Thursday, May 22, 2025

Filmbar and RPC's screening of Park Chan-wook's "The Handmaiden" (2016) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Friday, May 23, 2025 at 6:00 pm

Filmbar and RPC's screening of Park Chan-wook's "The Handmaiden" (2016) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Friday, May 23, 2025 at 6:00 pm.

"The Handmaiden", directed by Park Chan-wook, is a visually stunning psychological thriller and romantic drama set in 1930s Korea under Japanese colonial rule.

The story follows a young woman who is hired as a handmaiden to a wealthy Japanese heiress living in an isolated estate. Beneath the surface, however, hidden agendas, psychological manipulation and shifting loyalties unfold, drawing the characters into a complex web of desire and deception.

With ravishing cinematography and a story that twists like a ribbon in the wind, "The Handmaiden" is not just a film – it’s an experience. Bold, sensual, and haunting, it invites you into a world where nothing is as it seems and every secret has a price.

Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (Next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign Showroom).
Lift is functional.

The screening will be followed by an informal discussion. All friends are welcome. Tea will be served.

Google Maps Pin:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/9PnxcnwqZNZKCpZq9

In case of a query, Please feel free to contact the number given below.
Name: Harris Khan
Contact: 03007445453

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025

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

Thursday, May 1, 2025

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)

Monday, April 7, 2025

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)

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

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)

Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Business Recorder Column for March 25, 2025 not carried by the paper

Happy March 23

 

Rashed Rahman

 

March 23 rolled round this year in relatively muted fashion. This was not surprising, given the plethora of troubles afflicting the country. The day saw the usual fare on the media of commemorations of Pakistan Day, but the public mood seemed unenthusiastic.

Events in Balochistan cast a pall of gloom over the day. In the aftermath of the Balochistan Liberation Army’s (BLA’s) attack on the Jaffer Express and the events that followed, this was not unexpected. The BLA operation was of a scale and effectiveness that indicated the growing capability of the nationalist insurgency in the province. One consequence of the incident was the conflict over the dead bodies of BLA militants allegedly killed in the last stages of the counter-operation by the security forces against BLA ‘stragglers’ holding hostages taken from the train. It did seem strange that guerrillas would simply be sitting around with hostages, waiting for the security forces’ riposte, when the normal expectation would have been that they would have retreated along with their other colleagues once their day was done, as guerrillas normally are expected to do. Therefore this claim of slain guerrillas seemed suspicious to the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) that has been agitating since long on the issue of ‘missing’ persons. The BYC demanded access to the bodies of alleged BLA guerrillas killed by the security forces to determine whether any of them were ‘missing’ persons. Ostensibly an unobjectionable desire, the state’s response was the usual rebuff. No account was taken, nor leeway permitted, on an issue that is highly emotive for the families of the ‘missing’ seeking news of their loved ones since years. The result was a natural outburst of indignation by the BYC, which intruded into the hospital’s morgue where the dead bodies were kept and succeeded in retrieving five of them. Then all hell was let loose by the police and security forces on the BYC protestors, in which three people were reportedly killed by police firing on unarmed, peaceful people. The administration of course spun this incident the other way as the BYC protestors having attacked the police and injured some of their personnel, but no clear explanation was on offer how the three people were killed. Dr Mahrang Baloch, the leader of BYC, along with about 150 of her colleagues were arrested and charged with terrorism and such like offences. In response, the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) has announced a conference in Quetta to address the issue, while Baloch students in Lahore have taken out a protest rally against such over-the-top actions.

This has been the recurring pattern of how the state has reacted time and again to the peaceful sit-ins and protests, in Balochistan and even in Islamabad, by the BYC on the issue of their ‘missing’ loved ones. This response has deepened, if anything, the alienation and anger of the affected families of the ‘missing’, not to mention Baloch society as a whole. Moderate nationalist political parties such as the BNP-M and the National Party, entities wedded to parliamentary politics, were cut to size through manipulation of the February 2024 elections. Akhtar Mengal, despairing of being heard, let alone listened to, has quit the National Assembly. Dr Malik Baloch bravely continues to raise voice in the Balochistan Assembly, all to no avail. Emasculating the moderate, parliamentary political forces and dealing with peaceful protestors demanding answers to the vexed question of the fate of their ‘missing’ loved ones with by far excessive force (as even the Human Rights Commission has found) is guaranteed like nothing else to push more and more young Baloch into the arms of the nationalist insurgency when no other recourse seems to suggest itself or, in practice, be available. In this regard, the state and its security apparatus is proving the best recruiting agent for the Baloch guerrillas.

People in the media and generally of good intentions have been railing for a ‘balanced’ approach and a democratic strategy, not force alone, to tackle the situation in Balochistan that appears to be growing graver by the minute. But all these good intentions appear only to be the paving for the road to hell since their authors seem to be whistling in the wind. Meanwhile the Baloch insurgency has acquired increasingly enhanced capability and, in the process, reflects more and more the changes that have been taking place quietly in Baloch society since the last nationalist insurgency in the 1970s. A new middle class has arisen in this interregnum that is providing a very different, educated recruit to the guerrillas. Not only that, since this newly emerging middle class is drawn from virtually all over Balochistan, it has managed to expand the sweep of the guerrilla war to almost every nook and cranny of the vast, rugged province. Along with enhanced military and political capacity, the Baloch nationalist insurgency has now expanded the old demand for provincial autonomy, redressal of historic grievances and rights for its people to an unequivocal demand for independence on the basis of the right to self-determination. An added, tragic dimension is the tactic increasingly in use to kill outsiders, whether travellers or working in Balochistan, on the plea that this influx threatens to change the demographic of Balochistan against its native inhabitants. Such is the fruit of more than seven decades of oppression of the Baloch and exploitation and extraction of their resources without even a glance at the poverty and deprivation of their people. Such persistent injustice engenders nothing but growing hatred.

Is this how we wish to remember the pious hopes once associated with the memory of March 23?

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

The way forward

We need a core group of intellectuals, politically aware progressive thinkers to formulate a critical history of the socialist struggle internationally and at home. Only coming to terms with this track record in theory and practice can point the way forward and inspire new generations of revolutionaries. Simply repeating formulae from the past does not provide convincing answers to the defeat and retreat since 1989, nor does it provide clarity in a globalised world for Pakistan’s entrapment in external neocolonialism and internal colonialism. We also need a fresh analysis of our own state and society rather than relying blindly on other revolutionary experiences.


Rashed Rahman
Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)
Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)