My life and struggle – VI

Split in the Mother Party

Fayyaz Baqir

During the third students union election campaign, we split with the Professor’s Group (PG). Before the split the PG had asked me to continue my stay in Lahore. It had a strong belief that a revolutionary party had to be a party of professional full-time political workers, but neither had the resources nor a strategy to build such a party. In my case they asked me if I would like to enrol in Law College. They were willing to cover my expenses. This did not suit me because I had family obligations to fulfil and wanted to find a job. I was helped in my job search by the PG. My job interviews were arranged at HBL New Campus branch and Millat Tractors Lahore.

As an alternative I was asked to join Packages and work with labour leader Abdur Rehman as General Secretary of the Packages Union. Abdur Rehman arranged my job interview at Packages and accompanied me for my interview. The interview panel asked Abdur Rehman right away what my connection with him was. Abdur Rehman said that I was his maternal cousin. The Packages management was both pleased and reluctant to get me on board. They were pleased because they thought they would be able to influence Abdur Rehman due to this favour. They were reluctant because they suspected that I might be a subversive element. They very politely advised me to keep away from union activity after joining and pay attention to my career. Abdur Rehman nodded his head in agreement to reassure them. Abdur Rehman was under serious threat from the Hafiz Samad Group in those days. He went to an arms dealer shop on the Mall Road with me to look for a good quality revolver. He also stopped by at Gulab Devi Hospital on his way back and introduced me to some of the Union workers. Sadly, Abdur Rehman was murdered within a week after this meeting in Gulab Devi Hospital.

Working at Packages was no more an option. My name was now recommended for a job to Dr Munir Ahmad, who was appointed as the head of the newly established South Asian Institute (SAI). Dr Munir agreed to consider me for the position of Research Associate. I was interviewed by a panel headed by Vice Chancellor Dr Ajmal and selected for the post. By the time I was selected, we split with PG under very hostile circumstances. Subsequently Dr Munir was approached to not induct me. Dr Munir was a man of impeccable integrity, a fine and critical thinker, and in a true sense gifted with the ability to think freely. He was not part of the inner core of the PG and was baffled upon receiving this suggestion. He did not heed the PG advice and hired me. His open way of thinking and expressing himself was amazing. One day soon after the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) came to power, Munawwar Hayat and I joined him for lunch at PCSIR canteen near FC College Bridge. During the discussion he asked us, “Do you have faith in the PPP?” We said no. Then he asked, “Do you have faith in the opposition?” We said no. Finally, he said, “Do you have faith in the people?” We said yes. He said, “I differ with you on only one point, I don’t have faith even in the people.” His moral courage and intellectual openness was amazing. He was always very affectionate and kind to me. After I joined the SAI, he invited us to the first Board meeting. Introducing me to Dr Tariq Siddiqi, he said, “This is Fayyaz Baqir, the most dangerous man on campus. I expect one day when I come to the Institute, he will be raising slogans against me.” “What will you do?” asked Dr Siddiqi. “I will join him,” was his loving answer.

However, this was a period of confusion, inner search, turbulence, transition and creative uncertainty for most of us. Many of our close friends had graduated from the university. They had no jobs, no clear vision of the future, a broken faith in the ideals and were exploring various options to redefine and reconstruct their broken and bruised selves. We tried hashish, booze, love affairs, poetry, music and unending discussions to find a way to reconstruct our identity. We were joined by friends from the National Students Federation (NSF), Young People’s Front (YPF) and those without any organisational affiliation. This atmosphere was not suitable for doing meaningful research work at the SAI. So I definitely disappointed Dr Munir regarding my research work. When Nawab Allah Nawaz Khan, newly appointed VC of Gomal University came looking for staff to Lahore, he met Dr Munir. Dr Munir asked for my consent and proposed my name for an interview. I was offered a job. I accepted the offer and said goodbye to Lahore. The stigma of ‘revisionism’, ‘betrayal’ and ‘deviation from the Party Line’ stayed with me for a long time. Later in the 1990s my mentors in the PG forgot and forgave my ‘sins’ and once again extended their affection, courtesy and kindness to me during my nth incarnation as a development professional.

By this time, I had pledged allegiance to a Sufi Order. One day when I visited Professor Khalid Mahmood at his residence in Islamabad, he said, “Fayyaz, when I first heard about your change in beliefs, I was very upset, but then I asked myself, haven’t all of us changed?” That was so beautiful. It touched me. That is what it is in the end. As a friend in the Development Community once said, “In the process of social change what counts the most is not a great mind, but a big heart.”

Causes and consequences of the Split

The split took place because of disagreements on the class analysis of Pakistani society, political stand on various issues, style of work and organisational culture. Each one of the rebels had his own list of grievances. However, the common themes mentioned above formed the basis of the polemics. Some of the issues raised in the polemics are relevant to this day. So I will take the liberty of elaborating on these issues in the light of my own personal journey on these issues, to the present day. These differences could have been resolved amicably had Azizuddin handled it flexibly and with an open mind. The basic point of contention in my mind was that young Turks had some inkling of ‘We know what we don’t know’, and the Party’s reality was that ‘They did not know, what they did not know’. However, their pretence was that ‘They knew what they knew, and they also knew what they did not know’. I shall discuss each of the three major disagreements flagged above in three different posts below. There might be a little bit of repetition on some issues, but you have to bear with me. It happens in storytelling.

Class Analysis of Pakistani Society

Although cut and paste and find and replace practices were not in vogue at the time, nevertheless the PG’s class analysis of Pakistani society was a cut and paste of Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society by Mao Tse Tung. This was done by finding China and replacing it with Pakistan in Mao’s article. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this, except that it does not connect to ground reality. Such copying culture was common in Leftist groups across the board, pro-Soviet, pro-China, Trotskyite, etc. etc. Due to a broken link of these ideas and analyses with the indigenous reality, communist intellectuals were often seen as promoters of ‘foreign ideologies’. There is a grain of truth in that, and I shall explain it below. Unfortunately, this practice is currently being repeated by many NGOs in the name of human rights, poverty alleviation and good governance.

