Humaira Asghar Ali Chaudhry (1992 – 2025) was a Pakistani social media influencer, actress, model, reality TV star, and theatre artist who was linked with socially conscious theater groups. She was also into sculpting and painting. She was a graduate of the prestigious National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore with degrees in Fine Arts, TV, and Film. She earned her Masters in Philosophy from Punjab University.

Humaira last accessed her Facebook account on September 11, 2024  and her Instagram account on September 30. The last time she used her phone was on October 7 when she called 14 people but, none of them picked up her call. She left messages. One of them was an Islamabad-based famous director.

That was the last time she used her phone.

Humaira had been living alone in an apartment in Karachi’s Ittehad Commercial area of DHA Phase VI since 2018. According to Humaira’s landlord, the last rent she paid was in May 2024. The landlord complained to the courts of not receiving rent since then, a court-appointed bailiff with police joined him to visit the flat on July 8, 2025. When no one opened the door, it was broken into, and they found Humaira’s decomposed body lying on the floor. Electricity to her apartment had been cut-off since October 2024, for non-payment of bill. Humaira’s greatly decayed unrecognizable body was transported to Lahore to her family. She was buried on July 11. Her funeral was attended by only a few people.

Without being judgemental, actress Durefishan Saleem had a simple heartfelt message:

“Been thinking about life a lot lately. Not in terms of big dreams or loud success, but in the small, quiet moments.”

“I pray, with all my heart, that whenever [death] comes, for me or anyone, it doesn’t come in silence. Not in loneliness. Not in an empty room. But with love in the air. With familiar hands nearby. With someone who truly knew your heart.”

The police report was released on July 18, said chemical examination of her remains found no psychotropic drugs, intoxicants, tranquilizers, or any poisonous substances in her system.

She had three cellphones with over 2,000 saved contacts. With at least 75 people, she was in frequent contact and had had long conversations.

Stylist Danish Maqsood worked with Humaira on two photo-shoots, one in 2023 and the other on October 2, 2024. Maqsood’s request to Humaira for releasing images on social media didn’t receive an approval from her:

“When the request wasn’t approved, we tried calling her several times. After receiving no response, we messaged her on WhatsApp, but there was still no reply.”

He informed some digital publications about Humaira’s disappearance. After great efforts, he succeeded in a couple of them reporting her missing but, Maqsood regrets: it failed to garner attention of most people in the industry.

Humaira had not been in touch with her family for a long time. We don’t know if there were any family problems; speculation would probably be out of line.

But there remain several questions:

• In the nine months of her absence, why did none of the 75 people she often talked to become worried about her whereabouts?
• Did any of the last 14 people she contacted try to call her back? If they did, why didn’t they follow-up?
• In the world of celebrities, parties are as common as regular people going to the dollar store, why did no one notice her disappearance?
• In one of her last calls, she called a director which may have been work related, did that director think about what state she was in, and did he follow up on her missed call?

Entertainment industries worldwide do not have good reputation. Many people attracted to the glamor get exploited. The phrase rising Sun gets worshiped is very applicable to this industry. Once your star is down, you’re not allowed within the vicinity of the movie moguls’ sight; and you’re out of their mind. Then there are those who never find work which could lead to frustration, depression, and rejection that can lead to suicidal tendencies.

On 19 June, the dead body of another actress Ayesha Khan (1941 – 2025) was found as result of the neighbors complaint of a strong odor emanating from her place. She had been dead for a week! It’s tragic that people are lying dead for days and months without anyone knowing about it.

Most people working in the industry, including directors, actors, spot boys, lighting technicians, etc. don’t get paid on time.

Film and TV serial director Mehreen Jabbar:

“In the US, even with all their issues, there’s a fixed schedule for payments. People know when they’ll get paid. Here, you have to chase payments like beggars. Ask anyone and they’ll have horror stories. This is across every channel and production house. They [the crew members] do the hardest labour. But with no union, no rights, and no fair pay, they remain trapped. Working in Pakistan has become more disheartening. Compared to other places, the difference in professionalism and organization is stark.”

Many artists have the same complain including, senior artists who have now started voicing their grievances in the media.

(Renowned Indian singers Sunidhi Chauhan and Sonu Nigam said there are instances where they don’t get paid because Bollywood mafia controls things.)

There is no doubt Humaira was desperately looking for work. One of her two bank accounts had only Rs390,000 or about $1,375. The call to her close friend Dureshehwar revealed she was looking for work:

“I’m so sorry, I was traveling, caught up here and there. I’m so happy you’re in Makkah [on a pilgrimage]. Please pray a lot for me… Pray a lot from your heart for your cute friend/sister. For my career, please remember me in your prayers. You have to pray a lot for me.”

Pakistani society is very conservative and is rough on women, particularly on single women. The Global Gender Gap Index 2025 lists 148 countries of which Pakistan is ranked 148. Only 24% women are part of the labor force.

Sociologist Nida Kirmani gives an example of a woman named Saima who lived in a poor conservative neighborhood but found work in a very posh locality with a multinational department store where she made four times more money than most women, and even many men. She would put on an abaya (a loose overgarment) to cover her uniform but remove it once she reached her work because at work she would have seemed out of place in an abaya. Fortunately, her work company provided pick-and-drop service for their employees, otherwise, she would have faced verbal and or sexual harassment during her commute to work. Nevertheless, she still faced contempt from her neighbors and extended family members.

Coming back to Humaira, the cultural critic Aimun Faisal points out:

“It appears, at least to our moral gatekeepers, that there are no good women left in Pakistan.

“And so, perhaps understandably, people celebrate their deaths, leave their decaying bodies unclaimed, and repurpose their broken corpses as stark reminders — cautionary examples used to sermonize virtue. They preach goodness from behind their monetized YouTube accounts, from behind verified Twitter accounts, from the benches of the superior courts, from their pulpits, and from their news channels, and drawing rooms. And for their guidance, we are eternally grateful.”

Actor Osman Khalid Butt went after morality brigade and money makers:

“Stop turning people’s real trauma into content. Stop projecting your morality onto someone who’s not here to defend herself. Stop the speculation and the judgment, and the deflection. For God’s sake, just stop.”

Actress Mawra Hocane extended a helping hand:

“If you’re in trouble or caught in spiraling thoughts, if I have known you briefly or extensively, if you’re a friend or an acquaintance, if you’re from my fraternity and you feel I will understand your pressures, please reach out!”

