Salil Tripathi: The Demagogue of Bombay - WSJ.com

The Demagogue of Bombay

Ultimately Thackeray failed to change the essentially tolerant nature of the city.

By SALIL TRIPATHI

In death as in life, Bal Thackeray brought Bombay to a standstill. Thousands of policemen were called up to maintain order on Sunday, the day of his funeral. They needn't have bothered, as the streets were deserted out of fear. Most residents chose to stay home rather than risk the wrath of Thackeray's supporters.
On the other hand, a sizeable fraction of the population felt genuine grief at the death of the founder of the Shiv Sena party that governed Maharashtra state from 1995-99. More than one million people lined the streets to bid Thackeray farewell. So why did his nativist rhetoric resonate so widely over the last half century in India's most open, meritocratic and vibrant city?
Thackeray formed Shiv Sena, named after a 17th century Maharashtran warrior-king, in 1966. It was a bleak time in domestic politics. India had just lost a war against China, won an inconclusive war against Pakistan, Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri had died in office, and drought was causing hardship and hunger. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was in the process of splitting her party, the Congress, and adopting a radical socialist line, nationalizing banks and devaluing the rupee.
 

European Pressphoto Agency

Balasaheb Keshav Thackeray.

This insecurity was fertile ground for a nationalist cartoonist seeking a way into politics. Thackeray first stoked the injured pride of Marathi-speaking people in Bombay and roused them to take action against outsiders. South Indian job-seekers and the restaurants they and others patronized, many of them called Udupi, were his early targets, followed by Gujarati and Marwari shopkeepers. Later, he helped businesses divide trade unions.
But linguistic chauvinism had limited appeal. By the 1980s, the Shiv Sena realized that if it only talked about Marathi identity, it would remain a Bombay-based party. In the city the majority no longer spoke Marathi, while in the rest of Maharashtra tension over migrants was less of an issue as the population was overwhelmingly Marathi.
And so Thackeray turned to Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva. Muslims became the target, and he laced several of his speeches with obscene invectives. He claimed he was only against pro-Pakistan and anti-national Muslims. But he defined nationalism in a narrow way, humiliating those who favored a more inclusive national identity.
Attacks against Muslims grew. A play retelling a Shakespearean story in the style of Ram-Leela (a folk form) was disrupted because the playwright was Muslim and supposedly was ridiculing Hindu Gods. Bollywood stars who accepted Pakistani honors were condemned; Pakistani artists were not allowed to perform in the city. Party activists dug up the pitch to stop a Pakistani cricket team from playing a test match in the city.
Such cultural, religious and linguistic chauvinism succeeded because it was usually accompanied by the threat of violence. In the late 1980s, angry because of Sikh terrorism in Punjab, Thackeray made the astonishing call to boycott Sikh businesses in Bombay unless the city's Sikh leaders prevailed upon terrorists to give up violence. The city's Sikh leadership asked him to join them to visit the militants, a challenge he avoided.
Buses and cars that defied Thackeray's strike calls were destroyed, and shops that chose to stay open would get attacked. There was violence against people, too. Shiv Sena politicians were implicated in judicial inquiries, but prosecutors shied away from trying them. Opposition politicians accused the Shiv Sena over the murder of a trade unionist in 1970.
In the early 1990s, a newspaper launched by Shiv Sena carried relentlessly inflammatory articles against Muslims after Hindu nationalists tore down Babri Masjid, a 16th century mosque in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya. Thousands died in the riots that followed.
The Justice Srikrishna Commission, appointed to inquire into the 1992-93 riots in Bombay, wrote: "From 8 January 1993, at least there is no doubt that the Shiv Sena … took the lead in organizing attacks on Muslims and their properties under the guidance of several leaders of the Shiv Sena from the level of the shakha pramukh (branch president) to the Shiv Sena pramukh (president) Bal Thackeray who like [a] veteran General, commanded his loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organized attacks against Muslims." The report was submitted in 1998, when the Shiv Sena governed the state, rendering prosecutions politically impossible.
In "The Moor's Last Sigh," Salman Rushdie loosely modeled the character of Raman Fielding after Thackeray. Noting the danger the Shiv Sena posed, Rushdie presciently wrote: "Those who hated India, those who sought to ruin it, would need to ruin Bombay."
But it isn't easy to tear apart Bombay because, as Mr. Rushdie went on to write: "Bombay, a relatively new city in an immense ancient land, is not interested in yesterdays…. In Bombay all Indias met and merged… Bombay was central; all rivers flowed into its human sea. It was an ocean of stories, we were all its narrators, and everybody talked at once… What harmony emerged from that cacophony!"
Indeed, in Bombay the culture is based on commerce and opportunity, not a person's caste, creed, language, class or appearance. The city's icons are tycoons, cricketers, and movie stars, not politicians. Bombay has grown over centuries because of its commercial, mercantile instincts, and such cities thrive when they remain open.
Ultimately Thackeray's jingoism was doomed to failure. He may have succeeded in changing Bombay's official name to Mumbai, and enforcing the usage by fear. But he found it harder to change the essentially tolerant nature of the city, which did not erupt in retaliatory violence after terrorist attacks such as the ones in November 2008. Bombay continues to lead the way forward for the country. It will take time for the city to heal, but it will.
Mr. Tripathi, a writer in London and native of Bombay, is the author of "Offense: The Hindu Case" (Seagull, 2009).