Take for example the formulation “Pakistan is a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society”, borrowed from Chairman Mao. It calls for an understanding of feudalism and the feudal mode of production. For one thing, feudalism is a European concept and it cannot be juxtaposed on Pakistani reality. Many Marxist critics have found the use of the feudal mode of production very problematic in describing their socio-economic realities. For example Egyptian Marxist Samir Amin in his work The Arab Nation said that the Arab mode of production can be better explained as a tributary mode of production. What was named as feudalism did not exist in Pashtun, Baloch and Bengali areas. It came into existence with the establishment of the canal colonies in Punjab and their extension to Sindh. It brought one major change, conferring the title of ownership of vast tracts of canal-irrigated lands upon individuals. Pashtuns and Baloch lived under a tribal system, and East Pakistan was dominated by small and middle farmers. The significance of the settlement in canal colonies lay in making big land ownership hereditary. In areas where communities lived under a pastoral system, their community selection of the tribal chief was ended and made hereditary by the British. This encroachment on community power laid the foundation for what we now call dynastic politics.

This newly created ‘feudal’ power was given teeth by linking it with the Thana (Police Station) system. Thanas were established in such a way that the farthest village under the jurisdiction of a Thana could be visited in a one day round trip by the Station Head Officer (SHO). Cultivators under the Pakistani ‘feudal’ system were not tied to land like serfs were in Europe. Agricultural land and produce under the Pakistani ‘feudal’ system were commercialised and closely linked to the market. This feudal class, instead of resisting industrialisation, badly wanted it to build the economic muscle of Pakistan’s national security state. This feudal class resisted the handover of power to the Awami League fearing, amongst other changes, land reforms under it, and soon after the PPP came to power, undertook the mechanisation of agriculture. Due to the loss of export earnings that rightfully belonged to the Bengali jute farmers, the Pakistani feudal leadership permitted mass migration of rural workers to the Middle East. So, using the classic Marxist framework, the hindrance to the development of productive forces could not be explained by the so-called ‘semi-feudal’ structure.

Our argument against the semi-feudal formulation was in the embryonic stage at the time of the split. But latter events confirmed our hunch that feudalism was not the shackle in the way of progress. During the early decades of ‘feudal’ rule, the exodus of population to the cities and later on overseas migration changed our demographic balance from predominantly rural to almost 50 percent urban at present. This feudal power also provided under colonialism the human base of the British Indian Army, which was an Army raised not only for India, but for its entire Empire in Asia and Africa. So Pakistan’s establishment foresaw a regional role for itself. This role also found continuity due to Pakistan’s consent to serve as a frontline state in the west’s encirclement of the Communist bloc. Being a frontline state served like a bedrock for sustaining the establishment.

Pakistan’s political leadership wanted to become a modern capitalist state by overuse of financial capital and underdevelopment of human capital. This coincided with US interests. The key contradiction of Pakistan’s socio-economic system was between the intensive use of financial capital and the arrested development of human capital. So the contradiction between the forces of production and relations of production could not be captured by the ‘semi-feudal, semi-colonial’ formula. Without understanding the form and dynamics of this system of power, an appropriate form of resistance could not be developed. This was a key source of disagreement. We believed that a text book analysis could only produce a text book revolution. If we want to bring about a revolution, we need to understand the real nature of the forms of exploitation. The problem was that we could not solve this difference of opinion through discussion. Whenever we objected to any of the mother party’s formulations, they would ask us, “What is your formulation?” We did not know. But they were not willing to know either.

In the post-colonial period, the formulation ‘semi-colonial’ did not hold. By now the US ‘Empire’ had replaced the British Empire as Pakistan’s economic partner. Thus, instead of a mercantile capitalist policy restricting industrialisation, there was the generous funding of Pakistan’s industrialisation with the concomitant showcasing of Pakistan as the latest success story of capitalism. Pakistan was among the three top aid recipients in the 1960s and 1970s. The Leninist formulation of Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism, where Imperialism flourishes on the export of capital, furnished a better explanation of Pakistani society than the ‘semi-colonial’ formula. Those who accepted the capitalist development of Pakistan called it dependent development. That again had many gaps and holes.

To sum up, the formulation of mode of production and use of class as the only category for explanation of social change left many things unexplained, such as the caste system in India, the creation of Pakistan, and assessment of the emergence and historical role of Islam. There were people who had written about some of the dimensions of this challenge, some examples being Dada Ferozuddin Mansoor’s Maulana Maudoodi key Tasawwurat (Maulana Maudoodi’s Thought), which was an attempt to historically explain the rise of Islam; Abdullah Malik’s Punjab Ki Siasi Tehreekain (Punjab’s Political Movements), describing the class dynamics of many religious movements in Punjab, and Dr Mubashir’s Pakistan Key Ja’ali Hukmaran Tabqey (Pakistan’s Counterfeit Ruling Classes), providing an account of the economic role of Pakistan’s ruling classes. Much more has been written in recent years by ‘non-Marxist’ writers on this theme, one example being Arif Hasan’s The Unplanned Revolution. It is ironic that the PG, who should have addressed these issues in the first place, considered these debates petty bourgeois hair-splitting, and did not want to be distracted by them on their way to revolution. But as Zaman Khan put it, “We are trying to board a train without a ticket. I don’t know how far it will take us.” The difference of opinion boiled down to one point: should we uphold a strong belief in our ideological ‘faith’, or continue our quest for the correct foundations of that faith? Our Professors believed that having strong faith counted the most, as their concept of science was close to religion. We believed that we needed to critically reevaluate our ideological formulations. That is what scientific thought is all about. Science is not another form of dogma, and it cannot relieve us of the torture of continuous self-doubt and course correction. It cannot provide us with eternal bliss. As the end result shows, dogmatic faith did not take the PG beyond the late 1980s.

Political underpinnings of the Split

As political workers, people asked us questions on political issues. We brushed aside many issues as issues of bourgeois politics, such as the Military’s refusal to hand over power to the Awami League, or in later years Bhutto’s crackdown on the opposition, dismissal of governments in NWFP and Balochistan, humiliation of opposition leaders and Bhutto’s dictatorial style of government. We did not take a clear stand against the army action in East Pakistan because we considered that the army was trying to save the integrity of Pakistan, and Mujib was a bourgeois separatist. People did not count in our formulation. The PG leadership accepted the importance of the national question, language and culture, but considered the People’s Democratic Revolution as the only solution for these problems. The main point of disagreement was whether we should support the demands for national, cultural and language rights by bourgeois parties or not. Should we fight for nothing short of revolution? This logic did not hold in view of our support for the trade union struggle, land reforms, end of draconian laws against freedom of the press and opposing the ban on student unions. In the ultimate analysis these demands for reforms within the system were also ‘bourgeois’ demands, and we made alliances with bourgeois sections of society to press for these demands.

