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 

RPC screening of "Triangle of Sadness" (2022) directed by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ruben Ostlund on Friday, July 11, 2025 @ 6.00 pm

Research and Publication Centre (RPC) cordially invites you to a screening of "Triangle of Sadness" (2022), directed by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, on Friday, July 11, 2025 at 6:00 pm.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Ruben Östlund’s "Triangle of Sadness" is a bold and provocative satire that dissects the absurdities of wealth, privilege, and social class. The film follows a fashion model couple through a luxury cruise gone wrong, unravelling societal structures with biting humour and unsettling precision.

Through its genre-shifting narrative and sharp inversion of power dynamics, "Triangle of Sadness" holds a mirror to the world we live in – revealing the fragility of status, the performance of power, and the grotesque contradictions that underpin global inequality. At once hilarious and horrifying, the film pushes us to question the values we take for granted.

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

☕ Followed by an informal discussion over tea

📍 Google Maps Pin

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Um9WeHWQrp7ECN7V8

All friends and fellow cinephiles are welcome.

For further information, Please Contact:
Harris Khan
📞 0300 7445453

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

Screening of Palestinian film "Omar" (2013, directed by Hand Abu-Assad, at RPC on Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 6:00 pm

We cordially invite you to a special screening of Omar (2013), a critically acclaimed Palestinian thriller directed by Hany Abu-Assad. Set against the backdrop of military occupation, Omar tells the story of a young man torn between love, loyalty, and resistance as he faces the psychological toll of life under constant surveillance and violence. The film explores themes of trust, betrayal, and political struggle, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Date & Time: Wednesday, July 2nd | 6:00 PM

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

This screening is being held in collaboration with Khalq Youth Front (KYF), a left-leaning student political organization committed to grassroots political education and activism. As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once again draws global concern—especially in light of recent escalations between Iran and Israel—there is a growing recognition of the urgency to act. However, while many express outrage and solidarity, the conflict remains deeply misunderstood due to the lack of historical and political context. Misinterpretations and oversimplified narratives often dominate the discourse, making it difficult to move beyond surface-level reactions.

To build meaningful and effective solidarity, we must begin by understanding the roots of the conflict—its colonial history, its human cost, and its political complexities. This screening is not just an event—it is the beginning of a necessary conversation. The goal is to foster informed dialogue, raise awareness, and explore how a broad-based, national solidarity campaign with Palestine can be initiated.

The screening will be followed by an important discussion on how to take this conversation forward and translate it into collective political action. All friends and comrades are welcome. Tea will be served.

Google Maps Pin:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9PnxcnwqZNZKCpZq9

For queries, please contact:
Name: Harris Khan
Phone: 0300-7445453

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

Postponement of film screening at RPC

Due to a death in my family, we have had to postpone Friday, June 20, 2025's film screening at RPC. Will inform when it will be rescheduled.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Filmbar and the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) cordially invite you to a screening of "Triangle of Sadness" (2022), directed by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, on Friday, June 20, 2025 at 6:00 pm

Filmbar and the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) cordially invite you to a screening of "Triangle of Sadness" (2022), directed by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, on Friday, June 20, 2025 at 6:00 pm.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Ruben Östlund’s "Triangle of Sadness" is a bold and provocative satire that dissects the absurdities of wealth, privilege and social class. The film follows a fashion model couple through a luxury cruise gone wrong, unravelling societal structures with biting humour and unsettling precision.

Through its genre-shifting narrative and sharp inversion of power dynamics, "Triangle of Sadness" holds a mirror to the world we live in – revealing the fragility of status, the performance of power, and the grotesque contradictions that underpin global inequality. At once hilarious and horrifying, the film pushes us to question the values we take for granted.

Venue:

Research and Publication Centre (RPC)

2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore

(Next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign Showroom)

Lift is functional.

Followed by an informal discussion over tea

All friends and fellow cinephiles are welcome.

