LAST MAN IN REVIEWED IN PAK TODAY

Sins of omission: a cse of urdu book version of Imran Khan by aamir riaz in The News

Sins of omission 
With many additions and omissions, the translated Urdu version of Imran Khan’s book attempts to paint the facts in local colours 
By Aamir Riaz

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jan2012-weekly/nos-22-01-2012/dia.htm#5

In mid 201I, UK-based Transworld Publishers — an imprint of Random House — published a book in English language written by Imran Khan ‘Pakistan: A personal History’. In spite of the map controversy, the book was well received not only in Pakistan and India, but also in the West.

Its Urdu translation has been recently published by an Urdu Bazar publisher. In the blurb written on the flap, Dr Khurshid Rizvi, a rare scholar of Arabic studies in Pakistan, has praised Haroon-ur-Rashid for an excellent translation. The Urdu translation has some amendments, additions and omissions, and there is no explanation in the book why these additions and omissions are made.

In the preface, Haroon-ur-Rashid says that Ghulam Mohyuddin had done the translation while he had given it final touches. He also says that he had reservations regarding what Imran wrote in English in Chapter 2 and 10. Among those who rechecked the final version included Urdu columnist Aamir Hashim Khakwani, Rana Mahboob Akhtar and Mian Khalid Hussain.

On page 226, Imran Khan talks about his first gambling experience. On page 228 in Urdu, there is an additional six-line explanation from the author — Imran Khan criticising media persons for using his confessional statement negatively.

On page 370, there is another addition where Khan is talking about his Lahore public meeting of October 30, 2011, which he did after publication of the English version. If these additions were so important, they could be printed in footnotes rather than in regular text.

In the English version on page 296/7, there are some sentences about Syed Ahmad Shaheed Barelvi. These are “Even in nineteenth century during the twilight days of India’s Mughal Empire, when Syed Ahmad Barelvi founded a revolutionary Islamic movement it failed to take hold. Barelvi preached jihad against non-Muslim influences and tried to rally the Pashtun tribes to his cause but they disliked his rigid brand of Islam and abandoned him, leaving him to be slain by the Sikhs who had at that time conquered the settled Pashtun areas.” In Urdu translation on page 303, translation of the sentence “leaving him to be slain by the Sikhs” is missing.

On the same page, there is another example of omission in the Urdu text. “There is a strong Sufi influences in Pakistan, which will always be at odds with the strict literal Islam of Wahhabi ideology that influences many militant groups. This tension is represented by the two main schools of thought for Sunni Muslims in Pakistan. Barelvis typically lean towards South Asia’s traditional brand of Sufi Islam with its saints and shrines and message of tolerance. Deobandis, on the other hand, are more ideologically aligned with the Wahhabis and are therefore more sympathetic to the Taliban’s version of Islam (Page 297).” In Urdu text on page 303, the omitted phrases are; ‘strict literal Islam of Wahhabi ideology’ and ‘aligned with the Wahhabis’.

In the English version on page 75, Imran Khan writes about the forced exile of Mian Nawaz Sharif after October 1999, while in Urdu on Page 70 it is not there.

In the English version on page 79, Imran Khan writes about the early days of Islam as “Hereditary kingship replaced the budding democracy of the Medina State and only in the twentieth century did it make reappearance in the Muslim world”. The translator did not feel necessary to translate it in Urdu.

On page 67 in the English version, Khan writes “at stake were Western puppet regimes in oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia….” In Urdu translation on page 62/3, the translator missed the name of Saudi Arabia.

On page 68, Imran Khan writes “Zia, keen to legitimise his unconstitutional takeover of Pakistan,….” Yet the translator finds it unnecessary to mention the words “unconstitutional takeover” on page 63.

On page 66, Imran Khan criticises the US and CIA-backed coup to overthrow Mossadegh, yet CIA is missing in Urdu on page 61. The sentence which is missing on the same page also shows preferences of translators. Just read it “Mossadegh had had the temerity to stand up for the rights of the Iranian people and seize the country’s oil production, which had hitherto been controlled by the British Government’s Anglo-Iranian oil Company”.

In English on page 69, Imran Khan writes “Zia’s Islamisation and Musharraf’s enlightened moderation failed”, while in Urdu on page 64, the translation of Islamisation is mazhabiat and enlightened moderation is secularism.

