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Pashtun Nationalism: A Failed ideology

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"How about the chicken who responds back violently when her child is attacked? Is she being violent or not?" This  was a question posed infront of Ghandi by the then young Wali khan  , whose father Abdul Ghaffar khan , popularly known as bacha khan , was indoctrinating the idea of tolerance into the Pashtun socities , together with Mr Ghandi. Mr Ghandi did not have any satisfactory answer to that question of Wali khan and he just smiled away by saying that there are more important political issues to think about than the question. But the question did have a depth and it did pointed out the hollowness of the "doctrine of tolerance" vigorously preached by Bacha khan those days. These were the good old days of united India when Abdul Ghaffar kha, popularly known as Bacha khan surfaced from a small village of Charsada, North West frontier province. He was born in an age when the western enlightenment at one hand and the soviet Marxism on the other  were impressing pe

Islam and postmodernism

As it is a general sentiment these days among the modernist camp that Islam must be "reformed" properly to make it acceptable to the people in this age so it also necessary to address this issue of reformation as well in details. We all know that the idea of reformation manly originates in the modernistic camp under the influences that the Western "enlightenment" is no more compatible with Islam or Islam is incompatible with the western enlightenment. The western enlightenment is a broad term which encompasses all the social doctrines that became prevalent in the post modernism west. Such ideologies will primarily include democracy , the social doctrines related to the relation ship between men and women , the various economic theories and so on. Why should one think of making Islam compatible with the Western enlightenment? The reason that the modernists give is obvious. The western enlightenment is prevalent , accepted and has taken a grip over the