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