This paper was probably written in the 1980s by late Aslam Azhar himself, and seems to be the text of a talk he gave somewhere, or a discussion paper.
Urdu language has been used throughout the paper in Roman English which is typed by Nasreen Azhar (orignally was written in Urdu by Aslam Azhar )
We are thankful to his wife, Nasreen Azhar for sharing his this writing with us
This would be a beautiful world if all the people in it
recognized all of those features which unite them as equal members of one human
race while at the same time accepting the necessity of cultural diversity
amongst themselves. Is this a utopian ideal? Two hundred years ago, given the
evolution of social development at that time, one would have said, yes. Today
we have a far more scientific understanding of the laws of social development,
and therefore clearer insight into mankind’s collective self interest. Unity in
diversity is no longer a hopelessly utopian ideal. But of course, serious
difficulties remain to be overcome.
Aur hamari rah-e-talab
say dard kay fasley mukhtasar zaroor hooain hain, mukammal taur par naheen
hooey.
Pakistan is a multi-national state, and today after some 40 years
of its existence we are still grappling with the problem of the harmonious and
mutually beneficial development of its nationalities. We are still struggling
for the rights of these nationalities. Still grappling with these problems? Let me rather say that with the
passing of the years, these problems are becoming ever more acute, ever more seemingly
intractable.
This should surprise no one. The real and apparent
contradictions between the nationalities of Pakistan are a necessary
manifestation of the contradictions which prevail within a class society. And
if our national contradictions today appear to some people particularly acute
and intractable, this again is a manifestation of the fact that our class
contradictions have been aggravated and brought more sharply into focus by the
deep penetration of our society by neo-colonialism.
The contradictions between our nationalities can be resolved
only to the extent that the class contradictions within Pakistani society and
their neo-colonial underpinning, are first understood and, over a period of
time, resolved. This is a struggle that must be waged, first at the level of understanding and ideas, and then at the level of practice. But when we speak of
‘understanding’ and ‘ideas,’ we are speaking of people – not people in the
abstract, but real people in a given concrete, historical situation. We
are speaking of their heritage and their present aspirations, we are speaking
of their relations of production, of the productive forces which exist in them,
and of their level of social development. We are speaking of their preparedness
for struggle. We are speaking of their culture.
Today we are gathered specifically to consider the problems
and aspirations of the people of Sind, and we are here to raise a call and a
demand: “Save Sind, save its students.” I say that all sane-minded people must
join in raising this demand because this is a valid demand, a reasonable
demand. It draws attention to some real threats which must be examined so that
they may be removed. But then, here I pause (eik
zara sabar), because an important question suggests itself: Demands demand
a target. At whom are we directing the demand? At the government and the rulers?
At the people of the other provinces? At the people of Sind themselves? Obviously
the answer is a complex answer, but equally obviously it will depend on our
analysis of certain important problems of ‘being’ and of culture.
At this point in time the problems of Sind, like any people,
are linked, first, to their immediate past history. Their present culture has
been shaped by strongly feudal relations of production, and over the centuries they
have learnt to bear their pain and oppression. Aam taur par qooat-e-bardasht eik achhee qooat samjhee jata hai. Objectively
today this is a weakness, not strength, because it dulls the ability to think
and act positively, and produces a sense of helplessness and of fatalism. You
will recall Galileo’s impatience with the peasants of 17th Century
Italy’s muqaddas ghussa.
However, during the more recent centuries, the people of
Sind have also begun to struggle against oppression and bigotry, and we find
inspiring examples of this in the jid-o-jihad
of Shah Inayat and the fikr of
Shah Abdul Latif. Objectively today, herein lie the seeds of great deeds to
come.
And then again, in recent centuries, parts of Sind saw the
appearance of a significant middle class of mercantilists, whose horizons far
surpassed the narrow insular feudal boundaries of Sind’s vast landed estates, jo apni saqafat mein eik had tak cosmopolitan
thhey’ pardesi thhey’ yaaney mulk-o-saqafat
say qadrey azad. The mercantilists of Shikarpur traded as far as Tashkent
and beyond, and those of Karachi, Hyderabad and Thatta had iqtisadi aur saqafati rishtey with the whole subcontinent.
A significant section of the middle class left Sind behind
in 1947. But their existence in Sind had not been that of an island, it was an
organic part of the whole, and this cosmopolitan urban culture has penetrated and
influenced the culture of the cities of Sind. Examples of this important
feature of the life of Sind are found in the many outstanding personalities that
Sind has contributed in just the last four decades, to the intellectual life of
the province and the country, and to the professions. Objectively today, herein
also lie the seeds of accelerated social development in the future.
