Eqbal Ahmad (1933 – 11 May 1999) was a Pakistani political scientist, writer and academic known for his anti-war activism, his support for resistance movements globally and academic contributions to the study of the Near East. Born in Bihar and Orissa Province, British India, Ahmad migrated to Pakistan during the Partition of India and went on to study economics at the Forman Christian College. After graduating, he worked briefly as an army officer and was wounded in the First Kashmir War in 1948. He participated in the Algerian Revolution, then studied the Vietnam War and U.S. imperialism, becoming an early opponent of the war upon his return to the U.S. in the mid-1960s.

While highly regarded in radical circles of South Asia and left-wing circles more generally, Ahmad was a controversial figure. According to Pervez Hoodbhoy, warrants of arrest and death sentences were put on him during successive martial law governments in Pakistan. Although he was indicted in 1971 on charges of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger (who was then President Nixon's National Security Advisor), the case was eventually dismissed. Kabir Babar called Ahmad "one of the most outstanding thinkers ever to originate from the Subcontinent. His analyses of the major political events and trends of the 20th century were noted for their astuteness and predictive power." Edward Said listed Ahmad as one of the two most important influences on his intellectual development, praising the latter's writings on South Asia especially as informative.

Early life and education

thumb|Ahmad spent a year studying American history at [[Occidental College.]]

Eqbal Ahmad was born in the village of Irki in the Bihar and Orissa Province of British India in 1933, to a family of Indian Muslim landowners. When he was a young boy, his father was murdered over a land dispute in his presence. During the journey, Ahmad lost contact with his family in New Delhi and fled to Lahore carrying a gun. He moved to Amsterdam in 1973. In 1974, he founded and directed the Transnational Institute, until 1975. In 1982, he moved back to the United States and joined Hampshire College as a tenured professor and taught there until becoming Professor Emeritus in 1997.

In 1990, he began splitting his time between Islamabad and Amherst and also began writing for Dawn, and worked unsuccessfully to establish a liberal arts college named after Ibn Khaldun in Islamabad. Ahmad was one of the most prominent left-wing academics in both Pakistan and the United States. His legacy is that of strong opposition to militarism, bureaucracy, nuclear arms and ideological rigidity, while also strongly supporting democracy and self-determination.

Career

From 1960 to 1963, Ahmad lived in North Africa, working primarily in Algeria, where he joined the National Liberation Front and worked with Frantz Fanon and some Algerian nationalists who were fighting a war of liberation against the French in Algeria. During these years, he became known as one of the earliest and most vocal opponents of American policies in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Eqbal Ahmad saw Islam as concerned, above all, with the welfare of common people. Eqbal's leftism was his humanity and this only reinforced the pride he took in being a Pakistani in a challenging time.

He was a left-wing secularist, known for his lifelong denunciation and critiques of Western imperialism. Amitava Kumar argued, "As much as Said, he was a mentor to a generation of thinkers, mostly South Asian [...] notable for "not only the power but also the wide range of his sympathies [...] He was a committed engineer of emancipation, building imaginative roads, linking issues across continents." He found some aspects of Ahmad's analysis less relevant in the 21st century but still praised "his commitment to resolving political problems through diplomacy, not war. His writing on the Muslim world in particular was notable for its critical vigilance and integrity, its resistance to received wisdom." Irfan Husain wrote in Dawn that Ahmad was too biased in favor of the Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also stated, "Perhaps his most precious gift was his ability to listen to others in a way most of us don't: he would pay young students the same courtesy of carefully following their argument that he would extend to the rich and powerful." Muhammad Idrees Ahmad wrote in 2016, "He accurately predicted the consequences of western recklessness in Afghanistan, and his warnings on US intervention in Iraq would prove prophetic."

See also

  • List of Pakistani journalists
  • List of peace activists

Further reading

  • Confronting Empire (with David Barsamian), 2000, South End Press, .
  • The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad edited by Carollee Bengelsdorf, Margaret Cerullo & Yogesh Chandrani, 2006, Columbia University Press,
  • Terrorism: Theirs and Ours (with David Barsamian), 2001, Seven Stories Press,
  • Stuart Schaar, Eqbal Ahmad: Critical Outsider in a Turbulent Age, 2015, Columbia University Press,

Notes

References

  • Eqbal Ahmad materials in the South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), Newspaper clippings about articles on Eqbal Ahmad
  • Eqbal Ahmad, by Edward W. Said, in The Guardian newspaper, UK
  • Obituary. "Eqbal Ahmad, historian and rebel." The Economist magazine, UK, Published May 27, 1999 This is a link to a premium content article