Suggestion

What Mawra should do is get some of her fraternity on board to form a hotline service that artists in crisis, depression, and other problems are able to access. Also the service should try to reach artists who have been active but have suddenly vanished, like Humaira.

Humaira in the womb of death

for nine months,
life grows in the womb of a living being
it grows into a fetus
then turns into a human being
where as lifeless Humaira resided
nine months in the womb of death
when she was found,
one could say she was reborn but in a dead state
she was dead …
but became live fodder for news & social medias
many …
gossip-mongers, influencers, reporters, & others, cashed in
voyeuristic vloggers and commercial cameras not far behind
commercialism neither respects life, nor has regard for death
and custodians of morality too …
especially for a single woman from showbiz
why did it happen –
how can we stop more Humairas from happening?
for such questions,
the state has no interest,
nor any intention to pursue
the state resources are for
the ruling class’ families, friends, and donors …

VIDEO: Ahmad Ali Butt/ Youtube

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

Saint Sun — a myth

One day, a young prince died in the city of Unch in the Indian subcontinent. The boy had had great respect and love for a Shia Ismaili Pir Shams. (Pir means saint and Shams means Sun – Saint Sun.) The king was devastated; he ordered his magistrates and jurists to get a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad because only he could revive the prince. Failure to do so would result in severe punishment for them and their families. They went to Pir Shams and begged him to come because otherwise they would be victims of the king’s wrath.

Pir Shams came to the palace and, without invoking Allah, held the prince by arm who then came back to life. The prince recognized Pir Shams and they both left the palace. The nonbelievers were stunned. They shamed Pir Shams and charged him with acting like God. Pir Shams and the boy left the town. When it dawned upon Pir Shams, while he was meditating, that he had played the role of God, he removed his skin from head to toe as penalty. He, with the boy, returned to the city and gave his skin to the people.

Pir Shams and the boy were hungry but no one wanted to give or sell them food. Eventually, Pir Shams was able to get raw mutton, but was unable to get fire to cook it, so he prompted the Sun to descend and thus was able to cook the mutton.

The people were terrified by the heat and started burning, and they thought the Day of Judgement had arrived.

Once the mutton was cooked, the Sun went back to its celestial abode.

(This Ismaili saint Pir Shams — died 1356 CE — should not be confused with Mawlana Rumi’s spiritual mentor Shams Tabrizi — 1185–1248 CE).

The People’s Sun — today’s reality

• 350,000 people are homeless in NYC as of April 2025.
• 53% of New Yorkers’ debt has gone up due to high food costs. The number is 62% for New Yorkers, with children, who are under more debt.
• $4200 is the rent New Yorkers pay for 1 bedroom apartment — the highest in the country.
• 123 billionaires with total net worth of $759 billion belong to NYC, the most of any city in the world.
• …

Prior to losing the Democratic primary for NYC mayor in June 2025, Andrew Cuomo had been governor of New York state from 2011 to 2021. He was accused of cheating and screwing immigrant workers who cleaned the subways during the COVID 19 pandemic.

The people of New York City, when Cuomo was governor, suffered many cuts in Medicaid, public schools weren’t provided enough money because of austerity measures, and it was the same with the New York City’s subway system.

Corruption, inequality, injustice, police brutality, unemployment, underpaid, overworked, frustrated New Yorkers screamed enough is enough. They brought Zohran (means Sun) on the NYC mayoral platform making so many people happy. Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party was also supported by the Working Families Party. He won the primary.

Zohran Mubarak

Zohran Mubarak to the US ruling class.

The word “mubarak” is of Arabic origin but is also used in many non-Arab countries and means “auspicious, blessed, lucky propitious, happy.” It is used in greetings such as Eid Mubarak,” “Diwali Mubarak,” Christmas Mubarak,” Wedding Mubarak,” “Ramzan Mubarak,” etc.

Gheraoe-d (Encircled or Besieged)

“We were gheraoed by every Age,
No one ever came to our rescue!
Then, one day, we gheraoed them,
And every tyrant shouted his rage.
No reason to worry:
We shall rise soon despite the pain.
And every city which is now dark
Will see the light once again.”

Revolutionary Pakistani poet Habib Jalib- Tariq Ali’s translation.

Jalib wrote the poem in solidarity with Indian workers.

The rise of a people’s Sun burned the tyrants badly. The tyrants — the elites, racists, and moneyed class of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party; the Israeli Lobby; Israeli assets; Israeli agents; the billionaires; the media moguls; corporate bosses; Modi’s Hindutva supporters; and so many others shouted their rage.

Mamdani’s parents Mira Nair, a filmmaker, and Mehmood Mamdani, an academic, are Indians. So why are Modi’s supporters opposing Mamdani? Well, answering a question, Mamdani uttered the truth: like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a “war criminal” too.

Mamdani besieged

“A 100% Communist Lunatic” is what President Donald Trump called Mamdani.

Trump is 50% wrong, Mamdani is not a communist otherwise he would have said: “Let’s nationalize all industries; tech companies; universities; pharmaceutical companies; all financial institutes, including banks; Trump Towers, and so on and make common people’s life easy and give each family a house, free education, free healthcare, 10 hour work week, etc.”

Trump is 50% correct on the lunatic thing. Mamdani is a lunatic because:

• Only a lunatic would think about providing free bus service for the common people.
• Only a lunatic would criticize the 24/7/365 Israeli genocide of Palestinians, and risk losing easy-election-campaign money and support from the Israel Lobby to win the New York Mayor’s election with free trips to Israel.
• Only a lunatic like Mamdani would refuse to be an Israeli asset. He could have become one of the Israeli assets like Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Andrew Cuomo, Kamala Harris, Hakeem Jeffries, and uncountable others in the Congress, US government, state governments, news media, universities, corporations, armed forces, and so many other organizations. Don’t be surprised, Israel is over the entire US body — like an end-of-life stage of cancer. Only people like Mamdani can save this sick state of affairs and people like Kshama Sawant and her Workers Strike Back can make it alive again.

In the first week of November 2026, Trump will most probably see 100% lunatic in the US House with the name of Kshama Sawant. The US desperately needs her, and many more like her.

“Zohran the Destroyer” is the title given by Fox TV’ reporter. Zohran is the destroyer, indeed. New York City is stinking with the Farts Of Xenophobes which he is going to eliminate and make it a nice smelling city.

“Civilised people in America don’t eat like this,” says US House representative Brandon Gill (Republican from Texas). He was criticizing Mamdani for eating with hands rather than fork, knife, and spoon. A photo of Gill’s father-in-law Dinesh D’Souza, of Indian origin had been posted eating with his hands.