Bal Thackeray.. or.. Why the Communists Did Nothing

Bal Thackeray, or, Why the Communists Did Nothing

November 22, 2012
by Saroj Giri
Right where Bal Thackeray was cremated, at Shivaji Park in Mumbai, another event had taken place in June 1970: “a twenty-five-thousand-strong funeral procession marched to Shivaji Park, the Sena stronghold, shouting anti-Shiv Sena slogans,” reports Gyan Prakash in his Mumbai Fables (Princeton University Press, 2010, p. 247). The reason: the murder of Krishna Desai by the Sena in June 5, 1970. Bal Thackeray was supposed to be directly involved in it.
Desai was the sitting Communist Party of India (CPI) MLA from central Bombay, a popular and militant working class leader. He was also one of those who went beyond the diktats of the official CPI leadership, which discouraged self-defence and direct action and could not integrate them in its overall political strategy. That evening of the day he was murdered, it is told that thousands of workers spontaneously came out to avenge the murder. This could have meant they would have ‘liquidated’ Bal Thackeray and his cohorts.
Of course given the leadership’s ‘rule of law’ approach, this was not to happen: the angry workers were told to disperse and the Hriday samrat was born. Thackeray went to town boasting about the murder, promising to carry out more such ‘actions’. Seeing that their leaders can be murdered and nothing happens to the murderer, workers loose morale and think that the communists are not serious about defending their interests. So that when Desai’s widow Sarojini Desai contests in the elections, even a sympathy wave for her dead husband who was a hero for the workers does not fetch her victory. The tide turned: the Sena wins, gets its first legislator from the jaws of communist hold. Large sections of the workers ‘go with the winner’, while the loser, the communists, increasingly fail to resist and retaliate and try to foolishly seek protection of the law and courts.
Earlier, “on September 10, 1967, Thackeray declared in Marmik that his object was the ‘emasculation of the Communists.’ Three months later, the Sena activists attacked the CPI’s Dalvi Building office in Parel. They burned files and threw out the furniture. It was an audacious attack, brazenly carried out to strike at the very heart of the enemy. What was the Communist response? Nothing.” (Prakash, p. 242)
It is out of this ‘nothing’, that void left by the communist leadership, against the will of militant workers, that Thackeray and the Shiv Sena come to life.
And yet today the progressives do not want to ask ‘why was the communist’s response ‘nothing’’. Instead they are busy pointing out Thackeray’s overt qualities, qualities that were anyways meant for public consumption and moreover, for the Sena, proud display. We are told that he epitomised the politics of fear and hatred, how he was a fascist and communal and divisive and so on. There is over-reliance on this kind of a ‘politics of exposure’, which is merely old rehashed wisdom about the Sena and Thackeray. Such hollering is done so seriously that one forgets that it alone changes nothing, does not weaken the Sena, nor even expose it. Nor does it shame the Indian state and security apparatus to now become an ally in your anti-communal or anti-fascist struggle.
The ‘politics of exposure’ is moreover part of a tendency to then present Thackeray as just a mad crazy exception, whom we just need to ‘expose’ and soon the rest of ‘democratic society’ and civil society will shun him to hell. The hollering invests the political atmosphere with such illusions. After all, it is not that the workers who joined the Sena did so since they found the organization ‘democratic’ and upholding the rule of law. Nor will they now leave it since they have finally found that it is ‘fascist’, a gang of thugs etc.
Above all, this hollering tends to make us forget that Thackeray emerges as a tacit ruling class response to a particular conjuncture of the class struggle in Mumbai. So let us instead ask: what could the Indian state and big capital have done when they were faced with the kind of ‘enemy’ like the organised communist working class power which had Bombay in its grips in the 1960s? The Indian state is, officially speaking, bound one way or another by its secularism, labour laws and things like that – which is all fine and creates no real hassles for the ruling classes so long as you have a decrepit left but not fine if you are confronted by a powerful working class movement. The movement was so powerful that even the CPI leadership, given the illusions it had about Indian democracy, feared its most militant sections and power.
Hence to deal with this communist monster you needed a force to ensure two (contradictory) things at the same time. First, decimate or liquidate the working class movement. Second, to maintain, at the same time, the garb of democracy, secularism, and so on. A banana republic or a Pinochet would have concentrated only on the first but here you had the ‘idea of India’ too which had to be uphailed – and to which even sections of CPI leadership not to speak of other progressives and ‘left-liberals’ were deeply attached.
An extra legal force like the Sena was exactly what fitted the bill. Not the right wing vigilante armed gangs cut off from the society to be found in Latin America but one which would have a deep organic connect to ‘society’. Hindutva and the populism of the Marathi manoos ensured this connect. A cross between a vigilante and a grass roots populist movement. Put it this way: Thackeray and the Sena were something like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) emerging from within the underbelly of majoritarian society, articulating its latent organic fissures. I mean, if it is war on terror or against anti-nationals, the state is comfortable in sanctioning murder and extra-judicial killings through extraordinary laws formally passed in Parliament. There is no fear of losing democratic legitimacy in the eyes of mainstream upper middle classes.
The working classes or even Naxals are however a different matter, trickier to handle. It is difficult to paint the working classes in textile mills of central Bombay as anti-national and hence for the state to move against it – particularly, when the working classes are consciously portraying themselves as a class in an organised fashion, as a ‘class-for-itself’, and are also politically represented in legislatures and are also largely ‘Hindu’. Decimating working class struggle is of the highest importance and yet executing it demands utmost discretion, a higher level of cunning.
The extra-legal decimating force cannot therefore take the shape of a formal law, even an extraordinary one through an act of Parliament and so on. ‘Society’ then has to ‘produce’ such a force from within its organic underbelly – hence, while enacting the most general interests of capital, Thackeray was not someone who could be a hired goon for the capitalists and mill owners of Mumbai. A hired goon or henchman would only defend particular interests of specific capitalists and industrialists. Thackeray did that too – Rahul Bajaj recalls how Thackeray ‘sorted out’ a workers-related issue at his manufacturing facility. There must be many such cases of ‘sorting out’ by the Sena.
But beyond a point Thackeray ‘rises above’ these individual cases and becomes a higher presence, Hriday Samrat. Or, ‘Maharashtra’s patriarch’, as HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh put it and whose loss he wants to mourn. The point is clear: why would a banker mourn the death of ‘a patriarch’? We have here a much deeper conduit between the (upper caste Hindu) underbelly and (publicly acknowledged) capitalist class interests – Hindutva and the general interests of capital merge in Thackeray.
Moreover, Thackeray could enact all this in the name of the ordinary Marathi manoos. What is not so common knowledge is that he also made liberal use of the anti-Brahman language and symbolism from Jotirao Phule when “he ridicules the pompousness of the Brahmin cultural establishment and ‘high society’” (Thomas Blom Hansen, Wages of Violence, p. 199). If this was not enough, Blom Hansen reports that CPI leader Dange was once invited to share dais with Thackeray, to tremendous applause. And that the ‘socialist’ George Fernandes was a family friend of the Thackeray clan. Further also that the Sena flirted for some time with the idea of ‘practical socialism’ in the early 1980s.
This deep nexus between the Sena and the Indian state and big capital does not however seem credible to many progressives. The word they use is ‘collusion’ between the state and the Hindutva forces. This suggests that the nexus is not deep enough and you expect that when the fascist thugs come for your life you can still be saved by the state – since the state is constitutionally bound to do that for you! Thus when the Sena came gunning for them, the CPI leadership was indeed looking for a way to convert a clearly anti-communist offensive, nay a murder plan, of the Sena and the ruling classes, into a case of a wider attack on the so-called secular fabric of the nation and so on.
Well, did the secular fabric and the Indian state come to the rescue of the communists? It didn’t: the secular fabric turned the other way, just the manner in which Indian security forces often look the other way when hapless Muslims appeal for help in a riot situation. The difference with Muslims is that the communists are targeted first. Indeed the Shiv Sena phenomenon is a clear case of ‘first they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a communist…’. And yet there is today a veiled attempt to avoid probing the period when communists were face to face with the Sena. We need to revisit the communist strategy and find out why the response was ‘nothing’, above all keeping in mind that an anti-communal front cannot be where communists should be taking refuge.
But ‘revisiting communist strategy’ is not to now utter postcolonial inanities like ‘the communists emphasized the class question too much and never really understood caste, or religion or identities’. It is not to validate what in ‘cultural studies’ is called ‘the problem of translation’, that class is supposedly a Euro-centric category and cannot comprehend Indian social reality. Instead it is to state that there is really no problem of translation.
The problem of translation was not for the communists but for Thackeray: isn’t it common knowledge that he had to resort to the language and politics of class, that he had to take up the interests of the workers and lower castes, in order to institute his ‘identity politics’. He was forced to do that – he had to translate his identity politics into class lines in order to gain entry into the ‘communist stronghold’ of central Bombay. As the political scientist Aryama pointed out to me, unlike ‘fascists’, the Shiv Sena did not really crush the working class movement. It rechanneled the movement along ‘safe’ lines of Marathi manoos, anti-Muslim politics and so on.
It was not emphasis on class and the problem of translation which undid the communists but a half-hearted emphasis – there was emphasis on the working class ‘issues’ but not on class power, on the organised power of the working class led by the vanguard party. Working class power would have given us a different scenario after Desai’s murder. That is, in a bizarre twist, it was the Sena which would mobilize workers’ ‘militancy’, now misdirected, rather than the CPI leadership which ditched both ground level leaders like Desai and other workers by instead relying on the supposed rule of law and Indian constitutional, legal protection and so on.
So when did ‘direct action’ become a purely fascist trait, as the progressives are telling us today? Here is today a left which turns its back on working class history apparently because class is not an adequate category for Indian reality and so on – something which does not follow from actual facts. Perhaps, it was such a decrepit left which convinced those like Namdeo Dhasal to join the Sena rather than the left – for the Dalit Panthers did also use direct action as a way to defend the interests of Dalit working classes. The communist tradition has a strong place as much for direct action as for direct democracy – you however cannot have one without the other. This needs to be reasserted.
Direct action can be critiqued. But such a critique cannot be geared towards suggesting that we should now come under the mediation of the rule of law and the constitution – and then refuse to see how these latter cannot be upheld at the expense of the workers’ power. Thackeray’s direct action was to ultimately defend the mediation of the rule of law, facilitate its normal functioning and preserve the status quo. It was an exception meant to reinscribe the rule. It was the Hindutva thug’s AFSPA – extraordinary law to ensure the return to ordinary laws, to ‘peace and development’.
The communist workers and the Dalit Panthers’ ‘direct action’ is merely a (Hegelian) move to recognize the Sena’s ‘direct action’, the Hindutva thug’s AFSPA to be an integral part of the normal functioning of the law and the norm. The pro-state (or democratic/parliamentary) left, including many social movements, fails to recognize it as such and is in denial. It treats the Sena’s ‘direct action’ as an aberration from ‘our constitution’ or ‘democratic tradition’ or ‘the idea of India’ – it hence rushes to the state and the rule of law to seek ‘correction of this aberration’, seek legal protection and in the process claim to be democratic and peace-loving and so on. It would have been fine if this was done to strategically build a powerful wider movement. Instead it reduces the entire movement to just this. This is clear, for example, from the way it equates ‘direct action’ by the communists with that of the fascists.
This has historical parallels. After the collapse of Nazism, western liberals tried to present Nazism as an aberration, as something which just happened – if only we would not forget how horrible fascism was, we could stop it from repeating itself. Marxists, in particular the Soviet countries, treated fascism as a live possibility so long as the bourgeoisie was in power. So the Soviets would not merely build memorials to the victims of a past event, which we should not forget, but emphasise that the war against fascism is an ongoing one. Fascism is not in that sense a historically singular aberration.
Moreover when it came to the communist resistance to Nazism, the Soviets were equated to the Nazis. So we are told you have the Nazi concentration camps, but you also have Soviet concentration camps! We cannot take these claims at face value as simple statement of facts. At another level, we must seriously take Slavoj Zizek’s provocation: “in today’s era of hedonist permissivity as the ruling ideology, the time is coming for the Left to (re)appropriate discipline and the spirit of sacrifice: there is nothing inherently “Fascist” about these values” (‘The True Hollywood Left').
The rejection of direct action by equating it with fascist tactics therefore is not just a simple and sincere way to counter the Sena offensive. It conceals a refusal to open up a whole history of communist and working class resistance in Mumbai which used ‘similar’ tactics – including by the Dalit Panthers. We are very good in upholding the cultural heritage of the left movement, right from tamashas to nukkad nataks to the poems and songs from IPTA. If these are not to become mere cultural artefacts and floating images, we must uncover the history of very real battles that have been fought, street by street, factory after factory, chawl after chawl.
Perhaps lot of the questions about organization, agency, mass mobilization, vanguard; about class struggle and identity/caste and so on can be better addressed through an account of these struggles. Meena Menon and Neera Adarkar’s work is highly commendable in this respect but we need more work in this area which would directly tell us about communist organizing rather than provide only an ‘ethnography of labour’ (One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices: The Millworkers of Girangaon, An Oral History, Seagull, Kolkata, 2004). An elementary aspect of workers insurgency is waiting to be written. Perhaps this will also help us expand our approach to understanding revolutionary struggle beyond the Tebhagas and Telanganas and the Naxalbaris – particularly, if one is really serious about ‘the urban perspective’.
To start with, we might want to find more about Krishna Desai’s Lok Seva Dal about which we are told by Prakash: “Desai founded the Lok Seva Dal as much to counter the Sena’s ideological appeal as to confront its physical force. With these twin purposes in mind, the Lok Seva Dal held political-education classes as well as organized physical exercise programs and games. Since the party leadership offered no support, Desai raised money locally to pay for expenses” (p. 245). Now, are you about to tell me that the “organised physical exercise programs and games” reminds you of a RSS shakha?