When the army action started in East Pakistan, we strongly felt that we needed to condemn this action and support the Bengali masses. With much difficulty a meeting was arranged at Tariq Latif’s house to discuss this issue. The PG’s relations with Tariq Latif had a roller coaster pattern, good one day, bad the next. But when efforts to mend the relationship failed, he always used an effective trick; he used to invite everybody to dinner. He did the same for arranging a dialogue on the army action. He used to get frustrated in his effort to get his point across, but he was a born optimist. A few days before this meeting he told me: “If I get enough money, I would like to publish an issue of Peking Review to plead my point of view. In the next meeting everybody will agree with me.” Since it was not possible to publish Peking Review, we settled for a dinner for the close circle of student and trade union activists and a few professors. The issue of the army action in East Pakistan was discussed at length. We agreed that the Awami League had a legitimate right to form the government after the election. We also agreed that there was no justification for not convening the session of the National Assembly. However, Mujib was seen as a separatist, while in the view of some of us he was willing to work as part of the Federation. The Professors were not ready to condemn the army action because in their view the army was saving the integrity of Pakistan. However, we succeeded in agreeing on one point; we should demand the immediate peaceful transfer of power. That will show our disapproval of the army action and respect for the popular mandate.

Due to this dispute cracks appeared between the rebels and the PG leadership. The issue was temporarily resolved, but no firm principle for dealing with bourgeois politics was agreed upon. Another issue was that no written policy statements were issued by the leadership and verbal accounts could be interpreted differently, or changed with the passage of time. We had done wall-chalking against the creation of the Federal Security Force, as well as against the national ID card scheme, on the grounds that these were steps toward a dictatorial form of government. I remember that Munawwar Hayat and I did wall-chalking on this issue from New Campus to Rehmanpura. We used to sneak out of the hostel a little before midnight. I used to hold a bucket of black paint in my hands and Munawwar in his beautiful handwriting wrote on the wall. We, however, did not oppose the PPP government’s crackdown on opposition parties. It was understandable that bourgeois politics was not our business, but we could make our entry in day to day politics through ‘bourgeois’ issues and use these issues to convey our message. This ambiguity and lack of clear position on burning issues created a non-political image of our open front organisations. I later heard that the Mazdoor Kissan Party (MKP) faced a similar problem. When Imtiaz Alam was hiding at his sister’s house in Jhang, both his Muslim Leaguer sister and brother-in-law were imprisoned due to their active involvement in anti-PPP protests. This gave Imtiaz an opportunity to indoctrinate his nephews and nieces. When his sister and brother-in-law returned, he asked them with pride in front of their parents, “Which party do you support, the Muslim League or the MKP?” “MKP,” they said. “Why?” was his next question. Because, they said, “MKP does not take part in politics.” We were facing the same dilemma. Differences of view on the specific issue of East Pakistan and the general stand on day to day political issues, both significantly contributed to the split.

In hindsight, a joke narrated by Professor Khalid Mahmood captures our dilemma at that time really well. According to Khalid Sahib, a communist converted to Christianity, and through dedicated study and practice rose to the level of a priest. The day he was going to be ordained, he was asked to make a speech. Following his speech, the Bishop congratulated him for taking on this new responsibility but told him to remember three points in future speeches: “One, Jesus Christ was killed in Jerusalem, not in Vietnam; Two, Jesus was crucified, not killed by machinegun fire, and Three, when you address the congregation, call them friends, not Comrades.” This joke happened in reverse in the case of many ‘converts’ to communism. The priest kept the old jargon to express his newly accepted faith, while some of our fellow comrades expressed their older belief in new jargon. They translated the idea of a strong Centre into the integrity of Pakistan, denied various forms of inequalities in the name of class inequality and refrained from opposing undemocratic norms in the name of rejecting bourgeois politics. It was like using socialist jargon for non-socialist politics and using dogma in the name of a scientific worldview.

One wonders, what is the use of following a scientific worldview if it does not help in finding an objectively verifiable viewpoint? I think the difficulty arises due to a basic misperception about science. Scientific claims can be verified through objectively verifiable experiments, but science cannot tell you the final truth. The moment one group starts taking its view as ‘the final truth’, it crosses the line into the world of dogmatism. Edward De Bono has given an excellent example of how science may be distinguished from dogma. He showed how the same event would produce a completely different result if the context changes. If we disregard the change in context, our ‘scientific truth’ will fail us. De Bono asks: “If you are holding a block of wood in your hand and loosen your grip, what will happen?” The answer is it will fall on the ground. Yes, if you are standing on earth. The force of gravity will pull it down. If you are standing in the ocean it will float up to the surface, and if you are in space, it will be suspended where it is let go. Scientific thought neither gives a single nor a final answer. If this is recognised, then flexibility rather than ‘iron discipline’ becomes a political virtue, something that was conspicuously absent in most of the leftist groups, including the PG.

The final stroke

A friend of mine who was the grandson of a stone cutter shared a very interesting insight of his grandfather’s with me. He said, “When you are hitting a big rock with a hammer, you hit it 99 times and it does not break. You hit it the hundredth time, and it breaks into pieces. It was not the 100^th stroke that did it. All the previous 99 strokes contributed to the final outcome.” The same happened in the split with the PG. Grievances were welling up for a long time due to major flaws in the style of work, structure and decision making practices of the group. Disagreement on some immediate organisational issues served as a final stroke in breaking up the rock hard party. There were three major issues: future of the cadre who had graduated from the university, the Party’s strategy for recruiting and financing the full-time workers, and communication between the various organs of the secret party. Disagreements on the channel of communication between various Bureaus and the Central Committee served as the 100^th stroke.

