In a recent article titled “The Pakistani Left’s Middle Class Crisis,” published in Jamhoor, the authors, Aisha Tahir and Khurram Ali, attempt to analyze the Pakistani Left by examining different left factions and groups. The authors suggest that Pakistan’s Left is primarily an outcome of middle-class errors that tend toward empiricist practice. More precisely, the authors suggest that Syed Azeem and Umar Ali—both of whom belong to the Pakistan Mazdoor Kisan Party (PMKP)—should understand continuity and rupture more practically and highlight the two theses of Ishaq Muhammad as a point of rupture rather than continuity.
They propose the principles of the mass line and two-line struggle within the PMKP as mechanisms for a rectification campaign against these two allegedly chauvinistic positions. Moreover, the authors make many polemical and, at times, rather ahistorical statements without substantial empirical evidence. These arguments appear to stem from the authors’ own subjective positionality, culturally aloof from Pakistani society or insufficiently grounded in its concrete realities.
I am writing this response to address a few unfounded assertions, clarify what I believe are misreadings of the Mazdoor Kisan Party’s (MKP) position in the period examined by the authors, and respond to some of the questions they raise regarding the MKP’s internal politics during that period.
The authors raise the following questions regarding the MKP’s internal politics and history:
- Why did the Hashtnagar Movement fail to become a powerful force like the Naxalite Movement in India, which challenged the entire system?
- Why did the MKP fail to grow in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the same way that it grew in Punjab?
- The authors then build their own conclusion from the growth of the MKP in Punjab and label the MKP a Punjab-centric party within the left, with no significant organizational presence outside Punjab.
- The authors also ask why the leadership of the Hashtnagar struggle eventually separated from Major Ishaq Muhammad and subsequently pursued the politics of oppressed nationalities.
After raising these four questions and analyzing the positions of the MKP and Ishaq Muhammad, the authors conclude that MKP (Ishaq) was a middle-class or Punjabi-chauvinist party, and that this was the reason the Hashtnagar leadership1 eventually decided to pursue the politics of oppressed nationalities. In reality, this conclusion is too shallow and superficial.
A closer inquiry into the debates and oral history of fellow comrades2 from that period and relevant party literature tells us that this interpretation is not only factually mistaken but also misleading. It appears to be based on selective cherry-picking from the propaganda and accusations of the pro-Moscow revisionist tendency within the left.
1 The claim is factually incorrect because the leadership identified by the authors did not originally emerge from Hashtnagar. The authors appear to assume that, because this leadership was ethnically Pashtun and the peasant base was predominantly Pashtun, it therefore constituted the organic leadership of the peasantry. This is a problematic assumption as shared ethnic identity does not, by itself, establish organic class leadership.
2 Interview with senior leadership of MKP including central leaders like Rasheed Dholka and Latif Choudhary.
Middle left: Founding document of the Pakistan Dehati Mazdoor Tanzeem, an organization of landless farm workers confronting caste and class oppression. Center: Major Ishaq Muhammad, founding member of the MKP. Upper right: Peasant leader from Hashtnagar; currently Central President of the MKP. Lower right: Master Hassan Sajid, a brick-kiln worker who devoted his life to organizing brick-kiln workers in Punjab.
Bottom left: MKP activists and schoolteachers from Hazara Division. Far left: Anwar ul Bashir Hinki of Jareed, an MKP activist involved in the Kaghan Kissan Movement. Bottom middle: Ishaq Muhammad visiting comrades released from jail in Mianwali, 1974, including Dost Muhammad Bhachar, a Kissan Committee stalwart who led resistance against the Nawab of Kalabagh. Bottom right: Latif Choudhary, former Punjab President of the MKP.
The Internal Debate within the MKP
The internal debate emerged after the early successes of the Hashtnagar Movement and increasingly divided the party leadership. On one side were figures including Afzal Bangash and Sher Ali Bacha; on the other was the Major Ishaq Muhammad group. Sher Ali Bacha advanced two major political positions, while Afzal Bangash represented a distinct tendency of his own.
