Farewell, Aslam

Posted on January 24, 2016 by beenasarwar
Aslam-2013-photo beena

Aslam Azhar, Islamabad, 2013. Photo: Beena Sarwar

My personal tribute to a giant of progressive politics in Pakistan, published in The Friday Times on Jan 15, 2016, posted below with links that didn’t make it into the TFT copy. 

By Beena Sarwar

Aslam. That’s what everyone, junior or senior, in the theatre group Dastak called him. He insisted upon it. That was just one aspect of Aslam Azhar, the founding father of Pakistan Television and already a legendary figure in the late 1980s. That was when I joined the theatre group that he had started in 1982 with his close friend and comrade Mansoor Saeed – who also insisted on being called Mansoor. Continue reading →

Filed under: Art and activism, Progressive politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

‘Blood on the streets’

Posted on January 9, 2016 by beenasarwar

Part one of a series I am working on. NOTE: Post later updated to add the other parts below.

Student mtg 1951 or 52

M. Sarwar addressing a meeting in Karachi, early 1950s, Khaliqdina Hall. Seated left: Rehman Ali Hashmi.

Looking back to look forward: The DSF-led movement of the 1950s eschewed party politics, was inclusive, and focused on student unity. Besides students from medical, engineering and and law colleges, it involved students from girls’ and boys’ high schools, and women’s colleges. 

Below, an extract from my forthcoming memoir on the struggle for democratic spaces in Pakistan. This is from the chapter about the student movement of 1953 that shook the country and laid the foundations for the University of Karachi, published in The Friday Times, Jan. 8, 2016. Thanks to Raza Rumi for pushing me to share this Continue reading →

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Remembering Tahira Mazhar Ali

Posted on April 7, 2015 by beenasarwar

A fighter at the barricadesI was sad to learn about the indomitable Tahira Mazhar Ali passing away. She was and will remain an inspiration for many. Below, my tribute to her published in Indian Express – Torchbearer for a progressive politics. Also see A fighter at the barricades in TNS, I.A. Rehman’s informative obituary for his old friend and comrade and Omar Warraich’s piece in The Independent, Tahira Mazhar Ali: Women’s rights campaigner who was the mother of Tariq Ali and acted as mentor to Benazir Bhutto. RIP Tahira Mazhar Ali (1925-2015) – my tribute in Indian Express:  Continue reading →

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The ‘good’ Taliban strike again

Posted on February 13, 2015 by beenasarwar
Alamdar Road, Quetta: Shia Hazara protestors sitting with coffins in the freezing cold.

Alamdar Road, Quetta (file photo): Shia Hazara protestors with coffins of those killed in a 2012 attack sit in the freezing cold to demand government action. #NeverForget

Another attack at a Shia Imambargah in Peshawar. More loss of innocent lives as the “good” Taliban strike again. The Pakistan military machine goes after the “bad” ones, while those who kill Shias and Ahmadis are allowed to function as they further outdated foreign policy objectives re India / Kashmir and Afghanistan. (see Pakistan Must Discard its ‘Good Taliban, Bad Taliban’ Narrative)

Pakistanis will keep protesting, the perpetrators will keep attacking. Continue reading →

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Pakistanis against terrorism: global protest vigils #ReclaimYourMosque

Posted on January 26, 2015 by beenasarwar
Pakistanis against terrorism: Shehroz Hussain speaking at the global protest vigil on Jan 16, in Boston

Pakistanis against terrorism: Shehroz Hussain speaking at the global protest vigil on Jan 16, in Boston

Shehroz Hussain was a foreign student from Pakistan, a freshman at college in the USA, when Taliban or their affiliated groups shot dead his father, Dr Riaz Hussain Shah, in front of his clinic in Peshawar in January, 2013. “In August 2012, as I stood at the airport to say goodbye to my family, I did not know I would never see one person again,” said Shehroz, speaking at a protest vigil last Friday in Boston’s historic Copley Square. “That person was the one with the most tears. He cried so much that relatives joked with him. I will never forget that night when I was woken up in the middle of the night on 9th January, 2013, to the sound of my crying brother on the phone: ‘Baba ko Maar Diya‘. They have killed Baba.”  Continue reading →

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Who said moderate Muslims are silent? Pakistanis plan rallies to #ReclaimYourMosque

Posted on January 11, 2015 by beenasarwar
Irfan 'Khudi' Ali: a legacy of love and activism

Irfan ‘Khudi’ Ali: a legacy of love and activism

A series of protests over the next few days will demand the arrest of the head cleric of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid and condemn the Takfiri thinking that has killed innocents in Paris, Peshawar and beyond. My article in Scroll.in, slightly updated below:

By Beena Sarwar

January 10 marks the second death anniversary of the smiling human rights activist Irfan “Khudi” Ali.