There is a consistent pattern of omissions in the Urdu version as mentioned above with a few examples. It is neither called a separate book nor translation as mentioned in the blurb and in the first article of the book. At the back title, the publisher has used pieces of book reviews of the English version. Yet on the credit page, the name of the English-version publisher is absent. Why was the team of translators not satisfied with Imran Khan’s version as represented in English is an interesting question?

Famous historian Patrick French in his book Partition of India; Liberty or Death called Jawahar Lal Nehru the western face of Gandhi. So is the English version of Pakistan: A Personal History a western face of Imran Khan.

Aamir Riaz is a Lahore-based editor and researcher

AHRAR POLITICS....A REVIEW

Roots of political Islam 
An essential study to comprehend Punjab’s politics of the last two decades before partition through the lens of Majlis-i-Ahrar 
By Aamir Riaz
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jan2012-weekly/nos-01-01-2012/lit.htm#2

Political Islam in Colonial

Punjab: Majlis-i-Ahrar

1929-1949

By Dr Samina Awan

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010

Pages: 235

Price: Rs 625

Religio-sectarian by birth, activist by instinct, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal by ideology and nationalist by passion, the Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam (MAI), a political party founded in 1929, died an early death but not without leaving an impact on major cities of Punjab like Amritsar, Lahore, Sialkot, Multan, Ludhiana and Gurdaspur.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 and the disintegration of the Khilafat Movement in 1922 gave birth to numerous organisations not only in the Punjab but also in the former NWFP, Bengal, UP, Bihar, Kashmir etc. The politics of the second decade of the twentieth century was characterised by joint struggle against the imperialist rule not only in streets but also in the assemblies. Yet the undoing of Khilafat Movement proved to be the parting of ways among the liberals, nationalists, and fundamentalists. When the All India National Congress (AINC) endorsed Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation campaign (which sought to increase pressure on the British through peaceful civil disobedience together with the Khilafatists), Jinnah was among those Congress liberal leaders who publically criticised the movement. Finally, twenty of them including Jinnah, K M Munshi, G.S Khaparde and others left Congress at its Nagpur session 1920.

In 1922, a second lot of politicians like Motilal Nehru, Vithalbhai Patel and Chittaranjan Das followed Jinnah and formed the Swaraj Party against religion-based policies of Gandhi. Unlike Gandhi, they participated in the elections of provincial legislative assemblies throughout the 1920s. After some shifts and jerks in the 1920s, the Khilafat Committee and the AINC disintegrated into numerous territorial and ethnic factions. Majlis-i-Ahrar-i-Islam was one of them, confined to the Punjab.

The book, Political Islam in Colonial Punjab: Majlis-i-Ahrar 1929-49 is a PhD thesis of Dr Samina Awan who is Chairperson Department of History at Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad. The author rightly calls the book, “a journey through several interrelated domains including political Islam; South Asian Muslim identity politics; and the transformation of Punjab from a bastion of the Raj to a sword-arm of Pakistan Movement.” The work, indeed the first of its nature, is an essential study to comprehend Punjab’s politics of the last two decades before partition. Yet she failed to link the whole phenomenon with pitfalls like the Lucknow Pact (1916) and emergence of provincial powers after the Government of India Act 1919. Hakim Ajmal Khan, Iqbal, C R Das, Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi and leaders of Ahrar were against the Lucknow Pact. The issue of separate electorates got prominence in the Muslim majority provinces by the late 1920s due to the unwise weightage formula of the Lucknow Pact.

Ahrar, founded in Lahore on Dec 29, 1929, had a variety of leaders from the very beginning. It had parliamentarians like Maulana Mazhar Ali Azhar (son of a respected Shia literary family from Batala), Ch Afzal Haq a well-known writer and intellectual, Ch Abdur Rahman, son of a prominent Rajput family of Juandhar and orators like Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari, Sheikh Hassam-ud-Din, and Maulana Habib ur Rehman Ludhianvi and activists trained under Naujawan Bharat Sabha, like Master Taj-ud-Din Ludhinavi. According to Ch Afzal Haq, “Ahrar had Sunnis, Shias, Barelvis, Devbandies and Wahabis in it”, yet their over-emphasis on anti-Ahmadi politics restricted them to a sectarian framework. Islamic socialism was their alternative slogan but, unlike Z.A.Bhutto, they failed to make it into an election slogan.