For further information, Please Contact:

Haris Khan

0300 7445453

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Rashed Rahman

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

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

Filmbar and RPC's screening of "Triangle of Sadness" (2022) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Friday, June 20, 2025 at 6:00 pm

Filmbar and the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) cordially invite you to a screening of "Triangle of Sadness" (2022), directed by acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund, on Friday, June 20, 2025 at 6:00 pm.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Ruben Östlund’s "Triangle of Sadness" is a bold and provocative satire that dissects the absurdities of wealth, privilege and social class. The film follows a fashion model couple through a luxury cruise gone wrong, unravelling societal structures with biting humour and unsettling precision.

Through its genre-shifting narrative and sharp inversion of power dynamics, "Triangle of Sadness" holds a mirror to the world we live in – revealing the fragility of status, the performance of power, and the grotesque contradictions that underpin global inequality. At once hilarious and horrifying, the film pushes us to question the values we take for granted.

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

☕ Followed by an informal discussion over tea

All friends and fellow cinephiles are welcome.

For further information, Please Contact:
Haris Khan
📞 0300 7445453

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)

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

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)

Business Recorder Column March 11, 2025

No lessons learnt

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Pakistan is a unique country in which the authorities seem incapable of learning from past experience. Here we are in the middle of trying to unravel the Independent Power Producers’ (IPP’s) ‘Take or Pay’ conundrum, the wisdom having dawned three decades after this idea was mooted that it does not take cognizance of market fluctuations, thereby landing the country in impossible financial trouble. The initial 1994 induction of IPPs taught us nothing, and was duly followed by another round in the 2010s, landing us with further burdens of paying for electricity whether taken or not. Some sceptics allude to murkier reasons than simply an inability to learn from the track record, corrupt practices being top of the list. Someone, somewhere, they allege, made a lot of money out of this (repeated) skullduggery.

Now we are confronted with the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s (OGRA’s) brilliant suggestion that the Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) adopt a ‘Take or Pay’ model in their fresh Sale and Purchase Agreements (SPAs) to either lift their allocated petroleum product quotas from local refineries or pay penalties for failing to do so. This is ostensibly meant to support local refineries by ensuring them a guaranteed offtake, thereby reducing excessive fuel imports that were undermining domestic production, causing reduced capacity utilisation and financial losses. An added grey area is the accusation by some OMCs and refineries that a specific OMC was being favoured by OGRA through approving petrol and diesel imports despite sufficient local stock availability. As the criticism of OGRA mounted, it proposed the new brilliant ‘Take or Pay’ arrangement. The Oil Marketing Association of Pakistan (OMAP) has expressed grave concerns regarding this suggestion, pointing to the significant risks posed to the OMCs’ financial sustainability and arguing that such an arrangement will only serve (at best) the interests of refineries and large OMCs at the expense of smaller players, perhaps driving the latter to closure and consolidating further the monopolistic control of the big fish in the oil sector, which would end up severely hampering competition, discourage new entrants and ultimately harm the overall efficiency (if not existence) of the petroleum supply chain. OMAP pointed to the refineries’ opportunistic behaviour in routinely withholding their product when price increases are anticipated, thereby forcing the OMCs to resort to costly imports. Conversely, when prices are expected to decline, refineries attempt to offload maximum stocks to the OMCs, resulting in financial losses for the latter. (This is a tenuous claim since the timeframe of domestic price fluctuations and imports do not come even close to matching.) In essence this controversy shows our inability (i.e. in this instance OGRA’s) to learn the appropriate lessons from the past (the IPPs experience) and arguably militates against the current ‘consensus’ (in official circles at least) on free markets being allowed to work their ‘magic’ unhindered.