The initial fissures within the party developed around Sher Ali Bacha’s two positions, with both Pashtun leaders (Bangash and Bacha) seeking to resolve the dispute through organizational means. The MKP (Ishaq), by contrast, pursued a more patient course and continued to prioritize reconciliation, urging both sides to bring their disagreements before the appropriate party forums.
Clarifying these positions is therefore necessary to properly address the questions raised by the authors.
What were the two positions taken by Sher Ali Bacha?
After the initial successes of the Hashtnagar Movement, Sher Ali Bacha took the following positions.
- First position: Dissolution of the central party
Sher Ali Bacha argued that the central party should be dissolved and that each national or federating unit should become an independent party and attempt to materialize the revolution within its own national boundaries.
This position closely resembled the pro-Moscow political line, which favored a confederal party structure and had been fanning centrifugal sentiment in the peripheries since the Communist Party of Pakistan was banned in 1954.
The first position was not thoroughly debated within the party, and it is important to contextualize both positions in order to understand the underlying motivations behind them. Sher Ali Bacha’s sudden U-turn toward organizing the party on national or ethnic lines was a risky position because the supposedly homogeneous national unit was itself not homogeneous. Every such national unit was composed of multiple ethnic, linguistic, and social groups.
Both Ishaq Muhammad and Afzal Bangash opposed this position, while Sher Ali Bacha pursued it enthusiastically. In an effort to establish his own political base within the Hashtnagar Movement, Bacha also raised the question of farm workers, particularly because the land-owning farmers—especially the middle and larger peasantry—were more closely associated with Afzal Bangash.
It is important to note, however, that while Bacha was raising a question of class differentiation within the peasantry that Lenin himself had addressed, Lenin was equally concerned with the timing and political conditions under which a break with the middle peasantry should occur. As discussed later, this more cautious approach would also characterize Major Ishaq’s position.
Sher Ali Bacha and his companions therefore developed their own political path by splitting from the MKP and forming the Pakhtunkhwa Mazdoor Kissan Party. Similarly, Imtiaz Alam split from the Punjab party along the same lines and formed the Lok Party.3 He left the MKP with a large faction of young workers, arguing, among other things, that the party’s senior leadership was dragging its feet on the question of armed uprising.
Another factor that encouraged Sher Ali Bacha’s optimism was the activity of Pukhtoon Zalmay, particularly its support from Afghanistan and the ripening conditions that preceded the Saur Revolution. Later, both Sher Ali and Imtiaz Alam travelled to Afghanistan during the rule of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), where they remained in self-exile and received the hospitality of the Afghan government.
Juma Khan Sufi4 records notes about discussions that took place during that period in his autobiographical book “Farib Na Tamam”. Their visit ultimately remained unsuccessful, and the logistical and material support that Sher Ali had hoped to obtain did not materialize. After a brief period, when they returned, they did not continue to pursue their earlier ideological line.
Sher Ali eventually joined Mehmood Khan Achakzai in 1986, while Imtiaz joined the pro-Moscow communist party and later formed the Qoumi Inqalabi Party (QIP) with Afrasiab Khattak.
- Second Position: Class differentiation among the peasantry
The second major point on which Sher Ali Bacha and Afzal Bangash differed concerned the class composition of the Hashtnagar Movement.
Sher Ali considered the middle peasantry to be the primary beneficiary of the movement and argued that its initial successes had effectively replaced one form of khanism with another. As land was captured and redistributed, the farmers who secured land emerged as the principal beneficiaries, while landless farm workers who had participated in the mobilization received little or no material benefit from these gains.
