Reply to Imtiaz Alam’s Rejoinder

Fayyaz Baqir

This is in response to Imtiaz Alam’s rejoinder to my article in Pakistan Monthly Review, November 2024 (See Pakistan Monthly Review December 2024 for Imtiaz Alam’s Rejoinder. Both articles are in the Archives on the PMR website under the respective dates). I am glad that he has given his comments in writing. I have always held him in high regard and I hope that he will give due attention to my comments. Some of his statements can neither be proved nor disproved, some are half-truths, and some fall in the category of logical fallacies. I will respond to them in the order that he presented them. The purpose is not to score points against him but to try to better understand the situation that we are analysing.

Imtiaz’s rejoinder reminded me of a saying by Ali ibn Abi Talib: “Never explain yourself to anyone, because the one who likes you would not need it, and the one who dislikes you wouldn’t believe it. Silence that covers you with honour is better than speech that earns you regret and good might come your way from where you least expect it.” This sentiment was echoed by Professor Zafar Ali Khan and Dr Manzoor Ejaz (late), who said that Imtiaz’s rejoinder was not worth responding to. They feared that it might turn into mudslinging. I saw an opportunity to improve the quality of debate and protect the credibility of my narrative in responding to the points raised by Imtiaz. Recently Aamir Riaz also encouraged me to respond to enhance our understanding of left politics in Punjab.

One statement that Imtiaz made to discredit me was that I was not a founding member of NSO. I am giving below the references of three left wing publications published at different times by different progressive groups that mention me as one of the founding members of NSO.

References

حسن جاوید و محسن ذوالفقار ‘سورج پہ کمند- نیشنل اسٹوڈنٹس فیڈریشن کی کہانی، کارکنوں اور واقعات کی زبانی، جلد سوم، سویرا پبلیکیشنز، مارچ ۲۰۲۱، صفحہ ۲۰۷۳

Iqbal Haider Butt: Revisiting Student Politics in Pakistan (Bargad Books, Gujranwala, 2009, p. 85)

عوامی جمہوری فورم، فروری ۲۰۰۸، صفحہ ۲۲

In addition I quote Mohammad Sami (one of the founding members of NSO) after meeting Professor Aziz ud Din Ahmad and Mohammad Sarwar on January 12, 2025. In this meeting Professor Aziz ud Din confirmed that Fayyaz Baqir was a founder member of NSO.

Similarly, Imtiaz denied my association with the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP). I must mention here that I wrote the manifesto of Inqilabi Mahaz-e-Talaba (student wing of MKP) and I worked closely with MKP units in Dera Ismail Khan, Bhakkar and Mianwali. I travelled all over Punjab to participate in MKP events. In January 1976 I was part of MKP’s delegation from Punjab to attend Rasool Bakhsh Paleejo’s Awami Tehreek’s convention in Bathoro, Sindh. When Deputy Commissioner Dera Ismail Khan (DIK) Khalid Mansoor summoned me to his office to seek explanation of my political activism at Gomal University, Afzal Bangash sent me the message that he had taken up some of Khalid Mansoor’s cases without fee and he could speak to him to mend fences with me. In the meanwhile, Hamid Hasan Qazilbash as General Secretary of the Federal Academic Staff Association (ASA)  took the case to the Federal Education Minister Hafiz Pirzada and the DC was transferred from DIK.

This debate is only of historical interest now because most of the people believing in armed struggle have moved from the ‘barrel of a gun’ to ‘ballot box’ forms of resistance. We are in a rupture moment, and we need to weave new dreams, but looking at the dreams of our youth reignites the spark of our imagination.

