Many hats. Of Lincoln's Inn, a barrister. Harvard Law Visiting Fellow in Human Rights Program Jan-May 2018. Rutgers grad Class of 2002 - Economics. LLB Quaid-e-Azam Law College of Punjab University. LLM UMT Lahore. Weekly columnist for Daily Times. Contributor to Dawn, Express Tribune, Pakteahouse, Chowk, Oxford Analytica, The Hindu, India Today, The Star, The News and so on and so forth. Author of "Jinnah Myth and Reality" by Vanguard (2012). Author of Jinnah a life (Pan Macmillan 2020). Advocate of the High Courts of Pakistan. Human Rights. Constitutional lawyer. Corporate lawyer. Phone: 923315551773
Page 1. 8 / SOCIETY 9 MAY/JUNE 1991 Sexual Harassment and the Law Lloyd R. Cohen A t the mention ... more Page 1. 8 / SOCIETY 9 MAY/JUNE 1991 Sexual Harassment and the Law Lloyd R. Cohen A t the mention of the term sexual harassment, I feel the intellectual ground give way beneath my feet. Sexual harassment is a term that ...
Pakistan will have to undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and society. It means liberati... more Pakistan will have to undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and society. It means liberating our campuses of organisations like the IJT. It means purging the state and its machinery of…
In priest ridden societies like those that exist in the subcontinent it becomes next to impossibl... more In priest ridden societies like those that exist in the subcontinent it becomes next to impossible to engage in mass politics without some appeal to religion. Mahatma Gandhi was the foremost practitioner of religious appeals in politics, introducing the idea of India's ancient culture, Hindu idiom and appealing to Ram Rajya as the ideal rule of man. His lieutenant Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was an agnostic who in his English books and other writings carefully cultivated the image of a secular progressive but nonetheless made it a point of using the appellation Pandit and wearing the native dress over European dress. There are pictures of him with a janoi, the sacred Brahmin thread, and taking dips in Ganges like a good Hindu. When the debate on the Indian Constitution happened two views were expressed. The first view was that India should have a rigid separation of religion and the state as forwarded by K T Shah. The second view was that Hindus are a people with deep religious moorings and that while India should not have a state religion, it should nonetheless not have a rigid separation of religion and state of the kind in practice in the US. This was forwarded by K M Munshi. Agnostic and yet a Janoi wearing Brahmin Pandit that he was, Nehru came out in favour of the latter and regrettably even Dr Ambedkar sided with K M Munshi. The word secular was not added to the Indian Constitution until the 1970s. Interestingly it must be added the US Constitution has never used the word secular but it is the first amendment that has most clearly and notably become the very definition of secularism. On our side, the younger Jinnah admirably opposed tooth and nail the introduction of religion into politics, dismissing Gandhi's appeals to religion and his supporting cast of Muslim Maulanas as false religious frenzy. In the legislature he was a proponent of the idea that the legislature could and should override religious injunction where religion clashes with modern civilized government. As late as 1935 Jinnah insisted that religion was a matter merely between man and God but by 1938, he, too, was proclaiming that the Muslims were proud of introducing religion into politics. Perhaps he felt that this was the only way to counter Gandhi and his mass religious appeal. While he attempted to walk a thin line, the older Jinnah did manage to keep religion out of any constitutive documents of the Muslim League and later vetoed religious resolutions in Pakistan. Nevertheless in certain public speeches Jinnah referred to principles of Islam and tried to argue that modern democracy was compatible with this idealism of Islam and that Muslims had learnt democracy 13 centuries earlier. He kept insisting that Pakistan would not be a theocracy but rather an inclusive modern democratic state that would embody the essential democratic principle of Islam. Somewhat paradoxically he had also given the 11 August speech which had argued for religion being the personal faith of an individual and not the business of the state. Confusion reigns supreme vis a vis these apparently contradictory stances, though logically the 11 August speech must take precedence. In any event Jinnah's secularism was inspired by the British model, which was quite different from the wall of separation that exists in the US. The British model is more secularization rather than cut and dry secularism. In a strict constitutional sense Britain is still an Anglican Monarchy where the head of the state has to be an Anglican Protestant in order to also lead the Church of England. However the elected Prime Minister can be of any faith and there is otherwise no intrusion of religion into state affairs.
