Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Nietzsche can’t be wished away and there is no escaping the task of engaging with him. Would you believe that there are people who don’t know that there are social sciences,  computers, airplanes and countless technological gadgets around us? Those who believe we can have, or we can use modern technology without engaging with background science or secular reason that brings it are such people. Divided personalities, divided loyalties, clouded vision, cursing imagination and insensitivity to finer culture are what distinguishes them. They constitute the majority in the Third World. They have not heard of Nietzsch. They haven’t read any of his books and haven’t heard even his most (in)famous statement “God is dead.” Yes, they haven’t heard of the bull in the China house of conventional religion. They still talk of God in terms of substance, in terms of force, in terms of cosmic being or policeman, in terms of ground of ordinary morality. They still talk as if the other world is ...

Kashmiris are famously charged with Pir parasti . And this Pir parasti is associated with a host of beliefs and practices that we need to take into account. The question is how do we understand or engage with local narrative.  Our dismissive rejection or wholesale embracing of this narrative is what we are often supposed to choose while living in Kashmir. Given ideological polarization and often huge costs hidden in these choices we need to be better informed about what exactly constitutes local narratives and how far one can wish it away if one chooses to. Salafis and others who find some problems with local narrative need to come up with informed critique of a culture deeply informed by this narrative. Such an informed analysis of this local narrative has not been made by our historians or culture experts. And this means a lot for people searching for self-identity in the times that find identities politically problematic and seek to fracture such attempts at self-definition. ...