Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Let us note that he matured as a writer-statesman at a time when Pakistan was split and indigenous political movement had lost hope. The most important question Kashmiris face today, it would appear, is to choose between autonomy and azadi. Mainstream leadership and India could settle for autonomy (or its other versions) but Kashmiri resistance leadership and masses demand azadi . So there appears a deadlock. The solution, it might be argued, is to re-conceive autonomy (or self rule) in a manner that it would be a concrete content of what appears to many an abstraction called azadi . So far mainstream leadership (or “pro-Indian” mind) has failed to do so. So the choice is straightforward: azadi. But the idea of azadi is resisted  by force. Despite all the moral, political and other arguments against India for denying self determinism, the first and the last response is force, brute force. And in this world our arguments amount to little more than a consolation for our suffer...

Peep deep into the heart of Kashmiris and see the image of the beloved being worshipped. No guesses.     Lovers choose to die and don’t listen to pleas for abandoning “infatuation” or juvenile romantic fantasies. Death dance they indulge is a perceived by them – and by many great tragedians – as a ritual of healing. Souls are healed and what happens to the bodies and other this-worldly businesses is not important in their view. And there are at least bouts of such “infatuation”  if not fully involved love affair in almost every Kashmiri. And occasionally this passion asserts and burns everything on its way. And that is precisely what is happening post-Burhan. Peep deep into the heart of Kashmiris and see the image of the beloved being worshipped. No guesses. All these unmistakably point to a diagnosis of affliction of love. And it doesn’t matter what the object of love is or how rational it is or what possibility of consummation of such a relationship is. For them Tols...

And politicians are not trained to consider the affairs of the heart, the logic of the impossible. The heart of Kashmir problem is incurable and apparently inconsolable, and thus tragic – but gracefully redemptively tragic –  love affair with Azadi. This is like the love of the impossible in the sense loving God is impossible for John Caputo. And politicians are not trained to consider the affairs of the heart, the logic of the impossible. Many great political battles in history had some association with love affairs or pursuit of great beauty all of which are parasitic on the idea of transcendence which grounds the notion of freedom. Kashmir issue is better understood in this light. Let  me  explain.       Since Kashmir’s heart yearns for a home/beloved that it feels isn’t in sight in present dispensation though its head might advise it to resign to status quo or opt for this or that particular ideological or pragmatic solution for fulfilling...

Itikaaf is especially a time for waiting as is the whole idea of seeking shab-i-qadr We all know that Ramazan has been characterized as “month of patience.” What does it mean? Today we seek to understand how patience, or what we may call waiting, is what essentially characterizes human destiny and how proper waiting constitutes a great wazeefa for proper living. Understanding our destiny as patiently waiting for Darsha n or Deedar , for the Friend or more precisely seeing Deedar in waiting, will answer such questions that are commonly asked during this month such as why God doesn’t come and why our rendezevous with Satan doesn’t seem to end. Itikaaf is especially a time for waiting as is the whole idea of seeking shab-i-qadr (We are subtly told to wait for it as its time isn’t strictly specified). Paul Tillich in one of his sermons,collected under the title The Shaking of the Foundations , has insightfully appropriated the metaphor of waiting in explicating the Semitic religious...

Kashmir: Tragedy and Triumph,  the book under review, is an informed and scholarly attempt to wrestle with the confusion we find today all around in every field from education to politics. The author comes up with some brilliant pieces of analyses and provocative suggestions. Aghast at the sight of a lost new generation hooked to virtual reality of cyberspace, his people’s “tel, bel, tchel and puz, apuz carriage and nalam, halam te kalam baggage” “missing Baba Demb, dying Dal and weedy Nigeen; hammered Kral Sanger; forlorn Brane; despondent Ishbur and downhearted Harwun” and similar tragedies the author does history with a hammer exposing “jobbing historians” and other “collaborators.” He argues some-provocative-suggestions-for historicizing them and attempts to search for missing links in the narrative of sovereignty of Kashmiris.   The book opens with a poetically composed prayer that shows that the author belongs to the brand of what Sartre called committed...