The December 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The December 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Rashed Rahman: Marx and the Asiatic Mode of Production – II.
2. Samer Attar: On Bearing Witness.
3. Arnaud Bertrand: How long can China play the “rare earths card”?
4. Human Rights Watch: Afghanistan: Taliban Trample Media Freedom.
5. Vijay Prashad: Seven Theses on the Gen Z Uprisings in the Global South.
6. Susan Watkins: Israel after Fordow.
7. Saulat Nagi: “A Land of Slaves Shall Never Be Mine”.
8. Ray Nunes: From Marx to Mao – And After – IV: The ‘Four Modernisations’.
9. Navid Shahzad: Pakistan Here and Now: The Language of the Heart – V: The Significance of Hope.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

RPC's Guest in Town Series: Professor Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) invites you to its Guest in Town Series for a talk by Professor Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed on Wednesday, November 5, 2025 at 4:30 pm. Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom). Lift is operational. The talk will be followed by a Q & A session and tea.

Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History

 

The talk will trace the evolution of Mohammad Ali Jinnah as a politician identifying four phases in his political life concentrating on his embrace of the two-nation theory formally on March 22, 1940 and its deployment to claim Muslim states through a partition of India. That idea ultimately crystallized in the form of one Pakistan constituted by two wings of the country. 

The implications and ramifications of adopting a communal ideology for achieving his objective of a separate state for Muslims will be examined critically, including  the bloody division of India and the biggest forced migration in history, as well as Jinnah’s role as the all-powerful head of state of Pakistan.

Some of the controversies which will be highlighted will be:

1.  Do existing sources confirm that after 1939 Jinnah was working to reach a power-sharing deal within a united India?

2.  The controversy around the Cabinet Mission Plan.

3.  Did Jinnah want Pakistan to be a secular state?

4.  Did Jinnah as the all-powerful head of state of Pakistan bequeath precedence that negatively impacted Pakistan’s future as a parliamentary democracy?

5.  How can we understand Jinnah’s role in history as a leader of men?

Bio data Ishtiaq Ahmed

Professor Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed holds a PhD in Political Science from Stockholm University. He was member of the Faculty in the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University during 1987-2010. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stockholm University. He is Honorary Senior Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS), National University of Singapore, where he worked as Senior Research Professor during 2007-2010. During 2013-2019 he taught winter semesters at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS, 2013-2015) and at Government College University Lahore (during 2015-2019).

He has published several books, including The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Account, which won the 2013 Best Non-Fiction Book award at the Karachi Literature Festival and at the Lahore Literary Festival. His book, Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History won the 2021 Best English Non-Fiction Book award at the Valley of Words, Literature and Arts Festival, Dehradun. His book, Pakistan the Garrison State: Origins, Evolution, Consequences 1947-2011, provides an alternative, dissenting view of civil-military relations. His latest book is, Pre-Partition Punjab’s Contribution to India Cinema.

His research interests cover such diverse fields as political Islam, ethnicity and nationalism, human, minority and group rights, partition studies, and the Punjabi contribution to cinema. He writes columns in several Pakistani newspapers. He has contributed extensively to peer-reviewed journals and chapters to edited books.

Currently, he is working on a new book, Partition Controversies: India, Punjab, Bengal – Who did What?

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

The November 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The November 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Rashed Rahman: Marx and the Asiatic Mode of Production.

2. Tariq Dana: The Military-Industrial Backbone of Normalisation.

3. Ray Nunes: From Marx to Mao – And After – III: Contradictions Among the People.

4. Thomas I Palley: The War in Ukraine – A History: How the US Exploited Fractures in the Post-Soviet Order – III.

5. Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism – IV: The Question of Responsibility.

6. Navid Shahzad: Pakistan Here and Now: The Language of the Heart – IV: Pursuit of the 'beloved'.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

RPC's Guest in Town Series: Mr Shahid Akhtar on November 13, 2025, at 4:00 pm

Conflict Resolution

Mr Shahid Akhtar, a scholar resident in Canada, has conducted detailed research, has long experience and has written and published on "Conflict Resolution". Conflicts are created in our lives due to varying circumstances, whether in business, private life, amongst friends and family, between countries and varying creeds and credos. Mr Shahid Akhtar will dilate on the subject and share his knowledge in this field at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) as part of our Guest in Town Series.

Date and time: Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 4:00 pm. All friends are welcome. Lift is operational. The lecture will be followed by a Q & A session and then tea.

Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)  

The October 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The October 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. S Zulfiqar Gilani: Political Narrative of Pakistan: Problems, Costs, Challenges.

2. Vijay Prashad: It would be fine to help make Mexico a happy place.

3. Ray Nunes: From Marx to Mao – and After – II: Programme of the Cultural Revolution.

4. Thomas I Palley: A History: How the US exploited fractures in the post-Soviet Order – II.

5. Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism – III: Afghan jihad fed into global Islamic war.

6. Kriti Shah: The Baloch and Pashtun nationalist movements in Pakistan: Colonial legacy and the failure of state policy – IV: Nationalism, religion, political and economic representation.

7. Navid Shahzad: Pakistan Here and Now: The Language of the Heart – III: At the crossroads of poetry and politics.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

The September 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The September 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Ray Nunes: From Marx to Mao – And After.