The “civilized people” use hands to accumulate all the money for themselves, to send arms and ammunition to Israel and other countries to kill people, to sign bills cutting Medicaid, etc., and so on.

Many more such criticisms have been hurled, suffice it to say much hatred has been spewed against Mamdani.

Interrogation by US-based Israeli agents

“Do you recognize Israel as a state? Does it have a right to exist?” and six other questions asked by Politico’s Jason Beeferman and Jeff Coltin were all related to Israel and antisemitism.

“Does the State of Israel have the right to exist?” was the question Steven Colbert asked on his show.

“The first foreign visit by a mayor of New York is always considered significant. Where would you go first?” was one of the questions asked by one of the moderators David Ushery during the June 4, 2025, NBC Democratic mayoral primary debate.

Mamdani’s reply: “I would stay in New York City. My plans are to address New Yorkers across the five Burroughs and focus on that.”

“Mr. Mamdani, can I just jump in? Would you visit Israel as mayor?” was the question by the Israeli agent Melissa Russo, pretending to be another moderator, who just couldn’t accept Mamdani’s concern for New Yorkers.

Mamdani’s reply: “I’ve said in a UJA [United Jewish Appeal? – Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, Inc.] questionnaire that I believe that you need not travel to Israel to stand up for Jewish New Yorkers. And that is what I will be doing as the mayor. I’ll be standing up for Jewish New Yorkers and I’ll be meeting them wherever they are across the five Burroughs, whether that’s in their synagogues and temples or at their homes or at the subway platform because ultimately we need to focus on delivering on their concerns.”

Agent Russo was mad: “Answer just yes or no. Do you believe in a Jewish state of Israel?”

Mamdani: “I believe Israel has the right to exist …”

Agent Russo jumped in: “As a Jewish state?”

Mamdani:: “As a state with equal rights.”

Now Mamdani was attacked by Cuomo, an Israeli asset running for NYC mayor. Watch the entire video of this exchange after 1:56 here.

Israel has occupied Palestine and has been existing, expanding, and executing Palestinians regularly. So the question wasn’t: As a mayor, will you stop the genocide and end Palestinians’ misery?

The battle begins

All the forces arrayed against Mamdani are going to use full power with all means, right or wrong, available at their disposal to defeat Mamdani in the election. They’ll go to any extreme because, this time it’s a people’s candidate and not a billionaires’ candidate — which is never acceptable in the US.

Mamdani should counter his opponents as he did during the June 12 second and final debate. When Cuomo, whose PACs received $25 million from billionaires, went after Mamdani’s inexperience, Mamdani shot back:

“To Mr. Cuomo, I have never had to resign in disgrace, I’ve never cut medicaid, I’ve never stolen 100s of millions of dollars from the MTA, I’ve never hounded the 13 women who have credibly accused me of sexual harassment, I’ve never sued for their gynecological records, and I have not done those things because I am not you Mr. Cuomo. And further more the name is Mamdani, m-a-m-d-a-n-i, learn to get it right.”

Mamdani has a once in the US lifetime chance to change things, if not in the country, then at least in the most populated city.

The country’s major newspaper, the New York Times, during the 2024 presidential election, refused to publish hacked information on Donald Trump and his VP candidate JD Vance, but in case of Mamdani, it didn’t hold off on publishing hacked information, supplied by one “who opposes affirmative action and writes often about I.Q. and race.” The info was about Mamdani’s 2009 college admission form. The paper had stopped endorsing any candidates except presidential but it criticized Mamdani in an editorial which “effectively served as an anti-endorsement,” Gabe Whisnant noted in Newsweek.

Mamdani should always remember his middle name Kwame, named after independent Ghana’s first Prime Minister and then President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, “Pan-Africanist visionary” who was voted as “Africa’s Man of the Millennium.” By the grace of Uncle Sam, in the form of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Nkrumah was overthrown, like many others before and after him, while he was on a state visit to China and Vietnam in February 1966.

Nkrumah wrote in his book Dark Days in Ghana what methods the US uses in ousting foreign leaders:

“It has been one of the tasks of the CIA and other similar organizations to discover … potential quislings and traitors in our midst, and to encourage them, by bribery and the promise of political power, to destroy the constitutional government of their countries.”

Former Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York lost in 2024 when the AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee) poured in $20 million to help their opponents. Bush and Bowman had called for ceasefire in Gaza.

This happens regularly to many candidates. Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard were the victims too. More than two decades back, Alexander Cockburn pointed out,

“Don’t you think that if Arab-American groups or African-American groups targeted an incumbent white liberal, maybe Jewish, congressperson, and shipped in money by the truckload to oust the incumbent, the rafters would shake with bellows of outrage.”

Mamdani should also stay away from the “Black Misleadership Class,” as Black Agenda Report constantly reminds us.

Professor Hamid Dabashi has a warning too:

“All the powers of predatory capitalism, militarised fascism and genocidal Zionism have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.”

Don’t be Obama or Sanders

As President, Barack Obama had a great opportunity to change the course of ruthless capitalism that it has been on for many decades. He and his advisors instead strengthened those very forces who were responsible for the 2007-2008 financial crisis by bailing them out.

But the Obama team did not rescue the victims of those monster-sized companies: more than 16% of the homeowners lost their houses via foreclosure or some other method, that is, approximately ten million families were forced to vacate their houses.

Almost all the criminal bankers went scot-free.

Multimillionaire Obama is a system’s man who is making millions and is ever ready to protect it when he senses even slight danger as he did it in 2020 when it seemed Bernie Sanders might overtake Joe Biden.

Bernie Sanders, an independent (but works with the Democratic Party), had twice, in 2016 and 2020, a chance to form a third party when he lost the presidential candidacy to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, respectively. His supporters were crazy for him and he could have changed the course of history. But no, he betrayed his cause and his supporters, and supported Hillary and Biden, instead.

So Zohran, don’t be like Obama or Sanders. If the anti-people-forces succeed in derailing your pursuit, join hands with Kshama Sawant and Jill Stein to form a third party. If Elon Musk with his hundreds of billions could make a third party, America Party, you could do too with your millions of voters, as the following video of yours acknowledges the voting power of people. Even if you’re elected, the Israel Lobby, the New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and all others will try to make your victory as miserable as they can as Cuomo had done with former mayor Bill de Blasio during his 2014 – 2021 rule.