Moreover, the new “Malik” farmers were becoming the new khans, and their behaviour toward the landless workers was also hostile. Sher Ali therefore sought to place greater emphasis on the farm workers and mobilize them as a counterweight to this renewed form of khanism. As noted earlier, however, he also sharpened this class line in part to consolidate his own political base in Hashtnagar and to pressure Afzal Bangash’s support base into conceding on the first question. Afzal Bangash opposed Sher Ali Bacha’s position on the landless peasantry, regarding it as harmful to the party.
“Ishaq believed that such a line would lead to the elevation of non-antagonistic contradictions among the masses and ultimately weaken the class struggle and the principal contradictions of that period.”
Ishaq Muhammad, however, was sympathetic to this aspect of Sher Ali’s position because he was more inclined toward organizing the landless peasantry in Punjab.
This was demonstrated in his writings about landless peasants and farm workers who faced both class and caste oppression in Punjab. He conceptualized their voice and struggle in his famous play Musali. Bangash sought Ishaq’s backing in this conflict, but considered Ishaq’s sympathy for the landless peasantry to be a position against him, which resulted in increasing tension between Bangash and Ishaq.
Ishaq Muhammad’s opposition to Sher Ali Bacha on these two questions was interconnected. Regarding the first question, he was skeptical of the idea of a confederal party organized along national lines. Ishaq believed that such a line would lead to the elevation of non-antagonistic contradictions among the masses and ultimately weaken the class struggle and the principal contradictions of that period.
This conclusion was also shaped by Ishaq’s and his comrades’ previous experience with the National Awami Party (NAP). In his view, this line was not fundamentally different from the revisionist tendency, although it was expressed through more radical political terminology.
On the second question, Ishaq believed that sharpening the class line without consolidating the party organization in Hashtnagar could create the danger of losing the initial successes of the party against khanism and allow khanism to return to the area with the state-support.
Ishaq Muhammad used to say:
“Peasants are like a heap of potatoes. You need to put them into a sack to help them assert their weight, which is a party job.”
The point was that without consolidating the party in the area, an immediate and sharper move could become a slippery slope.
In conclusion, both Sher Ali and Afzal Bangash pursued their respective political hard lines in haste, while the central leadership was ultimately unable to pacify their internal feud.
Consequently, both developed their own political trajectories and eventually moved toward different forms of right- and left-wing opportunism, including association with Wali Khan’s Awami National Party (ANP) and Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP).
3 Juma Khan Sufi autobiography acknowledges that while in Kabul, NAP developed a strategy to weaken Punjab, for which they devised two approaches. The first was to promote the Seraiki question, while the second was to advance the idea of a Greater Punjab.
4Juma Khan Sufi (2015), Faraib-e-Natamam (Yadain Aur Yadashtain), Publisher Pak Book Empire
Why did the MKP grow more in Punjab than in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa?
We can now turn to the second and third questions raised by the authors: why did the MKP grow more substantially in Punjab than in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? The preceding discussion has already addressed part of this question, but some additional detail is necessary for a fuller explanation.
In Hashtnagar, where the party had carried out a major and successful struggle, the leadership that emerged from the peasants’ committees was soon displaced by a more middle-class leadership. In some respects, this peasant leadership was marginalized because it did not articulate its politics in the most radical ideological vocabulary.
In Punjab, Ishaq supported the struggle of landless farm workers under their own independent organization and made a constant effort to challenge the caste prejudice emerging from sections of the middle and lower-upper-caste peasantry through cultural means.
He conceptualized an alliance between the landless peasantry and the middle and lower peasantry against the feudal lords and reactionary sections of the peasantry in Punjab.5 This alliance helped both forms of organization grow alongside one another.
In Punjab, one of the MKP’s greatest assets was a large group of brilliant, fearless, and seasoned rural workers. The MKP’s workers were down-to-earth, and a large proportion of them came from the lower peasantry, landless farm workers, and the urban working-class.
However, it is also true their work could not ultimately consolidate itself into a mass struggle. We need more personal accounts and analytical studies to understand this shortcoming rather than relying on slanderous accusations against them. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the party was unable to develop a mass line and organically build an alliance with the landless peasantry.