2. Thomas I Palley: A History: How the US exploited fractures in the post-Soviet Order.

3. Reading Karl Marx illegal.

4. Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism – II: The Cold War after Indochina.

5. Kriti M Shah: The Baloch and Pashtun national movements in Pakistan: Colonial Legacy – III: The Conflagration of Pakistan’s Northwestern border.

6. Navid Shahzad: Pakistan Here and Now: The Language of the Heart – II: Exile, yearning and loss.

7. S Zulfiqar Gilani: Authoritarian-Dark Triad Personality and Politics in Pakistan.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook).

Cells: +92 302 8482737 & +92 333 4216335

Email: rashed.rahman1@gmail.com 

Business Recorder Column August 26, 2025

Six accords and a hangover

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Bangladesh and Pakistan have been estranged ‘brothers’ off and on since East Pakistan broke away with Indian support in 1971. Although Pakistan recognised Bangladesh in 1974, paving the way for Bangladesh founder and then Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rehman to participate in the Islamic Summit that year in Lahore, we chose to brush the whole episode of 1971 under the carpet and forget about it. The Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report to look into the whole affair was suppressed. Succeeding generations were not told that Bangladesh was once East Pakistan. This collective, contrived amnesia naturally meant we failed to learn any lessons from that tragic debacle.

It was expected that the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina Wajed would open the floodgates of rapprochement between Islamabad and Dhaka. And so it has proved. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s visit to Bangladesh and meetings with Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus and Foreign Affairs Advisor Mohammad Touhid Hossain have yielded six instruments. These include an agreement to abolish visas for diplomatic and official passport holders, strengthen bilateral ties, boost trade, expand youth-to-youth and cultural exchanges and the revitalisation of regional cooperation through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Direct shipping and flights between the two countries are on the agenda. SAARC, however, has been largely defunct for many years because of the gulf between Pakistan and India, and the present state of South Asia does not offer much optimism regarding its revival.

According to the Bangladeshi The Daily Star, however, all this bonhomie also carries within its fold differences on the outstanding, unresolved issues, mostly dating from 1971. These revolve around Bangladesh’s long standing demand for a formal apology for the events of 1971, the repatriation of stranded Pakistanis (mostly Biharis) and a return of assets covering its share in undivided Pakistan. Mr Dar, on the other hand, argued that these issues had already been “resolved twice”, in 1974 when Pakistan recognized Bangladesh, and in 2002, when President General Pervez Musharraf visited the country. Mr Dar did not reveal what was ‘settled’ at these two dates, but pleaded instead for brothers to clean their hearts (i.e. forget about it). Bangladesh, however, has not forgotten. How can it, when such an inhuman tragedy was foisted on it, Pakistan has never acknowledged it, nor offered recompense. The Biharis sided with Pakistan in that fratricidal conflict, and were then abandoned to a miserable existence on the periphery of Bangladeshi society, tagged with the label ‘collaborators’. Pakistan’s military was accused of widespread atrocities. Estimates of the resulting deaths vary greatly, from hundreds of thousands to millions. No accurate reckoning is available. Reports of rape and torture too were widespread. The Pakistani authorities, post-1971, did not accept or even acknowledge these claims.

But it seems now, in changed circumstances, that Pakistan, at least, and to some extent Bangladesh, do not want these differences to stand in the way of the new strategic reordering of the triangular Pakistan-India-Bangladesh knot. Dar’s visit comes 13 years after the last Pakistani foreign minister’s visit. In the intervening years, Sheikh Hasina was in power and relations between Dhaka and Islamabad were frosty, to put it mildly. It remains to be seen whether the past narrative can now be rewritten, moving beyond historical grievances towards pragmatic engagement, despite the shadow of 1971 still looming large. Pragmatic engagement will probably revolve centrally around economic interests and trade. Pakistan has expressed an interest in Bangladesh’s textile and leather industries.

While economic engagement and cooperation may be central to the ‘new beginning’ hoped for in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, it behoves us to expand people-to-people contacts between the current generations of both countries, so that they can light the fire of historical reconciliation, brotherhood and respect, which were so rudely destroyed half a century ago, drowning with them the vision of Pakistan according to its founders in the Bay of Bengal.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column August 12, 2025

Israel’s ‘Vietnam’?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Israel’s Gaza takeover plan has aroused a great deal of froth and indignant verbiage at the UN and in many countries of the world. To take a representative sample, UN Assistant Secretary General Miroslav Jenca told the UN Security Council on August 10, 2025 that the plan risks another calamity with far-reaching consequences reverberating across the region, causing further forced displacement, killings and destruction. The UN’s humanitarian office OCHA said 98 children had died from acute malnutrition since the start of the conflict in October 2023, with 37 deaths since July 2025, figures that are probably a gross underestimate. OCHA’s Coordination Director Ramesh Rajasingham says, “This is no longer a looming hunger crisis – this is starvation, pure and simple.” People do not need this belated description of events in Gaza when they are confronted daily by pictures of emaciated children in hospitals being cared for by distraught but incredibly calm mothers. Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said “over two million victims are enduring unbearable agony”, while Israel’s plans for the takeover of Gaza City are “illegal and immoral”.