Let the battle begin. May the good for the people triumph this time.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

In 1909, the renowned poet Muhammad Iqbal wrote Shikwa or Complaint to Allah.¹

The poem is a lament that Allah has neglected his followers, Muslims, the very people who spread Islam and gave Him global exposure.

A couplet refers to Mahmud Ghazni,² an eleventh century ruler, and his “slave” Ayaz:

ek hee saf meiN khaDe ho gaye mahmud o ayAz
na koi bandA rahA aur na koi bandA-nawAz

— Muhmmad Iqbal, Shikwa or The Complaint to Allah in Bang-e-Dara, Rekhta

they stood in the same row: Mahmud (the lord) and Ayaz (the slave)
(praying to Allah), no more was there distinction of master and slave

Malik Ayaz, according to Majid Sheikh, was not a slave but was a white European from Gerogia who was Mahmud’s “‘lakhtay’, a Pushtun polite word for ‘boy partner’.” According to S. Jabir Raza, there have been many other nobles with the name Ayaz. Many poets and authors, including Jalaluddin Rumi, have written about Ayaz.

Anyways, proceeding forward to this 21st century, Asim Munir and Shehbaz Sharif also rule the area which was once under Mahmud’s rule. Sharif is neither “lakhtay” nor a “slave” of Munir. But nonetheless, the reltionship between COAS (Chief of Army Staff) General Munir and Prime Minister Sharif is not even that of equals.

The parliamentary system of government in Pakistan officially endows the most power in the prime minister’s office and all others, including Chief of the Army Staff, work under the premier. However, since the 1950s, military has usurped the power and so the civilian governments rule at the mercy of the army — which gets a significant portion of the country’s budget, but also runs several businesse, and has overthrown and installed governments.

Between May 7 and 10, 2025, India and Pakistan went to war. Both claimed victory. Munir and Sharif thanked Allah for the “victory,” by going to Saudi Arabia in the first week of June to perform Umrah, and to pay homage to the Saudi ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman or MbS.

Like in Iqbal’s couplet, Munir and Sharif in the picture above, are standing as equal in front of their Allah. But a quick analysis clearly shows the contentment and happiness on them is not equal — more correctly, it is totally missing on Sharif’s face, who seems worried and frustrated. On the other hand, Munir seems very satisfied and delighted.

What was Munir praying to Allah:

“Ya Allah, I am going to thank you but first let me thank my enemy Narendra Damodardas Modi. I am here in Saudi Arabia, at this time, because of him. It’s due to him that my reputation, that was on a downward trajectory, suddenly picked up and went so high that I have now become a hero in Pakistan. Allah, you won’t believe but I feel like a superman, I have so much power. Please Allah, don’t be scared of me — I am not like Ayub Khan.³.

“Allah, one more thing I have to tell you. Recently, I was made field marshal and was granted the baton of field marshal by President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. I am the second field marshal, Ayub Khan was the first one. Allah, isn’t it strange that both Sharif’s and Zardari’s parties [Pakistan Muslim League (N) and Pakistan People’s Party] have suffered at the hands of the army and yet they’re givng me more prestige. I tell you, now any if these two guys try to be clever with me, I’m going to use this very baton to spank their rears. By the way, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader, Imran Khan, is already rotting in prison.

“Now Allah, before I part, I should thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

President Asif Ali Zardari (centre) and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (right) jointly confer baton of field marshal upon Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir on May 22, 2025. IMAGE/Radio Pakistan/The News International

(Munir received an invitation to attend the US army’s 250th anniversary on June 14, 2025. He is going to attend King Trump’s extravaganza. He must be feeling very happy but will also be very worried because commercial-animal that Trump is, will push him to be on the US side instead on China’s side.)

What was Shehbaz praying to Allah:

“Ya Allah, what is happening in your world? Why is it that I can’t exercise my due power as a prime minister? You can see the worry on my face, I can’t even close my eyes or at least pretend to close while offering prayers. Allah, look at this guy standing next to me — he seems to be in a post orgasmic state — calm, relaxed, and satiated.

In 1959, Ayub Khan became Pakistan’s first field marshal and now Munir has become one. Everyone knows, the minute my government will try to carve our own policy, he’ll shove the baton we awarded him, up my you know what.

Allah, please guide me as to how can we get rid of him. Should we put a case of mangoes in his plane or find some other way?” Please!

ENDNOTES:

1 Several poems of Iqbal in Urdu with English translation are at Dr. Allama Muhmaad Iqbal. Khushwant Singh, journalist and author, translated both “Complaint” and “Answer” in a book form with introduction and can be found here. See also Frances W. Pritchett critiquing Singh’s couple of stanzas.

2 Extremist Hindus use many excuses to disriminate against Muslims. One of those excuses is Muslim invader Mehmud Ghazni’s raid of temple of Somnatha and destrution of an idol in 1026 CE But that lacks historical truth. See eminent historian Romila Thapar’s “Somanatha and Mahmud,” in Frontline magazine.

3 In the 1960s, during military dictator Field Marshal General Ayub Khan’s rule, a joke circulated about Ayub’s love for power. On the Day of Judgement, Pakistan’s leaders lined up to see Allah. Allah would rise from his throne and pat Pakistani leaders but would not arise when Ayub Khan came. A question was raised as to why? Allah’s reply: “He would have grabbed my throne.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

A South Asian proverb:

When-buffaloes fight, it’s the trees that gets wrecked.

An African saying:

When elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets hurt.

Just at this moment, I received a divine revelation:

“When the world’s most powerful person and the planet’s richest person fight, it’s the world that gets ravaged.”

HOPE NOT!

HOPE …

they’ll “have dinner together,” instead.

To me, war God YHWH further revealed:

“Whatever happens elsewhere is none of my business. However, what happens in my ‘chosen land’ is my supreme concern. Thus one thing remains constant: My chosen one Bibi (not to be confused with this Bibi) is going to continue working to spread more peace.

“No one could stop Bibi’s mission: neither those who think expanding peace is a crime, nor those who claim the land belongs to other people.

“The chosen land is blessed with good neighbors: Pharaoh, Auto-man, puppet, mole, and GCCP. Bibi is busy mopping up the area of people who challenged the chosen ones. Only one bad neighbor is left now which, I am sure, Bibi will take care of.

“My people are also being supported by a communalist who follows a supremacist ideology. The founders of that supremacist ideology were impressed by the person who sent many people to gas chambers, including five to six million of my followers. The communalists were planning the same for the minorities in their own country.

(YHWH has used code-words rather than naming the neighbors.)