Every society has its weaknesses and its strengths. It is
the responsibility of the intellectual leadership of a particular society to
lay bare its particular weaknesses, so that these may be overcome, and to identify
the particular nature of its strengths, so that these may become the firm
foundations for the builders of the future. We live today in a world in
transition. Ehem aur bunyadi saval kiyey
jaa rahey hain. Har simt takhmir ki keyfiat payee jati hai. Saval karney ki
jurat tabdeeli kay daur ki khasiat hoti hai. Therefore our time is most
propitious for a bold and ruthlessly honest examination of ourselves, for
courageous answers to the critical questions of our time. Eik adh saval javab meray zehan main bhi obhartey hain jinhein main
aapkey samney pesh karney ki jasarat karoon ga.
It is true that jagirdari
ehed ki baqiat are still very much a part of the ethos of Sind. One clear
manifestation of this is the memory of people’s attachment to their past
history and traditions. Urban bourgeois societies have the capability to assess
their past critically and rationally. Anything in it that obstructs the development
of bourgeois interests is rejected; s anything
in it that can be used is retained. Out of this grows the bourgeois form of
nationalism, within which new productive forces are enabled to grow, and this
bourgeois nationalism becomes a dynamic phenomenon, a necessary though often
pernicious stage in the evolution of a society. A neem jagirdari people are attached to their land, their past, their
traditions less critically and more emotionally, and this is an environment in
which productive forces remain congealed. The nationalism which is the product
is sakit, ghair mutaharrik. Nevertheless, aaj Sind kay maashiray main bhi har taraf
takhmir ki alamaten payi jati hain. Human relations have been penetrated by
commodity and money relations. More and more haris are being turned into agricultural labour. More and more
Sindhis are turning to the cities for livelihood. The cost of these
developments in terms of human suffering is high. But we must also not fail to
recognize that, in the process, feudal relations are being decisively broken
down, and a new, more vigorous, more critical and rational culture is in the
making. Chunachey hum dekh rahey hain keh
muqaddas sabr ki jaghan muqaddas ghussa janam ley raha hai. We saw
intimations of this in 1983.
These socio-economic developments, and the objectively
positive heritage bequeathed by Sind’s great past, which we have briefly
touched upon, prompt me to assert that the prospects are excellent for the
people of Sind themselves to become the decisive force in saving Sind. But not
automatically. Much conscious effort must be invested.
When we turn from Sind’s links to its past, to its
relationships in the present, with its neighbours in the other provinces, and
with those people who have made Sind their home after independence, we see a
curious crisis of confidence amongst sections of the Sindhi middle class, and a
defensive mentality. A well educated Sindhi friend of mine is profoundly
convinced that the people of Sind, Sind
kay asli bashindey, are being turned into Red Indians in their own
homeland! Kya yeh sahi hai? Kya yeh
mumkin hai? Mein yaqeen kay sath kahoon gay keh nahin! Lekin haan, hamein yeh
jan leyna chahiyey hai keh kuch log hain jo iss Red Indian zehniat ka shikar hogaye hain, aur zaroori
hai keh Sind kay mufakkir aur Sind kay haleef mufakkir is tarz-e-fikr ki nishan
dehi karein, aur is ka ilaaj tajveez karein. Yeh Red Indian zehniat khud eitmadi ki kami ki alamat hai.
Khud eitmadi na ho to rafta rafta us ki jagha beybasi lay layti hai. Logon ki qooat-e-irada,
unka azm kamzor ho ja ta hai, aur is zehni kefiat kay mutavassid tabqey kay
peshavar log, is kay danishvar aur tuleba apna ehem aur zaroori samaji kirdar
ada karney say qasir ho jatey hain.
Adam eitemadi kay is
masley ka eik aur bhi pehloo hai.
In reaction and protest against their crisis of confidence,
a people can, depending on the direction and level of political awareness of
their struggle, succeed in acquiring collective self confidence and an
awareness of their real self interest – or they can retreat into the isolation
of a narrow, sullen and defensive nationalism, from where other nationalities
and people of a different cultural colour begin to appear to them as enemies
and gharatgar, regardless of their
clear positions. Should this happen, the greatest casualty is their “class
awareness”, and this can be counted as victory only for world imperialism and
the neo-colonial front.
What does he mean by this? You will note that he is formulating
the condition of the Sindhis not only in economic terms but also in cultural
terms. He sees the lands of the Sindhis being colonized, but he also sees – or
he believes that he sees – his own culture being overwhelmed by another culture,
or cultures. In his own mind, he is postulating a cultural balance of forces.
In this balance, it is not that he sees his own culture as inferior,
and the other as superior. Later, he senses that his own culture lacks the necessary
vigour to assert itself in the newly arisen conditions of competition. In these
conditions he fears that the Sindhis are destined to meet the fate of the Red
Indians in the USA.