By 1972 the first batch of NSO workers and Student Bureau members had graduated from the university. We had done hard work to build our network during these years and discovered some very precious allies and supporters. After graduation they were going to spread out to various professions, geographic locations, and public and private institutions. How could we keep them engaged? After ‘catching the fish’ were we going to throw it back into the river? Where did they stand in our scheme of things? Was our work among students going to be digging and filling the pits in the ground, or something better? The PG had never taken the trouble to think about it. I shall narrate two events to describe the critical importance of having a plan on this issue. Soon after Bhutto’s hanging, a treason case was registered against me. I went into hiding at Azmat Qadir’s flat in Islamabad. One day I bumped into a friend from university days. He was visiting the supermarket with his boss. He looked around and then took me to a corner. Then he mentioned a guy’s name and inquired if I knew him. I said yes, he was my student at Gomal University. He said, “I received three serious complaints against you by this guy when I was working at the Chief Martial Law Administrator’s (CMLA) complaint cell. I threw them in the waste basket. Be careful in future.” Soon afterwards Azmat Qadir was roughed up by someone and sought my help. I contacted a friend who was in charge of security at the Presidency. He met us over lunch (during Ramadan), called the Police Station in Islamabad, and the matter was resolved. Although we considered these guys careerists, social climbers and bureaucrats, they extended full support to us during extremely challenging circumstances and took serious risks to protect us. In our books there was no place for them, and we had written them off as opportunists. But we had no plans for members of our inner core either.

The Mother Party believed in the Leninist view that a revolutionary party had to be a party of professional full-time workers. There was no strategy to mobilise resources for hiring full-time workers, and no plans to identify and recruit workers. A party of full-time revolutionaries could not be maintained on the basis of contributions received from the small group of people in the inner circle. Something creative was needed. Years later the ‘NSO’s Robin Hood’ shared with me some creative ideas that his prison mates presented in this regard, but I will save them for a separate post. There were no ideas on this in the PG, and no serious discussion was held on this matter. This was the foundation on which the structure of mass politics could be built. By abandoning our liberal and progressive well wishers, we also lost a valuable source of funding for building a revolutionary party.

The third and most important issue was the linkage and channel of communications between various Bureaus and the Central Committee. I don’t know about the Labour Bureau, but the Student Bureau had no representation in the Central Committee. The Central Committee had one representative in the Student Bureau, and perhaps one in each of the other Bureaus. Our hunch was that our concerns were not fully communicated to the Central Committee, and we were not satisfied with the feedback received from the Central Committee. It came down to a matter of trust. Due to the way various political and organisational matters were addressed by the Mother Party, the trust had eroded between the Student and Labour Bureaus on the one hand, and the Central Committee on the other. Student and Labour Bureaus jointly invited Professor Azizuddin for a dialogue at Aurangzeb Syed’s house in Model Town. Horizontal communication between the two Bureaus was considered a breach of discipline in the first place. The meeting therefore started in a very negative atmosphere. Professor Azizuddin asserted the principle of democratic centralism and commitment to secrecy, and we insisted on democratic communication and our disillusionment with the political and ideological leadership. We had a very heated debate on all the issues. But it seems we had reached a point of no return. There was only one way this split could have been prevented. I learnt about that by reading Shah Hussain later. As Shah Hussain says, ‘Surat di sooi prem de dhagey peond lagi sat sangay’ (The thread of love is needed along with the needle of reason to make the wholesome connection). That thread of love was missing from Professor Azizuddin’s toolkit.

After the split we had to decide on our future direction. We decided not to join any other leftist group but could not manage to continue our independent existence. In the very first meeting after the breakup, Aurangzeb called our new group a stillbirth. Others did not care about the future life of the splinter group. Some like me were drawn to a different leftist group or the PPP. Later on, I joined the MKP. What happened during the transition is also worth mentioning, and I will talk about that later on.

In Search of Self

The crisis that precipitated our split with the PG started an intense soul searching amongst some of us. From the ‘revolutionary’ practice of ‘class struggle’, we turned our attention to a ‘bourgeois’ search for ‘self’. I had a very close relationship with Javed Ali Khan in those days. I still do. He used to make a very interesting comment about me. He used to say, “I am very inspired by you as a person, but not at all inspired by your politics.” I did not understand it, but it made me think. A few other things also happened at this time, which made me question the fundamentals of our work. In my meetings with factory workers and peasants, I realised that they speak a different language. They spoke Saraiki or Punjabi, which I did as well, but their logic, categories of thought, and their way of making sense of the world around them was completely different. They would listen to my ‘college boy’s chatter’ with respect and courtesy, but I had a feeling that in their heart of hearts they considered that I was dumb. I did not know what I was talking about. This was due in the first place to the fact that I did not listen to them. I was groomed as ‘Advanced Consciousness’ by my mentors, and considered it my job to teach the people, not learn from them. We had read Mao’s Learn from the People many times, but many of us considered it a rhetorical saying, like Bhutto’s “All power to the People”. But I came to realise that I needed to listen and observe and learn, and at the same time unlearn the rigidity and reductionism of my western ‘bourgeois’ and ‘socialist’ education, something that I am struggling with to this day.

I realised another important concern at that time. Socialism meant different things to different individuals in our ranks. For some, it meant a moral rejection of individualism; to others it meant the establishment of a new moral and economic order through the use of force or a means of getting ahead in the rate race (and they jumped on the opportunity when they got it); or a ladder to power; or a life without scruples. Socialism worked as a disguise for people with different motives. It did not connect us at an inner, experiential level. Something that could build a meaningful community was missing. Our confusion in those days reminds me of a Hippie joke making the rounds then. It was narrated that two Hippies were smoking a joint during a ‘serious’ conversation. In the middle of the discussion, one of them asked the other, “Hey, what do you think of socialism?” to which the other replied, “What is socialism?” The first guy answered, “It is meant to bring an end to capitalism.” “What is capitalism?” enquired the second guy. “It is a system of exploitation of man by man,” was the reply. “And what is socialism?” “It is the other way around.” So, like our Hippie counterparts, we were going through a challenging situation.

The search for alternatives turned out to be a wild goose chase. As a first step we returned to the western sources again. We came across the ideas of overcoming the ‘fear of intimacy’, ‘sexual liberation’ and the works of Eric Fromm, R D Laing and Wilhelm Reich. We worked on overcoming the taboos and inhibitions by smoking marijuana, taking drugs and drinking. It was an effort to replace the class revolution with a local version of the ‘Drugs, Sex and Rock & Roll’ revolution of the 1960s in the west. Like the earlier version of revolution, it did not go beyond a practice of ‘catharsis’. But some of us lived in this mode for years. The key concern for me was how to connect my inner experience with my ideology, culture and politics. During the same period our Cambridge-returned friends Akmal Hussain and Izzat Majeed introduced us to Third World Cinema, Che Guevara and the struggle for Liberation on Campus. Yet there remained an inner void that could not be filled by any of the narrow moulds of ideology and politics. New versions of revolutionary politics did not help me much in discovering our connection with our people.