Pharaoh cannot be anyone but Egypt‘s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Auto-man sounds like Ottoman, that is, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan is a man who turns automatically in the direction where he sees benefits.

Puppet must be Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Mole must be Morocco’s King Hassan II who, as a member of the Arab League, gave very important information from the conference recording to Israel’s spy agency Mossad. Why would Yahweh invoke Hassan II who died in 1999? Yahweh is probably trying to say that relations have remained the same with the new King, Muhammad VI, son of Hassan II.

GCCP. GCC stands for Gulf Cooperation Council made up of six countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Despite being Jewish God, YHWH has some knowledge of the rulers who are always worried about their ass-glued gold thrones and are thus looking for protection from the US at the expense of their resources and people. We can thus deduce that GCCP stand for Gulf Cooperation Council of Pimps.

The communalist is India’s Narendra Modi.

The “bad neighbor” is not difficult to identify because only Iran is left there who gave support to Gazans and opposes Israel’s hegemony. Israel, a nuclear power, is looking for ways to destroy Iran’s nuclear program so that it doesn’t have any nuclear rival.)

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

“Tromsø’s Alnor Senter and Al Rahma mosques have opted to sync their congregations’ prayer schedule to sunrise and sunset in Mecca” IMAGE/Fortunato Salazar/BBC

But not everyone follows the Mecca time. Two members of Al Rahma mosque, originally from France, follow the Paris time for sehri and iftari.

For most people, fasting for an entire month is not an easy or practical task, especially those whose daily-survival depends on hard labor. Muslims make a quarter of the world’s population and live in many countries, including those with Muslim majority. In many of these countries, eating or drinking anything during daytime in Ramzan is a crime.

Actually, it should be a crime to stop people from consuming food or drinking liquid at any time.

The Case of Mohammed Shami

On March 4, 2025, during a cricket match between Australia and India, Muslim Indian cricketer Mohammed Shami drank water or a beverage. A fellow Muslim, Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi Bareilvi, called him a “criminal” for drinking during Ramzan (watch the above video).

“The five important pillars of Islam include roza or fasting which is mandatory. If a sensible and healthy adult doesn’t observe the fast than that person would be guilty of great sin and be answerable in God’s court. India’s famous cricketer Mr. Mohammed Shami quenched his thirst during a cricket match. Everyone was watching him. Since he was playing the game, it meant he was healthy and robust. In this fit condition, he not only didn’t fast, but also drank water in front of everyone present. The world watched him drinking water. So, he became a source of conveying the wrong message to the people; and, by not fasting he committed a sin. He shouldn’t have done that. In the eyes of Islamic sharia, he is a criminal and a sinner. He’ll have to answer Khuda [God in Persian language].”

Translated in English from Hindi/Urdu from the above video.

If Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi Bareilvi thinks Mohammed Shami is “a criminal and a sinner,” and will have to answer Khuda than let Khuda take care of Shami rather than playing Khuda‘s Khuda. Like many people nowadays, he tried to stay in the news by creating news.

Shami was trolled online, with some supporting him and others criticizing him. Of course, a Hindutva leader from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party did not let this opportunity go to erroneously and overtly display his anti-Muslim rhetoric:

“We stand against such extremism. This is not a part of our Hindu religion. We say that in Islam, it is written, either you accept Islam, or you will be converted, or you will be killed. Now, even Mohammed Shami is experiencing this himself. This is why we praise our Hindu religion because such extremism does not exist in our faith,”

Former Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh, a Sikh, defended Shami:

“I think I just want to say that this is my personal view-I might be wrong or right. Sports should be treated separately. People who feel religion is playing this role or that role, I think it’s fine to kind of do your routine-what you do in your religion. But people expecting Shami to do this or Rohit Sharma to do this or any XYZ to do this or that during a certain period (is not fair).”

“You might be doing it because you are sitting at home or doing your own routine work. But when you are playing as a sportsman, if you don’t keep yourself hydrated, you might collapse.”

“And of course, with the kind of heat they are playing in, I think they need to drink water. They can’t go through the game without having a drink or a snack. It’s your body, after all-you need fuel.”

Former Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar commented indirectly:

“Roza is not an excuse. Its a motivation. Nothing should stop your from training. Use it in your benefit.”

One wonders what kind of inspiration one gets in 82 °F (27.8 °C) weather with a sweating body, hungry stomach, and dry mouth. Yes, some people have willpower or faith and can fast in extreme weather but not all people can. It would have been better if Akhtar had kept his mouth shut.

It is people like Akhtar who just don’t want people like Shami to emerge as inspiration for those who don’t want to fast but have to do so or have to pretend under pressure.

Decades back, I was visiting Karachi, a seaport and the largest city in Pakistan. I asked the driver to stop the vehicle by Rehmat-e-Shereen sweet shop — they make extremely delicious sweets. I bought the sweets and asked the driver to join me. He hesitated: “It’s Ramzan.” I asked: “Are you fasting?” The reply was in the negative. He parked the car in a quiet place and we enjoyed our goodies. This was not an isolated case. Many people have to pretend in public that they’re fasting because the atmosphere has gotten very fanatical.

Many Muslim countries have laws enforcing eating and drinking abstention.

Times have changed

Gods of all religions may have been omnipresent, but their knowledge of geography, technology, science, economy, physical, sexual, emotional needs, dehydration, and so on, was extremely limited. Knowledge of that time was dependent on the information of followers, whose knowledge was in turn restricted to the areas they resided in, or the places they journeyed and from the knowledge they gained from foreigners passing through their towns and cities.

When Muhammad died in 632, the Muslim territory consisted of a very small portion of present day Saudi Arabia. Check the map below where Mecca and Medina are shown in sky blue color. Yes, that small area was the first Islamic state.

MAP/ucr.edu

Below is the map of today’s Saudi Arabia.

MAP/On The World Map

Anyone who believes s/he has a mission would want to see their message spread far and wide. But Muhammad may never have thought in his wildest dreams, that one day there would be so many Muslims all over the world. (Same is true of Christianity. It was Roman emperor Constantine the Great’s conversion to Christianity in the 4th century that made it the world religion it is today.)

1/4th of world’s population today is Muslim. The following map shows countries around the world with estimates of Muslim population.

MAP/Pew Research Center/Wikipedia

The Muslims during Muhammad’s time were a small community with a totally different pattern of life than what we find today. Today you visit Muslim majority countries and in most of them (non-Muslim countries too) you would find majority of people hustling trying to make ends meet in extreme heat and polluted environment, amidst:

1. Corporations are busy looking for ways to cut cost and increase profit.
2. Governments are busy carrying out demands of corporations and businesses to relax business laws as much as possible who in turn may bribe them for being “business friendly.”
3. Clergy is busy issuing edicts and making common person’s life more miserable.

