BMW

Growing up in a small village Masti Khan saw many hardships. His father was a small trader who barely managed to feed his whole family.

Masti studied at a local school, but this did not stop him from helping his father in his business.  After completing grade ten, Masti went to the nearest town. He was a very hardworking student who would never miss his school lessons. He submitted his home assignments on time and was very organized. 

As years went by Masti did his graduation from a university in a nearby town. Immediately, he applied for the civil bureaucracy exams. He was very keen to join the bureaucracy, as from an early age he saw many bureaucrats posted in his village, which was also the district headquarter. Inspired by the power, wealth and connections of the bureaucrat he remained very committed to his cause.

In his second attempt he passed his exams and got posted as a government officer in the tax collection department. Masti's father could not see his son's growth within the bureaucracy as he died of cardiac arrest. 

Masti got posted in different cities and learned how to make extra money, besides his salary. He bought a house, car and married off all his daughters. Except for the youngest one, Masti setup businesses for all his sons.

Babu, his youngest son was to follow his father's footsteps. He wanted him to appear for the civil bureaucracy exams. Babu said he was ready for it. The motivation was a BMW. Masti said to his son: "I promise to gift you a BMW, if you clear your exams."

Impatient and excited, Babu starts preparing for his exams. He follows a strict routine. He does not miss his prayers, goes to the coaching center and smokes his joint before sleeping.

As months pass by, Babu observes that preparing for the bureaucracy exam is much of a mental strain. Masti Khan is busy with a religious group which propagates religion in every corner of the country. He wishes that his son also follows him after retiring from the government job. Masti grew very religious after retirement. He thinks that the next world is the real world and everyone should make an effort to make it better.

Babu informs his father and discontinues his exam preparation. There and then he joins the same religious group which propagates religion and helps in conversion. This is to not cause his father any annoyance. Rather than gifting him a BMW Masti establishes a car showroom for his youngest son. Masti now prepares for his son's marriage. 

After the wedding, now Babu makes sure he rolls his joint at work, before returning home. He does not go out with his friends. Instead, he travels with his father to the remote areas of the country, preparing for the next world.

 

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Why do I Write?

Writing is very powerful! It is a very strong medium to convey one's message. 

I personally think its is not an easy job. The more you write, the more you learn and the more you want to write. Sometimes when I look at my old writings I realize how I have progressed over the years. I am sure in five years from now, when I look back I would find my writings different. Writing shows  that change is permanent in a writer's writing. Change in thinking also continues with time.

When I have a lot of ideas in my mind, I write them down, but just writing them down does not help. Expanding on those ideas helps in improving one's writing. The more you write the more you improve.

Writing also helps in keeping a record of what you think and believe. From now on, I do not just plan to write. I will write! I will write!

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Book Review: Rural-Urban Migration in Pakistan by Frits J. M. Selier

 

Pakistan is one of the countries in the developing world where the shocking rate of urbanization and the related problems of housing and employment are caused not only by natural urban increase, but also by an enormous influx of migrants. Karachi is a relevant example in Pakistan which very clearly presents the magnitude of the problems. Rural-to-urban migration is significant because of its close association with economic transformation from agriculture to non-agriculture and from a rural to an urban way of living. Rural-to-urban migration is important for social policy and urban planning.

The author of the book presents a case study of Karachi which is based on seven chapters. The first chapter consists of theoretical introduction. It discusses the concepts of migration in developing countries, especially non-permanent types of mobility such as circular migration are particularly discussed.

In the second chapter, migration is related to family and household of the migrant. In the third chapter, a background to rural emigration is given. A history of the agricultural and rural development in Pakistan is drawn. The authors stresses that the attitude of the government towards the poor people is discriminatory.

The fourth chapter presents the results of the pilot study. The concept of circular migration has been operationalized as the author tries to suggest that a low degree of commitment to the village of origin results from several factors such as having no family and/or property in the place of origin (p. 9). In chapter five, Selier gives the results of the research survey carried out among the migrants living in a number of katchi abadis (or bastis, i.e. squatter settlements).