I wanted to know myself and the others around me and build a meaningful connection with them. Words alone did not help. I needed something that could help me connect at the level of experience. It could not be accomplished by the formal act of ‘declassing’. I realised that people are not what they say. They are how they connect. In exploring this world of experience, ideology became a barrier. Ideology presented the unknown as known, in the name of scientific thought. I was looking for a form of wisdom that looked even at the known as unknown, something that could reveal the unknown of the known to me, something that could unlock the world of shared experience to me, something that did not take anything for granted.

According to ‘scientific socialist’ thought, the lines between ‘us’ and the enemy were clearly drawn. By subscribing to revolutionary ideals, one became part of the truth for eternity. The only thing left was to declare war against the enemy and then – like the Greyhound Bus Service motto, “Go Greyhound and leave the driving to us” – leave everything to the Party. My hunch was that there is no ‘us and them’; the turf of the battle is the self, and the battle had to be fought every moment. This view did not offer the luxury and convenience of ‘representing’ the truth forever by exorcising the class enemy. It also placed the ‘burden’ of liberating the ‘working classes’ on the shoulders of the ‘vanguard’. However, the self was forbidden territory in Marxist mythology. Liu Shao Chi was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party on charges of advancing ‘misleading’ Confucian thought in the guise of ‘self-cultivation’. On the relation of self and class I had heard a very insightful view from Aziz ul Haq, which added to my quest for understanding the relationship of the ‘intellectual’ self with the working class struggle. He said, “As an intellectual if you are doing your work right, you don’t have to go in search of the working class; they will find you.” This again connected to the question of knowing one’s self. The entirety of revolutionary politics in Pakistan saw the resolution of every problem in life in two key terms: ‘Class Struggle’ and ‘National Ownership of Means of Production’. Nothing else was needed. Any other questions or debates were ‘petty bourgeois indulgences’. So, I decided to indulge myself. Almost a decade later my friend Agha Khalid Saeed echoed my feelings by saying, “Life is taller than any ideology.”

Alliance with trade unions and peasant groups

We had close interaction with the trade union alliances at Kot Lakhpat, GT Road, Ferozepur Road, Royal Park, Ravi Road, Model Town, Ravi Rayon and the Bhatta Mazdoor Mahaz . I felt that I needed to return to my cultural roots to deepen my relationship with the working class. This desire took me to the door of Najam Hosain Syed.

Meeting the cultural icon Najam Hosain Syed

Intuitively I realised that the root of my authentic experience lies in my culture, and this cultural experience reveals itself through our folk and Sufi tradition. At this point I heard about Najam Hosain Syed. In our circle Shuja ul Haq and Javed Ali Khan were keen like me to meet Najam Sahib. Our friends Manzur Ejaz and Mushtaq Sufi knew Najam Sahib, but they were initially reluctant to introduce us to him. There were friends in the Young People’s Front (YPF) who were going through a similar transition after the death of Aziz ul Haq, and there were others in the same boat, such as the then founder and leader of ‘The Vulgars’, Zafaryab Ahmad. We had many questions. Are we free individuals? Can we join the struggle for the liberation of the working classes without liberating ourselves? What is liberation in the first place? Do culture, language and heritage have any connection with revolutionary ideology and revolutionary politics?

A little later we got the privilege of an invitation to join a weekly get together called Sangat at Najam Sahib’s residence. Many of our Party and non-Party friends joined. I remember Azmat Qadir, Khalid Mahmood, Tahir Yasub, Akram Warraich, Iqbal Rasheed, Zoya and Noori among others. Akmal Hussain and Izzat Majeed also used to come. We started with reading the poetry (Kafis) of Shah Hussain. Each person in the group used to read the selected Kafi turn by turn, then its literal meanings were explained, followed by an open discussion on the interpretation of the Kafi. In the end the whole group sang the Kafi together, led at times by Samina Syed or Tahir Yasub. Music for the Kafi used to be composed in the Raga mentioned in the collection of Shah Hussain’s Kafis.

Najam Sahib, unlike other revolutionaries, never ever gave a ‘Party Line’. That made our lives hell. He used to keep sitting in the corner without uttering a word. Life was very hard without the crutches of a Party Line. He also shunned publicity and public appearance. We worried ‘how could we save the masses’ without propagating the Party Line. The most worrying thing for many ‘revolutionaries’ was that he never used Marxist jargon. For revolutionaries raised in a consumerist society, any object without a label is a suspect object. This made Najam Hosain Syed also a suspect person. I remember when the Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua, a western journalist asked their foreign minister, “What kind of revolution have you brought?” “It is a people’s revolution,” he said. “But what type of revolution? Is it socialist, communist, or democratic, what is it?” The Nicaraguan foreign minister replied, “Revolution is not a bottle of whisky, it does not carry labels.” The Sangat at Najam’s Sahib’s house shared the same problem. The news of this gathering raised alarm bells in ‘revolutionary circles’. So, the first and most important task was to create a label for this group, so that it could be properly catalogued in memory, and judged and dealt with accordingly in the course of ‘political action’. Although Najam Sahib was the complete opposite of a ‘revolutionary cult’, he was seen as a cult, and his work was seen as the depoliticisation of revolutionary cadre. In the traditional style of ‘ideological struggle’ through character assassination and stigmatisation, Sangat was dubbed ‘the Hoo Group’ on the assumption that the group used to chant “Allah Hoo” or other Sufi mantras.

Another worrying practice in the ‘Hoo group’ was that it saw the problem of personal or collective change as rooted in the immediate moment, present time and space. One did not need to import inspiration, wisdom and ‘heroes’ from exotic lands to instil advanced consciousness in the ‘politically backward’ masses. It did not mean rejecting the other. It meant learning to see the other through discovering and coming to terms with the self. The concept of ‘advanced consciousness’ was also subverted. According to Sufi tradition one finds enlightenment (for the convenience of scientific Marxists it might be equated with ‘advanced consciousness’) by hiding behind the collective. This has been so aesthetically narrated by Madho Lal Hussain in his line:

Sadh Sangat dey Ohle rahnday Budh tinhaan dee Soori (The followers of the path keep behind the veil of the circle of friends, they are the ones with enlightened consciousness).