Nevertheless, with efforts from the central party and the Punjab party, the MKP attempted to expand its organizational presence in Swat, Buner, and the Hindko-speaking Hazara belt.
In these areas, it attempted to mobilize lower-caste Gujjars against the land-owning castes and tribes of the region. However, the MKP leadership in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was in haste to join big tent politics and showed less sustained interest in these areas.6 Consequently, the nexus between landless caste and class did not develop successfully. There was some limited success in the Mansehra-Kaghan area, but it did not expand as envisioned.
“The more useful Marxist question is not whether one side spoke in the language of an oppressed nationality and the other in the language of party unity, but which political line was better able to address genuine national oppression without subordinating class organization to ethnonational categories.”
The lack of interest among the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa leadership partly stemmed from its ambition to enter broader politics and use the Charsadda peasant uprising as leverage to negotiate political status and eventually join the ranks of ethnonationalist parties.
The Pashtun leadership in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was also hostile toward the question of the lower-caste Gujjars because Pashtuns were socially and culturally dominant in the region and derogatory attitudes toward Gujjars existed within sections of Pashtun society.
There is also a certain irony in the way this history is treated in the Jamhoor article. The authors point to the MKP’s weaker growth in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the later turn of figures such as Sher Ali Bacha and Afzal Bangash toward the politics of “oppressed nationalities” as questions the MKP must explain.
Elsewhere, however, they characterize Major Ishaq’s line as Punjabi-chauvinist and Punjab-centric, without subjecting the ethnonationalist tendency he was opposing to the same level of scrutiny. Sher Ali was not simply raising legitimate questions of national oppression; he was also advocating the reorganization of communist politics itself along national or federating-unit lines and subsequently moved further toward ethnonationalist politics.
In that context, treating Ishaq’s resistance to this tendency primarily through the lens of Punjabi chauvinism risks assuming in advance that the ethnonationalist position was the more progressive one. The more useful Marxist question is not whether one side spoke in the language of an oppressed nationality and the other in the language of party unity, but which political line was better able to address genuine national oppression without subordinating class organization to ethnonational categories.
5 Ishaq Muhammad Speech in PMKP Punjab Party Vehari Congress, Published in Circular.
6 Anwar ul Bashir Hinki, MKP Activist from Kaghan Valley, Manshera.
Why did the MKP not become a force like the Naxalite Movement?
The logical conclusion of this above discussion also helps answer the first question raised by the authors: Why did the MKP fail to become a powerful force like the Naxalite Movement in India? In my opinion, the Naxalite Movement took the class and caste dimensions of South Asian society, and their particular historical specificity, very seriously. It expanded its organizational bases in areas where these contradictions were particularly acute and sharp.
It also emphasized the leadership of Dalits as an important condition for successfully consolidating the movement in those areas. This is comparable to the emphasis Ishaq Muhammad placed on the oppressed landless caste and class in his play Musali.
The Two Theses of Ishaq Muhammad
In the later part of their article, the authors suggest that Dr. Azeem is pursuing an idealist conception of continuity by attempting to retain the two theses of Ishaq Muhammad and the old MKP. The authors authoritatively suggest that there should instead be a rupture with these two theses because, according to them, these theses are responsible for preventing the party from expanding beyond Punjab, Karachi, and the traditional area of Hashtnagar.
On a lighter note, Punjab and Karachi together constitute roughly 60 percent of Pakistan’s population. I do not know how clearly Azeem and Ali PMKP understand these two theses or how firmly they intend to build continuity around them. However, I would like to reflect on Ishaq Muhammad’s two theses and demonstrate how these positions can contribute to building an inclusive nationalism in Pakistan.