National Public Radio’s Diaa Hadid’s report of May 2018 “Breaking Pakistan’s Ramadan Fasting Laws Has Serious Consequences” depicts the hell common people go through to survive and to take care of their family, but with an added burden of selling and consuming food and drink behind close door.

Ramzan is a problematic time for Pakistan’s poorest workers, many of whom don’t fast. Hadid was in an industrial city of Faisalabad where she visited a tea stall, near cotton-weaving factories. The owner Javed said people cannot eat outside but can eat inside the stall. Still he gets harassed by the authorities for purposes of extortion.

“JAVED: (Through interpreter) If I stopped working, I can’t provide for my family. And if I don’t fast, I’m not considered a good Muslim.”

Then there is 50 year old Farid, who makes $230 a month and has to take care of 4 children.

FARID ABBAS: (Through interpreter) It’s really tough for us. Anyone who works for 16 hours, how can he fast?

In Karachi, Hadid met Dr. Sayid Tipu Sultan who supervises 3 hospitals.

SAYID TIPU SULTAN: It is very dangerous to fast in this terrible heat [around 110 degrees]. Dozens of people there died because of heatstroke.”

For cleric Saifallah Rabbani workers talking about difficulty in fasting during hot temperature is simply an excuse.

RABBANI: (Through interpreter) These are lame excuses. This is laziness. According to Islam, if they are Muslim, they should be fasting.

Hadid found liberal atmosphere at LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) in Lahore where Sher Ali, a Muslim who doesn’t fast, was drinking coffee. Sara, a Christian is also there. She avoids giving her last name for safety reasons.

SARA: Non-Muslims have been beaten up in the streets for, you know, they’ve been caught eating food in the past. And that’s happened in my hometown. So that’s a very oppressive side of, you know, this month that’s supposed to present piety and everything spiritual and love and what not.

This was Pakistan in 2018. Things haven’t got any better; but have gotten worse.

Dr. Sultan is so right but it’s clerics like Saifallah Rabbani who control the mike and the mob to unleash, when it serves their purpose. Neither the government nor the army has any time about these kind of issues.

Many other Muslim countries are harsh with people eating or drinking in public during Ramadan too. See here and here.

Progressive Muslims should raise their voices against this menace of clerics and religious authorities who are unjustly and cruelly forcing people to go without food and drink the whole month. Those who could eat or drink do it behind close doors but at the risk of violence and extortion.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

Commando Zelenskyy

One thing that instantly struck me watching the White House press conference February 28, 2025 with US President Donald Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was that the grand welcome accorded to Zelenskyy by the previous US government of Joe Biden and some Western European governments had gone to Zelenskyy’s head. He expected that as he was like an idol to warmongers like Biden and to reporters itching to see Russia defeated, that he would be so to Trump, too.

(Watch Biden/Zelenskyy bonhomie at a press conference with reporters from the dominant/major/traditional/legacy media, the war media, to whom Russia is the “evil empire,” per President Ronald Reagan’s label.)

Zelenskyy was told to put on a suit when visiting the White House. He showed up wearing a commando like stylish black sweatshirt with the logo of Ukrainian tryzub or trident and black pants, both from Ukrainian fashion designer Elvira Gasanova’s menswear label Damirli.

One should have the freedom to wear whatever one wants, however, Zelenskyy has not always worn such casual clothes. He used to wear suits till Russia attacked¹ Ukraine, since then his attire has been military/commando style clothes which he says he’ll wear till the war ends. Zelenskyy is not always on the war front, but his clothing creates an impression that he is just coming from the war front, this in turn deludes him into believing that he is kind of a commando. This commando mentality proved almost fatal for the United States-Ukraine relations when he acted as one during the meeting. On March 3, Trump ordered a pause to all military aid to Ukraine — the first wise step to stop the war. Intelligence sharing is also on pause. Zelenskyy needs to come out of this commando mentality.

If Zelenskyy was more powerful than Trump, he could do, wear, say, whatever he wanted to. But he is not. He met Trump for Ukraine, not for himself. If the meeting was a personal one, no one will give a damn even if he blew it up. No. This interaction was for Ukraine and he should have remembered that. As the saying goes: Beggars can’t be choosers. Or as Trump put it: “You don’t have the cards. With us, you have the cards. Without us, you don’t have any cards.”

Zelenskyy badly needs a class in 101 diplomacy. You don’t cut off the branch you’re sitting on; Zelenskyy almost cut off the branch (of the US aid tree) on which Ukraine depends. During the meeting, he constantly argued rather than try and take the conversation towards a more agreeable path.

Despite the fact that US Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump supporter, had warned Zelenskyy beforehand: “Don’t take the bait. Don’t let the media or anyone else get you into an argument with President Trump.”

Zelenskyy’s arguments wouldn’t have mattered if he was arguing with the Biden team, because it was the Biden regime’s war.

Another thing one can deduce from Zelenskyy’s behavior is that he’s not smart like Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu or India’s Narendra Modi (both have big egos and cruel mentality, and wouldn’t hesitate to unleash violence to achieve the desired goals). But neither argue or show any displeasure when they meet Trump because they know they are weak partners vis-a-vis the US which is very strong — I would say too strong for our world, not a very good thing. Israeli leaders are famous for insulting, bypassing, or ordering US leaders but they can’t do that with Trump — of course, instead, they get things done with flattery.

Invited for lunch, but humiliated and shown the door without lunch from the White House, Zelenskyy flew into London in the warm and comforting embrace (albeit, a momentary one) of Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the UK. (Britain, once the greatest empire in the world, now has not much power except, every now and then, it makes some noise to draw attention.)

A conference of 18 leaders: Europeans and Canada’s Justin Trudeau, were called to support Ukraine which Starmer called “coalition of the willing.” The unwilling ones will be crushed or maligned. But the leaders were aware that without the US not much can be accomplished.

Donald Tusk of Poland: “Dear [Zelenskyy], dear Ukrainian friends, you are not standing alone.”

Tusk should have added: We are all together but still alone unless the Globo Cop US joins in.

It seems like Zelenskyy came his senses. On March 4, he said:

“None of us wants an endless war. Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians.” “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”

Zelenskyy must be feeling very humiliated: first for being dressed down by Trump, and, then for accepting “Trump’s strong leadership.”