All this diplomatic huffing and puffing is taking place in the hallowed halls of the UN in New York, where the Security Council is meeting to address the issue of Israel’s plans for Gaza. Notable absentees at the meeting are the veto-bearing US and its ally Israel, both berating even this articulate waterfall of words, which nevertheless remain as hollow as the shameful inaction by Arab and Muslim countries in solidarity with their oppressed Palestinian brothers and sisters. Some of these worthy neighbours of Israel continue to enjoy diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv and others even feel little or no compunction in entering into lucrative trade and economic deals with the Zionist entity. So much for Muslim solidarity.

The death toll (probably an underestimate) since October 2023 has climbed to 61,430, most of whom have been killed while seeking food at aid centres. All the hot air emanating from Palestine’s original Muslim supporters and, lately, Western capitals finally appalled at Israeli cruelty and falling back on the moribund ‘two-state solution’ for fear of worse, cannot and will not change an iota of the misery and suffering of the people of Gaza. Only action will. There has been unceasing talk, and protests by people in Western countries, to boycott Israel in arms and the economy, on the lines of the boycott that so successfully hollowed out South Africa’s apartheid regime. But this holy campaign has yet to see the light of day in any meaningful sense, misgivings and vows of cutting off arms supplies by Germany and others of late notwithstanding.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan is to takeover Gaza City and another area not yet fully in the control of the Israeli army to destroy Hamas and rescue the remainder of the Israeli hostages still with Hamas. But even his own military chief has expressed strong reservations regarding the plan, fearing the hostages will be lost and the Israeli army bogged down in a protracted guerrilla war with Hamas. He was firmly overruled by Netanyahu and has now agreed to implement the plan. The far-right in Netanyahu’s Cabinet wants the plan to be strengthened and made more rigorous. It feels the plan does not go far enough. By this they mean their desire to capture Gaza and eject the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s ‘short timetable’, destruction of Hamas and rescue of the hostages are all likely to fail. The Israeli military’s professional assessment is probably nearer the mark.

Netanyahu intends, if his plans succeed, to impose a government in Gaza composed of neither Hamas nor the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). He is hoping to impose a government of the elements opposing Hamas, composed mostly of bands of Bedouin criminals. Hamas has clearly messaged that any such collaborationist regime imposed on Gaza will be treated as an arm of the Israeli enemy.

Interestingly, Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in an interview has put a new twist on Israel’s plans for Gaza. He thinks the invasion of Gaza risks turning into a ‘Vietnam’ for Israeli soldiers. That is surely not a fate Israel’s main unremitting supporter the US would wish to see replicated and visited on its beloved Zionist ‘pet’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Chairperson HRCP Asad Butt at RPC ON Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Chairperson HRCP Asad Butt will grace us with his presence and analysis of the current situation, to be followed by an open discussion, on Wednesday, August 13, 2025 at 6:00 pm at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC).

All friends are welcome. Lift is functional. Tea will be served.

Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Book Launch at RPC

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) cordially invites you to a Book Launch of Idrees Tabassum's latest book "Moharkat-e-Taqseem-e-Hind" (Fiction House, Lahore, 2025) on Thursday, August 7, 2025 at 6:00 pm.

Speakers:

1. Amjad Tufail.

2. Maqsood Khaliq.

3. Abid Hussain Abid.

4. Abdul Waheed.

5. Hussain Majrooh.

6. Dr Mohammad Alam.

Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

All friends are welcome. Tea will be served.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Cell: 0302 8482737

 

Business Recorder Column August 5, 2025

Decapitating PTI?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

On July 31, 2025, an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Faisalabad sentenced over a 100 leaders and workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) to jail terms of up to 10 years in connection with the May 9, 2023 riots. On that day, PTI supporters protesting the arrest of their leader Imran Khan, staged violent protests throughout the country, vandalising military installations, state-owned buildings and the Lahore Corps Commander’s residence. In the aftermath of these events, thousands of protestors, including party leaders, were arrested. The Faisalabad ATC ordered the arrest of all those convicted who were not present in the court. These sentences follow a military court’s sentencing on December 21 and 26, 2024 of over 50 PTI leaders and activists for up to 10 years for their involvement in the same May 9 riots. The ATCs have been hearing the May 9 related cases daily to meet a deadline set by the Supreme Court (SC) for the conclusion of the trials by August 2025. So should we read the Faisalabad ATC’s extra speed in pronouncing sentence on over 100 leaders and workers of the PTI purely the result of the SC’s deadline? That may be too naïve.

Consider. The PTI, despite the ‘decapitation’ of a considerable weight of its leadership and activists, has announced plans to hold a countrywide protest movement today, August 5, 2025 to demand the release of Imran Khan amongst other demands to “restore genuine democracy”, reverse the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP’s) disqualification of ATC-convicted PTI parliamentarians without waiting for their appeals to be heard, and, despite the fact that all those sentenced but not in prison have gone ‘underground’, use today’s (August 5, 2025) National Assembly session called by President Asif Zardari to stage strong protests in the House against perceived and actual repression let loose against the PTI. It may well be, therefore, that the Faisalabad ATC’s ‘haste’ had something to do with an effort to stymie, if not quell, the PTI’s protest plans. This, in addition to the PTI’s own difficulties if their ‘underground’ leaders and cadres emerge to stage the protests, risking thereby arrest and lengthy incarceration. It remains to be seen therefore, how the protests play out. Peaceful protest declamations by the PTI notwithstanding, the day could prove extremely violent.