These theses attempt to synthesize a unique formulation of the mass line by embracing local history, culture, language rights, and economic geography. Their purpose is to pacify non-antagonistic contradictions among the masses and unite them for a larger struggle against the semi-colonial nature of the state and the semi-feudal and semi-industrial political economy of the country.
As Mao said:
“To transform reality, we must first understand its contradictions.”
By understanding both the antagonistic and non-antagonistic nature of contradictions, these theses provide a broader mass line for a larger proportion of the population of the country.
Ishaq Muhammad’s Analysis of the Indus and Ganges Civilizations
In their article, the authors raise baseless accusations based on two theses of Ishaq Muhammad.First, they argue that Ishaq Muhammad’s thesis concerning the unique economic histories of the Indus and Ganges civilizations does not merit serious consideration.
Yet they fail to provide little substantive empirical evidence to refute the thesis itself. Rather than engaging its historical or material basis directly, the authors move quickly toward a hostile conclusion borrowed from pro-Moscow revisionist historiography. They characterize Ishaq’s position as chauvinistic on the grounds that it legitimizes the division of the subcontinent into two dominion states rather than multiple national states.
They then make another deductive leap: that this thesis reinforces the state narrative that East Pakistan separated from Pakistan for geographical and cultural differences rather than as a consequence of uneven development and severe economic exploitation.
This is an academically weak argument. Rather than engaging with the empirical merits or weaknesses of Ishaq Muhammad’s thesis itself, the authors appear to judge and refute it on the basis of the political conclusions they believe it leads to. Their conclusion also suggests either an incomplete reading or a serious misreading of East Pakistan Dilemma (Mashriqi Pakistan ka Almia).
The book contains extensive discussion of the material and economic exploitation of East Pakistan by the Pakistani ruling elite, particularly sections of the ruling establishment associated with Punjab and the Kathiawari mercantile class based in Karachi. The authors do not engage with these details. Instead, Instead, they characterize Ishaq’s position as chauvinist and as propaganda derived from the revisionist camp of the Left.
In my assessment, however, that revisionist tendency was itself united in an “unholy alliance” with Indian expansionism, and sections of the East Pakistani ruling class. This unholy alliance contributed to the defeat of peasant and revolutionary struggles in East Pakistan and ultimately served the interests of imperialism and Indian expansionism.
There is also an important historical point that further complicates the charge of chauvinism. The document in question was written in 1968–69, before East Pakistan became Bangladesh. Its central arguments were also presented to party comrades in East Pakistan, many of whom endorsed important elements of its analysis, including its critique of Indian expansionism.
No one from East Pakistan accused Ishaq Muhammad of the chauvinism now attributed to him by these self-described Maoists—an accusation that seems to draw heavily from the same pro-Moscow revisionist tradition discussed above.
More broadly, this reflects a recurring method throughout the Jamhoor article: selectively drawing claims from different ideological camps when useful for polemical purposes, while presenting that selectivity as evidence of theoretical nuance.
In my view, this is not theoretical sharpness; it is a highly uneven mode of argumentation that avoids consistently subjecting each political tendency to the same level of scrutiny.
The Socio-Material Roots of Partition and Pakistan
The second interconnected claim and accusation concerns Ishaq Muhammad’s second thesis: that the socio-material roots of the partition of the subcontinent and the formation of Pakistan lay partly in the class and caste contradictions faced by the Muslim masses in Punjab, Bengal, and Sindh.
Again, the authors offer little serious academic engagement with the thesis itself. Instead, they dismiss the position as opportunist and then move to the sweeping conclusion that this line explains why the MKP became increasingly confined to the middle class and middle peasantry of Punjab and Karachi.
Furthermore, the authors conclude that this thesis reinforces the narrative of the ruling classes and the state on the national question by creating the impression that the subcontinent was characterized by genuine communal contradictions within society.
To support their borrowed theory from the pro-Moscow revisionist tradition, the authors reduce Pakistan to merely a by-product of a colonial conspiracy rather than recognizing the genuine socio-material contradictions that contributed to the Pakistan Movement.
