentally unstable and violent person. Only the psychologists or criminologists may come up with some further clarification of his behaviour, but one thing is clear. He acted alone. Will we escape the usual practice where a crime committed by a person belonging to Islamic religion is attributed to his religion and by implication, all Muslims are stigmatised?

We should also keep in mind that such random killings are common in the United States. People kill people for fun or shoot innocent people if they want to. In the United States, violence is glorified and getting weapons is so easy; therefore, such crimes as the massacre in Orlando are not exceptional. The only distinctive nature of the present crime is the large number of people who fell victims.

However, America is not the only country where violence and killings are common. For instance, in Pakistan sectarian killings are common. Religious fanatics, mostly belonging to the majority Sunni sect, target Shias, Ahmadis and other religious minorities. The burning of some young girls alive recently shows the force of inhuman traditions and customs of patriarchal society and its coercive methods. Then, come the Taliban and other Islamist militant groups on the scene who target people to advance their version of Islamic state under a pristine Islam that existed in the Arabia of the seventh century AD.

The massacre in Orlando also shows that police or security agencies cannot prevent the actions of individuals who want to commit such crimes as Omar Mateen did. This is an inescapable sad reality.

Much has to change socially and politically both at local, regional and global levels to combat violent crimes. However, there is no sign of any such movement towards that direction.

Nasir Khan, June 1, 2016

Soon the holy month of Ramadan will start, a month in which Muslim believers fast from dawn to dusk, without touching any food or water. It is all done to fulfil the command of the Almighty Allah.

We had learnt that in this holy month Satan is chained and imprisoned. This means, he is not free to perform his evil deeds, which he otherwise does for the eleven months of the year. In those months of iniquity, he spreads much wickedness and misleads people. In these months, he manages to create so many ardent followers that they carry on his mission in his absence during the holy month of Ramadan.

Nasir Khan, May 12, 2016

It is commendable that the newly-elected Mayor of London Sadiq Khan stands for the rights of the Jews in case of any violations of their rights. Like many social and political activists, I also stand firmly for the rights of Jews and non-Jews, everywhere. But Mr Khan has not said anything about the rights of the Palestinians that have been violated by Israel since 1948!

Zionists had taken historic Palestine by using violence and terror and driven the Palestinians out of their land and forced many of them to take refuge in the neighbouring countries.

They are the long-suffering Palestinians still under Israeli occupation who need the political support of politicians and common people for an end to the brutal Israeli occupation and the restitution of their human rights as enshrined in the U.N. Charter. To do so is to stand for truth and justice; it won’t be against any community or group.

Nasir Khan, May 6, 2016

“The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned.”

― Italian thinker and politician Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)

Modernity means many things to different people. But in learned discourse, it refers to the collective body of particular socio-cultural norms and attitudes that emerged when the medieval period in European history gave way to new thinking. Prior to modernity, scholasticism of the middle ages covered all aspects of socio-political life. Religion was the pivotal force that controlled the social and political thinking of the people as well as moulded political structures and power relations.

The Church hierarchy interpreted and enforced socio-cultural norms. Even monarchs, barons and landed aristocrats had to accept the directives of the Church in matters that seemed to have little or nothing to do with religion. In simple words, the Church was at the apex of the societal pyramid.

Then the scene started to change. At grave risks, some thinkers and public-spirited people started to question matters relating to the principles of absolutism, divine rights of kings, power of the Church, even the old sacrosanct doctrines and dogmas that were once only under the domain of the clerics. Now people began to question the rationale of age-old norms and customs. This was something strictly forbidden in the middle ages.

We should keep in mind that the process of change was gradual but it had pointed to a new direction in social and political thinking and practice. The powers of an omnipotent deity  were questioned;  some thinkers rejected all notions of any supernatural beings altogether. Such ideas have made meaningful inroads in Europe. More people are rejecting old traditional modes of thought and dogmas. The roles of many philosophers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onwards have been instrumental in exploring new ideas to meet the needs of the times.

Coming back to Gramsci’s quotation, Gramsci was using the notion of ‘illusions’ in people’s lives that gives them some encouragement and hope, here in this world and in the Hereafter. Those who may not reap the rewards here and now can always wait for the Hereafter when they will be have everything in plenty in the Kingdom of Heaven! However, if the common people come to realise that there is nothing like that ‘up there’ then that can be disappointing to them.

The point is to dispel the falsity of such illusions and face reality. By facing and accepting reality, we save ourselves all false hopes and disillusionments. However, to gain such consciousness is not easy because as long people have ready-made formulas and dogmas, they feel ‘safe’ and they accept all other-worldliness without questioning.