In chapter six, a research study on migration and low-income housing in Karachi is presented. The study was carried out in parts of Orangi. The aim was to discover whether recently arrived migrants confronted more problems in obtaining and building their own property or those people who had arrived earlier. The last chapter discusses some of the consequences of the migration-type for community-life in the surveyed bastis of Karachi.

The dominant expression of internal migration is rural-urban migration (p. 7). The author writes that Pakistan can be considered as an example of the general migration phenomenon. This book is an attempt to make the work readable not only for scholars by also for policy-makers and for others.

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Book Review: Nazi War Trials by Andrew Walker

 

Andrew Walker provides a chronological account of the proceedings of the trials of the main Nazi figures. The trial was conducted in four languages and involved more than four-hundred sessions of open court. The involved Nazi figures were charged with ‘crimes against humanity’ and put on trial.

There were no precedents in international law for the trial of war criminals. The Nazis were on the losing side and were on trial. The Charter of the International Military Tribunal was signed after six weeks of legal wrangling (p. 18). Article 6 set the Tribunal’s power to try those charged with committing any of four crimes: Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity and Engaging in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of these.

Nuremberg was the site of the trial. The first formal session of the Tribunal took place in Berlin on 18 October 1945. French and Russians wanted the proceedings to be delayed. The American and the British camps were determined that the trial should start on time.

Jackson set out the case of the United States. For him Communists, trade unionists, figureheads in the Church and the German Jews were the first victims of Nazi concentration camps. According to him, this provided the necessary prelude to the aggression aimed at the rest of Europe. Thomas Dodd, a former member of the FBI made a presentation on the Nazi forced labor program. About 4.75 million foreign workers were forced to work in support of the German economy.

In the French case, before the outbreak of the war the French average daily consumption was 3000 calories per day. By the end of the war it had fallen to 900.  The Dutch daily consumption fell to 400 calories a day. Roman Rudenko made the opening speech for the Soviet presentation. Thousands of people were killed. On the estate of Leo Tolstoy, his books were used as firewood. When it was pointed out to the officer in charge that there were plenty of other materials to hand, he replied that he preferred the light of Russian literature (p. 67).

Details are provided the trials of Goring, Hess, Von Ribbentrop,Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank and Frick, Streicher and many others.  Suicide of Joseph Goebbels had deprived the court of the chance to try the leading propagandist in the Third Reich (p. 119). Goring, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Saukel, Jodl, Von Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kalten-brunner, Rosenberg, Seyss-Inqurat and the absent Bormann were sentenced to death by hanging (p. 145). Goring committed suicide after having a cyanide capsule in his mouth (p. 146).

The author of the book says that the Nuremberg Trial was a test of the ability of victorious nations to deal justly with the vanquished. Walker further adds that it proved a necessary and admirable conclusion to six years of brutal and terrible warfare (p. 152). This book shows a summary of what happened at Nuremberg between 20 November 1945, when the trial began, and 16 October 1946, when sentence was carried out on those men convicted by the tribunal (p. 12).

 

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Book Review: The Ismaili Imams: A Biographical History by Farhad Daftary

 

This is the latest book of Daftary in which he tries to present a concise biographical history of all the Nizari Ismaili Imams. Some of them include those living in the formative period of Islam, through to the hidden Imams of the first ‘period of concealment’ when their public identities remained guarded, to the Imam-caliphs of the illustrious Fatimid dynasty, and those of the Alamut period, up to the Aga Khans of the modern times.

Some Imams have very little information while others have relatively detailed accounts. For me some of the information was new. For instance, the prophet’s son Hasan was removed from the list of Imams acknowledged by Nizari Ismailis. According to the author Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni persecuted Ismailis.  Creation of the Druze religion during Al-Hakim’s rein is also covered in the book (p. 95). Imam al-Mustansir’s mother was a Sudani who acted as a regent when he was young.

