Abstracts
Theme: Peace and People’s Rights
Panel: Students in Political Mobilization
 Rising after Slumber: State of Students’ Politics in Pakistan
Syed Jamaluddin Naqvi*
Abstract
The role of sub-continent’s students in the struggle for independence from the British Empire is already well known. A comprehensive historical analysis of students’ movement in Pakistan has not been attempted despite the overwhelming fact that Pakistani students exhibited a great revolutionary zeal in opposing Pakistan's decision to join the Cold War military blocs, mobilizing the masses to stand up for national rights, and played a key role in making education cheaper and universal in the country.
In 1960s and 70s, the students spearheaded the struggle for democracy and anti-terrorism/extremism in Pakistan. The decades of 1980s and 1990s saw a great change in international politics. The Cold War era was taking its last gasps. The USSR collapsed, the Berlin wall fell, and extremism triumphed in Afghanistan, thus boosting similar trends in Pakistani politics. These events generated a vacuum in Pakistan, both amongst the socialists and the youth. As a result, most democratic organizations of students withered away or became inactive. The only organized students in Pakistan today are those of madaris that have no role to play in strategizing sustainable development of the country.
It is a sad affair of state that Pakistan has the resources to build missiles but it spends a measly sum of 2.5 per cent of its GDP on education, which is half of the 5 per cent recommended by the UN.
The Cold War era is now past. The ideology (or lack of it) of the new world order is vague and unclear. Only some of its features like Globalization are manifested. A definitive picture is certainly not there. The youth is experimenting with a thousand ways to find out what the world has become and how it can be made a better place. As Logan Smith says: "Don't laugh at youth for his affections; he is only trying one face after another to find a face of his own". Therefore, it is essential that before youngsters are mobilized, they must know what they want.
* Syed Jamaluddin Naqvi did his Masters in English Literature in 1945 from the University of Karachi, Pakistan. He taught in various colleges/universities and retired from Urdu Science College, Karachi, as the Head of English Department, in 1986. Since 1999, Mr. Naqvi has been working as Chairman of Forum for Democracy in Pakistan.
The Growth and Decay of Students Politics in NWFP
Sarfraz Khan*
Abstract
This paper describes the emergence, growth and decay of student politics in NWFP and attempts at finding an association with the quality of education. The paper would be examining the student politics in azad (free) schools of Ghaffar Khan during the colonial period; Anglo Muslim schools, the emergence of Muslim, national student and latter of democratic student federations; Pakhtun nationalist identity and Pakhtun students federation, its various groups and their arguments.
The author would also be reviewing the relationship of students with political parties and their role in national politics; violence on campuses during the period of dictatorships and the role of student as vehicles of transfer of knowledge and social change.
*Prof. Dr. Sarfraz Khan is a Ph.D from SOAS, University of London, UK and is currently working at the Area Study Centre (Central Asia), University of Peshawar. He has delivered seminars and lectures to post- graduate students at Central Asia Research Forum, SOAS, University of London as a Commonwealth Scholar. Apart from having several research articles to his credit, he has written a book Muslim Reformist Political Thought: Revivalists, Modernists and Free Will. He has also participated in numerous conferences and seminars in the UK, Holland, China, India and Pakistan. The professor has also served as a resource person to various national and international NGOs including, Asia Foundation, Aurat Foundation, HRCP, Pakistan Peace Coalition, SEBCON and SUNGI.
Radical Times: Students in the Political Mobilization of Lahore during the 1960s
Humeira Iqtidar*
The paper aims to document and analyse a critical period in Pakistani political history that remains relatively under studied. The late 1960s were a formative phase in the politics of Pakistan, both of the 'left' and the 'right'. Students were both the articulators and the constituency of competing political ideologies. Collectively, they played a critical role during this period as a bridge between the various sections of society. Alliances, strategies, and the stances of both the 'left' and the 'right' went through a definitive phase during this period. Students involved in politics at this stage articulated and radicalized these differences. Many of these students then played a key role in shaping the policies and visions of their respective groups over the following decades. The paper argues that the current politics of Islamist groups like the Jamaat-i-Islami can be best understood with reference to the changes that occurred in the organization during this critical period in a key part of the organization, its student body, Jamiat Tulaba/Talibat.
Lahore was an important center of these activities, and the research focuses on Lahore for a more detailed understanding. The paper builds this analysis bringing together the scattered record of the period, from magazines, memoirs, official records, newspapers and academic articles, as well as interviews conducted by the author.
* Humeira Iqtidar is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Cambridge, UK. She has taught at LUMS and Punjab University, and has worked as a consultant in Canada and UK. Her research looks at the changes in the political role of religious groups in Pakistan, scrutinizing at the theoretical level, the dichotomy between the modern-secular and the traditional-fundamentalist.
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