Advice for Zelenskyy, if he’s allowed to stay in power, or any other leader who takes over: Try to stay neutral, avoid joining NATO, be friendly, as much as possible, with your neighbors, including Russia, and prevent being a proxy in the hands of US/European warmongers. The devastating result in the form of death and destruction for both Ukraine and Russia is in front of you, due to your prolongation of the war.

Ukrainians must watch the following video of a speech given by Jeffrey Sachs to the European Parliament.

Business-being Trump

The effective rate for many anti-bacterial, disinfectant, and other products is advertised as 99.99% effective. In other words, it’s not absolutely effective and not totally potent.

The same analogy can also be applied to Trump. One could say Trump is 99.99% nasty, greedy, cruel, or whatever. That, however, leaves room for some uprightness in Trump.

Trump’s figure for US support of $350 billion dollars to Ukraine was, as usual, exaggerated, the actual amount is about $183 billion — huge sum of money for the war, for which major support comes only from the Democratic Party’s “affluent upper-middle class base.” However, the total amount Ukraine received from the US, European Union institutes, several countries, and groups amounts to $380 billion.

For Trump, Zelenskyy is not a hero. Trump is a different entity with a diverse agenda; he has been talking about ending the Russia/Ukraine war for a long time and so it was counterproductive to argue and throw tantrums rather than listening to Trump and then requesting a favor here and a favor there. Of course, Trump has his own interest in facilitating a ceasefire, he is eyeing Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.

After all, Trump is business-being and like most businesspersons, his motive is always a financial one.

Trump is right when he points out the danger of the Russian Ukraine war:

“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three².”

Trump attacked

The war news media and many European leaders instead of thanking Trump for his efforts in working for a ceasefire, which would not only prevent loss of life and destruction in Ukraine and Russia but would also save US and European taxpayers’ money, lambasted him for being a “bully” and termed discussion with Zelenskyy an “ambush.”

Financial Times’ Europe editor Ben Hall said Trump and Vance “were spoiling for a fight” with Zelenskyy. Marc Polymeropoulus, MSNBC’s National Security & Intelligence Analyst noted that Trump and Vance “have humiliated the United States” when they shouted at Zelenskyy.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “The scene in the White House yesterday took my breath away. I would never have believed that we would one day have to protect Ukraine from the U.S.A.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) accused Trump and Vance of “doing Putin’s dirty work.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) described Trump’s berating of Zelenskyy “utter embarrassment” for the US.

Trump is wrong on a huge number of issues but not on this one. All those criticizing him are foes of Ukrainian people; it’s they who are paying the price for this meaningless war.

ENDNOTES:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

She eloped

Over a hundred years ago, on February 20, 1918, she escaped from her parents house to unite with her love. Two months later, on April 19, at her sweetheart’s huge house atop Malabar Hill in Bombay, she got married and went to Nainital for honeymoon.

All over India, the news of their wedding caused a huge uproar and spread fast – it became the main talk of the town for many reasons:

• The girl was Parsi;
• the man was Muslim;
• she was 18;
• he was 41;
• she was the daughter of one of the richest men in India then;
• he was a self-made wealthy person – a very successful lawyer;
• the girl’s family broke all relations with her;
• the man was estranged from his;
• she was expelled from the Parsi community;
• he had already left his religious sect Nizari Ismaili;
• the girl was at ease in western or local stylish clothing;
• the man was well known for his well-tailored English suits.

The girl was Ruttie Petit; her husband was M.A. Jinnah.

They both were nationalists and wanted an end to the British colonial rule in India. Both were handsome with great sense of dressing, albeit, pricey.

Ruttie’s beauty and dressing had impressed many personalities:

Lady Reading:

“Her attire was a Liberty scarf, a jewelled bandeau, and an emerald necklace. She is extremely pretty, fascinating, terribly made up. All the men raved about her, the women sniffed.”

and

“Very pretty, complete minx. A tight dress of brocade cut to the waist back and front, no sleeves, and over it and her head flowered Chiffon as a Sari.”

— Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, Some Aspects of Quaid-I-Azam’s Life” (Islamabad: National Commission on Historical and Cultural Research, 1978), p. 50.

Lady Wavell was taken by Jinnah’s striking form:

“[Mr. Jinnah was] one of the handsomest men I have ever seen; he combined the clear-cut, almost Grecian features of the West with Oriental grace of movement.”

— “Wanted: Jinnah’s Pakistan,” Dawn, July 31, 2009.

Mrs. Freeth, (wife of British Major-General G. H. B. Freeth, Deputy Adjutant-General) wrote to her mother how much she was impressed by Jinnah, whom she met at the viceregal dinner in Simla in May 1929.

“After dinner, I had Mr. Jinnah to talk to. He is a great personality. He talks the most beautiful English. He models his manners and clothes on Du Maurier, the actor, and his English on Burke’s speeches. He is a future Viceroy, if the present system of gradually Indianizing all the services continues. I have always wanted to meet him, and now I have had my wish.”

— Akbar S. Ahmed, “Jinnah, Pakistan and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin,” New York Times.

Ruttie

Ruttie was born as Rattanbai¹ in an orthodox Parsi (Zoroastrian)² family on February 20, 1900, one of four children, the only daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit (1873-1933)³ and was affectionately called “Ruttie.” Today is her 125th birth anniversary.

Ruttie was a bold, brilliant woman who was well versed in many subjects, including literature and politics. She didn’t get the recognition she deserved either in India or in Pakistan. mostly due to her marriage to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan.

The Pakistani governments have ignored Ruttie because she was not a Muslim and the Indian governments, particularly the current Modi regime, have avoided mention of anyone/anything associated with Jinnah.

Even decades after the creation of Pakistan, authorities wouldn’t consider a suggestion for naming an area — Ruttie Jinnah Grove in Karachi!

The young, bubbly, and vivacious Ruttie was interested in politics and the British colonial rule in India. Accompanied by her maiden aunt, Hamabai Petit, a multimillionaire philanthropist, she used to attend public meetings in Bombay.

M.A. Jinnah, a close family friend, often spoke⁴at these gatherings.

Jinnah

Jinnah’s parents Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja hailed from Paneli, Gondal, in Kathiawar part of Bombay Presidency then, but now a part of Gujarat state. In 1875, they moved to Karachi where a year later Mohammed Ali Jinnahbhai was born on 25 December 1876. Karachi, a small Indian town then, is now Pakistan’s largest city.