In this view there was no division between advanced and false consciousness, nor between the vanguard and the followers. Everything was organically linked, self and the other, being and consciousness, idea and concrete reality, existent reality and change. One needed to discover where one was and begin there. It was an extremely lonely and extremely collective endeavour at the same time. This view was considered heretical by the followers of the Marxist faith at that time. Not anymore.

Through Sangat I learned talking to myself. By observing and listening to many other friends, I learned listening and talking to people in a ‘non-collegiate’ way. I learned a lot by watching Malik Dost Mohammad Bhacchar, Ejaz Khan, Manzoor Bohr, Arshad Mir, Sufi Sibghatullah, Rang Ali and Habibullah during their interaction with the peasants. Afzal Bangash was a great communicator with peasants. I heard him talking to peasants in Thal. I benefitted from Rozi Khan and Tariq Latif’s talks with factory workers. Tariq Latif had spent 10 years on his lands in Rahim Yar Khan, and he was far ahead of all of us in communicating with the common people. All these people could effortlessly communicate because they could listen to others with respect and care. Two decades later, in my community development days, I learned a superb method of communication from a former Communist Party trade unionist, Aurangzeb Khan, and a PPP worker Hafiz Arain. Both were followers of Akhter Hameed Khan. Hafiz Arain hailed from a Katchi Abadi (informal settlement) and was a rickshaw driver by profession. He later started working with Dr Khan in Orangi and used to explain community work to PhD students from Europe and North America. I once asked him, “Hafiz Bhai, what is community work?” I can never forget his answer. He said “Tum jeetey hum harey” (you win I surrender). I remember the other half that would complete this sentence. It was narrated by a friend in Islamabad when she said in a similar context, “If I win the battle against you, I will consider it my defeat as well.”

Alliance with the PPP in Power

I now want to narrate some critical events that took place during the PPP and Zia regimes. The first event relates to the publication of Dehqan and alliance with the PPP. When the PPP was formed, there was consensus in almost all Leftist groups that it was a multiclass party. The political character of this party could take turns to the left or the right depending on which faction of the party captures the leadership, right wing feudals or left wing middle and working class activists. In the beginning the field was open, and the Left stood a strong chance of capturing the party leadership. Bhutto himself strengthened this open path policy by declaring Mairaj Mohammad Khan and Mustafa Khar as his successors during his negotiations on transfer of power with Yahya Khan. It is a different thing that Mairaj resigned and Khar was kept under illegal confinement in the Dulai Camp during the first tenure of the PPP. However, a common phrase used by Leftists was: “We are using Bhutto to establish a working class leadership in the party.” Azizuddin had a cynical view of this formulation, and once equated it with the expression “Tota Tope Chalaye Gaa” (the parrot will fire the cannon). This expression was used by roadside jugglers to draw the attention of people towards watching their show. So according to the Professor, the claim of using Bhutto was boasting like a roadside juggler. But he believed that communists should join hands with the left wing in the PPP and try to strengthen them against the right wing. Rightists were represented by Khar, and Leftists by Shaikh Rashid, Taj Langah, Aitzaz Ahsan, Dr Mubashar, Mairaj Mohammad Khan, Mukhtar Rana and Mukhtar Awan. Since Shaikh Rashid was a former NAP leader, and head of the Kissan Committee, he played the leading role in Punjab.

When the PPP came to power, the PG decided to join hands with Shaikh Rashid and publish a periodical called Dehqan (The Peasant), under his name as Chief Editor. The purpose of this magazine was to ideologically educate PPP workers, create a distinct identity of the Left in the PPP, and put pressure on the government to deliver on its promises made to workers and peasants. The Professors themselves contributed many pieces in each issue under pseudonyms like Ahmad Thakar, Lal Khan, etc., and some renowned left wing writers like Munnu Bhai also contributed. Munnu Bhai’s most interesting column was Samajh Kar lo Mate Kanal Da ke key lekin. He also wrote a piece on Jagga Marya Bohar dey thallay te nau man rait bhij gaee. Poems, short stories, pictures, commentaries and sketches were also part of the contents. Due to Shaikh Rashid’s name the paper could be widely distributed in PPP circles all over Punjab. This publication did not continue for long. Qaiser Nazir has written a good piece on the life story of this publication.

The PG also worked very closely with Aitzaz Ahsan. Aitaz Ahsan was young, charismatic and articulate and subscribed to revolutionary ideas. He personally knew PG’s activists among students and trade unions. He was very dynamic and joined hands with the PG in protests and public rallies. I remember one large gathering at a brick kiln near Wagah border area in Malik Meraj Khalid’s constituency. The brick kiln was owned by a notorious local tough known as Barkat Soor. Speakers invited to the gathering included Zia Butt (Salar People’s Guard Punjab), Taj Mohammad Langah, Mian Asghar, Aitzaz Ahsan and me. Close to the end of the meeting Barkat’s musclemen riding in a horse carriage (Rehra) and carrying guns, machetes and sickles, attacked the gathering. They fired in the air and created such a scare that workers ran away for their lives. As it was close to the end of the event, Zia Butt and other leaders who had to walk back a long distance had already left. When a companion of Taj Langah pulled out a gun from the trunk of his car, the attackers did not mess with them. In the end Aitzaz Ahsan, Masood Mirza, I and perhaps Jahangir were left. Aitzaz displayed courage and presence of mind. He asked me what to do next. I said we cannot win this battle, so we have to retreat. We got in the car. The car was attacked by bricks, but due to Aitzaz’s skilful driving we were able to return safely. However, these tactical alliances could not convert into a long term coalition, and very soon the PG started protest activities outside the fold of the PPP on issues like land reforms, nationalisation of industry, use of ID cards, creation of the Federal Security Force (FSF) and infringement of civil liberties.

Ideology, Politics and Culture

During the course of the Sangat meetings and interactions with different participants, I got insights about the relationship between ideology, politics and culture, and the relationship between the self and the other. In one of our discussions Akmal Hussain mentioned three very interesting statements by Lenin, Mao and Gramsci, which threw light on the relationship between politics, ideology and cultures. According to Mao there can be no revolution without a revolutionary party, according to Lenin there can be no revolutionary party without a revolutionary ideology, and according to Gramsci there can be no revolutionary ideology without a revolutionary culture. But culture cannot be reduced to certain art forms or forms of propaganda or entertainment. It encompasses a way of living. In those days I came across a paper by Faiz Sahib, in which he had described culture as a three dimensional space, having length, breadth and depth. A culture’s length according to Faiz Sahib was the length of time that signified its distinct emergence, beginning at that point in history where we could trace its origin; breadth stood for the geographic area covered by that culture, and depth signifies the social layers that it cuts across. Cultural work to me appeared like preparing the soil, ideological work as planting the seed, and political work like harvesting the crop. Later on, I realised that we could make various formulations, but in the end it comes down to choosing between yes and no to the ‘sanctity’ of authority.