As though the above were not enough to prove our learning deficit, we are confronted by a conflict on the Torkham border between us and our Afghan neighbours, whom we once lauded as ‘freedom fighters’ and supported over many decades in our Afghan adventures. Now that our Afghan ‘friends’ are in power, they have returned our generosity by continuously violating agreed protocols on the Torkham border (the main trade route between the two countries and further with Central Asia and beyond). These violations, consisting of constructing posts at the border on the Afghan side, have led in recent days to severe clashes between the militaries on both sides. Now a joint tribal jirgacomposed of elders from both sides is bending its back to restore peace and confidence on the border to relieve the millions of rupees trade losses. Not just this ‘aggressive’ stance on the Torkham border, the Afghan military has been trading fire with its ‘brother’ Pakistan Army at various points along the mutual border, sometimes to support their other ‘brothers’, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in its campaign to overthrow the state in Pakistan and impose a Taliban-type regime. Remonstrations to Kabul to cease such ingratitude has met with diplomatic fobbing off (at best) or downright rejection of the charge of supporting the TTP operating from Afghan soil (at worst). And how did the TTP land up in Afghanistan? This occurred courtesy our brilliant military strategists when they failed (allowed?) to prevent the TTP from retreating across the border to escape our military offensive against them following the Peshawar Army Public School massacre in 2014. Clearly, there is room to argue that we have misconstrued the real nature of the ‘friendship’ with the Afghan Taliban (‘transactional’ to use the current Trumpian phrase) as well as badly failed to prevent the Pashtun tribes on our frontier from transmogrifying over time from logistical supporters of the Afghan religiously inspired fighters to their ‘comrades’. No lessons learnt?

If there was any room left to mourn our mental density, it is more than filled by the report of an international human rights platform, Civicus Monitor (CM), that ‘elevates’ Pakistan into the company of countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Serbia, Italy and the US, a list describing countries in 2025 that are experiencing rapid declines in civic freedoms. Pakistan’s status on CM’s website is listed as “repressed”. According to CM’s report, Pakistan has been awarded this honour due to narrowing civil space, human rights activists being arbitrarily targeted by the authorities, and the media being clamped down on through draconian laws. The report adds: “Pakistan’s recent criminalisation of activists, stifling of opposition and minority protests, and digital space restrictions have resulted in the country being added to Civicus Monitor’s watchlist.” It goes on to point to the government’s “trumped up charges” against Dr Mahrang Baloch, the leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, and human rights lawyer Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir. Mahrang, the report says, “faces multiple criminal charges, including under the Anti-Terrorism Act, for organising sit-ins (peaceful, one might add) across the country and attending gatherings” (!). Mazari-Hazir was “targeted on terrorism chargesfor actively supporting legal redress for victims of violence and persecution and advocating for the rights of persecuted religious and ethnic communities.” CM comes to the logical conclusion that the charges against both ladies are a political witch-hunt and attempts at silencing dissent. CM also underlines the government’s tender treatment of opposition, Sindhi and Baloch protests.

Standing up peacefully for the ‘disappeared’, fighting legal battles for the oppressed, and agitating peacefully for rights, it seems, are not allowed in Pakistan. Why does all this sound so drearily familiar? Lessons not learnt perhaps?

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

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

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

Contents:

1. Navid Shahzad: The Elusive Self.
2. Chris Harman: The return of the National Question – III: Nationalism since the First World War.
3. W B Bland: The Pakistani Revolution – VIII: The ‘Six Points’.
4. Jamison Heinkel: Book Review: The genesis of Baloch nationalism: Politics and ethnicity in Pakistan, 1947-77.
5. From the PMR Archives: September 2019: From the Editor: Capitalism’s ‘gift’: climate change.

Rashed Rahman

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

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

Business Recorder Column March 4, 2025

The Kurd struggle

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The Kurds are a people divided between four countries: Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. This reflects the fact that state boundaries were drawn in many parts of the world depending on factors other than ethnic homogeneity, reflecting the relative reach and control of territory by states that included peoples of the same ethnic origin, in the process dividing them. Closer to home, we can refer to the similar case of divided ethnic groups and nationalities: the Baloch (Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan) and the Pashtuns (Pakistan and Afghanistan). In the case of the Kurds, despite the division, sentiments of solidarity and expressed desire for self-determination in the shape of a unified Kurd state have been part of their history. However, the divisions into different states have proved stronger than this aspiration, leading to struggles by the Kurds within the confines of the respective states they find themselves in.