On the eve of the countrywide protest drive, Imran Khan has reportedly managed to send out a message to his followers; his message consists of two components. The first is his reiteration of the policy he has long advocated and adhered to, including when he was in power, to refrain from any further military operations in the tribal areas against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and instead attempt to negotiate with them. While this argument sounds seductive, especially given the desire and actual practice of some tribal elders of carrying on negotiations with the TTP for a ceasefire, it was tried in the past but made shipwreck on the TTP’s violation of every agreement for ceasefires and peace. When Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur reminds us that we have so far conducted 21 military operations that did not succeed, what he significantly omits is the reasons why these operations did not succeed. In a nutshell, it was because the TTP went back to terrorism after every such ‘deal’. The tribal elders’ hopes notwithstanding, there is no evidence that the TTP has changed its colours and will not repeat the breaking of any ceasefire or peace agreement. So one may be forgiven for advising Imran Khan not to waste the few and far between opportunities to get his messages out on a demonstrably failed strategy.

The second part of Imran Khan’s message concerns the protest drive. He condemns (justly, many would say) the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as proxies of the establishment. The problem though is that many others have not forgotten that Imran Khan and the PTI came to power in 1918 with the help and backing of the same establishment, and would probably still be enjoying the perks and privileges of power instead of cooling their heels in less salubrious surroundings if they had not eventually fallen out with their mentors.

What this recalled truth implies is that the people of Pakistan are presented with a devil’s bargain in choosing between present (and incumbent) establishment proxies and (past) would-be proxies. In fact, the people have been left with no (or only bad) choices since the political class entire has sold them out to the real powers-that-be in Pakistan. This Hobson’s choice is perhaps the major reason for the disillusionment, despair and depression of the vast majority, especially the youth, whose pure idealism has been destroyed by the cynical betrayal of their hopes and dreams by the political class as a whole, composed, it may be noted in passing, of the elite that has gripped a suffering people by their throats.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The August 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The August 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Ali Abutalebi: Revolution vs Integration: Iran’s Strategic Turning Points.

2. Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism.

3. S Zulfiqar Gilani: Entwinement of Politics and Political Leadership in Pakistan.

4. Navid Shahzad: Pakistan Here and Now: The Language of the Heart.

5. Kriti M Shah: The Baloch and Pashtun national movements in Pakistan: Colonial Legacy and the failure of state policy – II: The Role of State Policy.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column July 22, 2025

Israel’s expansionism

 

Rashed Rahman

 

In the convoluted and strife-ridden terrain of the Middle East, one fact remains constant and easily discernible. This is the Zionist entity Israel’s constantly being on the lookout for opportunities to feed its unlimited appetite for expansionism since its creation in 1948. In that founding year, Israel blatantly violated the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, intended to provide two states, Israel and Palestine, to accommodate the mixed populace as a result of the British Mandate authorities conniving at illegal Jewish migration to the so-called ‘Promised Land’. It perpetrated the Naqba (Catastrophe) to expel thousands of Palestinians from territories designated as Palestinian by the UN Plan. So even the unjust Partition of Palestine (a shift of culpability by the West for the Holocaust onto innocent Palestinian shoulders) was not adhered to by the Zionist settler colonialists. Then in 1956 Israel joined Britain and France (the Mandate powers in the region between WWI and WWII and arguably the authors of all the mischief perpetrated against the Arabs as a whole) in attacking Egypt to try and wrest back from Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal that critical passageway for the world’s trade. Unfortunately for this evil trio, the new dominant western power, the US, vetoed their plans in the interests of its newfound desire for global hegemony in the aftermath of WWII and even in the early days of the Cold War. In 1967, Israel launched a surprise attack against its Arab neighbours, Egypt, Syria and Jordan, destroying their air forces on the ground and seizing Sinai, the Golan Heights and the West Bank (including Jerusalem, the historic site of religious wars such as the Crusades). Since then, Sinai (the Gaza Strip excepted) was returned to Egypt after Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel following the indecisive 1973 war, annexed the Golan Heights and is currently in the process of carrying out a genocide in Gaza and a creeping annexation in the West Bank through militant, armed Israeli settlers, backed by the Israeli army.

As if all this were not enough, Israel has been playing a sinister, expansionist role in post-Assad Syria. Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government that came to power in Syria as the culmination of the 14-year civil war in Syria, given its past al Qaeda roots and current religious fundamentalist character, carried within it the real possibility of not only not being able to weld a united country out of the ruins, but in fact becoming the main factor in impending conflict with the religious and ethnic minorities in Syria. Sure enough, the Sunni fundamentalist Hay’at Tahrir al Sham party of al-Sharaa has clashed with the Alawite minority (to which Assad’s elite belonged) in March 2025 on the Syrian coast that left about 1,600 people dead. Another outbreak of violence outside Damascus in May killed more than 100 people, mostly Druze. The current round of conflict in Suweida in southern Syria began about a week ago with an exchange of attacks and kidnappings between Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze militias, who practice a secretive religion rooted in Ismaili Islam. Since the new government came to power in December 2024, a collection of Druze militias had secured Suweida and refused to integrate their forces into the new national army, an objective the Syrian government has been actively pursuing to bring the fractured militias scene under control.