The Kashmir Movement 1931 was their first test; here they had to face opposition from the All India Kashmir Committee, which was headed by Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood who was the head of the Ahmadya community. The 12 member Committee had personalities like Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, Fazil-i-Hussain, Muhammed Iqbal, Ghulam Rasool Mehr, Syed Mohsin Shah and Khawaja Hassan Nizami. According to the book, “The main office of the Committee was established in Qadian.” In a few months, trained agitators of Ahrar not only mobilised the Punjabis and Kashmiris by Jail Bharo campaigns but also launched heavy criticism on Muslim leaders who accepted the leadership of Mirza sahib.

“As a consequence of their successful agitation, Iqbal resigned from Kashmir Committee and gave a press statement against Qadiani leadership.” There was dictatorial rule in the princely states and Ahrar politicised these issues smartly not only in different States but also in adjourning settled areas. Unlike AINC, Ahrar supported the communal awards in 1932 and got prominence in the eyes of Punjabi leaders like Iqbal. In June 1933, Ahrar participated in three by-elections of the Punjab assembly. Afzal Haq, Mazhar Ali Azhar and Ch Abdur Rahman won all three seats. In 1934, Ahrar participated in the elections for the Indian Legislator and won two seats — K L Gauba in Lahore and Qazi Muhammad Ahmad Kazmi in Meerut, UP.

The author gives new information about the strengthening of relations between Ahrar and Jinnah in mid-1930s. According to her, Ahrar leaders held several meeting with Jinnah before the 1937 elections. “Jinnah’s talk with the leaders of MAI and Majlis-i-Itehad-i-Milli were successful, and Iqbal provided requisite help in this context.” The author also gives references of Jinnah’s exclusive meeting with Ahrar’s leaders at Abdul Qavi’s residence in Lahore. “MAI arranged a public meeting in honour of Jinnah where her volunteers guarded him with their symbolic axes”.

Jinnah announced ALL India Muslim League (AIML) Parliamentary Board, which had four MAI leaders, Afzal Haq, Sheikh Hassam u Din, Abdul Aziz Begowal and Khwaja Ghulam Hussain. Due to immaturity of both MAI and AIML, the alliance could not last for more than 5 months and it broke much before the election eve. Ahrar, Muslim League and Congress were among losers in the Punjab yet League immediately revisited its policies reflected in the historic Jinnah-Sikandar Pact (October 1937) which created new spaces for it to grow in the Punjab. As for the Ahrar, it could not understand the power politics in the new electoral phase.

The British government introduced an amendment in the Defense of India bill in 15 September 1938. According to this amendment, no one could launch propaganda against recruitment in the British Indian army. The Ahrar launched an anti-recruitment campaign immediately. As Congress was holding ministries in seven provinces, it did not support Ahrar on this. Interestingly, Subhas Chandra Bose criticised the Congress and supported the Ahrar on this issue. “Till December 1939, 7500 Ahrar volunteers had been arrested including its president Sheikh Hassam u Din from all over India”.

Left out in the political wilderness, Ahrar started a defamation campaign against the Muslim League, Lahore resolution and Jinnah which further discredited it among the people. During early 1942, Ahrar tried to regain its old glory but failed to attract the people. Finally, it lost the 1946 elections which compelled it to revisit its politics and ideology.

After the creation of Pakistan, in the Defence of Pakistan Conference (Dec 12-14, 1947), Ahrar disbanded. According to my late father Sheikh Riaz-ud-Din who was the son of Sheikh Hassam-ud-Din who was present in that meeting, “Our leaders said that people have rejected us, our ideology is defeated and we have to accept that defeat boldly.” It was an unprecedented, politically mature, brave and wise decision. The most interesting riddle remains unresolved, which is that is our official record — including the Munir Commission Report — that proved Ahrar’s involvement in a movement (anti-Ahmadya movement of 1953) which started four years after its demise.

عمران+ایم کیو ایم= برطانیہ

عمران+ایم کیو ایم= برطانیہ