Daftary also provides images and description of various coins found during the time of different Imams. Some of them are in the possession of Ismaili Special Collections Unit. Imam Nizar was killed by his brother. Daftary writes about how Hasan Bin Sabah found the independent Nizari Ismaili da’wa. Throughout the book the divisions and splits within the Ismailis are also highlighted. During Imam Nur al-Din Muhammad’s rein that the Nizari Ismailis of Syria came in contact with the Crusaders who made them famous as Assassins in Europe.

During a later time, the Mongols destroyed the Ismaili strongholds. The castle of Alamut fell into the Mongol hands in December 1256. A year later, Rukn al-Din Khurshah, the Ismaili Imam and the last lord of Alamut who had ruled for exactly one year, was murdered in Mongolia, where he had been taken to see the great Khan (p. 10). Rukh al-Din Khurshah’s young son Shams al-Din Muhammad who had succeeded to the Imamate in 1257 was taken to Adharbayjan in northwestern Persia, where he and his immediate successors to the Imamate lived secretly (p. 11). Imam Mirza Murad fled to the vicinity of Qandahar in Afghanistan after escaping from prison assisted by a high Safawid Official who was a secret convert to Ismailism (p. 173).

The part nine of the book is titled ‘The Imams in the Modern Age’. The last four Aga Khans are covered in this part. Daftary covers the close association between Aga Khan I and the British after Aga Khan went to Afghanistan. The development programs of Aga Khan III and Aga Khan IV are also covered in the book.

This book provides a concise series of concise narratives recounting the lives, legacies and actions of all the forty-nine Ismaili Imams of the Ismaili community.

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Book Review: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels

 

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Frederick Engels along with the Communist Manifesto is one of the indispensable books for any one desiring to understand the modern socialist movement. The author Engels says that the industrial production since the Middle Ages can be divided into three periods. First, handicraft, second manufacture and third modern industry.

Engels says that ‘tradition is a great retarding force.’ Engels observed that the working class in England was moving slowly, like all things in England. He stresses that the triumph of the European working-class does not depend upon England alone. It can only be secured by the co-operation of, at least, England France, and Germany. He further states that in both these countries the working –class movement is well ahead of England. According to Engels, modern Socialism is a logical extension of the principles laid down by the great French philosophers of the eighteenth century.

Engels quotes Fourier, who according to him was the first to declare that in any given society the degree of women’s emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation. He further quotes Fourier. Fourier says that ‘that the civilized stage raises every vice practiced by barbarism in a simple fashion, into a form of existence, complex, ambiguous, equivocal, hypocritical’’—that civilization moves in  “”a vicious circle,’’ in contradictions which it constantly reproduces without being able to solve them; hence it constantly arrives at the very opposite to that which it wants to attain, or pretends to want to attain, so that, e.g., “under civilization poverty is born of superabundance itself.’’

Engels mentions Robert Owen. He says that Owen had adopted the teaching of the materialistic philosophers; that man’s character is the product, on the one hand, of heredity, on the other, of the environment of the individual during his lifetime, and especially during his period of development. According to Owen the three obstacles in social reform are private property, religion and the present form of marriage.

According to Engels the Socialism of the earlier days certainly criticized the existing capitalistic mode of production and its consequences. But it could not explain them, and, therefore, could not get the mastery of them. It could only simply reject them as bad, the more strongly this earlier Socialism denounced the exploitation of the working-class, inevitable under Capitalism, the less able was it clearly to show in what this exploitation consisted and how it arose. Engels admits that the materialistic conception of history and the revelation of the secret of capitalistic production through surplus-value belongs to Marx. With these discoveries Socialism became a science.

In medieval society especially in the earlier centuries, production was essentially directed towards satisfying the wants of the individual. It satisfied only the wants of the producer and his family.no exchange was involved and the products did not assume the character of commodities.  Only when the family of the peasant began to produce more than was sufficient to supply its own wants and the payments in kind to the feudal lord, only then did it also produce commodities. This surplus, thrown into socialized exchange and offered for sale, became commodities.