As the unrest in Suweida worsened, the government deployed military forces in the area to quell the conflict. But Druze militia leaders, deeply distrustful of the new Islamist authorities, believed these forces were coming to attack them. They then mobilised to repel the incoming government forces, escalating the fighting and in the process, yielding a harvest of over 1,000 people killed, many thousand wounded, 80,000 displaced. The evidence for the bloodbath was the piles of dead and wounded in Suweida’s hospitals, whom an overstretched medical structure could barely see to. At this point, using the plight of the Druze minority as a cover (the Druze are also a minority in Israel, integrated closely with its military and security infrastructure), Israel bombed south Syria and the Syrian military’s Damascus Headquarters. Al-Sharaa withdrew his forces in the face of this Israeli assault, which threatened to blow up into a war with Israel. The US then intervened, persuading Israel to cut al-Sharaa (their ‘newly found’ ally) some slack, which allowed him to take advantage of Tel Aviv’s ‘generous offer’ of redeployment in Suweida for just two days to separate the warring militias and enforce a tenuous peace. One wonders how long this peace will last if the Syrian military once more is forced to retreat by Israeli pressure.

What is Israel’s objective in this complicated conflict? To be noted: apart from the annexed Golan Heights, Israel has, since the fall of Assad, set up 10 bases inside Syrian territory abutting the Golan Heights. Not only that, it has dictated to Damascus that south Syria is to remain free of Syrian military forces. No doubt the game plan is that in the name of ‘rescuing’ their dearly beloved Druze minority in Syria, Israel is just waiting to pounce on southern Syria to gobble up more territory. Given this expansionist history, can one hope for anything except conflict so long as Israel continues to exist with the unfettered support and help of the US-led West?

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column July 15, 2025

The end of PKK’s armed struggle?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Thirty fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on July 11, 2025 rather than surrender them to Turkish authorities in a symbolic step towards ending a decades-long insurgency. Half the fighters were women, including their commander Bese Hozat, who read out a statement declaring the group’s decision to disarm. The PKK ranks are a reflection of its success in mobilising women for the armed struggle and giving them command responsibilities. Further handovers (burning?) of weapons is expected, but there is no confirmation when and where so far. After the burning ceremony, the fighters were to return to the mountains. The symbolic surrender process was expected to unfold throughout the summer. The PKK, on its incarcerated and kept in solitary confinement since 1999 leader Abdullah Ocalan’s call, decided in May 2025 to dissolve itself and switch to open parliamentary politics. Thus seems to have come to a close the PKK’s armed struggle since 1978 for, at a minimum, Kurdish linguistic, cultural and political rights (autonomy) within Turkiye, and at a maximum, secession and an independent Kurdish state. The conflict cost over 40,000 lives, burdened the economy and engendered deep social and political divisions. PKK’s ideology was originally a fusion of revolutionary socialism, Marxism-Leninism and Kurdish nationalism. Turkiye over the years has consistently carried out military suppression campaigns, banned PKK in 1984, abducted Abdullah Ocalan from abroad in 1999 and kept him in solitary confinement since in an island prison in the Sea of Marmara. Of late, indirect negotiations between the Turkish authorities and Ocalan finally yielded the disarmament/dissolution decision by PKK.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan welcomed the development, hoping it would lead to peace and security in the country. Despite his optimism, the road ahead appears uncertain, since there is little or no news about what the PKK has been offered in return for its decision to disarm/dissolve. PKK’s demands include the release of Abdullah Ocalan. The portents are not good if the statement of Turkish officials engaged in the negotiations are taken note of. They display no intention to offer any concessions on even the minimum Kurdish demands such as linguistic, cultural and political rights. What then, it may be asked, will the Kurds get in exchange for disarming? It seems obvious that the (long standing) failure to offer even autonomy carries the seeds of renewed conflict.

For as long as the Turkish post-Kemalist state has been in existence, the Kurds were denied use of their own language, culture, identity and autonomy in the name of the supposed advantages of a unified, centralised state. (The Kurds were disparagingly referred to as ‘Mountain Turks’.) Erdogan’s long stint in power yielded some cultural concessions, but these proved insufficient to quell Kurdish alienation. Military campaigns against the Kurds in southeastern Turkey led to PKK fighters seeking and obtaining safe havens in northern Iraq, a semi-autonomous Kurd region within that country. PKK controls hundreds of villages in Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey’s forays across the border to attack the PKK safe havens intensified in recent years with Ankara establishing outposts across the border and frequently attacking PKK positions. This produced tensions between Iraqi Kurds and the PKK, blamed for bringing the war to the doorstep of the former. It was after the shift in Iraq’s posture in April 2024, when it banned the PKK following high level security meetings between Iraqi and Turkish officials that the PKK’s safe havens were rendered no longer safe. The combination of military difficulties in this situation and the indirect negotiations between the Turkish authorities and Ocalan finally produced the current turnaround. With the PKK weakened and the Kurdish people exhausted, and no end in sight to the seemingly endless war, Ocalan’s PKK finally swallowed the bitter pill. This was reflected in the crowds attending the surrendered arms burning, with both cheering and weeping in evidence.

