Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Recalling Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter on J & K PSC Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. (Potter Stewart) When I heard some have been accused and counter-accused of moral failure and failure of wits for both appearing and not appearing in the PSC exam on 6th Feb, I recalled Hawtthorne’s great novel The scarlet Letter ’s heroine Hester Prynne, a young woman, who is found guilty of adultery and a crowd gathers to witness punishment. She is sentenced to wear a scarlet "A" ("A" standing for adulteress) on her dress to shame her. She refuses to lose her dignity on the scaffold. When demanded and cajoled to name the father of her child, Hester refuses. “Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”   Here is brewing up a similar story that might grow into a tale of shame and despair for hundreds or thousands of innocent pe...

Fraudulent Practices in Modern Medicine Those who care to think raise some uncomfortable questions and teach us to doubt. With one such doubting doctor who is also called poor man’s doctor, we deconstruct some reigning ideas in modern medical practice. In fact we can easily show that there have been some errors, even scandals, in modern history  that resulted in a dominance of modern allopathic system of medicine.        Dr B M Hegde, despite being criticized for right wing sympathies and some unsupported generalizations and  certain inconsistencies nevertheless emerges as one of the very few scientist-philosophers of modern India who needs to be widely read and debated. Passionate, informed, brilliant, witty, iconoclastic, provocative and lucid, Dr Hegde is a renowned cardiologist trained in allopathic system who has exposed, along with certain lesser known but significant scientists, fraudulent or somehow problematic nature of certain medic...

It is a flood that comes annually, destroys generations and cripples minds There is a flood that comes once in a century, destroys properties. But there is a flood that comes annually, destroys generations and cripples minds. And it is on a mass scale. And we are all its victims. And we don’t talk about it. It has claimed innumerable lives, destroyed creative spark in countless students. It costs us money, time, human resource and other resources. I mean Examination System prevailing here which needs examining, a thorough post-mortem. A preliminary post-mortem report follows. Detailed reports from different labs (intellectual, moral, social, psychological, political, religious) will hopefully follow in future. The body is giving offensive smell. One can’t imagine how it functioned in its great days. Once upon a time there was instituted a system for preparing students for mastering crafts and skills they had shown promise by virtue of natural inclination, heredity etc. Students wer...

I think two things explain this: Woeful art illiteracy of the people in general and philosophy of art illiteracy in most of the artists Our artist friends complain that they don’t receive proper recognition, and hardly anyone is interested in visiting art gallery recently opened in Srinagar.  Visitors, or masses, complain that the art works of contemporary artists don’t speak to them, or they fail to comprehend them. Why this disconnect? I think two things explain this: Woeful art illiteracy of people in general and philosophy of art illiteracy in most of artists. People hardly know anything about art (we don’t teach art in schools, generally speaking) and can be classified with colour blind or beauty blind  group. Those artists who think art is a profession and art works need to be exhibited, or sold, or personality of artist be expressed or art needn’t imitate archetypes or communicate well to all who are interested are ignorant of First Principles art exemplifies. They ...

Why isn’t it easy for our political parties to negotiate to be able to form a stable government in which opposition parties and critics too could largely trust or desist from mudslinging? Even if they do succeed in forming one, isn’t it going to be ever under strain? Aren’t all parties uneasy bedfellows when it comes to sharing power? I am not going to answer these questions – we know them anyway – but  transpose these questions to domestic sphere. Seeing the stalemate in domestic politics of home where only a few family members tied by blood relationships I have no surprises to be shocked by any arrangement that ensues and that have ensued in our history by different permutations and combinations in politics. If we are so divided at family level, if there is difficult to find the undisputed leader or trust in a leader at home level (most of us don’t practically buy the thesis inherited from our tradition that husbands are leaders (qawamoon?), if most mothers-in-law have grudges ...

What do we owe to victims? Everything, Levinas would say. Today many flood victims are crying for help and few are left to care or speak for them. Who can say that we care as we should?  Our tradition records that those who could and didn’t care would be thrown into a similar situation and tasted want and lack. The first question is: Are we in any way responsible or guilty for miseries of flood victims? Yes, argue Dostovesky and Levinas. What do we owe to victims? Everything, Levinas would say. Nothing breaks one’s back more than reading Levinas as he shows how little we really care about God in the Other, in neighbours, in strangers. He shows that we can’t even claim to be beginners in the science and practice of ethics. For him, philosophy is ethics and this is where ancient philosophers and world religions meet – philosophy is fundamentally a practice of virtue and not ratiocination or speculation and that explains the notion of prophets as teachers of wisdom ( hikmah ). We ...

While I am convinced that current democratic model is corrupt, unworthy of those who want serious change, complicit with money power, impermeable to genuine change from the below or in the favour of the impoverished class and that our choice could only be between two evils, lesser and greater, we are called to question, condemn and hope simultaneously in this knotty scenario that admits of no neat idealistic solutions. While ethics would require shunning the politics altogether and fight using non-political spaces, somehow the question of the political props up. Regardless of the charge of political naivety that raising the question of ethics today may warrant according to many pundits who command the language of power, I think, recalling Faiz, we can’t afford silence, “Ham matayilowh-o-qalm karate rahaegae .”  Let me put, regardless of political correctness, some ethical questions to those who matter politically as today, on this apparently crucial time, Kashmiris are asking a s...

I don’t understand politics; I understand ethics only ___________ Borges The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul. __________ John Calvin Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another. _____________ Homer There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear. _____________ Ben Jonson We understand more politics than ethics. And no wonder we find ourselves in hell. Hell is facing other people you don’t like. Hell is greed, envy, desire, ambition for worldly power. Hell is where love is not. Hell is regret, guilt, heedlessness. Hell is the laughter of the enemies. Hell is feeling unable to act.   Hell is a desecrated nature, deserted relationships, distrust, betrayal. Hell is the world under capitalism. Hell is the world today. Hell is Kashmir in search of home, in search of trustworthy leaders, in search of peace. Our world is hell thanks to the money power. Our politics seems such a stinking affair because ...