Page 1. 8 / SOCIETY 9 MAY/JUNE 1991 Sexual Harassment and the Law Lloyd R. Cohen A t the mention ... more Page 1. 8 / SOCIETY 9 MAY/JUNE 1991 Sexual Harassment and the Law Lloyd R. Cohen A t the mention of the term sexual harassment, I feel the intellectual ground give way beneath my feet. Sexual harassment is a term that ...
Pakistan will have to undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and society. It means liberati... more Pakistan will have to undo the Maududian infiltration of its state and society. It means liberating our campuses of organisations like the IJT. It means purging the state and its machinery of…
In priest ridden societies like those that exist in the subcontinent it becomes next to impossibl... more In priest ridden societies like those that exist in the subcontinent it becomes next to impossible to engage in mass politics without some appeal to religion. Mahatma Gandhi was the foremost practitioner of religious appeals in politics, introducing the idea of India's ancient culture, Hindu idiom and appealing to Ram Rajya as the ideal rule of man. His lieutenant Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was an agnostic who in his English books and other writings carefully cultivated the image of a secular progressive but nonetheless made it a point of using the appellation Pandit and wearing the native dress over European dress. There are pictures of him with a janoi, the sacred Brahmin thread, and taking dips in Ganges like a good Hindu. When the debate on the Indian Constitution happened two views were expressed. The first view was that India should have a rigid separation of religion and the state as forwarded by K T Shah. The second view was that Hindus are a people with deep religious moorings and that while India should not have a state religion, it should nonetheless not have a rigid separation of religion and state of the kind in practice in the US. This was forwarded by K M Munshi. Agnostic and yet a Janoi wearing Brahmin Pandit that he was, Nehru came out in favour of the latter and regrettably even Dr Ambedkar sided with K M Munshi. The word secular was not added to the Indian Constitution until the 1970s. Interestingly it must be added the US Constitution has never used the word secular but it is the first amendment that has most clearly and notably become the very definition of secularism. On our side, the younger Jinnah admirably opposed tooth and nail the introduction of religion into politics, dismissing Gandhi's appeals to religion and his supporting cast of Muslim Maulanas as false religious frenzy. In the legislature he was a proponent of the idea that the legislature could and should override religious injunction where religion clashes with modern civilized government. As late as 1935 Jinnah insisted that religion was a matter merely between man and God but by 1938, he, too, was proclaiming that the Muslims were proud of introducing religion into politics. Perhaps he felt that this was the only way to counter Gandhi and his mass religious appeal. While he attempted to walk a thin line, the older Jinnah did manage to keep religion out of any constitutive documents of the Muslim League and later vetoed religious resolutions in Pakistan. Nevertheless in certain public speeches Jinnah referred to principles of Islam and tried to argue that modern democracy was compatible with this idealism of Islam and that Muslims had learnt democracy 13 centuries earlier. He kept insisting that Pakistan would not be a theocracy but rather an inclusive modern democratic state that would embody the essential democratic principle of Islam. Somewhat paradoxically he had also given the 11 August speech which had argued for religion being the personal faith of an individual and not the business of the state. Confusion reigns supreme vis a vis these apparently contradictory stances, though logically the 11 August speech must take precedence. In any event Jinnah's secularism was inspired by the British model, which was quite different from the wall of separation that exists in the US. The British model is more secularization rather than cut and dry secularism. In a strict constitutional sense Britain is still an Anglican Monarchy where the head of the state has to be an Anglican Protestant in order to also lead the Church of England. However the elected Prime Minister can be of any faith and there is otherwise no intrusion of religion into state affairs.
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