The Kurds, divided between four countries, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, have suffered an unfortunate history. Mullah Mustafa Barzani’s armed struggle for autonomy or independence for Iraqi Kurdistan in the 1960s was eventually defeated and he sought sanctuary in the Soviet Union. (His son currently heads the Iraqi Kurdistan semi-autonomous region.) Iran’s Kurds’ uprising after the 1979 Iranian revolution was brutally crushed. The Syrian Kurds joined hands with the US to combat Islamic State and other extremist religious groups in the country’s civil war. Now the Turkish Kurds, having given up the armed struggle without any evident reward in return, contemplate an uncertain future, given Turkey’s past record and current disposition.

The lesson to be learnt is that any multi-ethnic, multi-national state not prepared to concede autonomy reflected in linguistic, cultural, economic and political rights to its minority nationalities, more often than not ends up with long and seemingly unending avoidable conflict to its own cost. Such conflicts, as they drag on, radically escalate from the demand for autonomy to breakaway independence, successful in this endeavour or not.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com 

Business Recorder Column July 8, 2025

Taliban regime recognition

 

Rashed Rahman

 

History is subject to strange twists and turns. One such is the decision by Russia to recognise the Afghan Taliban regime, the first and only country so far to do so. One hardly needs reminding of Russian sensitivity on the issue, given that the Afghan Taliban emerged from the womb of the Mujahideen who fought the Soviet occupation with the help of Pakistan and the US-led west for a decade, following which Russia (then the Soviet Union) finally decided to call it a day and withdrew in 1989 after Gorbachev assumed the leadership in Moscow. Arguably, that defeat, or rather being fought to a stalemate, fed into the troubled waters afflicting the Soviet Union and its ultimate collapse. The intriguing question is, why has Russia, given this painful past, ‘jumped the gun’ in this regard before China, India or even Pakistan?

For one, Russia is seeking to expand its diplomatic footprint globally, including south west Asia, in order to reverse the isolation into which the US-led west has been trying to push it since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. Its decision to formally exchange ambassadors therefore smacks of realpolitik, strategic opportunism, and positioning itself to engage in economic cooperation with the region in the fields of energy, transport and infrastructure. For Pakistan, troubled as it is by the conscious or tacit hosting of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other hostile groups on Afghan soil, Russian lack of leverage over the Afghan Taliban in this regard offers little hope of the betterment of the fraught situation on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Although recent diplomatic moves aided by China, including a visit to Kabul by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, show signs of improving diplomatic relations between the two neighbouring countries, this is still some way from Kabul halting completely the attacks on Pakistan by the TTP, Hafiz Gul Bahadar Group and other fundamentalist groups based on Afghan soil.

Russia’s diplomatic initiative may well persuade other countries to follow suit. Moscow has recognised the Taliban regime as an acceptance of its de facto control of the country, with little or no resistance left to its stranglehold. Of the countries interested in recognition, China stands out most. Beijing’s interest in rare earth and other minerals in Afghanistan is by now a matter of record. China also seeks to blunt the presence and activities of religious extremist and fundamentalist groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda based in Afghanistan lest this affliction spills over to its restless Xinjiang region, where an Islamic resistance movement has been controlled after much effort stretching over many years.

If the Afghan Taliban were to accept good advice, or be willing to learn from the past, they need look no further than Pakistan’s experience of supporting proxies in the long war for control of Afghanistan. Not only did Islamabad’s Afghan proxies nurture and give birth to the Pakistani Taliban, by now even the so-called ‘good’ Taliban (TTP, etc) have long since turned against it. If Kabul hopes to use the TTP and similar groups to change Pakistan into a mirror of what it has implemented in its own territory, it should heed the well-meaning warning about proxies being double edged swords, as Pakistan can ruefully testify from its own experience. Pakistan has clearly stated after the Russian recognition announcement that it is in no hurry to extend recognition, pending the hoped for improvement in the behaviour of the Afghan Taliban regime in scotching the cross-border attacks of the TTP etc. If that is the case, that recognition by Islamabad may be some way down the road because Kabul’s ostensible moves to prevent cross-border attacks by the TTP and others seem more window dressing than consistent, serious policy.

As to the Afghan people themselves, precious little except hope for economic and other betterment in a country afflicted with want and hunger, in the wake of Moscow’s decision can be heard from those interviewed in Afghanistan in this regard. On the other hand, not surprisingly, Afghan women hold little hope of any betterment under the patriarchal, male chauvinist order the Taliban have once again imposed. In short, those hopeful of better days and those gloomy at the prospects for the future amongst the Afghan people in the aftermath of Russian recognition can only be pitied and prayed for. Afghanistan not only shows no signs of ending the dark night it has been enveloped in after the (second) Taliban takeover, Kabul is being rewarded with recognition (actual and potential) by countries whose own interests (as usual, no great surprise there) override any other principle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The July 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review is out

The July 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. GRAIN and Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee: Gulf investors in, locals out: Pakistan’s corporate farming agenda.

2. Kriti M Shah: The Baloch and Pashtun nationalist movements in Pakistan: Colonial legacy and the failure of state policy – I.