*Of Bal Thackeray, His admirers and His victims*?

Tapan Bose


Bal Thackeray the self confessed admirer of Hitler and Nathuram Godese and
a lover of Hollywood Westerns is dead. Over the past four decades he ruled
over Shiv Sena, a party that targeted non-Marathi workers, petty traders,
shopkeepers, Muslims and Dalits and migrants  ? harassed them, tortured
them, killed them, looted their property and burnt down their homes and
shops in the city of Mumbai in the name of protecting the interest of
Marathi *Manoos. *As the news of his death spread, Mumbai closed down
fearing a repeat of the post Babri Masjid demolition pogrom which held
Mumbai to ransom from December 5, 1992 to January 19, 1993. A young Muslim
girl from Palghar who questioned the shutdown of Maharashtra on Thackeray?s
death was arrested by Maharashtra police on charges of hurting religious
sentiment and violation of the Cyber Act. Considering the role of
Maharashtra police in the Mumbai pogrom of 1992/93 and its ?successful?
identification of Laskar-e-Toiba and SIMI as the main perpetrators of
Malegaon bomb blast of September 2006, and the arrest of nine Muslim youth,
one can understand why ?Thackerayism? is religion for  Maharashtra police
and the Shiv Sainiks  are their ?brothers in faith?. In 2006, the Anti
Terrorist Squad of Maharashtra police had categorically denied the role of
any Hindu ultra nationalist groups in the Malegaon blast. In November 2006,
Director General of Maharashtra police had announced evidence of
involvement of two Pakistani terrorists in the same blast.


