Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

We all believe that khaesh (myself) comes first, then dervaish (the other, the stranger). We evaluate in terms of mine against thine. Love for possessions, for power, for status based on this primordial error. And this is the most fundamental basis for the politics that has destroyed the world. AAP(Aam Admi Party) privileged aap over mai or hum. That partly explains ecstatic welcome to its victory. Even ricksahwallas thought that they now participate in Chief Ministership. The question is can we put the other party, the other’s advantage or aap ki “interest” above one’s party or “interest.” To talk about one’s interest (to be differentiated from what Plato calls enlightened self interest or Iqbal calls Khudi ) is a sin against God, against Holy Spirit, against all the prophets. Let me explain. All traditions from Far Eastern to Indian, Judeo-Christian, Islamic, African and Native American unanimously privilege the other in relation to the self. In fact all traditional philo...

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...