3. Vijay Prashad: A Language of Blood has gripped our World.

4. Zulfiqar Gilani: Critical Scholarship in Pakistan.

5. Fayyaz Baqir: Reply to Imtiaz Alam’s Rejoinder.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column July 1, 2025

Rogue states

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The US-led west has created new forms and methods of exercising its hegemony over the rest of the world. The colonial history of the past two centuries is already filled with atrocities committed against the colonised in the name of a ‘civilising’ mission. In later times, and particularly since the decolonisation process following World War II, the US-led west has developed an extensive theoretical and ideological narrative to justify its so-called ‘rules-based order’. The unanswered questions this gives rise to are 1) What rules? 2) Whose rules? 3) How, after delineating these ‘rules’, does the US-led west see fit to violate them in letter and spirit wherever its interests are involved, including, first and foremost, global hegemony?

While the guns have fallen silent in the recent wars between Pakistan and India and Iran and Israel, with the US in tow to the latter, these conflagrations have given new life to the questions posed above. In the case of Pakistan and India, yes, we managed to get the better of India after it launched attacks across the international border, but our subsequent emphasis on dialogue between the two contending sides appears to be a fond hope at best, given Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s embarrassment. The likelihood is that new forms of action will now replace India’s open cross-border hostilities, including sabotage and covert actions. As far as the Iran-Israel-US conflagration goes, it is by now obvious to even the purblind that Israel is the settler colonialist cat’s paw of the US-led west, supplied, armed and encouraged in its outrageous behaviour with its neighbours near and far and the Palestinians by its ‘masters’. If this seems an oversimplification, one may concede that occasionally Israel jumps the gun or acts (has acted) in ways unpalatable to western interests, but these are lovers’ quarrels soon settled.

In the case of Iran, the ostensible aims of the Israeli and US attacks seem far from achieved. If Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s thirty year bellicosity regarding Iran’s transition to a nuclear weapons power (“any day now”, repeated ad nauseam by this mischief maker) has led logically and inexorably to its 14-day barrage against Iran, capped by Trump’s belligerent strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, neither has succeeded in the aims trotted out by both. Neither has Iran’s nuclear capability been irreparably harmed, nor has the much desired in Washington and Tel Aviv regime change in Tehran occurred. On the contrary, Iran has safeguarded its 60 percent enriched uranium and the Iranian people, even those not well disposed towards the mullah regime in Tehran, have rallied in defence of their country. In other words, the Israeli-US assault on Iran has proved an utter failure.

Israel, on the other hand, has for perhaps the first time, received a small dose of what it has been dishing out with gay abandon to the hapless, defenceless Palestinians and their dwindling number of sympathisers in Lebanon and Yemen. It is perhaps too soon to speculate, but Israel’s much vaunted impenetrability has certainly been dented, even if not completely demolished. This is bound to have some impact on new emigration into Israel, if not an outflux of fearful Israelis to safer climes. But the bitter fact has now, in the light of what has transpired since October 2023, to be frankly acknowledged that the hopes of Hamas in attacking Israel in an unprecedented manner and capturing hostages to bargain with have been dashed. It appeared that Hamas was attempting to nullify the growing ranks of Arab countries succumbing to the ‘temptation’ of joining the ranks of their brother countries in signing onto the so-called Abraham Accords floated by Trump in his first term. In essence these were meant to pave the way for recognition of, and peace with, Israel as an undeniable and settled fact of life. In return, the Arab states being wooed were promised generous largesse emanating from Washington’s banquet table. If Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s denial statement the other day is taken note of, it seems Pakistan too is being ‘wooed’ by certain quarters to sign on to this ignominious surrender and betrayal of the Palestinians.

Though a ‘peace’ of sorts reigns, Iran’s perception of doubting Israel’s respect for the ceasefire hits the nail on the head, particularly if Trump’s statement about bombing Iran again if necessary is taken into account. Why is Iran being ‘blessed’ by so much of this unwanted attention? The logical answer is that after weakening Iran’s allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the hegemonic dreamers in Washington are desirous of delivering the final blow that will cleanse the Middle East of any semblance of resistance to their desired goal of complete hegemony. To achieve this, objective analysis suggests they can go to any lengths. In the process of course, the violation of their own professed ‘rules-based order’ would justify classifying the US as a rogue state. As for Israel, it has never subscribed to any international rules of behaviour and is therefore more than deserving of this appellation.

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The June 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The June 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com 

Contents:

1. Perry Anderson: Idees-Forces.
2. Masroor Shah: From the Anti-Canals Movement to the historic dharna at Babarloo: A Critical Review.
3. Vijay Prashad: Israel’s Crimes in the West Bank.
4. Jose ‘Pepe’ Mujica: My Generation made a naive error.
5. A M Dyakov: The National Question in India and Pakistan – II: The National question in Pakistan.
6. From the PMR Archives: September 2019: Rashed Rahman: Revolutionary prospects in the 21st century.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook).

