KARACHI, Nov 8: Intellectuals Prof Jamal Naqvi and Ghulam Kibrya in their discourses at Prof Karrar Husain Memorial Lecture held at the Pakistan Arts Council on Wednesday described the personal and spiritual qualities of Prof Karrar apart from his services rendered in the field of education and promotion of knowledge.

Ghulam Kibria, an engineer by profession and an author of a couple of volumes on the role of technology and social development, narrated in detail his encounter with the late professor, his senior at Aligarh Muslim University and in later times a ‘guru’ to him. He said, KH was a ‘soofi’, a thinker, an educationist, also the first president of the famous Orangi Pilot Project of which the late Akhtar Hameed Khan was the secretary. The former was a planner and the other a man of action.

G. K. was critical of the role of Muslim elite and ruling feudals. He said that the “great Moghul empire” during many hundred years of rule in the subcontinent could not produce a single philosopher, a scientist, or an engineer. There was no education department in their system. After the empire collapsed, their apologists, without looking into the real cause of the ignoble downfall invented the ‘conspiracy theory’— conspiracy of the Hindus, of the British and others.

G. K. said after Pakistan come into being, Prof Karrar, he himself and the likeminded friends decided to come over to the new state and work for its development. G. K. was always optimistic regarding the material and human resources of the country — Punjab, Sindh and Bengal — producing the best quality of wheat and that too in abundance, rice, cotton and jute in their respective areas. The technicians at the Moghalpura railway workshop and elsewhere, though hardly literate, were the most inginious workmen and they could lead the country to great heights but the feudals ruling over the country thwarted all sincere efforts in the process of development. K. H. had a dream to make Pakistan strong and dignified among nations, certainly not a slave of any big power.

G. K. with a sense of grief described how Mir Laiq Ali, the emissary of the first governor-general of Pakistan in his trip to the USA was made to offer that country the invincible support of Pakistan against the possible advancement of the then Soviet Union for 2000 million dollars.

Prof Jamal Naqvi who was the disciple of K. H. and always very close to him described the nature of his dialogue with his teacher, the former a communist and the other a ‘Soofi’. His spirituality, liberism and peaceful nature, also dear to me brought us together, although, at times, he complained me of being an “incorrigible optimist.”

Prof Naqvi said that the historical phase of the clash of ideologies had ended and so come to end the clash of the working class and the capitalist class in 1990. He said, he was trapped in a “spiritual chaos.” Lenin had said that the imperialism was the highest stage of capitalism, which proved wrong. The flood of imperialism had passed but the capitalism was very much there, appearing in different forms — first into multi- national and, later into transnational corporations.

Referring to the conflicts of different nature in present times and Huntington’s theory regarding ‘clash of civilizations’, Prof Naqvi said all conflicts could be resolved not by hatred but by compassion and love, so that the ‘human unity’ many not split apart.

He recalled that for the present generation, there was on the one hand the lifestyle of the ancesters to follow, and on the other, the dream of modernity — Ben Laden and USA standing apart. But things could be settled by peaceful means. Terrorism was a big crime, no doubt, but bombartment on peaceful people was not the answer.

After the closure of the cold war process, a new chapter of peaceful negotiation and settlement had opened, he said. The conflict in Ireland, 300 years old, was going to be resolved peacefully. The process of peace between India and Pakistan, also between the nations of Eastern Europe had begun. The atomic weapons were rendered useless, Prof Naqvi said and hoped those events would be the harbinger of peace the world over.—Hasan Abidi