Ali Raza | Lahore University of Management Sciences (original) (raw)
Papers by Ali Raza
Itinerario, 2012
In the interwar period, a system for the movement of men, arms, and printed matter developed into... more In the interwar period, a system for the movement of men, arms, and printed matter developed into a political network that in imperial sources came to be called the “lascar system.” Lascars were Indian seamen who worked for British and international merchant shipping companies and had contacts with trade unionists, communists, anarchists, and other politically active parties across the world—in particular in port towns such as Hamburg, Antwerp and Marseilles. They became key players in the politics of the interwar world, and especially in a still-colonised India, which was subject to various censorship regulations and a panoply of repressive legislation. A number of lascars became crucial in the emerging communist movement and in trade union politics. In a world of increasingly stringent border controls, restrictions on the movement of people, and paranoia about political radicalism and its ability to “infect” new areas, the lascars' mobility became an asset to political movemen...
To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize 'how it really was'. It means to take contr... more To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize 'how it really was'. It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger. 1
Journal of World History, 2019
Muslims against the Muslim League, 2017
Veteran politician, inveterate rebel, self-styled defender of progressive values; Mian Iftikhar-u... more Veteran politician, inveterate rebel, self-styled defender of progressive values; Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din remains one of the most intriguing individuals to have been associated with the Pakistan movement and the Muslim League. As an outspoken advocate of Muslim self-determination and Pakistan, the inclusion of Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din in this volume might seem like an odd choice indeed. And yet, his political journey reveals much about the tense political climate of the 1940s and the impossible choices that many were confronted with at the time. More importantly, though, his politics also provides an insight into the varied dreams and aspirations that were tied to the idea of Pakistan. In doing so, Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din's political trajectory also contributes to a deeper understanding of relatively neglected aspects of the Pakistan movement and the early years of the nascent post-colonial state when many of those utopian dreams turned sour.
History Workshop Journal Issue 89, 2020
This paper charts communist print worlds in colonial India during the interwar period. Beginning ... more This paper charts communist print worlds in colonial India during the interwar period. Beginning in the early 1920s, self-declared ‘Communist’ and ‘Bolshevik’ publications began surfacing across India. Through the example of the Kirti Kisan Sabha (Workers and Peasants Party: a communist group in the north-western province of Punjab), and its associated publications, this paper will provide a glimpse into the rich, diverse and imaginative print worlds of Indian communism. From 1926 onwards, Kirti publications became a part of a thriving print culture in which a dizzying variety of revolutionary, socialist and communist publications competed and conversed with the equally prolific and rich print worlds of their political and ideological rivals. Removed on the one hand from the ivory towers of party intellectuals, dense treatises and officious theses, and on the other hand from the framing of sedition, rebellion and fanaticism in the colonial archive, Kirti publications show how the global project of communist internationalism became distinctly provincialized and vernacularized in British India.
While the history of political Islam is intricately connected to southwest Asian geopolitics, the... more While the history of political Islam is intricately connected to southwest Asian geopolitics, there is evidence that the emergence of the religious right as a political force in Pakistan is an outcome of state patronage. Following the 'War on Terror', corporate media and official western representations of revivalist trends in Pakistan have been almost completely de-contextualised. This representation has provided both the dominant military state oligarchy and the religious right an ideal opportunity to reinforce an old alliance previously supported by western imperialism, while eroding the organising capacity of progressive social and political forces in Pakistan. This paper traces the historical contours of the mullah-military alliance in Pakistan, arguing that the political and social survival of both its armed forces and the religious right is based on the persistence of a dialectic relationship between a secular modernity and Islamic ethos that can be traced back to the country's creation. The evolution of this state ideology since Partition demonstrates how the religious right has emerged as a social and political force under state patronage. The paper examines how two critical junctures in this mullah-military alliance-namely, the Afghan jihad (struggle) of the 1980s and the post-9/11 War on Terror-have allowed the state and the religious right in Pakistan to overtly consolidate this historical alliance.
While a political history of the Pakistani Left and its engagement with the Muslim League is a na... more While a political history of the Pakistani Left and its engagement with the Muslim League is a narrative that deserves attention in its own right, it also reveals significant insights into the colonial and post-colonial political landscape. First, it highlights the social and political limits of Radicalism and the resultant choices and compromises it had to make in order for it to remain a viable socio-political alternative. Second, it also deepens our understanding of the nature of the colonial state and, more crucially, the continuities between it and its post-colonial successor, an observation that communists were quick to make following independence. Consequently, and most importantly, such an examination also challenges the triumphalism and chauvinism inherent in nationalist historiography, whose hegemony only serves to silence dissenting voices.
Books by Ali Raza
Revolutionary Pasts Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press), 2020
In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza rev... more In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza reveals the lives, geographies, and anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries and how they sought to remake the world. Driven by the utopian visions of Communist Internationalism, Indian revolutionaries yearned and struggled for a global upheaval that would overthrow European imperialisms and radically transform India and the world. In an age marked by political upheavals, intellectual ferment, collapsing empires, and global conflicts, Indian revolutionaries stood alongside countless others in the colonized world and beyond in their desire to usher in a future liberated from colonialism and capitalism. Drawing from a wealth of archival materials, Raza demonstrates how Communist Internationalism was a crucial project in the struggle for national liberation and inaugurates a new approach to the global history of communism and decolonization.
An edited volume that deals with Modern South-Asian History and Global History alike by looking a... more An edited volume that deals with Modern South-Asian History and Global History alike by looking at the politics and mood of internationalism in the interwar years from different perspectives, ranging from race and gender politics to the left wing, youth, Pan-Asianism and the League Against Imperialism...