Sangat provided us the opportunity to reflect, to detach from the grind of shallow political work, and to look at change not as an activity but a way of living. Sangat also helped me get rid of the crushing load of ‘liberating the masses’ from the exploitative system. When I heard Najam Sahib’s Kafi “Rat Tandoori Bhakhdi O payee”, the lines “Denh Kehra Janay Kad Charhsi tey kekan charhsi, denh jain dittha o prat key dassan ausi naan” (who knows when the sun will rise and how will it rise; the one who sees the day will not return to tell the others) solved my puzzle. I cannot describe the effect it had on me. It liberated me from the ‘vanguard’ baggage and the cliché of ‘advanced consciousnesses’. Interestingly this was very much entrenched in Sufi tradition much before existentialism, liberation and the quest for freedom came into vogue. As Shah Hussain said, “Main vee jana jhok punal de naal meray koi challay, paireen pondi mintaan kardi janaa tey pia ikallay” (I also want to go to the hamlet of my beloved, can someone give me company; she begged and touched everybody’s feet in vain, but the path had to be taken alone). The vanguard and the proletarian state in my view were smuggling back the stratification of society in the name of revolution. Waiting for a revolution to come was postponing the act of free living and liberating ‘the working class’ as vanguard was dehumanising them. It took a long time for these ideas to crystallise and for me to get rid of the vanguard burden, but the day I heard these lines I realised I don’t have to wait for a revolution, my moment has arrived.

Separating life from ideology and ideology from politics introduced a deep Machiavellian element and heroic double speak in leftist politics. Everything contrary to the ideals was justified in the name of tactics. Personal alienation caused by the dichotomy in ideals and lifestyle was justified as a ‘necessary sacrifice’ or a ‘necessary evil’. Any rebellion against this dichotomy and yearning for rediscovering one’s wholesomeness was seen as degeneration amongst revolutionary cadre. It is very interesting that gradually this ‘degeneration’ was embraced by all the vocal opponents of the ‘Hoo Group’. Najam Sahib did not preach any ideology but introduced us to a path on which each one of us discovered our calling. It reminds me of a Buddhist story where a seeker cannot get enlightenment, despite long and rigorous work. He asks the Guru, “What is the hindrance in my way?” The Guru said, “What do you want from Buddha?” The disciple meditated on this point and came up with the answer: “What I want from Buddha is toilet paper.” He got enlightenment. Najam Sahib never preached anything. At times he appeared to be rigid and a miser. But he helped us discover our true selves. That is what a revolution is all about. But I can only speak for myself. I hope my other friends will write about Rut Lekha and Sajjan and many other offspring of Sangat.

Soon after I got introduced to Sangat, I accepted a job at Gomal University and moved to Dera Ismail Khan. In the meanwhile, I was approached by Imtiaz Alam and Professor Zafar Ali Khan to join the Mazdoor Kissan Party. Much later Manzur Ejaz asked me to open a branch of the Punjab Adabi Markaz at D I Khan. This move was seen by Afzal Bangash as a Punjabi ‘invasion’ comparable to the East India Company’s posts in Bengal. This is the way many of our Saraiki friends now see Mushtaq Sufi’s visit to the Saraiki lands. I will write more about this in my posts on D I Khan.

Armed Propaganda: Unseating the Thanedar

A few months after the PPP government came to power in Punjab, the Lahore Police started a campaign to clean the city of criminal elements. They started spot checks and frisking people on the roads to identify anti-social elements, raided ‘suspicious’ dens and started locking up ‘undesirable’ elements. During one of their usual stop and frisk operations on Jail Road, they got hold of labour leader Gulzar Chaudhry. Gulzar Chaudhry was carrying a revolver for his personal security. He told the Station Head Officer (SHO) – Thanedar – of the Racecourse Police Station that he was not a criminal, and if they locked him up to meet their ‘target’, they would get into trouble. Thanedar Saheb did not heed his warning. He couldn’t care less for any such threat. In the morning Tariq Latif and other leaders of Muttahida Mazdoor Majlise Amal (United Workers Front) found out about Gulzar’s arrest and detention. They soon arranged for Gulzar’s bail and got him out of the lock-up.

A contingent of labour leaders including Tariq Latif, Khwaja Tariq Masood, Mahmood Butt and Ziaudin Butt (Salar People’s Guard Punjab) now decided to pay a ‘visit’ to the Police Station to have a friendly chat with the SHO. Tariq Latif with his long moustaches, bloodshot eyes and husky voice could easily scare the hell out of anyone. He was flanked by the burly Ziaudin Butt and Mahmood Butt. Both of them used to be Pehlwans (wrestlers) in Gawalmandi, and their mighty punches could wake up any Thanedar from a deep slumber. Khwaja Tariq Masood was left at the gate of the police station to watch the entry for any undesirable elements during the encounter (mulaqat). As soon as the group entered the Police Station, Tariq asked Gulzar Chaudhry: “Was this the man?” pointing to the Thanedar in the chair. He took the Thanedar completely off guard, and as soon as Gulzar nodded yes, he pounced on him, starting with slaps and punches and ending up with hits and kicks. Zia and Moodi Butt Sahiban joined and gave a good thrashing to everyone present. The Thanedar lost his wits. He wondered if Tariq Latif was a Chairman or MPA of the PPP. He preferred to be beaten quietly rather than get into deeper trouble. When the sentry at the entrance saw the Thanedar falling from his chair and being disgraced in his own fief, he said to Tariq Masood (to save his own skin), “These guys deserve this treatment.” The brawl ended with a ‘bloody nose’ of the Thanedar, and his disgrace brought him the utter contempt of his seniors. His ‘belt was taken way’, as he was suspended and unseated from his position.