After the arrest of a Hindu God woman Shadvi Pragya Singh, Lt. Colonel
Shrikant Purohit of Military Intelligence, Naba Kumar Sarkar and Swami
Aseemanand and recording of their confessions in 2011, the involvement of a
Hindu terrorist organisation in the terrorist attacks in Malegaon in 2006
and 2008, terrorist bombing of Samjhouta Express and Ajmer Sharif in 2007
and the bomb attack on Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad in 2007 was established.
 While the Muslim youth spent seven years in jail under false charges, the
Congress-NCP coalition government of Maharashtra is yet to punish a single
police man who conspired to implicate the innocent. Earlier the Shiv
Sena-BJP government had suppressed the findings of Justice Shrikrishna
Commission of Inquiry into the Mumbai pogrom of 1992-93 and promoted all
those police men who were indicted for their involvement in the killing of
innocent Muslims.  It is not just Shiv Sena, the Congress Party and or the
National Congress Party also does not want to hurt the sentiments of
?Marathi Manoos?.


Since Thackeray?s death, the media has gone into overdrive to tell all and
sundry what a great man he was. Pranab Mukherjee, the President said in his
death the nation lost a veteran leader who worked relentlessly for the
ordinary man. Manmohan Singh the Prime Minister, praised him for
inculcating a sense of pride in his people. Not to be outdone, Sharad
Pawar, the NCP supremo and union Agriculture Minister praised Thackeray for
his fierce pride in Maharashtra ? a magnanimous leader who was ready to pay
any price for his belief. Indeed Pawar was a recipient of Thackeray?s
magnanimity. In 1982, at a public meeting in Parel?s Kamgar Maidan,
Thackeray had anointed Sharad Pawar as the future chief minister of
Maharashtra. President Pranab Mukherjee was another recipient of
Thackeray?s ?magnanimity?. Mukherjee had gone to Thackeray?s residence to
seek his ?blessings? during the presidential election. During the 2007
presidential election, when the Congress party did not have the numbers,
Thackeray had extended similar blessings to Pratibha Patil. In 1975,
Thackeray supported the Emergency. In 1977 general election, he campaigned
for the Congress party. Thackeray also supported A. R. Antulay, the Chief
Minister of Maharashtra, who had to quit office after being indicted by
Bombay High Court for extortion of money. Antulay was made the Minister of
Minority Affairs by Manmohan Sing in 2006

.

It seems that from Thursday the 15th of November, nearly four days before
his death, Mumbai?s film studios remained shut as the stars, producers,
technicians and the workers were praying for his recovery. Amitabh Bachchan
tweeted, ?each day he continued his struggle with a grit that was baffling
even for the doctors on hand...I sat by his bedside for hours these past
few days, a prayer in my heart?. And, after Thackeray?s death, Lata
Mangheskar said, ?When Bala sahib was there, Maharashtra was there. When
he's not there, there's nothing. No one can equal what he has done for
Maharashtra. We needed him to be with us for many more years.?


Thackeray began his political career in the late sixties by intimidating
and attacking South India residents of Mumbai who worked as clerks, in
small restaurants and as daily wage labourers for taking away the jobs of
Marathi people. In his writings and cartoons he lampooned the Tamil and
Telugu speaking people as ?yangduguwalas? and ?lungiwalas?. Thackeray?s
began attacking the homes of these people and began a campaign to drive out
the ?Madrassis?. He directed his followers to picket cinema halls which
were showing Hindi films produced in Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh.
Thackeray then turned against the Muslims whom he derisively referred to as
the ?Katuas? the circumcised people.  Justice Sri Krishna, in his report on
the Mumbai pogrom of 1992, said that the communal passions of the Hindus
were aroused to fever pitch by the provocative writings in print media,
particularly *Saamna *and *Navaakal*, the mouth pieces of Shiv Sena edited
by Thackeray. Justice Srikrishna asserted that magazines published
exaggerated accounts of the MathCAD murders and the Radhabai Chawl incident
and floated rumours of imminent attacks by Muslims using sophisticated
arms.


The truth is that the difference between pro-Khalistan, Jarnail Singh
Bhinderanwalle and pro-Marathi Manoos, Thackeray is that of degree and not
of kind. The only difference is that Bhinderwanwalle was killed in a battle
he waged in defence of his cause, where as Thackeray died in his bed and
has been hailed as ?veteran leader?. Obviously his victims do not matter.

Precision Nutrition Coaching | All About Kettlebells

What are kettlebells?

Kettlebells are iron or steel balls with flattened butts on one end and a curved handle on the other.
Kettlebells are used both for general athletic training and competitive sport. They facilitate whole body dynamic movement for strength, endurance, and power training. They are used by sports teams, those who train at home, world class athletes, and folks who want to burn fat and build muscle.

Kettlebells: a brief history

Humans probably devised a kettlebell-type object — a weight with a handle — not long after they figured out how to use their opposable thumbs.
Kettlebells, or things that seem to look like them, have been found in excavations of ancient Greece. It’s thought that implements like them were used in Russia initially as grain measures, with the approximately 16 kg, or one “pood“, being the standard measure.
Modern kettlebell manufacturers generally respect these weight conventions; thus kettlebell sizes range in 4 kg increments around the 16 kg “1 pood” standard (e.g., 12 kg, 16 kg, 24 kg and 32 kg). However, manufacturers are increasingly producing sizes in between the standards – like 14 kg and 28 kg, and masses as great as 60 kg kettlebells.

From obscurity to mainstream

Kettlebells have a long history in Europe and Russia from the 1700s onward, and were a feature of European gyms and strongman performances in the late 19th and early 20th century. Now, they are perhaps best known for their association with late 1940s Russian physical culture.
Their popular introduction to North America in the 21^st century is largely credited to Pavel Tsatsouline, a Russian émigré, Special Forces trainer and coach. Along with his book The Russian Kettlebell Challenge (see references below), Tsatsouline concurrently began offering classes and a kettlebell trainer certification known as the RKC, now the oldest and most established kettlebell certification in North America.
Since their introduction in the West, kettlebells have slowly begun to emerge as a mainstream training tool with numerous trainer certifications being offered. Likewise, what is known as Girevoy Sport (GS) kettlebell competitions as formalized in Russia around the mid 1980s have started being held in North America. Valery Fedorenko is credited with the sport’s presentation in North America and is now mainly promoted through what has become the World Kettlebell Club.

Why are kettlebells important?

Because of their design, kettlebells enable many familiar movements from pushes like the shoulder press to pulls like Renegade Rows. Yet, they also support whole-body, dynamic weighted movements, once the specialized preserve of Olympic barbell lifters.

The kettlebell swing

For instance, the foundational kettlebell movement — the swing — starts with a posture and hip drive similar to the deadlift or Olympic clean, but the cannonball-with-handle kettlebell design means that this weight can be swung up from between the legs, driven by the hip thrust forward to about chest height, and then accelerated down again by the shoulders pulling the weight down, back through the legs, then driven back up again with the hips, back and forth for reps.
Depending on the mass of the kettlebell used, sets of swings are either very low-rep (3-5) with adequate recovery breaks, or high-rep (anywhere from 10-100 or more for time), depending on the energy system/strength type being trained. This demonstrates the versatility of the kettlebell — the same movement can be used for everything from maximal strength, to strength-endurance, to “cardio” or metabolic conditioning.
Hanging onto the kettlebell during swings also works the grip and forearms. Kettlebell swings can also be performed with two hands on one bell, one hand/one bell, or one bell in each hand for two bells at a time (doubles).

The Beautiful Swing
More Beautiful Swings

Other dynamic kettlebell movements like the snatch and the clean and jerk also develop full body strength, power and endurance, and besides being used for general conditioning, are the core kettlebell competition moves.

Kettlebell advantages

The primary advantage of kettlebell training is its efficiency. While it’s helpful to have a few kettlebells of different weights, one bell alone can give you a darn good workout.

• They are a room efficient gym: if there is room to swing a cat, there’s room to swing a kettlebell.
• By varying weights used, you can use the same movement for cardio, strength-endurance, speed, or power.
• You can do presses, pulls, squatting-type movements, and dynamic work.
• Because dynamic kettlebell movements involve the whole body, you work upper and lower body strength concurrently and time effectively.
• Because these are compound moves, you must engage antagonist, agonist and support muscles.
• The hip drive focus is also particularly useful for working the core and “posterior chain” — the muscles of the spine, butt, and back of the legs.
• The focus on form for shoulder work helps strengthen and stabilize the shoulder joint.

Cautions

Some people immediately fear for a lifter’s back when they see any dynamic movement of a weight at high speeds. Kettlebells can evoke a similar response in those unfamiliar with proper form.
Yet Stuart McGill, a leading back expert, is a strong supporter of kettlebells (and deadlifts). Lifters maintain spinal stability and neutral spine throughout the movements (notice in the photos above that the lifter never rounds the back, but keeps a natural curve).
That said, as with any skill, doing it right can be safe; doing it wrong can lead to injury.
“Safety first” is such a mantra in the kettlebell community that the staple training manual since 2006, Enter the Kettlebell (review), includes a chapter on safety and back health, and concludes with the warning: “If you get hurt, it’s your fault.”

Applications for kettlebells

For fat burning

When combined with proper nutrition, training with kettlebells seems to offer the benefits of intense interval training on bikes but with the strength development of weights. There are increasing numbers of weight loss stories where kettlebells, along with good nutrition, contribute to success.

For field athletes

Strength and conditioning (S&C) coaches like Jeremy Layport and Chris Holder are using the kettlebell to improve overall endurance capacity of their athletes. Even Lance Armstrong has been seen swinging kettlebells (below).

A basic S&C template that many coaches use with infinite variety is to alternate between kettlebell swings and Turkish get ups. For example, one partner does a Turkish get up to the left and to the right, while the other swings non-stop.

Getting more from one kettlebell

The kettlebell design also means it can be used in a variety of ways to extend the life of a given kettlebell weight.
While the standard hold is with the handle across the palm with the bell resting against the forearm, a challenging alternative is to use the bottoms-up grip where the handle is squeezed, and the weight is held straight up, rather than resting against the wrist, as in the “bottoms up carry” as described by Stuart McGill (pdf).

Warning: Despite the great versatility of a single bell, kettlebells are also well-known to multiply. Partners of new kettlebell enthusiasts should be aware that claims of “I only need one, or maybe two — look, they take up no space” may still find kettlebells behaving like Tribbles.

Getting started: find a coach

The best start for any kettlebell user is to begin with a coach [see more at PN’s How to Find a Trainer].
A trained eye can evaluate key parts of foundational moves, such as:

• proper grip/wrist alignment with the bell
• foot to knee position
• shoulder action
• appropriate back alignment

Likewise, learning good technique will help preserve hands when doing high repetition kettlebell work.

Avoid this ouchy when doing high-rep kettlebell work by learning good form first

A few sessions with a coach is the best way to help learn and refine these elegant moves.
There are listings of RKC “Hard Style” coaches. The IKFF lists coaches who blend GS style with mainly bodyweight fitness training, or, one can go right to the Russian source with the IKSFA for a technique workshop.
A well-qualified coach will also be able to help anyone work up to a kettlebell swing and beyond, as some folks aren’t quite able to achieve that butt back swing position right away. So coaching is key: trying to swing kettlebells without proper form is about as safe as trying to deadlift with a rounded back.

Summary and recommendations

Kettlebells are a fabulous and often overlooked tool for strength and conditioning. The mileage one can get from a single kettlebell is hard to match with any other training tool.

• As the kettlebell’s signature movements are dynamic, they blend the benefits of compound strength lifts with power and endurance work.
• Kettlebell work also helps develop forearm, hand and finger strength because of numerous options for grip, and various loads dynamically challenging the grip repeatedly and at high speeds.
• A single kettlebell workout can include a great variety of pushes, pulls and ballistic movements. Because of the options of varying load and sets, kettlebells offer fat burning alternatives to bikes or treadmills.
• Kettlebells engage the whole body with a single tool that is small, portable, and affordable for home use.
• Kettlebells can help strengthen the spinal musculature, keeping your back happy; there is no significant lumbar flexion in kettlebell work.

Whether looking for conditioning, fat burning, raw strength or power, it’s worth any practitioner’s while to investigate kettlebell training.

For extra credit

Early research in support of kettlebells

Most of the formal research on kettlebell training for performance is in Russian. We know it mainly from Pavel Tsatsouline’s translations and summaries like these from Enter the Kettlebell.

In the 20th century, Soviet science validated what Russian hard men had known for centuries: kettlebell lifting is one of the best tools for all around physical development. Voropayev (1983) observed two groups of college students over a period of a few years. To gauge their performance, he used a standard battery of the armed forces physical training (PT) tests: pull-ups, a standing broad jump, a 100- meter sprint, and a 1K run. The control group followed the typical university PT program, which was military oriented and emphasized the above exercises. The experimental group just lifted kettlebells. In spite of the lack of practice on the tested drills, the kettlebell group showed better scores in every one of them! Vinogradov and Lukyanov (1986) found a very high correlation between the results posted in a kettlebell lifting competition and in a great range of dissimilar tests: strength, measured with the three powerlifts and grip strength; strength endurance, measured with pull-ups and parallel bar dips; general endurance, determined by a 1K run; and work capacity and balance, measured with special tests. Lopatin (2000) found a positive correlation between soldiers’ kettlebell sport ranking and their obstacle course performance. Kettlebells improve coordination and agility (Luchkin, 1947; Laputin, 1973). Kettlebells develop professional applied qualities and general physical preparedness (Zikov, 1986; Griban, 1990).

Current research

The English-speaking world still lags behind with kettlebell research.