The Iraqi Kurds fought a long guerrilla war against their state for independence, led by Mulla Mustafa Barzani and his Peshmerga fighters from 1961 to 1975, but were eventually defeated, leading to the exile of Barzani in the Soviet Union and Iran, where he eventually died in 1979. After the overthrow of Saddam by the US in 2003, the Iraqi Kurds, now led by Mustafa’s son Masoud Barzani, gained autonomous control of their oil-rich territory in northern Iraq in a tenuous alliance with the new regime imposed on Baghdad through US arms. The Iranian Kurds took advantage of the Soviet Union’s control of northern Iran after WWII to declare an independent Kurdish Republic of Mahabad, but it was crushed after the Soviets withdrew. An attempt to resurrect the Mahabad Republic after the Iranian revolution of 1979 was also brutally crushed. Iraq, Iran and Turkey have long followed forced assimilationist policies against their respective Kurd populations.

In Turkey, recovering after WWI from the loss of the Ottoman empire, this forced assimilationist policy denied the Kurds’ very existence, dubbing them ‘Mountain Turks’ in the 1930s and 1940s. The words “Kurds”, “Kurdistan”, “Kurdish” were officially banned. After the military coup in 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life till 1991. Many who spoke, published, sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. It was initially against this assimilationist loss of identity and to gain cultural and political rights that the Kurdish Partiya Karkeren Kurdistane (PKK) was formed in 1978 under the leadership of Abdullah Ocalan with a programmatic demand for autonomy. However, it was the Turkish state’s continuing fierce repression, including systematic executions, imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, destruction of villages, the murder of Kurdish journalists, activists, politicians, the prosecution and sentencing of teachers providing, and students demanding education in Kurdish, and the entire panoply of the modern state’s oppressive capabilities that incrementally persuaded the PKK to pick up the gun and wage an armed guerrilla struggle for independence in 1984.

The trajectory of the PKK’s guerrilla war has constantly fluctuated between conflict and unilateral ceasefires by the PKK in an attempt to restore peace through negotiations. But successive Turkish regimes, including the present Erdogan government, have never abandoned the mailed fist even while paying lip service to a peaceful solution through negotiations. The Turkish military pressure over the years on the PKK resulted in retreats into Syria, Lebanon, and eventually northern Iraq, the Iraqi Kurd area, where the leadership of the PKK is currently based. Unfortunately, the prime leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, who was snatched in an operation in Nairobi allegedly with the help of the CIA and Israel, has been in solitary confinement in a prison in the Sea of Marmara since 1999. Even from that isolation, Ocalan has attempted again and again to negotiate a peaceful solution with successive Turkish governments but to no avail.

This time though, through the intermediary role of the pro-Kurdish DEM party, whose delegation met Ocalan in prison, his message announcing the “end of the armed struggle” of the PKK has been made public, adding the PKK should now dissolve itself. The message and its import have been accepted by the PKK leadership in Iraq. What remains to be seen is whether the Erdogan government will accede to the PKK’s demand for the release of Ocalan from his long and lonely incarceration, and whether that will be accompanied by negotiations that frame a new future for the Kurds in Turkey and, indeed, for Turkey as a whole.

The Kurd example, whether in Turkey, Iraq, Iran or Syria, points to the futility and risks involved in denying a minority nationality its cultural and political rights in an attempt to wipe out its very existence through forced assimilation. Let us hope wisdom prevails and Ankara finds a fresh path to apply salve on the deep wounds of its Kurd people and adopts a democratic attitude to the vexed Kurd problem.