As empirical evidence for their claim, the authors provide a case study of Sindh in which they attempt to show that the only major contradiction in Sindh was between the Hindu merchant class and Muslim feudal leadership.
This short-sighted reading of Sindh demonstrates how limited the authors’ analytical engagement can become. Their own positionality is also relevant here. Both authors come from an upper-middle-class background, and, because of a particular form of ethnonationalist politics that has emerged in Sindh, their personal and social location appears to have limited their ability to travel beyond Karachi and understand the deeper socio-cultural dynamics of Sindh and Punjab.
In one paragraph, the authors acknowledge that Sayeds and Shahs historically occupied a position of exceptional caste and social prestige in Sindh. They also note that although the Talpurs exercised political rule, considerable social and symbolic authority remained concentrated among the Sayeds.
Yet in the very next paragraph, they present Sindh through a framework of enduring religious harmony, despite the continued exploitation and oppression of Hindus and lower-caste groups by feudal and other Muslim ruling classes. The problem is that such a reading flattens the interaction between class, caste, religion, and political power in Sindh.
It also overlooks the historical role of intellectual and Sufi traditions in both Punjab and Sindh that challenged caste hierarchy and social domination. A more serious analysis would account for these contradictions rather than treating communal harmony as sufficient evidence against the existence of deep internal structures of exploitation.
The high caste status of the Sayeds and Shahs was not simply a phenomenon that emerged after the introduction of Islam into the region.
A deeper analysis demonstrates how sections of the Muslim Ashrafia adopted and reproduced hierarchical structures associated with pre-existing caste-based discrimination and social structures. However, the authors attempt to take cover under a framework of Hindu-Muslim harmony promoted by Sindhi nationalism.
Ghulam Hussain demonstrated through his ethnographic study in Sindh that this framework can inadvertently provide legitimacy to Ashrafia hegemony, Jati Hindu domination, and Dalit subordination. This process effectively re-hierarchized caste groups and continued to redistribute caste capital through the reproduction of Sayedism, Dalit exclusion, and caste-class oligarchies.
If the authors paid closer attention to Ishaq Muhammad’s analysis, they might be able to understand the nuance of his position. Ishaq Muhammad explained the material basis of the Pakistan Movement by examining where the movement first emerged. In the MKP foundational document of the 1970s7 he described Pakistan’s freedom as “Eclipsed Freedom” and provided a brief account of the reasons behind the Pakistan Movement.
He explained how the Muslim League was established in 1906 with British support, partly because the British were concerned about the rise of Hindu nationalism represented by the Indian National Congress. However, he later acknowledged other drivers of the Pakistan Movement.
He referred, for example, to the historical upper-caste Brahmin hegemony and the practice of untouchability, as well as the struggles of Muslim farmers in Bengal against the Hindu moneylending class and the exploitation of Muslim peasants by moneylending classes in other Muslim-majority regions. In the later pages of the document, he explained how factional conflicts within the trading classes utilized these contradictions in pursuit of their own class interests.
There is, however, no doubt that sections of Dalit leadership viewed the Pakistan Movement sympathetically. A prominent example was Jogendranath Mandal, who was based in Bengal and believed that an alliance with the Muslim League could help free lower-caste communities from upper-caste Hindu oppression.
Mandal, who came from East Bengal, belonged to the Namasudra, an “untouchable” caste. He was associated with the Muslim League for a long period and served as a minister in the Suhrawardy-led government of Bengal in 1946. The core reason for this support was shared oppression.
Dalit and Muslim communities both faced severe domination and discrimination from upper-caste Hindus in Bengal. Moreover, Dalit leaders believed that a new Muslim-majority state might provide marginalized communities with better conditions than the traditional Hindu caste system.