Back from the brink

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Pakistan and India have managed to break out of the escalatory cycle that began on the night of May 6-7, 2025 after India retaliated with cross-border attacks on Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam, Indian-Held Kashmir, incident in which 26 Indian tourists were killed by gunmen. India accused Pakistan of being behind the attack, claimed by a hitherto unknown breakaway group of the Lashkar-i-Tayyaba calling itself Kashmir Liberation. The Pakistani response to the Indian attacks on May 6-7 surprised India and the world by their effectiveness. The crowning prize was Pakistan’s downing of five Indian fighters, including three state-of-the-art Rafale jets. Tit-for-tat exchanges from the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir across the length and breadth of both countries seem to have ended in Pakistani successes. Air, missile and drone components were used by both sides.

It was this writer’s view when hostilities broke out that the danger of retaliatory attacks by both countries risked escalating into an all-out war with the looming overhang of an unthinkable nuclear exchange, which has the potential not only of wiping out millions in both countries, but whose effects would be felt in the region and even the entire globe, such is the megaton capability of both countries’ nuclear arsenals. During the Cold War, the average flying time of a missile between the Soviet Union and the US was 30 minutes. Despite sophisticated fail-safe systems in place on both sides, they came within a hair’s breadth of a nuclear holocaust innumerable times because of technical failures or human error. The average flying time of a missile between Pakistan and India is three minutes. The degree of preventive fail-safe systems is nowhere near what the superpowers possessed. That implies that any technical or human error could unleash a nuclear Armageddon because of the paucity of reaction time. Given this danger, it was my view that the world powers would not allow things to go beyond an unacceptable limit. Lo and behold, in deft secret diplomacy, the Trump administration managed to persuade both Pakistan and India to cease and desist in favour of a ceasefire. Despite some violations, this precarious ceasefire appears to be holding. Washington also revealed that President Trump would get involved in efforts to resolve the long festering Kashmir issue. Also, that Pakistan and India would soon open a long suspended dialogue on neutral soil. Meantime, at the time of writing these lines, the expected talks between the DGMOs of both sides were still to start, having been delayed more than once from their noon schedule.

The interesting question remains why has this sequence of events transpired now? A suggested explanation could be that after the reversal of Indian-Held Kashmir’s autonomy under Article 370 in 2019, the Indian army’s unremitting repression had pushed back the Kashmir liberation struggle. Modi’s government trumpeted the return of ‘normalcy’ in Indian-Held Kashmir, encouraging tourism, the mainstay of Indian-Held Kashmir's economy. Kashmir Liberation’s strike at tourism in Pahalgam then makes sense as an attempt to disrupt and roll back tourism and expose the Modi government’s claims of restored normalcy. Since 2019, starting with the Indian aerial incursion into Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Modi’s government seems bent on enhanced retaliation against Pakistan for any action by Kashmir liberation fighters. The dangers in this approach have been outlined above.

There will be time of course to examine and reassess the changed nature of even limited modern warfare. Technology has enabled fighting from a distance, with the possibility that the protagonists may not even catch sight of each other, except perhaps as digital signatures. While military targets will always be first choice, the chances of collateral civilian casualties have been enhanced by the reach and lethality of today’s ‘fire and forget’ weapons. While Pakistan’s has been a well-coordinated three services (land, air and sea) effort, the world and its military experts will no doubt be burning the midnight oil for some time to understand and explicate the implications of this sharp, mercifully short exchange between two nuclear weapons armed neighbours.

Let us also hope that Pakistan and India, having drawn back from the brink, thanks to US intervention (again), will now act wisely, conduct a meaningful dialogue and recognise that war is neither the answer nor can yield wresting of each countries’ Kashmir area of control from the other. As even the saboteur of the 1999 Vajpayee-Nawaz rapprochement and architect of the Kargil war General Musharraf realized when in power, there is no alternative to a compromise over Kashmir that will not change borders but will allow divided Kashmiri families on both sides to meet, trade to flourish across the LoC, and pave the way for gradual, incremental demilitarisation of the area. Much as the principle of the right of self-determination for the Kashmiri people still rests cherished in our hearts, realism must now overcome emotionalism and a peaceful resolution of this bleeding wound be sought for and if achieved, adhered to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The May 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The May 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents: 

1. Adaner Usmani: The Struggle in Balochistan.

2. Hazaaran Rahim Dad: Letter to History (I).

3. Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur: Letter to History (II).

4. Ashraf Jehangir Qazi: I wouldn’t start from here!

5. Abbas Zaidi: Book Review: A Crimson Journey with Harris Khalique.

6. Shehryar Fazli: Bangladesh’s future stuck in an inescapable past.

7. A M Dyakov: The National Question in India and Pakistan – I: The National Question in the Indian Union.

8. Fawzia Afzal-Khan: Repression at US Universities.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

My interview with Voice.net.pk "The untold truth of Balochistan" April 5, 2025

Link to my interview with Voice.net.pk "The untold truth of Balochistan" on April 5, 2025 on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/4qBNN4ONaU4?si=_A_tT1e2HKxgpTFj

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

The April 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The April 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Mehrzaad Baluch: Jaffar Express Hijacking Exposes Pakistan’s Failing Strategy in Balochistan.
2. Saulat Nagi: History of Invaders and Gladiators.
3. Joel Beinin and Lisa Hajjar: Palestine-Israel Primer.
4. One Hundred Plus Years of the Communist Movement in India.
5. Chris Harman: The return of the National Question – IV: Social crises and nationalism today.
6. W B Bland: The Pakistani Revolution – IX: The Agartala Conspiracy Case and after.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)