Intellectually vibrant Karachi

An enlightening event that this writer managed to attend during a recent visit to Karachi was the Meraj Muhammad Khan Memorial Lecture organized by the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) led by Dr Tauseef Ahmad and the Institute of Historical and Social Research led by Dr Jaffar Ahmed.

The PWA was first established in 1936 by a group of progressive poets and writers such as Mulk Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer, Rasheed Jahan, Mahmooduz Zafar and many others. It strives to promote progressive ideals in society by writing meaningful literature that highlights injustice in society.

After Independence as all progressive forces were crushed in Pakistan, so was the PWA. After only a couple of years of excellent work it was banned in the 1950s by the powers that be. Though writers such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Masood Ashar, Zaheer Kashmiri, Zaheer Babur, Hasan Abidi, and many others continued writing poetry and prose that was opposed to the official line of Islamic and Pakistani literature propagated by the likes of Qudratullah Shahab and Altaf Gauhar. After a long slumber, the PWA was revived in 1986 when its golden jubilee was celebrated in an international conference in Karachi.

After that, the PWA has seen multiple divisions and periods of hibernation. Rahat Saeed kept the PWA galvanized during the last decade, but now it has multiple factions, each claiming to be the real PWA. In Karachi, Dr Jaffar Ahmed, Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan, Muslim Shamim and others have regularly organized conferences, seminars, and sessions not only on literature but also on political and social issues. All three of them have pretty strong credentials as columnists, teachers, and writers, and have contributed multiple books and monographs on literary, political, and social history of Pakistan.

The Institute of Historical and Social Research (IHSR) is a department of the recently established Suhail University, named after S M Suhail who was a prominent legal expert and the first secretary of the Pakistan Bar Council. Now his son, Dr Tariq Suhail, is carrying the torch of his father. Dr Tariq Suhail is a prominent psychiatrist who is more interested in preventing mental illnesses by promoting a better understanding of society. The establishment of the Institute of Historical and Social Research is a step towards producing high quality work on Pakistan’s literary, political, and social histories.

Since his retirement from the Pakistan Study Centre at the University of Karachi, Dr Jaffar Ahmed has assumed responsibilities as the director at the IHSR. One of his initiatives is the Meraj Muhammad Khan Memorial Lecture. This year, the lecture was delivered by Zahida Hina who is a prominent columnist, intellectual, and writer from Karachi, and the city must be proud of her. Zahida Hina’s short stories have been translated into many languages and she enjoys a wide readership across the borders too. She has multiple collections of short stories to her credit.

The topic of her lecture was the ‘role of resistance in the evolution of society’. With her wide readings she was able to draw examples, parables, and stories from history ranging from the Book of Genesis to the present day. She opined that perhaps the first instance of resistance is given the Book of Genesis in which the first man and woman apparently commit defiance by tasting the fruit of knowledge. For Hina, it was the woman who encouraged the man to break through his state of contentment.

Then she gave another example of a defiant woman, Hypatia of Alexandria, who was an astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher. She was killed in 415AD by Christian religious fanatics who called her a heretic and infidel. Till her death she tried to preserve the precious books and manuscripts in the library of Alexandria; fanatics were trying to burn them. Zahida Hina drew parallels of Hypatia’s resistance with that of Ibn Rushd, known in the West as Averroes. He was born in 1126, just 15 years after the death of Al Ghazali in 1111.

Zahida Hina reminded the audience that Ibn Rushd was an Andalusian philosopher and thinker who was the product of a tolerant and all-encompassing Muslim Spain that encouraged and nurtured all fields of intellectual pursuit. Andalusia was a beacon of light when most of Christian Europe was still mired in the Dark Ages. Ibn Rushd challenged the Ghazaali interpretation of knowledge and epistemology. He brought Aristotle to life with his commentaries and played his role in the European awakening, to come about in the coming centuries. After the death of Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, Ibn Rushd fell into disgrace.

His teachings were banned, his books burned, and according to some sources he was severely punished at the gate of a mosque on the insistence of orthodox clerics. Then Zahida Hina quoted examples of Galileo and Milton, both challenging the dominant narratives in their respective countries. Galileo promoted a geocentric rather than a heliocentric model of cosmology. The Catholic clergy was not amused and forced Galileo to renounce the theory that the earth was revolving around the sun and not the other way around. Galileo was confined to his home but continued writing and working in secret.

He produced books that ultimately changed the entire science and technology of his day. That was a marvellous feat of resistance against the bigoted and myopic clergy. Had Galileo given up on his research and writing for fear of being punished, the world would have lingered on with antiquated theories for another century or so. Milton was the one who led the resistance against the imposition of ban and restrictions on publications. His ‘Areopagitica’ is a masterpiece of resistance literature in which he challenges the decrees that proscribe books and other writings.

Zahida Hina took us through the journey to the harbingers of the French Revolution of the 18th century. She recalled that had the French philosophers such as Rousseau and Voltaire not challenged the dominant narrative and not resisted the religious and royal decrees, the world would have been very different now.

Finally, with her impressive prose, she drew parallels with the 21st century, citing examples from countries such as Bangladesh, China, India, and Pakistan. If secular bloggers are targeted in Bangladesh, China imposes a ban on political dissent. If India has become a victim of animal worship, Pakistan has its bane of religious and sectarian intolerance.

She eulogized the brave such as Mashal Khan, Parveen Rahman, Sabeen Mahmood, Rashid Rahman, and many others who resisted and sacrificed their lives. Without their resistance, society lacks its vitality and succumbs to deep morass. With resistance, societies evolve; without resistance, they stagnate. The memorial lecture also highlighted the curbs on journalists and media professionals as a curse that can destroy societies. Zahida Hina insisted that the freedoms of speech and association are fundamental rights that must be respected and any attempts to curtail them must be resisted. Free intellectual activity ensures healthy debates and prepares the newer generations to manage their societies in a better way.

A tolerant and accommodating society is a well-respected society. Intolerant societies are mocked, insulted and ostracized by the world, and that is what is happening to us. One couldn’t agree more with her.

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK and works in Islamabad.

Email: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk