AUTHOR: Dr Feroz Ahmed - Intellectual and activist http://www.dawn.com/weekly/books/books6.htm
By Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed
Just as no account of Pakistan’s political development can overlook regionalism as one of its most persistent phenomena, no discourse on regionalism in Pakistan is complete without taking into account Dr Feroz Ahmed’s writings on this issue. He explained the historical bases of the conflict between an over-centralized centre and the small and the underprivileged provinces.
Critically examining the social roots of the various movements for provincial autonomy, Dr Feroz Ahmed expounded the view that not all these movements were serious in their quest for their professed objectives. Those led by the big landlords and khawanin were not true to their autonomist stance as they could be subsumed by the centralizing forces through patronage and corruption, and by invoking bonds of class interests.
A demographer by training, Ahmed took to political writings with a natural instinct. No other political analyst in Pakistan has written so much on regionalism and its theoretical and practical dimensions. In 1997 his sudden death brought to an end a very motivated and productive life, infused with the spirit to create a just society, free from prejudices, discriminations and inequalities.
His communication skills became evident at a very early age when he started contributing articles to various newspapers. His interest in writing matured with the passage of time and he emerged as a regular commentator on current affairs while still in college. In 1963, he completed his masters with distinction in marine biology from Karachi University. The next year, he moved to the US to continue his higher studies. But his interest in social and political issues prompted him to abandon his pursuit of a PhD in biology and shift to the social sciences.
In 1966, after acquiring a degree in Public Health from the university of Hawaii, Dr Feroz Ahmed obtained his doctorate in demography from the Johns Hopkins University. Demography remained the discipline he focussed on in his professional life in the years to come. Readers familiar only with his political writings may be surprised to see his numerous papers on demography published in journals of international repute. Many of these articles addressed two central themes - sociological problems of African Americans and infant mortality in the US.
Dr Feroz Ahmed’s academic career was intellectually rewarding, as he had vast exposure to the reputable American universities, to which his own contribution was considerable.
Apart from teaching and research, journalism was another of Ahmed’s occupations. It provided him an outlet for his views on political issues. For two years, starting from 1966, he experienced the joys and woes of an editor when he was invited to edit The Pakistani Student, an organ of the Pakistan Students’ Association of America. Later he started the Pakistan Forum from Canada, which became a prominent radical journal of North America, focusing on the socio-political and economic issues of Pakistan, analyzed in a global context.
When he shifted to Pakistan in the seventies, he launched an Urdu journal with the same name from Karachi. But those were the heydays of General Ziaul Haq’s martial law and the political environment in the country was highly charged as the military regime strove to quell all dissent. Pakistan Forum had been openly critical of martial law. It regularly published literature and poetry of protest from all parts of the world.
The strident voice of the Forum was not tolerated for long, and the journal was banned. Dr Feroz Ahmed then returned to the US to establish the Pakistan Democratic Forum, a platform for publishing monographs and pamphlets on themes such as imperialism, national liberation movements, peace, culture and the arts.
His work testifies to his credentials as an editor of integrity. He also wrote regularly for various international and national journals and served as a correspondent for Afrique-Asie (French) and Africasia (English), two periodicals published from Paris. To recogize his contribution to journalism and to transmit his ideals of making journalism a liberating device in a subjugated society, his wife Nadera Ahmed built the Rs10 million Dr Feroz Ahmed Institute of Mass Communications at the Karachi University.
Ahmed was both a political analyst and an activist. As an activist he proved that he was not merely a theorist. He belonged to that brand of people for whom intellectualism and activism constitutes an integrated whole, both dimensions reinforcing each other. Though he did not join any particular political party, he worked in close association with different groups at different times.
In the early 1970s, he was close to the Mazdoor Kissan Party, at a time when it spearheaded the Hashtnagar peasant uprising against the local landlords in the NWFP. In the 1980s, he supported the MRD, and organized its meetings in North America to mobilize expatriate Pakistanis against the military regime. Afterwards, when a few disgruntled leaders from smaller provinces formed the Sindhi Baloch Pakhtoon Front in England, Ahmed was quick to extend his support and provide them the benefit of his intellectual input.
Like his practical life, Feroz Ahmed’s intellectual contributions were also versatile and productive. While writing on social subjects, a writer generally faces two major challenges. If he questions an authoritarian system, its ideology and its values, he invites systemic retribution, which may destroy him. The second challenge is the hostile attitude of a society where the democratic spirit has not taken root. In such circumstances the apolitical and autocratic mindset of the people becomes more difficult to cope with.
It goes to the credit of Dr Feroz Ahmed that though he faced all the three challenges and came out successful. He was victimized by different regimes. His periodicals were banned. Cases were filed against him. He was persecuted and harassed. He was trailed and forced to leave his homeland which he earnestly wanted to serve. But nothing could deter him from his chosen path.
Ahmed faced the second challenge courageously. Those who resented his views were as numerous as those who agreed with him. But that did not deter him. He was never moved by the sheer number of his opponents.
But this strength did not translate into rigidity of outlook. To the contrary, he was always open to dialogue, and prepared to readjust and alter his point of view. In the 1970s, while analyzing the socio-political situation in Balochistan, he initially declined to bracket the Brahvis with the Baloch. But later on he retracted from this position.
Ahmad was a staunch opponent of Bhutto when he rose to power in 1971. Dr Feroz Ahmed wrote an essay, “Kiya awam ka daur aa chuka hai” (Has the people’s rule dawned), which is an insightful piece of writing pointing out that a truly democratic era may not be ushered in simply by induction into power of a party which wins the elections on populist slogans. But when Bhutto was removed by Ziaul Haq, Dr Feroz Ahmed was quick to recognize the Bhutto phenomenon. He analyzed the persistence of Bhutto’s popularity among the masses in a very perceptive article “Awam Bhutto say mohabbat kiyon kartay hain” (Why the people love Bhutto).
Dr Feroz Ahmed revised his stance on regionalism in the light of new developments across the world and within his own country. For more than 25 years he consistently wrote on what was designated in Leftist parlance the ‘national question’. Taking Stalin’s definition of the nation as a standard textbook definition, many a Leftist would indulge in the exercise of determining which group qualified to be called a nation. They failed to test previous theories in the context of new realities.Ahmed conceded the inadequacy of a strait-jacket approach to the national question in the context of the ethnic realities in Pakistan. By the 1990s, he came to observe that “concepts are not right or wrong; they are only more or less adequate for an analysis”. He suggested that in order to explain the demands and politics of an ethno-linguistic community, such as the Muhajirs, the concept of ethnic community could be more adequate. In his book Ethnicity and politics in Pakistan which was published posthumously he accepted Siraiki, Mohajir and Hindko identities as distinct ethnic categories.
Of the many subjects on which Dr Feroz Ahmed wrote for over 25 years, one subject of utmost concern to him was the question of social justice. For him, this was inseparable from the national question. In fact, he had woven the two concepts together in a manner that none could be resolved while neglecting the other. Dr Feroz Ahmed regarded Pakistan’s underdevelopment an outcome of its subjugation by imperialism.
In 1974 he wrote “Building dependency in Pakistan”. In 1975 came, “Aiding underdevelopment in Pakistan”, which was followed, in 1976, by “Pakistan: the new dependence”. These articles analyzed the Pakistani economy and politics and their organic linkage with imperial capitalism. One of Dr Feroz Ahmed’s Urdu books Samraj aur Pakistan (Imperialism and Pakistan) 1976 also takes up the issue of imperialism.
Many of Dr Feroz Ahmed’s articles addressed the political issues of the time. Many of them are relevant even today in Pakistan’s political context. Ahmed had remained a dedicated scholar all his life. His passion for changing society was the core objective of his existence. He died while his ideal was still a distant dream. Nevertheless, the struggle for its attainment must continue.
Dr Feroz Ahmed: Profile
Born: August 5, 1940 (Karachi)
Education: MSc Zoology (Marine Biology), Karachi University, MS Public Health, University of Hawaii, 1966, PhD Demography, John Hopkins University (Baltimore), 1968, Post Doctoral Fellow, Harvard University (Boston), 1968-1969
Teaching: East Carolina University, North Carolina, Algoma University, Sindh University, New School for Social Research (New York), Dept of Economics Howard University (Washington DC)
Books: Focus on Balochistan and the Pashtun National Question, (1975), Angola ki azadi, (1976), Samraj aur Pakistan, (1976), Inqilab-i-Afghanistan, (1979), Ethnicity and politics in Pakistan, (1998)
Died: April 5, 1997 (Washington)