Itinerario, 2012
In the interwar period, a system for the movement of men, arms, and printed matter developed into... more In the interwar period, a system for the movement of men, arms, and printed matter developed into a political network that in imperial sources came to be called the “lascar system.” Lascars were Indian seamen who worked for British and international merchant shipping companies and had contacts with trade unionists, communists, anarchists, and other politically active parties across the world—in particular in port towns such as Hamburg, Antwerp and Marseilles. They became key players in the politics of the interwar world, and especially in a still-colonised India, which was subject to various censorship regulations and a panoply of repressive legislation. A number of lascars became crucial in the emerging communist movement and in trade union politics. In a world of increasingly stringent border controls, restrictions on the movement of people, and paranoia about political radicalism and its ability to “infect” new areas, the lascars' mobility became an asset to political movemen...
To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize 'how it really was'. It means to take contr... more To articulate what is past does not mean to recognize 'how it really was'. It means to take control of a memory, as it flashes in a moment of danger. 1
Journal of World History, 2019
Muslims against the Muslim League, 2017
Veteran politician, inveterate rebel, self-styled defender of progressive values; Mian Iftikhar-u... more Veteran politician, inveterate rebel, self-styled defender of progressive values; Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din remains one of the most intriguing individuals to have been associated with the Pakistan movement and the Muslim League. As an outspoken advocate of Muslim self-determination and Pakistan, the inclusion of Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din in this volume might seem like an odd choice indeed. And yet, his political journey reveals much about the tense political climate of the 1940s and the impossible choices that many were confronted with at the time. More importantly, though, his politics also provides an insight into the varied dreams and aspirations that were tied to the idea of Pakistan. In doing so, Mian Iftikhar-ud-Din's political trajectory also contributes to a deeper understanding of relatively neglected aspects of the Pakistan movement and the early years of the nascent post-colonial state when many of those utopian dreams turned sour.
History Workshop Journal Issue 89, 2020
This paper charts communist print worlds in colonial India during the interwar period. Beginning ... more This paper charts communist print worlds in colonial India during the interwar period. Beginning in the early 1920s, self-declared ‘Communist’ and ‘Bolshevik’ publications began surfacing across India. Through the example of the Kirti Kisan Sabha (Workers and Peasants Party: a communist group in the north-western province of Punjab), and its associated publications, this paper will provide a glimpse into the rich, diverse and imaginative print worlds of Indian communism. From 1926 onwards, Kirti publications became a part of a thriving print culture in which a dizzying variety of revolutionary, socialist and communist publications competed and conversed with the equally prolific and rich print worlds of their political and ideological rivals. Removed on the one hand from the ivory towers of party intellectuals, dense treatises and officious theses, and on the other hand from the framing of sedition, rebellion and fanaticism in the colonial archive, Kirti publications show how the global project of communist internationalism became distinctly provincialized and vernacularized in British India.
While the history of political Islam is intricately connected to southwest Asian geopolitics, the... more While the history of political Islam is intricately connected to southwest Asian geopolitics, there is evidence that the emergence of the religious right as a political force in Pakistan is an outcome of state patronage. Following the 'War on Terror', corporate media and official western representations of revivalist trends in Pakistan have been almost completely de-contextualised. This representation has provided both the dominant military state oligarchy and the religious right an ideal opportunity to reinforce an old alliance previously supported by western imperialism, while eroding the organising capacity of progressive social and political forces in Pakistan. This paper traces the historical contours of the mullah-military alliance in Pakistan, arguing that the political and social survival of both its armed forces and the religious right is based on the persistence of a dialectic relationship between a secular modernity and Islamic ethos that can be traced back to the country's creation. The evolution of this state ideology since Partition demonstrates how the religious right has emerged as a social and political force under state patronage. The paper examines how two critical junctures in this mullah-military alliance-namely, the Afghan jihad (struggle) of the 1980s and the post-9/11 War on Terror-have allowed the state and the religious right in Pakistan to overtly consolidate this historical alliance.
While a political history of the Pakistani Left and its engagement with the Muslim League is a na... more While a political history of the Pakistani Left and its engagement with the Muslim League is a narrative that deserves attention in its own right, it also reveals significant insights into the colonial and post-colonial political landscape. First, it highlights the social and political limits of Radicalism and the resultant choices and compromises it had to make in order for it to remain a viable socio-political alternative. Second, it also deepens our understanding of the nature of the colonial state and, more crucially, the continuities between it and its post-colonial successor, an observation that communists were quick to make following independence. Consequently, and most importantly, such an examination also challenges the triumphalism and chauvinism inherent in nationalist historiography, whose hegemony only serves to silence dissenting voices.
Revolutionary Pasts Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press), 2020
In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza rev... more In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza reveals the lives, geographies, and anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries and how they sought to remake the world. Driven by the utopian visions of Communist Internationalism, Indian revolutionaries yearned and struggled for a global upheaval that would overthrow European imperialisms and radically transform India and the world. In an age marked by political upheavals, intellectual ferment, collapsing empires, and global conflicts, Indian revolutionaries stood alongside countless others in the colonized world and beyond in their desire to usher in a future liberated from colonialism and capitalism. Drawing from a wealth of archival materials, Raza demonstrates how Communist Internationalism was a crucial project in the struggle for national liberation and inaugurates a new approach to the global history of communism and decolonization.
An edited volume that deals with Modern South-Asian History and Global History alike by looking a... more An edited volume that deals with Modern South-Asian History and Global History alike by looking at the politics and mood of internationalism in the interwar years from different perspectives, ranging from race and gender politics to the left wing, youth, Pan-Asianism and the League Against Imperialism...