• An MSc project study on VO2max training has been turned into a book called Viking Warrior Conditioning by Kenneth Jay (overview).
• The American Council of Exercise commissioned a non-controlled study (pdf) that repeated Jay’s work, sadly, without attribution or again without peer review.
• Finally, however, there has been one peer reviewed study, 2009, in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning showing that one rather tame version of a kettlebell protocol (men performing as many two handed swing for ten minutes with as many user-determined stops as desired) is tougher than circuit training.

It’s been hypothesized that the swing also provides the forces necessary to generate increased bone density.

Kettlebell juggling

Kettlebell work is most often in the sagittal (back and forth) plane, but some experienced kettlebell enthusiasts break out of this box with kettlebell juggling, either as a solo or partner activity.
Russian Navy members practicing kettlebell juggling:

Competition

For folks who fall in love with these weights, there are the Girevoy Sport competitions.
In a competition, athletes have a fixed time to achieve a minimum number of reps in particular lifts at specific weight-class loads to attain one of several possible rankings in the sport. Competitions include the Long Cycle which is non-stop clean and jerk, the jerk, and the snatch.
Women’s 24 kg snatch competition featuring Kseniya Dedyukhina

Tactical Strength Challenge

Another form of competition is known as the Tactical Strength Challenge. This includes the kettlebell snatch, a deadlift and a pull up competition. It’s also fun.

Size

As for what size to start with, generally women start with an 8 kg and 12 kg; men with a 16 kg and 24 kg.
Having a lighter and a heavier bell gives beginners the option to work on technique first, and heavier sets later.
Folks who have been sedentary for a long time may happily start lighter; more experienced strength athletes may prefer to go heavier. HardStyle magazine (pdf) has a section each month on how to pick a size appropriate for any level.

Quality

Almost more critical than the right starting weight is quality of the bell.
The shape, size and finish of the handle can make the difference between a good or horrible experience. Poor finishes can be filed down, but poor size or shape cannot be changed. A poorly designed/made bell may be cheap(er) but will be used once and abandoned. A good quality 16 kg kettlebell will cost about as much as a higher end pair of sneakers but will last for a lifetime.

Resources and references

Baszanowski, W., ed. 8 European Weightlifter Federations: a Brief History of Their Centenaries. Special Issue. European Weightlifter, EWF Secretariat. 2005 (pdf).
Farrar RE, Mayhew JL, & Koch AJ. Oxygen cost of kettlebell swings. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 24 (4), 1034-6, 2010. PMID: 20300022
Jay, Kenneth. Viking Warrior Conditioning. Dragon Door Publications, MN, 2009.
Sanchez, Thierry. Kettlebell Sport and Athletic Preparation, Aalborg Sportshøjskole & Trænerakademiet, 2009 (pdf)
Tsatsouline, Pavel. Enter the Kettlebell. Dragon Door Publications, MN, 2006.
Tsatsouline, Pavel, The Russian Kettlebell Challenge. Dragon Door Publications, MN, 2001.
Tsatsouline, Pavel McGill on Kettlebells Power By Pavel Newsletter, 155, (April 30, 2008).

On Modi...

separate statehood

How does separate statehood generate such strong emotions that many youth kill themselves? Does human nature allow this?
The two young men who killed themselves recently in Warangal, Andhra Pradesh, and the subsequent and preceding incidents of youth immolating themselves or jumping in front of trains add up the tally of the so-called suicide deaths for the cause of achieving a separate Telangana.While an unbelievable number of people, about 750, have died like this for Telangana, no sociopsychological study has been conducted to understand the real cause and circumstances of these deaths. Most of those who died came from poor and lowercaste families, many of them the first educated member of their family.
Some of them were children.
The leaders of the agitation for separate statehood (not a separate nationhood, mind it), which is nothing but a federal restructuring, say this is martyrdom for a great cause, and they use the rising tally of suicide to pressure the Centre.
People are driven to suicide all over the world. But most people who decide to kill themselves do so because they see just darkness at the end of the tunnel in their individual life. Most have very personal or emotional problems that push them to such an end.
Studies on human nature tell us that in a situation where the choice is between killing someone or sacrificing oneself, human beings chose to kill. So then, how does an issue like separate statehood generate such strong emotions among so many youth that they are driven to kill themselves? Does human nature allow this? Several nations have
fought pitched battles for centuries for liberation from foreign rule.
For thousands of years human beings have lived as slaves under horrendous conditions, enduring torture. Yet they preferred life to death.There are several world famous individuals who committed suicide, but not for reasons of nationalism. The only famous suicide for a public cause was that of Socrates. But he, too, was forced to take hemlock by the rulers of his time. Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves for personal attachment.
The famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud committed suicide to escape the pain and torture of cancer that he was suffering from.
Nowhere in the world do hundreds of human beings commit suicide as a form of protest for the purpose of political liberation. The most exploited and oppressed Chinese fought against feudal war lords for centuries. They did not indulge in selfimmolation nor did they commit suicide by any other means. Similarly, Africans, who suffered brutal exploitation and torture under colonial rule for centuries, fought against the white colonial rulers. They, too, did not commit suicide. We have our own experience of suffering brutal foreign rule and fighting against it for centuries.
Telangana has its own history of anti-feudal struggles. The people of this region suffered vetti (bonded labour) for centuries. Feudal lords exploited the parents and grandparents of those who are dying now. But people did not kill themselves, rather they were killed. For centuries these people fought against feudalism while suffering poverty and hunger.
They did not choose death over struggle.
What is happening now in Telangana is unparalleled. Nationalism or regionalism cannot be a cause for so many people to die on their own. Which forces are causing such deaths remains a mystery.
Telangana Rashtra Samiti’s K.
Chandrasekhar Rao, who is leading the current phase of the Telangana movement, did not have any significant electoral success before the selfimmolations and suicide began. For years, his party could not contest any major election on its own. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, he fought nine seats and won two.
Then, in desperation, he started a hungerstrike.
It was during the hungerstrike that his nephew Harish Rao proposed self-immolation as an innovative method of achieving statehood. He pretended to immolate himself. Within a day or two, one young man, Srikantha Chary, was said to have immolated himself. Since then a series of so-called incidents of suicide — by hanging or consuming poison, immolations — are being reported. No investigating agency has looked into the circumstances and reasons for these deaths. Somehow the whole nation takes them for granted.
Reason, it is accepted, has taken flight from the nation.
In a democratic country like India it is possible that all kinds of demands, like nationhood for Kashmir or a
separate state of Telangana, will come up. The movement for independent Ireland has been there for more than a century. But people never committed suicide to achieve that goal.
Human sentiment of nationalism or regionalism does not move in that direction at all.
Therefore, we need to be suspicious and look for the invisible hand in these deaths. Over 750 deaths definitely call for very sophisticated investigation. The blind belief that they all are self-driven does not show any historical perspective. The Kashmiris have been fighting for decades for their nationalist cause and are ready to die for it.
But they have not been killing themselves.As a Telanganite, who has been associated with many movements that cropped up here, I know that suicide was never in its blood. The poorest of the poor in this region always fought and died.
This happened in the anti-Razakar struggle, in the Telangana armed struggle, and in the Naxalite struggles. That was also the case in 1969 Telangana statehood struggles. The current Telangana movement, that began in 2009, goes against the ethics of all movements in the world and also against Telangana's own history.
It betrays general human nature, the spirit of this very nation and of this region. Let us not forget that this is a Delhi-sponsored movement. In this unnatural movement the leaders at the helm are making huge amounts of money and the youth at the other end of the society are dying. Let New Delhi explain or investigate how and why this is happening. Let the nation know which ghost is driving these innocent youth to suicide.
The writer is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad

Manindra ki Mahindra

Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, the country's leading SUV manufacturer, on Tuesday signed a preferred financier agreement with Karur Vysya Bank (KVB) to help customers avail vehicle finance services from any KVB branch. The tie-up will enable both M&M and Karur Vysya Bank leverage on their inherent strengths.