The next great challenge that cultural work undertakes is to
imbue in people rational scientific attitudes. A few short decades ago our
people explained away their hunger and disease by shrugging their shoulders and
stating: yeh to hamari qismat mein likhha
hai. Thus did the feudal order, for many centuries, maintain its sway over
millions of laboring souls. This, too, was the state in Europe in the 10th
to 13th centuries. But during those centuries a middle class began
to emerge, and out of it there sprung onto the stage of history the writers and
poets, the painters, the song writers, the scientists, all spreading the
message of reason, and Europe came out of its isolation, its beyzari, its beybasi, and its people began to proclaim: “Main hun apni qismat ka ahangar!” This was the European
renaissance. In Asia and Africa too, a renaissance is in motion today, and you
in Sind also have to help carry it forward with greatest speed. The objective
conditions are sazgar! The poet has
already proclaimed: “Dekh key ahangar ki
dokan mein, tund hain sholay, surkh hai ahan.”
Social, economic and political problems are created by
contradictions inherent in the conditions of historical development. They have
to be resolved by men themselves. This struggle has to be waged on two great
fronts: the political and the cultural, and these two forms of struggle are
inter-related and constantly influence each other. Strategies for both need to
be consciously developed. It is one of our failings as enlightened people that
we tend to concentrate our energies mainly on the great political issues, and
consider the strengthening of our cultural life as a matter of less serious, or
at least less immediate importance. It seems to me that what the people of Sind
need today is a Programme of Cultural Work. What would be its main features?
In the concrete conditions of Sind today a great function of
cultural work is the creation of self-awareness. Who am I? Why am I what I am?
But when we attempt answers to these questions, we find ourselves confronted by
another great function of cultural work, which is to imbue in the mass of
people a true sense of history. How is history made? Who are the makers of
history? What are the laws of historical development? What have been the great
tasks that history has set for people in the succeeding ages? What have been
the great stages in the unfolding drama in the story of man?
The story of the cave man is important for me today. The
story of man the hunter, man the tamer of wild animals, man the tiller of the
soil, man the builder of the first great cities – Nineveh, Jericho and
Moenjodaro – is important for me today. It is important that I know who they
were, why they came to what they were, and why each of them passed on to the
next stage of development. I am not an isolated island in the world society
today, and I am not an island in the great river of history.
It is through the idrak
of history, which is the product of the conscious application of reason, that
people come to a correct assessment of their identity, of their identity today,
and it is through this idrak that
they come to understand why history has created both the ruler and the ruled, and
how society came to be divided into classes – and why! More importantly, they
come to understand that in the universe nothing is fixed, that motion is the
essence of matter. And most importantly, they come to understand that in
human society too, nothing is atal, that
all things change and can be changed, and that man alone is the prime
mover of change.
One thing more, people understand jahan unhein unkay mufadaat kay bohat say dushman ya hareef nazar atay
hain, vahan unkay insay kaheen ziada haleef bhi hain. In the conditions of
the grossly uneven development of the world in which imperialism finds ever-new
ways to subvert the struggle for genuine independence of the peoples of Asia,
Africa and America, har qaum aur qaumiat
ko haleefon aur itehadiyon ki ashad zaroorat hai. Yeh zaroorat naguzeer hai. Because
in the conditions of today it is no longer possible for any one people to
struggle and win alone. Aaj Sindh ki awam
kay haleef khush qismati say yaheen tarikh kay maroozi taqazon kay tehet maujood
hain. Pakistan kay har soobay aur har
ilaqay mein bastay hain. Tareekh ka sahee idrak isliye khas taur par zaroori
hai keh yeh in haleefon ki pehchan mein ap ko madad deyta hai.
The ability to correctly identify real enemies of one’s
collective self-interest and one’s objectively true allies is one of the most
important benefits of a programme of cultural work.
Aakhir mein saval reh
jata hai keh billi kay galay main ghanti kaun pehnaye ga? Saqafati amal ka yeh
program maasharey mein kis ki, ya kin kin ki zimaydari hai?
Let it be remembered that what I have attempted here is but
a very short list of the main features of work on the cultural front. The list
is endless, the themes are endless.
Saqafati sargarmian eik
bhook hai jo maasharey mein har parat kay insan ko satati hai – mazdoor aur us
kay khandan ko, ya kisan aur us kay beevi bachon ko, mutavasit tapqay ki har
parat kay insanon ko, tulba ko. Gharz yeh kay ameer aur ghareeb – sab ko yeh
bhook barabar apni lapayt mein layti hai, lekin eik tabqati maasharey ki yeh
majboori hai keh ismay beshtar log bhookay hi rehnay par majboor hotay hain.
Yehi vajeh hai keh jin logon ko tareekh nay taleem ki nehmaton say navaza hai ab
unki avaleen zimeydari hai keh vo bazapta taur par saqafati amal kay program ko
tashkeel dein aur maasharay ki vusaton and gehrayon mein jaa kar tamam logon ko
saqfati sargarmion mein baqaida mashghool karein.
~ June 2017
