November 9 was the birth anniversary of Iqbal, which I spent mostly revising my second Urdu biography of Iqbal for a reprint. However, two of my articles were published in The Express Tribune, and I hope that they would be of some interest to those interested in the "applied" side of Iqbal Studies.
1. Re-Reading History: who wants to be enlightened by Iqbal? (published November 9): "Iqbal's philosophy is a tool for training the minds for looking into the conscience of nations and humanity." This is how the editor captioned the gist of the article (rightly in my opinion). You can read the complete article on ET's website, and also post comments. Personally, I was particularly amused by two of the comments because, while I disagree with them, they are succinct and honest expressions of that approach with which I beg to differ in all my writings:
- "Whatever message iqbal wanted to convey he did through his poetry. No need for further enlightenment." (Posted by ZQ)
- "Anybody should think twice before buying an idea, any idea 'for which even the least enlightened man among us can easily lay down his life.'..." (Posted by Cynical).
2. Breaking down the Wall (Published November 11): The editor's introduction for this piece is, "If Ravi is India, then who is Vijay? Khurram Shafique revisits the 70s’ Bollywood blockbuster Deewar, a film which has constantly been the subject of analysis, and juxtaposes it with the current state of the subcontinent." Iqbal also features in this article, as he does in the movie itself (through his lyrics). I hope that the regular readers of this blog would be able to guess that the title of the article, however, was not suggested by me, but I think its good because it can draw more readers. I was particularly drawn to one of the comments posted there by a very polite reader, Manish, but I won't copy it here because it would be out of context then. You can read the article and comments on the website of ET.
Greetings,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this post, and the links to the articles.
All good wishes,
robert
Greetings,
ReplyDeleteThe articles are very good! I hope everyone is visiting the sites to read them.
All good wishes,
robert
I have watched the movie Deewar and I felt it was done beautifully.The role of Vijay was played well by Amitabh.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the partition of Pakistan,the writing was on the wall.In my opinion having 'Urdu' as the official language and totally leaving out Bengali was a major mistake made by the administration at the time. There are millions of Bengalees who cannot speak or understand Urdu,to tell them they have to be bilingual to get a job in the federal government was completely wrong.
Here in Canada,out of ten provinces,Quebec is the only province where French is spoken by majority of the people and the rest speak English,yet the politicians played their card well,when they decided the country needs to be bilingual and English and French will be the official languages.
Whereas in Pakistan Bengalees were completely ignored when the decision was made about official languages.They were justified to revolt and of course India was waiting to take advantage.It is to split your own leg with an axe as the saying goes.
None of the countries have benefitted,which is what India wanted.