Another important testimony supporting this thesis is the position of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar in his famous work Thoughts on Pakistan. Ambedkar took a pragmatic and analytical position. He acknowledged the creation of Pakistan as a tragic but potentially necessary response to the deep-seated communal problem in India.
He argued that the demand for Pakistan was not merely a passing political fantasy of Muhammad Ali Jinnah but reflected the genuine sentiments and deep-seated fears of a large proportion of Indian Muslims.
He analyzed how social, cultural, and historical differences—intensified by separate political identities and historical conflicts—meant that forcing a permanent political union against the wishes of Muslims would produce continuing friction and instability.
“The concrete task is to attempt to materialize a unified struggle against imperialism and its local allies.”
Beyond these two prominent historical examples of Dalit leadership, I would also like to reflect on the sentiments of regional Dalit leadership in Punjab and Sindh and how they viewed Pakistan as an aspiration and provided tactical support to the demand for Pakistan.
Based on my own decades-long association with different Dalit activists in Sindh and Punjab, I can confidently say that Dalit leadership remains broadly pro-Pakistan and does not accept the narrative of upper-caste Sindhi nationalism, particularly when it is articulated through the social authority of Sayeds, Shahs, and their Baloch associates.
I would like to quote one such activist from Sindh, Ganpat Rai Bhee8, who contributed an article to the book titled “Kia Hm Alheda Ho Sakty Hyn” published in 2015.
“Dalits are among the most marginalized sections of this country. Having suffered centuries of social, economic, and political oppression and exploitation, Dalits have been subjected to systematic discrimination in this state established on religious foundations. While members of the Hindu upper castes migrated to India, Dalits did not consider it appropriate to abandon their homeland. Dalits take pride in being patriotic and Pakistani”.
He further asserts that:
“The ruling class and state forces use Dalits as instruments in their proxy wars, but the rights of the Dalit community have not been protected in any meaningful sense. Dalit reject the nationalist doctrines and regard Pakistan’s working classes as their allies. Like all other working classes, the liberation of Dalits also lies in socialist revolution. A socialist revolution can be the only means of avenging centuries of oppression, as well as an effective response to the doctrines of nationalism employed by states, ruling classes, and their agents within this unnatural and anti-human system”.
There is much more empirical evidence and personal testimonial available to support this thesis than the claim that the formation of Pakistan was merely a conspiracy engineered by British colonialism.
In conclusion, Ishaq Muhammad’s position after the separation of East Pakistan must be understood within the context of a new concrete reality. The concrete task is to attempt to materialize a unified struggle against imperialism and its local allies.
Ishaq Muhammad explained this geopolitical reality and context in his article New Pakistan;
“I am emphasizing the unity of the Indus Valley—that is, the fundamental unity of West Pakistan—so that you can study, with determination and without any fear, the formidable class, geographical, and historical realities that Pakistan is confronted with today. Geographically, there is no other country in the world that occupies the position Pakistan does today. On three sides, it is surrounded by some of the most populous countries in the world. Among them, China and Russia are regarded as major global powers, while Pakistan has recently suffered a defeat at the hands of India. At the same time, intense strategic rivalry and tensions are continuing among all three countries, and Pakistan lies right in the middle of this great geopolitical contest”.
As Shozab and Noaman, in their article titled “Done with Decolonisation? The Perils and Possibilities of a Concept,” explain, there are different modalities of anti-colonialism, and different scholars and movements have understood and employed the concept in different ways.
They rightly discuss a militant and revolutionary modality: the mid-twentieth-century Marxist-inspired projects that transcended the limits of juridical and economistic decolonization, grappled critically with epistemic decolonization, and reimagined anti-colonial political communities and futures.
Ishaq Muhammad is a Marxist Leninist who tried to develop theory and practice from the unique ground realties of Pakistan. He explored the Harappan or Indus civilization as a means of embracing indigenous culture and, through a process of critical filtering, developing a moral and political foundation for the landless lower-caste population of Pakistan.
