Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Reading Darbar Move as Governance Disaster There are many painful reminders that we encounter too often that unmistakably mean we are specially abled people whom some ghosts have taken possession of. A few examples include: When we are charged for electricity usage or heaters/boilers searched, or lights go off and every analysis stops at the point we can’t or haven’t realized full potential of water resources thanks to IWT and NHPC and India’s refusal to give counter-guarentees for mega-investment projects needed; When there is a match between India and Pakistan and someone in us  can’t cheer for India or either of them; When we try to fathom why State is the key employer, employees are too many and people are virtually dying for lack of jobs in resource rich State ( if we could only tap mineral and other resources under the earth, we would have almost no unemployment as has been argued by many an expert).       While we may be one day cured of th...

The basic problem I attempt to deal with is clarifying some aspects of debate on implementation of Islam in secular states, in light of key insights from Tradition (the Way of Salaf i Saliheen ). For Islam the sacred-secular binary is ultimately transcended as is the division between West and East, ancient and modern ( “Daleeli kem nazri qisayi qadeem-o-jadeed "). Islam appropriates all that is grand and noble and valuable ( “Al-hikmatu zaalat-ul mumin” ) in any thought current.       I argue that we need to engage with modern political thought currents in light of traditional understanding of politics as grounded in metaphysics/ Ad-Deen , and if some key motivations and insights from secular thinkers like Marx can be shown to concur with it, we shouldn’t fight shy of it. Since our dialogue is with secular Marxist or liberal democratic or other forms of modern political thought, one has to explore if we can talk in their idiom without distorting traditional und...

Trying to Understand Shah-i-Hamdan (RA) in the Liberal Democratic World. “Political Islam” and Muslim religious nationalism have been with us for quite some time achieving very little in political terms but continuing to be seen as an aspiration of majority of Muslims. Although these are essentially modern phenomena and ideologically complicit with otherwise tabo modernist ideological notions, influential medieval scholars are roped in to buttress the cases. How convincing are the arguments and how effective or relevant today needs to be seen. Mir Syed Ali Hamdani, also called Amir-i-Kabir, is one of the great but neglected Muslim political theologians who needs to be better known and carefully studied to help us develop contemporary Muslim political theology. A perusal of his writings, especially his Zakhiratul Malook and Letters that constitute key sources for exploring his political theology, today in the post-secular (and for many post-theological) world while taking note of...

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right.   —H.L. Mencken I begin with the meaning or definition of modern politics in The Devil’s Dictionary: Politics, n: [Poly “many” + tics “blood-sucking parasites”]. I am terribly shocked by some confessional statements of world famous politicians. One is from the former US President Ronald Reagan who confessed that his career in politics has convinced him more and more that politics considered to be the second oldest profession has many resemblances with the first or the oldest profession. Other confessions are from de Gaulle and Jefferson, French and US Presidents respectively. “In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.”  “Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct,” are the sayings of these two presidents respectively. Given these widely sha...

It is beneath the dignity of any person who has self respect to beg for votes, observed Nietzsche Living in a world where: ~ “Politics has replaced philosophy” and we find, around us, politicians rather than statesmen. ~“Politics as industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country”  — and then declares itself puzzled that [people] have lost trust in its politicians. ~One is bound to be soiled by mudslinging which is “in politics, anything bad the opponent says about our candidate; in contrast, when our candidate does this, it is called 'making a good point.” ~“We'd all like to vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate.” ~Politics has been “concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong.” “There are many men of principle in both parties …but there is no party of principle.” It is the rich that fund campaigns implying justice has been sold. Isn’t i...

I am aware that everything against democracy sounds a species of heresy. I am also aware of Amryta Sen and some other thinkers who claim that every fight for rights or justice can be fought in the name of democracy and thus the democracy remains an Absolute. But let us not forget that any form of democracy would warrant an analysis or possible critique if we are true to the spirit behind democracy which is collective welfare based on justice. Many religious thinkers, especially modernists, Muslim modernists have invoked democracy but let us call it theodemocracy and that makes a huge difference. We know the Left has always been critical of so-called democracy serving the class interests. One can invoke Hebermasian idea of Ideal Speech Community so brilliantly illustrated in a film  Twelve Angry Men  to emphasize the need for more informed and articulate public for better success of democracy in delivering public goods. One must also consider the argument that the best of anc...

It is gratifying to watch developments in Delhi as AAP is rewriting the script of politics. AAP has been a success in many ways and one can’t predict how far and when it will indeed sweep the dirt that contemporary politics is identified with in common perception. I can only pray for better alternatives to contemporary politics to flourish. Alternatives are always welcome when the dominant mode is corrupt and has been tested so many times. There are issues with the question of getting genuine aam aadmi politics going. It involves, ideally speaking, among other things, doing away with the question of class and much of dominant discourse about nationalism, democracy etc. At least let us begin a serious debate on why electoral politics as practised today and declared legal of Election Commission warrants questioning. Let us call spade a spade and have the courage to ask for radical reforms in the conception of democracy, seeking votes, imposition of 2/3 rd  as definition...