In the 1960s, armed insurrection was considered the only revolutionary path by Maoists and many other revolutionary tendencies. Imtiaz tried to put down our call for armed action by saying, “He (meaning Fayyaz Baqir) doesn’t even know what is meant by ‘Armed Propaganda’. At the very least, it is not simply a pamphlet that invited the wrath of the law enforcement agencies against Left activists.” Should I point out that the pamphlet invited the wrath of the law enforcement agencies because it unnerved them, as well as the revolutionary paper tigers like Imtiaz Alam. Call to armed struggle was given in open meetings of students, workers and peasant gatherings of all the Maoist groups on daily basis. These calls were neither considered an infantile disorder nor an act of an agent provocateurs because they were considered part of the rhetoric of the Maoists. Intelligence agencies never cared about these calls because they considered them public posturing, and they knew that these postures were not in line with the strength and capacity of these groups. Our pamphlet unnerved them because they were not sure if anything like the International Spartist Tendency (IST) existed, and what was its strength and fighting capacity. It was this element of uncertainty that worked as Armed Propaganda. People like Imtiaz got unnerved because intelligence agencies could start believing that these left groups might move from verbal to actual armed struggle. They were not willing to face the consequences of actualisation of their slogan of armed struggle.

Imtiaz has described me, Shamoon and Fauzia as “three-lunatics who carried out an infantile disorder” that put in jeopardy the newly formed Punjab Lok Party. In his words, “This ‘Gang of Three’ – Fauzia Rafiq (FR), Shamoon Saleem (SS) and Fayyaz Baqir – didn’t have the capacity or understanding nor any organisation to give an amateurish call to arms. They were frustrated, disillusioned and isolated individuals who tried to create a stir by issuing a hand-written pamphlet to attack police stations. SS’s (Shamoon’s) hideout was no secret, and he kept all the minutes of their ‘conspiracy’.” He has accused us of doing what he was already doing himself. However, it is important to note here that Imtiaz has conveniently twisted the facts to suit his narrative. He says, “When Shamoon was arrested, he broke down instantly and revealed all the secrets of this three-member army.” Shamoon’s apartment was raided because of the pamphlet confiscated by the police at Imtiaz’s hideout. If Imtiaz did not destroy the pamphlet he received, then he was responsible for the police raids, not Shamoon. He accuses Shamoon of breaking down and revealing everything. What was there to reveal? He has already stated that “SS’s (Shamoon’s) hideout was no secret, and he kept all the minutes of their ‘conspiracy’.” Imtiaz is again using rhetoric instead of reason to make his point because he was raised in the tradition of revolutionary rhetoric. This is my critique of the Maoist left in Punjab in the 1960s also. They could not rise above the level of revolutionary rhetoric.

Imtiaz further states: “Myself and other Lok Party activists had to go underground when police started raiding to arrest Lok Party activists, who had nothing to do with this provocative group.” If Lok party was not a parliamentary party, it should have been prepared to go underground as part of its training and would incur no loss by going underground. So what is the point other than empty rhetoric again. He makes the false statement that “On Shamoon’s confession, an FIR was registered against me, the homes of Lok Party members were raided by police, and they were sent to prison.” He is forgetting that the police raid on Imtiaz’s hideout led to Shamoon’s arrest, not the other way round.

Imtiaz also claims: “We were worried that the remaining two ‘Guerrillas’ might not further put us in uncalled for harm. As a precautionary measure, I somehow met Fauzia, whom even Fayyaz suspected, to persuade her to escape, but she said she had the protection of an army colonel, perhaps her uncle.” Fauzia did not need Imtiaz’s help, and she stood her ground. He further says, “Fayyaz ran away to the Tribal Belt to take shelter with so-called Robin Hood – a student activist in Engineering University who became a dacoit and had to take asylum in the tribal areas after committing various crimes.” If Imtiaz goes into hiding it is ‘underground’, If I go into hiding it is running away to the tribal areas. If he gives a call for taking up arms, it is a call for armed struggle, if someone actually does it, he is a dacoit and criminal.

His statement, “Why is Fayyaz Baqir so surprised over my name in the FIR while I had nothing to do with their nonsensical misadventure? The police got the custody of their documents/minutes that falsely dragged the Lok Party into their scheme as a cover and to use its activists for oral ‘armed struggle’” is untrue. What is the evidence that Shamoon’s meeting minutes mentioned the Lok Party? We never had a meeting with the Lok Party. Logic can be used to challenge difference of opinion but untruths cannot be used to reject truth in political polemics.