The Thanedar’s seniors wanted to rebuke him for his stupidity. They also wanted to restore him after some damage control and provide him with a face saving opportunity. They thought of having a respectable truce with the labour leaders. The Thanedar now started looking for Tariq Latif, who was General Secretary of Packages Workers’ Union at the time and Abdur Rehman was the President. Instead of meeting him at home, Tariq promised to see him at the factory gate, at the beginning of the morning shift. This was done on purpose, so that the factory workers could see the Thanedar begging Tariq Latif to get his belt back. It was a great act of armed propaganda to demystify Police power and get the fear of the Police out of the worker’s psyche. He also demonstrated that making revolution is not beating the trodden path – being a lakeer ka faqeer.

For revolutionary defiance, in addition to attending study circles, attending party meetings, mastering Marxist jargon, being ‘committed’, ‘ideologically educated’ and politically ‘correct’, one needs to race the brain cells. One has to be creative and courageous in thinking how to win small battles against the class enemy. Commenting on the flawless imitation of worn-out forms, he used to quote Bhutto, who had once referred to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s saying that “Consistency is the virtue of small minds.” Tariq had deep insights about the day-to-day political struggle and often gave a penetrating view of things beneath the surface in wonderful quotations. For example, referring to reckless and self-styled militants, he used to say, “Beware of the man who can sacrifice himself, because he can easily sacrifice others.” He was also fond of President Roosevelt’s saying: “Speak softly but carry a big stick, you will go far.”

Anyway, when the Thanedar appeared for the meeting at the appointed time, Tariq chatted with him for a while to let the workers know what was going on between them. Then he excused himself by saying he had to attend a Union meeting inside and would talk to him in detail upon return. He kept the Thanedar waiting the whole day and returned in the evening. This was a day long study circle both for the Thanedar and the workers on Tabqat aur Taqbqati Kasmakash. Tariq repeated it for three days so that there remained no confusion in the mind of the Thanedar and his brotherhood on dealing with labour leaders. This built so much confidence among the workers affiliated with Mazdoor Markaz Kot Lakhpat that they picked a fight with the goons of Hafiz Samad, Lahore’s most notorious ‘rent collector’, and chased them out of Chungi Amar Sadhu. It is for acts like this that Mao Tse Tung said: “A single spark can start a prairie fire.” The other term for such actions is Armed Propaganda.

I heard the phrase Armed Propaganda many years later from Fauzia Rafique, as she introduced me to the fantastic works of Leon Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg, including Trotsky’s writings on Permanent Revolution. But I find it befitting to describe this event as Armed Propaganda. After the collapse of the socialist bloc, the strategy of armed struggle had been relinquished by most of the Maoist groups, but this concept is extremely relevant in the context of a democratic struggle as well. In Pakistan examples of similar actions are Mama Qadeer’s long march from Quetta to Islamabad, along with young children and women, and Cyril Almeida’s column in Dawn. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and the Panama Leaks group of journalists are examples of similar actions on a global level. You can disagree with these examples and take your own pick. There were many such brilliant fighters in our ranks, and I will be writing in the coming pages about them.

Tariq, is it that simple?!

During the dark years of Ziaul Haq’s rule, ordinary citizens as well as political workers were hounded, arrested, abused and tortured. There was an unprecedented expression of anger, along with a display of courage against his tyranny. Raza Kazim was one of the high-profile prisoners arrested on charges of conspiring with certain army officers to topple Ziaul Haq’s government. During his days in Camp Jail, his son-in-law Ali Kazim happened to be the Home Secretary of the Government of Punjab. He very much wanted to meet elder Kazim Sahib, but he was in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situation. Tariq Latif was his close friend, and he had helped Tariq in many challenging situations. He knew that Tariq was an extremely courageous, intelligent and creative person and could help him find a solution to this dilemma. Tariq as a close buddy did not disappoint Ali Kazim. They both proceeded to the Camp Jail. Ali Kazim accompanied Tariq as an unknown companion.

At the entrance of Camp Jail, Tariq explained to the sentry that they had come for a ‘mulaqat’ (a meeting with a prisoner). It was a matter of routine and the sentry consented to oblige. Visitors usually gave a small amount of money to sentries to please them and keep cordial relations with them. In common parlance, it was called the ‘expense for tea’ or a payment in lieu of sweets. This kept a cover on the nature of the transaction so that it was not seen as a bribe or extortion but a gesture of goodwill towards government functionaries. This lubricant helped the wheels move in the government machinery. It was a common practice. ‘True’ revolutionaries and moralists not only abhorred this practice but were unable to make use of it in case of need. It needed an uninhibited guy like Tariq Latif to offer such a bribe effortlessly. He was uninhibited, not unscrupulous. He never used a bribe for any personal gain. But he knew in politics, playing by ‘norms and rules’ is more important than ideological chastity. The expectation of money for sweets (mithai) played an important role in arranging the mulaqat. “Who do you want to see?” the sentry asked. “Can we meet Raza Kazim Sahib?” The sentry was alarmed at hearing this request.

Raza Kazim Sahib was a high-security prisoner and arranging a meeting with him without the approval of the higher-ups could put the sentry at great risk. His predicament was the same as Ali Kazim’s. He could lose his job and was reluctant and scared. He thought for a while then said, “No way; he is such a dangerous prisoner. Do you want me to lose my job? Please go away.” Ali Kazim was disappointed and discouraged. Tariq was not going to give up so easily. He pulled out a one hundred rupee note and placed it in the palm of the sentry (‘warming his fist’ as it is called). This was a big amount and a very tempting offer. The sentry thought it was worth taking the risk. His reaction was immediate and astounding. He jumped to his feet and said in a very excited tone: “Khlovo mein hunain milandaan” (Hold on I am going to arrange the meeting right away). Ali Kazim was totally mesmerised. He looked in amazement at Tariq and said, “Tariq, is it so simple?”

Every one of us has weak moments. That is when ‘undesirable’ things happen, and ‘undesirable’ elements should know how to use those moments to their advantage. Perhaps greed can at times overcome one’s fear and subdue one’s conscience as no other medicine does. The same psychological mechanism was at work in Ziaul Haq’s mind when his greed overcame his conscience and he decided to stage a coup d’état. Ziaul Haq and the sentry were both ‘serving the client’. However, the little guy is seen as ‘corrupt’ and the big guy as the ‘saviour of Islam’. Greed is the pathway to the mercenary soul. So many great empires have emerged and collapsed in pursuit of this temptation. Moral: When you are under the claws, attack the soft belly of the beast (This is my take, everyone can draw a different conclusion; it is a free country).

(To be continued)