Meet the first voice-enabled Bible: A Siri for John 3:16? - GeekWire

Meet the first voice-enabled Bible: A Siri for John 3:16? - GeekWire

   

Bhagat Singh page ‘vandalised' on Wikipedia

The Hindu : News / National : Bhagat Singh page ‘vandalised' on Wikipedia

I wonder if it is a conspiracy to divert attention from Valentine's Day: administrator

The Wikipedia page on Bhagat Singh underwent many editing changes on February 13 and 14, Valentine's Day, and a Wikipedia administrator called it online “vandalism.” At present, the page is in a “semi-protected” mode for one week. It means that someone who is not registered with Wikipedia cannot edit the page.

Over the two days, there was a flurry of activity on the page, with the first change beginning on February 13 at 2313 hours. The reason was a perceived lack of clarity among some people on the date of Bhagat Singh's hanging. According to Wikipedia administrator Philp Tinu Cherian, since February 13, the page was changed more than 30 times.

“People kept on changing and reverting the date between February 14, 1931 and March 23 as the day Bhagat Singh's hanging. They started editing the wrong information on the page and it could be termed “vandalism,” according to Mr. Cherian who, as “administrator,” added the date he got from sources in the Government of India.

He said the identity of those editing the page is unknown as only IP addresses, and not necessarily names, are used in Wikipedia. However, regular Wikipedians, including one whom Mr. Cherian knew, were reverting the correct date. “I had to lock the article and add references to reliable sources to prove the actual death date,” he said.

Other than Wikipedia, the subject dominated Twitter and a fan group of Bhagat Singh was also active on Facebook. One SMS that was being circulated on Tuesday said February 14 ought not to be celebrated as Valentine's Day as it was the day Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged.

“The activity on the page is rare. I wonder if it is a conspiracy to divert attention from Valentine's Day,” said Mr. Cherian, who noted similar heightened activity on Wikipedia when Jyoti Basu was taken ill.

Akshaya, a young HR professional working in Bangalore, said, “I believe the date Bhagat Singh was hanged on February 14, as given in books. Net links can be wrong. Books are always right.”

Widgets ‹ Thamirlan's Blog — WordPress

Widgets ‹ Thamirlan's Blog — WordPress

Sri Lanka: SHOT IN COLD BLOOD

Sri Lanka: SHOT IN COLD BLOOD

RSS for proportional Representation..?

EDTORIAL

Source: Organiser - Weekly      Date: 3/18/2012 11:25:16 AM

US on Sri Lanka

West is on decline, high time it learnt to mind its business

Two years after the civil war in Sri Lanka ended with the decimation of the terrorist outfit Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the United States of America is poking around the scab to reopen healing wounds. What else could be the intention of the resolution being moved by it at the United Nations Human Rights Council session in Geneva later this month?

The LTTE waged a no-holds-barred war with the state of Sri Lanka for over two decades, killing millions of people. The organisation that was founded for the cause of attaining legitimate political power sharing with the Sri Lankans went awry and indulged in ruthless killings, bomb blasts and targeted assassinations. It is public knowledge that several western nations had been arming the group. There have been muffled whispers of evangelical interest in the Buddhist majority country, combined with the geo-military position of the island nation on the Indian Ocean. It is for this reason that India, under the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi offered to help Sri Lanka in the war against LTTE, by sending the IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force). India lost a huge number of soldiers but mid-way through the operations Sri Lanka asked India to withdraw its forces. Rajiv Gandhi and several senior Tamil leaders of Eelam, who dared to walk away from the LTTE Supremo V Pirabhakaran or speak against him, were finished off by the loyal assassination squad.

It is a fact to be borne in mind that it was Pirabhakaran and his unyielding temperament that stood in the way of an amicable, bloodless settlement of the Tamil problem. A political issue that could have been resolved with proportional representation was converted into ethnic war and genocide by the LTTE, the extremist JVP (Janata Vimukti Peramuna) and the then successive Sri Lankan government. It was the unflinching stand of the present Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa that saw the end of one of the longest and bloodiest wars in modern world.

While accusing the Sri Lankan government of human rights violations, one must remember that the enemy was not a hapless, unarmed group of peaceful activists. The cadres of LTTE were armed to the teeth, with the latest machine guns, rocket launchers and tanks. The last few weeks of war that are under scrutiny now witnessed a pitched battle in which both sides killed and got killed unrestrained. The number of child soldiers Pirabhakaran recruited and trained has not been documented. Boys and girls were picked up at an unsuspecting age, fed on a liberal dose of LTTE literature enumerating the torture and humiliation of the Tamils by the Lankans and were prepared to ‘fight’ on the command of the well-structured LTTE ‘army’. Several thousands of Tamils were killed by the LTTE cadres for defying the leadership. But the US or any other nation did not raise the issue of war crimes then.

The tragic-comedy of the current situation is that the US, the biggest violator of human rights globally is moving a resolution against Sri Lanka. Its own track record on the issue is pathetic. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the list is long and cruel. But not once has anyone ever charged the American government with human rights abuse.

India faces multi-pronged problem internally. Kashmir, North-East, Naxalites and Islamic extremists – these four major groups are active in anti-government campaign which takes the virulent form of attacking the state property, the killing of defence and police personnel and periodic carnage of innocent civilians. Whenever any major state offensive is launched against any of these groups, the so-called human rights activists become vocal, aggressive and shrill. The United States is playing that role globally.

It is the responsibility of the Sri Lankan government to rehabilitate the victims of the civil war. The Tamils of Sri Lanka are citizens of that country. At best, India has an interest and moral responsibility to speak for them, which India has been doing all these decades. But it makes no case for anybody else to intervene.

The heart-wrenching stories of the abuse of the rights of the Gypsies world over have not ever been heard by those sitting at the podium in the world body. Even India, which the Gypsies look at as their homeland has turned a blind eye. The accounts of the Malaysian Hindus, mostly Tamils, who are being targeted by the Islamic groups with indulgent support from the government, did not even make it to the headlines in major national dailies in India. Their representatives who came to India knocking political doors for help – to just speak on their behalf to the Malaysian government – did not get an appointment and audience with those in power here. And these are all people who have been living in their respective nations for centuries, like the Tamils in Lanka.

