Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

“School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like Feldwebel (sergeants). I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. What I hated most was the competitive system there, and especially sports. Because of this, I wasn’t worth anything, and several times they suggested I leave. This was a Catholic School in Munich. I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only measurement. How can a teacher understand youth with such a system? From the age of twelve I began to suspect authority and distrust teachers.” The above quote from Einstein (the greatest scientist of the twentieth century whom school system almost killed) reproduced here should be enough to alert those who seek to change educational policy, especially academic session for facilitating examination oriented academic policy. Examinations, as currently held, are not defensible; they are causing gangrene to the sou...

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...

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 ...

John Derrida is considered one of the chief architects of postmodernist worldview. We are living, willy-nilly, in the postmodern age. And one of the chief characteristics of this is incredulity toward ideologies, especially those ideologies that make big claims. Deconstruction that Derrida advocated consists in taking nothing on face value, in noticing the gaps and absences and contradictions in the terms in which an argument or claim is made. It teaches us valuing difference and suspecting totalitarianism, fundamentalism and all such discourses that speak in the name of God/Truth/Future/Utopia/ Justice. Derrida said that Justice can never be done in absolute terms and all one can do is to approximate it and ruthlessly questions all judgments, all claims of justice from authorities. Deconstruction deconstructs all constructions imposed on people through sheer power or force or propaganda. We need the language, if not the methodology, of deconstruction to present truth to power, to sh...

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...

The only recognized blasphemy by modern culture is that of poverty. As riches are the only god and all our efforts are directed to worshipping this supreme deity, poverty must be fought. And it is fought in the name of ideology of development. Sure poverty may take one to disbelief as Islamic tradition recognizes. But it is seldom understood what constitutes poverty. It also needs to be noted that all the prophet of Islam identified with the poor. Heaven is more accessible to the poor people. Riches generally corrupt. Sufis have been especially conscious of Islam’s hatred of riches. I want to discuss the other face of anti-poverty discourse. Let us not forget that the whole discourse about poverty and its alleviation through development is very recent. It began in 1949, to be more precise. This discourse is part of the package of ideas that Truman’s project to develop the third world involved. Traditionally Kashmiris have had special place for those who abandon path to riches, who liv...