The recently married 33-year old was eating dinner at home in Quetta on that day in 2013 when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a snooker club, killing 11. Ali rushed to help the injured and died when a second, more powerful bomb went off nearby minutes later, killing at least 86.

Both blasts targeted the Hazara Shia community of which Ali was a prominent member. He had in fact moved to Islamabad two years earlier due to threats, and was visiting his hometown when he died.

Commemorating his death and celebrating his life, his friends join others at vigils and demonstrations around Pakistan and the world marking other recent, shattering tragedies – the attack on the army public school in Peshawar on December 16 that claimed the lives of 148 innocent souls, most of them children, and the January 7 attack on the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris that killed 12 people, including senior journalists and cartoonists. Continue reading →

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Jan 4, 2015: Remembering Salmaan Taseer

Posted on January 4, 2015 by beenasarwar
SalmaanTaseer vigil file pic

Vigil for Salmaan Taseer: File photo

On  Jan 4, 2011, the Governor of Punjab Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by his bodyguard who believed in the propaganda that had been orchestrated against Taseer falsely accusing him of ‘blasphemy’ (See: Salmaan Taseer: The political context of a ‘religious’ assassination, my article for Viewpoint). Vigils commemorating him are planned in several cities around Pakistan. Here is the information I have about some of them:

* Islamabad:  Kohsar Market, 5 pm
* Lahore:        Liberty Roundabout, 5 pm – Facebook event
* Karachi:       Do Talwar, 8 pm – Facebook event

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Commemorating a giant – Sobho Gianchandani

Posted on December 12, 2014 by beenasarwar
Sobho reference Dec 16 2014

The Society for Secular Pakistan is holding a Reference for Sobho Gianchandani at Jinnah Medical & Dental College on Dec 16 at 4 pm in Karachi. Design: K.B. Abro

Read: Sohho ko bil akhir azadi mil gayi – Wusatullah Khan’s beautiful obituary, and Shahid Hussain’s nostalgic piece on the Death of an intellectual giant

Personal note: Spoke today to Nirmal Das, Sobho Gianchandani’s son who works in Shikarpur. He told me that Sobho ji was weak from the antibiotics he had been taking for a month and a half, but that he was so much better that he was up and about, using his walker. Nirmal had been spending time with him in their house in Larkana. On Monday morning, Dec. 8, after giving Sobho ji his tea he thought he could go back to Shikarpur. Sobho ji encouraged him to go, saying he would go and sit in the winter sun. Continue reading →

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Pakistan’s “three-headed monster” bows out. RIP Comrade Sobho Gianchandani.

Posted on December 10, 2014 by beenasarwar
Babba-Sobho-Jan4-08

Dr Sarwar and Sobho Gianchandani at our house in Karachi, January 2008. It was a cold evening and both were reluctant to be photographed. Babba because he was unwell, and Sobho ji because he didn’t want to remove the muffler wrapped around his head and ears.

Sad to hear that Comrade Sobho Gianchandani is no more. He passed away in Larkana on Dec 8, nearly 95 years old. He lives on as an inspiration to all those seeking a better, more just, humane society. The last time we met was in July 2003, when he came over with his daughter and two of his grandsons to visit us as he often did when visiting Karachi. He made it a point to do so particularly after his close friend, my father Dr Sarwar passed away in 2009.

Below, my brief video profile of him for Geo TV (2003) in which he talks about his lifelong struggle for people’s rights. This, he said was his real struggle, the struggle for social justice by any name, rather than a fight against imperialism or extremism. And a 2002 feature I wrote about him (couldn’t find an online copy). Continue reading →

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Musharraf or Zia… A dictator is a dictator

Posted on January 30, 2014 by beenasarwar
20130408 Mush Tamil UnrealTimes

One-man rule is disastrous in the long term. Image courtesy: Tamil UnrealTimes

My opinion piece published in The News op-ed, and for Hard News, India

Former Pakistan army chief Pervez Musharraf ousted an elected civilian government from power, and usurped power illegally, holding on to it for over ten years, but there are those in India and in Pakistan who feel quite sympathetic towards him.

He had dash and bravado, they say. He nearly resolved the long-pending Kashmir issue with India. He encouraged the classical arts, liberalised the media, oversaw a telecommunications revolution, and partially revived the joint electorate system that the previous military dictator Gen. Ziaul Haq had divided by religion (Ahmadis still are not allowed to vote as Muslims). Musharraf also took the teeth out of the controversial Hudood Ordinances, making it more difficult for false charges of zina (adultery) to be brought against women on various pretexts. Continue reading →

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