We in Pakistan too should learn the lessons embedded in the Kurdish problem in the four states between whom the Kurdish people are divided. The flowering of diverse cultures is the best means of achieving genuine unity between the federating units of any state. Pakistan can only be enriched and strengthened by its open hearted embrace of its minority nationalities, allowing an organic coming together of our diverse peoples to forge a voluntary, respectful unity, not one maintained by the knout.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column February 25, 2025

Russia-Ukraine War: Origins and Endgame

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Three years after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the advent of Donald Trump into power in the US has upset the applecart for Volodymyr Zelensky and hints at a changed geopolitical scenario in Europe and the wider world. Trump had exhibited a soft spot for Russian President Vladimir Putin even in his first term, and after leaving office, consistently opposed the war while expressing a tilt towards Russia. During his election campaign and on the eve of a return to the White House, Trump made no bones about wanting to, and being capable of, ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict “within 24 hours”. The timeline may have been the usual Trump hyperbole, but it did indicate the US President’s mindset vis-a-vis the war.

What is the Russia-Ukraine conflict? What are its origins and, in the light of the remarks above, its likely endgame? The problem with seeking an objective account of this conundrum is that the whole affair is shrouded in propaganda and partisan spin from both sides (not an unusual phenomenon in wars). First, some historical background.

Ukraine’s Donbas region, around which the current war has been waged, is considered in Russian historiography as the original home of the Russian people and culture after they migrated there from Scandinavia around the 8^th-11^thcenturies. Add to this nostalgia the fact that the Donbas, largely Russian to date, complained of discrimination and worse from Ukraine, particularly after the Maidan uprising in 2014. In the aftermath of that political cataclysm of regime change (one of the ‘colour’ revolutions in Eastern Europe orchestrated as it is widely believed they were, by the CIA), both the Russian denizens of Donbas and their Russian Orthodox Church (revived after the Soviet collapse in 1991) came under alleged attack by neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine. These neo-Nazis are considered the heirs of the WWII Ukrainian collaborators with the occupying Nazi war machine of Hitler.

Russian sensitivity regarding its diaspora scattered throughout the former Soviet Republics has informed Moscow’s actions in Abkhazia, Georgia (where a separatist Russian movement was indirectly supported by Russia) and Ukraine, the two most extreme examples of such intervention. Moscow has also kept an eye on the interests of Russians in the Central Asian Republics that broke away and became independent in 1991. Putin in particular appears to have made it his life’s mission to ensure his Russian compatriots in the former Soviet Republics are not maltreated.

On the other side of the divide is the perfidious role of the West which, not content with its ‘victory’ over the Soviet Union, has been needling post-Soviet Russia with NATO-creep (the inclusion of Eastern European countries in the military alliance, a development the West initially assured Moscow would not happen) and the doing down of Russia’s military might (which includes nuclear weapons). All this is intended to weaken Russia and ensure the US-led West’s unchallenged global hegemony. Sceptics are invited to cast a glance at how China, after being embraced when it opened its doors to capitalism under Deng Xiaoping, is today being considered an economic, political and military threat by the US-led West precisely because of the progress it has made. Thucydides is therefore alive and kicking.

Had the West remained content with the humbling of Russia post-Soviet collapse, things may not have reached this pretty pass. However, Trump is making one thing clear: the days of Zelensky are now numbered, along with those in Ukraine who still dream of recovering all the territory they have lost to Russia in this war. Trump seems uninterested in Ukraine’s refrain along these lines. His avid interest currently is in asking Zelensky for $ 500 billion in rare minerals to be found in Ukraine as payback for all the aid Washington has bestowed on the (by now lost) Ukrainian cause.

Another major loser in the second Trumpian era is Europe, which has been excluded from the table as US-Russia meetings roll out. The European Union’s angst about Ukrainian, and therefore European, security has been trashed by the new/old incumbent in the White House. Trump had in the past railed against the continuation of the US stationing troops in and bearing the cost of Europe’s security (a hangover of the post-WWII world) and repeatedly asked for Europe to increase its contribution to European defence. This had not been taken too seriously in practice by the EU, lip service notwithstanding. Now it seems the free lunch is over and the chickens have come home to roost.

Welcome to the Trumpian universe.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com