Engels quotes Marx that machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working-class; that the instruments of labor constantly tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the labourer; that the very product of the worker is turned into an instrument for his subjugation. Engels quotes Marx from ‘Capital, Vol.I’. Marx says that the accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time, accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.

Engels states that in capitalistic society the means of production can only function when they have undergone a preliminary transformation into capital, into the means of exploiting human labor-power.

Engels suggests that to accomplish the act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.

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Book Review: Imperialism at Work: Crow’s Report and Dispatches on Sind Edited by Mubarik Ali

 

This edited book is Crow’s account which covers themes such as history, geography, climate, soil, flora, fauna, languages, attire, occupation, revenue, military forces and fortifications of Sind. At the end of the eighteen century the East India Company had established its political domination in India. It was assumed that Russia in alliance with Persia and Afghanistan would attempt to dismantle the Company’s power in India. Zaman Shah came to power in Afghanistan in 1793 which created anxiety among the Marathas ad the company. The rulers of Sind at that time were the Talpurs who recognized the over lordship of Afghanistan and paid tribute to the Afghan King.

The Mirs of Sind were not fully secure as they feared Miyan Abd al-Nabi, the ousted Kalhora ruler who might return with the support of Zaman Shah. Therefore, the Mirs wanted to have friendly relations with the British to get help in case of any Afghan aggression.

Duncan chose a Persian Merchant Agha Abul Hasan as an envoy and sent him to the court of Sind to assess the political situation and the attitude of the Mirs towards the British government. He was given two letters. The one for Mir Fateh Ali was to request the approval of opening the company to reopen a factory at Thatta and to allow an official mission to Sind to finalize the terms and conditions. The hidden agenda of the British of reopening of the factory had more political advantages than commercial advantages.

The first commercial-cum-political mission arrived in Sind under Nathan Crow, a civil servant of the Bombay government. He was advised to observe the movements of Zaman Shah and win over the friendship of the Mirs (p. 3). He landed for the first time in Karachi in May 1799.

Crow was ordered in October 1800 to close the factory at Thatta and leave Sind. Crow stayed in Sind for 17 months. During this time, he very closely observed and studied the social, political and economic condition of Sind. He repeatedly visited the court and assessed the traits of their character and attempted to lobby for the British. He employed a number of agents through whom he gathered information regarding the country. Crow’s correspondence with Duncan shows that the real motives of the British in Sind were political.

 

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Book Review: Rule by Fear: Right Theses on Authoritarianism in Pakistan by Ammar Ali Jan

 

Rule of Fear presents eight theses which explain the political, economic and social roots of authoritarianism in the country. This work focuses on the structural features which drive the increasing militarization of society. Jan believes that the paranoia of the masses has created a permanent state of emergency in Pakistan that is used to deploy excessive violence against popular challenges to the status quo. The author calls for the construction of alternative ideas that can unite disparate movements struggling for justice and dignity. He tries to create a case for a more egalitarian and socially just future.

This book has been writing very carefully. Jan criticizes Ayub, Bhutto, Zia, Nawaz Sharif, Musharraf and Imran Khan. While criticizing PPP but he refrains from mention ‘Benazir Bhutto’ in the book. Instead, he says that ‘the PPP leadership’ once again compromised with the generals in power-sharing formula that kept the logic of the state intact (p. 111-112). Jan does not describe Baba Jan’s case and the persecution he faced at the hands of the PPP government. He does write about the details of Meher Abdul Sattar’s (from Okara) case but he does not provide details of Baba Jan’s struggle. Jan just limits him to one line in the book.

Overall the book provides brief insight to the recent political and social history of Pakistan. I believe the primary purpose of the book is to propagate a particular view point and attract the masses towards a united left-leaning political struggle.

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