India should take an unequivocal stand against the resolution being backed by the US to condemn Sri Lanka. If India baulks today and adopts a ‘neutral’ position, it would find itself in the dock one day. India by its geo-political position must take a robust stand against the West interfering in issues not concerning them directly. There is no case for the US or any of the European nations to dictate to a democratically elected government or try to humiliate it in a world forum that belongs as much to us as it does to them.

Sufi Music: Mirza Ghalib & Hz Shah Niaz come together

Sufi Music: Mirza Ghalib & Hz Shah Niaz come together

Khalifa Abdul Hakim (1896-1959) - Arts & Culture History Islam Published in The Friday Times South Asian Literature SouthAsia Urdu - Amarsingh College Bhagavad Gita Hakim India Iqbal Islam Kashmir Khalifa Abdul Hakim Lahore Rabindranath Tagore Rafia Hasan ShantiNiketan Srinagar www.khalifaabdulhakim.com - Jahane Rumi

27 February 2012

For years I had been planning to write about Dr Khalifa Abdul Hakim (1896-1959), the great philosopher and intellectual of the twentieth century. Last year, I had ventured to review his famous Urdu translation of the ancient Hindu text Bhagavad Gita. Given the range of Hakim’s thought and accomplishments, I must admit it took me years to get acquainted with his intellectual legacy. He was never taught in our schools and the education system rarely found space for his eclectic and progressive corpus of intellectual investigation. Pakistan as a country is simply ‘anti-intellectual’.

Much has been said about the low priority we accord to humanities and liberal arts and especially with respect to discourses on contemporary Islam. No point in reiterating all those tedious arguments and tragic examples. Imagine if Hakim had translated Bhagavad Gita in the twenty first century Pakistan, where militant outfits preach hatred against India and Mumtaz Qadris are celebrated, he would have been branded as an infidel for promoting the sacred texts of ‘kaafirs’. Such is the rot of our present. Given the parochial education system and the monopoly of televangalists on national television, Hakim’s message and ideas can constitute footnotes of history. This is why I was pleasantly surprised to hear about the new website that his distinguished daughter Prof Rafia Hasan has created. Internet is already changing the way we function, think and see the world. Henceforth, the portal www.khalifaabdulhakim.com will provide free access to the published works of Hakim saheb. Hopefully, this will allow young Pakistanis to read and refer to his works, especially the ones in Urdu which have been uploaded in a user-friendly format and enable effortless reading.

His book Iqbal aur Mullah

Hakim received his doctorate in Philosophy from Heidelberg University, Germany. A Kashmiri by origin and a native of Lahore, he spent most of his working life in Hyderabad Deccan where he was a professor and later Chairman of Department of Philosophy, Osmania University. His long career in academia started in 1918 when he was selected by Osmania University as a professor. During 1943-46, he also served on deputation as Principal Amarsingh College, Srinagar (Kashmir). In 1950, he was appointed as Director, Institute of Islamic Culture, Lahore and held that position till his death. Hakim was also elected as the General President for the fist session of Pakistan Philosophical Congress in 1954; and was internationally renowned for his scholarship.It is said that Hakim had advised the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore in setting up a centre for Islamic research in ShantiNiketan. His extraordinary life was devoted to scholarship and he authored more than a dozen books and translated four from English and German on subjects which represented his key passions: progressive Islam, the spiritual-poetic universe of Rumi, Hafiz, Ghalib, Iqbal and the history of philosophy.

Hakim elucidates why Iqbal was opposed to the literalism and intellectual stagnation of clerics. In fact he makes a definitive comment that had Iqbal not died he would have been at odds with Mullahism

Hakim’s major works include ‘The Metaphysics of Rumi’, ‘Islamic Ideology’, and ‘Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his Mission’. A key work in his rich legacy was “Islam and Communism” published in 1951. Hakim was an ardent proponent of “Islamic socialism” which was later politicised and used as a slogan in the 1970s. In post-war India (during the 1940s) and post-1947 Pakistan, this was an important voice. In Hakim’s worldview, inherent to Islam’s message was social justice. While the religion allowed for limited competition and private property, it also laid down a framework for setting limits on the accumulation of wealth and assets. In this context, the laws of inheritance, progressive taxation and regulated commerce were the instruments to achieve social justice. It’s a pity that our religious parties and neo-Islamists have not developed a discourse of this kind and therefore were never able to win the sympathies of people.

His works on Iqbal are also noteworthy. Among others, the short publication, “Iqbal aur Mullah” needs to be introduced as a mandatory reading. In this treatise, Hakim elucidates why Iqbal was opposed to the literalism and intellectual stagnation of clerics. In fact he makes a definitive comment that had Iqbal not died he would have been at odds with Mullahism. Hakim’s comments, that the sectarian ideologies propagated by clerics were dangerous and inimical for Pakistan’s welfare and future, were prophetic. The hints he gave in that book have now proved to be true.

translation of Bhagavad Gita

Hakim’s accessible and poetic translation of Bhagavad Gita has been recently republished by Sang-i-Meel publications. Former Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee also launched an Urdu version in New Delhi during July 2000, a few days before the Indo-Pak summit.

Hakim could not have translated Bhagavad Gita in the twenty first century Pakistan, where militant outfits preach hatred against India and Mumtaz Qadris are celebrated

To thinkers of this age, universal values of humanism and inter-faith dialogue were paramount. Hakim’s inclinations therefore make him the ideal scholar to have written on Ghalib, the great Urdu poet disowned by Pakistan as “Indian” and perhaps too secular. Hakim’s work Tafheem-e-Ghalib is a must-read for all Ghalib lovers and I read it from time to time to gain insights into Ghalib’s poetry. Not that I can ever claim that I understand Ghalib as it might just be a life-long journey.

The website www.khalifaabdulhakim.com is a gateway to the world of progressive ideas that we can still reclaim. It is still a work in progress but most of the links are active and the best part is that you can read the original works of Hakim as well as the commentaries on them. There is also a section on doctoral theses completed on his scholarship. My favourite essay from Dr Aftab Ahmed’s collection of personal sketches – Ba yaad e sohbat e nazuk khayalan (literally, the memories of companions with refined thoughts) is the best which gives a readable insight into Hakim’s personality and humanizes the scholar.

With Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Fatima Jinnah and Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah in Srinagar in 1944

Islam, as Iqbal has repeatedly mentioned in his lectures, is not a static belief system. Its inherent dynamism is for the Muslims to identify, interpret and apply to their individual and collective lives. But Iqbal has been terribly pigeonholed and his universal thought has been reduced to a simplistic dream of a mighty Islamic state and revival of Islamic Empire. Browsing through this website and re-reading some of the works by Hakim, I was somewhat comforted that there may be ways to reshape the discourse on Islam in Pakistan. No reformation of Islam can escape the ideas of Iqbal and Hakim; and therefore this is a website with immense possibilities. Dr Rafia Hasan and her capable daughters Naveed and Nudah are carrying forward the mission of this great man. All power to them!