As he pointed out:
“Our own indigenous cultural heritage is magnificent when compared to the culture of the [European] Age of Enlightenment. Studying [its] development … and extracting its democratic impulse are necessary conditions for advancing our new national culture and national self-confidence.”
In order to resolve ethnic and linguistic antagonisms among the masses, Ishaq Muhammad attempted to provide a basis of unity for the four major ethno-linguistic groups, the migrant Mohajir population, and many smaller ethnic minorities within the country. He advocated an inclusive nationalism responsive to material realties.
This new basis of unity (after East Pakistan’s separation), explored through the ancient past of the region, represented an attempt to develop a broader political community for the future.
In the words of Winston Churchill:
“The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.”
I want to conclude my response with a long passage translated from my article written few months back when the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party passed the Lahore Declaration at the anti-imperialist conference in May 2026.
“The question of the “bases of unity” has become even more important in today’s post-Cold War world, particularly in the context of the recent openly stated intentions of American imperialism to use ethnic and religious identities to divide states in the Global South and the Middle East. In this global context, Ishaq Muhammad’s thesis has acquired greater relevance than ever.
The fundamental question is: What are the bases upon which such unity can be constructed? Will this unity be based solely on ethnic identity, solely on religious identity, or merely on an abstract class slogan?We must understand the contradictions within our society by connecting them with their historical formation, material foundations, and the contemporary global political conjuncture.
We must examine how the contradictions of the present world order—where, on the one hand, imperialist domination is facing a crisis and, on the other, new forces are emerging in the Global South—create the conditions within which we can advance a progressive, sovereign, and people-centered politics. This is why these questions are not merely theoretical; they are also practical and historical questions. Without serious research, inquiry, and critical dialogue, it is impossible to develop a coherent political strategy.
Mao Zedong, emphasizing the importance of investigation, once said: ‘Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.’
This principle remains equally applicable to our political struggle today. If we fail to develop a deep understanding of our society, our history, our class structure, and our national identity, we will either remain trapped in abstract slogans or inadvertently become auxiliaries of prevailing imperialist narratives.
There should be no doubt that a national identity is necessary for an anti-imperialist politics. But the fundamental question is: What kind of national identity will it be? Which classes will form its foundation? Through the interaction of which cultures, civilizations, historical experiences, and ethnic and linguistic communities will it be constructed? Will it be an exclusive and narrow identity, or an inclusive and progressive conception of the nation? Will it simply reproduce state coercion, or will it provide a pathway toward popular sovereignty and collective development?
These are questions that cannot be answered through an immediate formula or an emotional reaction. They require a long-term intellectual, theoretical, and practical struggle. And the longer we postpone this debate, the more our politics will become vulnerable to fragmentation, ambiguity, and reaction. Because any genuinely anti-imperialist and people-centered politics can only be constructed when we develop a profound understanding of the complexities of our society and, on that basis, define a political direction that does not merely resist the existing order but also offers a vision of an alternative future.”
7Manshoor, Pakistan Mazdoor Kissan Party Published 16-17 May 1970
8“Kia Hum Alheda Hu Sakty hyn”, Compiled by Saleem Sheikh 2017, Roshan Publication Faisalabad.
Note from the author: In the next part, I will critically examine the practice of recent Maoism in Pakistan and how it has been nurtured, represented, and interpreted within Western academic institutions and intellectual spaces. I will also ask what motivates the authors to launch such a hostile attack on an indigenous Maoist practice and political tradition. Furthermore, I would like to critically reflect on the authors’ own political practice, since I have been part of many of the same political and intellectual spaces where we have known and interacted with each other closely, going back to our days in the National Students Federation reorganizing from 2008 to 2015.
Arfan Choudhary is a political activist currently associated with the Sanjh Faisalabad and former Central Organizer and Punjab President of National Students Federation, Pakistan. Also, he remained active in formation of Awami Workers Party in 2012.