In his teens, in 1892, his father’s English business associate Frederick Leigh Croft offered Jinnah a London apprenticeship with his firm, Graham’s Shipping and Trading Company, which Jinnah accepted. To prevent him from not getting tempted to marry an English girl, Jinnah’s mother got him married to 14-year-old Emibai, the daughter of a wool businessman, and a distant relative.

After a few months at Graham’s, Jinnah got bored with routine work; quit his job, and got himself admitted to Lincoln’s Inn, in order to study law. He then informed his father about the admission with a promise he wouldn’t ask for any more money.

Some friends of Jinnah took him to a theatrical company where the manager asked him to read some extracts from Shakespeare’s collection. The manager and his wife were extremely delighted. Jinnah was invited to work and he signed the contract but then due to his father’s letter and a stern warning, especially the sentence, “Do not be a traitor to the family”, he left acting. (Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah of Pakistan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, p. 56.)

Less than a year after Jinnah left, Emibai died of cholera, and a few months later, his mother died during childbirth. His mother’s demise was a great loss for Jinnah but he determinedly held on and passed the bar exam, becoming the youngest Indian to achieve such feat.

M.A. Jinnah (he shortened his name in London), upon return to Karachi in 1896, discovered his father was bankrupt. A year later, Jinnah left for Bombay where he had once lived as a teen with his paternal aunt Manbai. The first three years were an immense struggle. The beginning of the new century was a good omen for him. John Molesworth MacPherson, the acting Advocate-General of Bombay offered Jinnah work in his chambers. Jinnah was the first Indian ever, according to Sarojini Naidu, to be granted such a favor. (Hector Bolitho, Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan, p. 15.)

In early 1900, he got a recommendation letter from MacPherson and became a temporary Presidency Magistrate. In 1901, Sir Charles Olivant offered Jinnah a salary of Rs 1,500 (Bolitho, p. 17) a month. He refused the offer saying he was confident that very soon he could make that much in a day, which proved to be true.

A liberal non-practicing Khoja Muslim, Jinnah left Shia Nizari Ismaili⁵ branch when Imam, Sir Sultan Mohammed Shah (Aga Khan III) (1877 – 1957), refused to bless his sister’s wedding⁶ because she had married an outsider.

Soon, Jinnah became very successful, had a huge house, and looked after his siblings and relatives, but preferred to live alone. He brought his little sister Fatima and another sister Shirin, who was fourteen years old, to live with him. Shirin stayed with Jinnah till her marriage a few years later.

Jinnah, who had been associated with the Indian National Congress (INC) since 1904 became an official member in 1906. In 1913, he joined All-India Muslim League (AIML). Many Muslim leaders, including Aga Khan III, had wanted this brilliant and successful lawyer to join the League⁷ for a long time.

The Affair

Jinnah used to hang out with crème de la crème of the Bombay society. Many of his clients were wealthy Hindus, Parsis, and Muslims. Parsis also let Jinnah into their exclusive club. Many club members were his clients, including Sir Dinshaw Petit, who was also a personal friend.

In summer 1916, the Petit Family invited Jinnah for a vacation at their residence in Darjeeling. Ruttie and Jinnah spent a lot of time together during these two months at the Petit chateau, which was 7000 feet high, with view of Mount Everest. Jinnah and Ruttie indulged in horse-riding and other activities.

Poetic portraiture:

Romance in the lap of the Himalayas

the beautiful Darjeeling
the aesthetic hill station
the intellectual exchange
the mutual attraction
Jinnah’s long road of loneliness
and Ruttie’s erupting adulthood
brought them closer, and closer
the air emitted fragrance of love
her talk enraptured Jinnah
his personality awed Ruttie

in the lap of the Himalayas
the romance blossomed

she was almost sixteen
he was thirty-nine
love found them
vows bonded them
she was Ruttie for him
and he was “J” for her

no hindrance was the different age
no worries about that social-cage
custodians were left to worry that
lovers were unfurling a joint page

Jinnah approached Ruttie’s father with a question about his views on interfaith marriage. Sir Petit thought it would do good:

“[Interfaith wed-locks would] considerably help national integration and might ultimately prove to be the final solution to inter-communal antagonism.”

Jinnah asked for Ruttie’s hand. Not expecting such a question, Sir Petit got caught off-guard, but then gathered composure and refused Jinnah’s proposal. Ruttie was 16 so she and Jinnah decided to wait till she turned 18. Sir Petit was against this union, and went to the length of getting a court injunction in June 1917 against Jinnah, restricting him from meeting Ruttie.

They, however, stayed in contact through correspondence conducted via intermediaries, and met when they could.

Meanwhile, Ruttie kept abreast of Jinnah’s efforts with Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856 – 1920), the efforts culminated in the Lucknow Pact confirmed December 29-31, 1916 and helped form cordial relations between Indian National Congress and Indian Muslim League to fight the British jointly.

However, Jinnah’s mentor G. K. Gokhale (1866 – 1915) wasn’t around to witness Jinnah’s success. Gopal Krishna Gokhale had passed away in February 1915. Gokhale’s quote on Jinnah:

“He has true stuff in him, and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.”

— Bolitho, p. 55.

Jinnah’s desire:

“It is my ambition to become the Muslim Gokhale.”

In A.G. Noorani, “Jinnah in India’s History” (Frontline, August 12, 2005). https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30205784.ece#! )

To attend this important Lucknow session, Ruttie had traveled by train to Lucknow with her aunt Hamabai and Barrister D. N. Bahadurji (Jinnah’s Parsi friend, whose wife was a Hindu Brahmin.) In Lucknow, Ruttie met Jinnah.

(Interestingly, they heard vendors at the train station shouting: “Hindu chai” (tea), “Mussulman chai,” “Hindu pani” (water), Mussulman pani.” )

Hamabai

Hamabai was a very wealthy philanthropist. Her relations with Ruttie were very good. With her brother Sir Dinshaw (Ruttie’s father) she was very close but when it came to the Ruttie/Jinnah affair, she avoided siding with either her brother or Jinnah. During this time, she offered her free services to Jinnah, who was president of the Home Rule League then, later she became the honorary vice president of the League.

She did her baccalaureate from a French boarding school in Nice. She was her own person and married in her thirties to a nephew of late Sir Pheroeshah Mehta (Jinnah’s friend), who was one of the founding members of Indian National Congress. Sir Dinshaw didn’t like that Hamabai’s husband was not wealthy.

Ruttie’s romantic turmoil

Back in Bombay, Ruttie had changed, as witnessed by her letters to friend Padmaja, daughter of poet/politician Sarojini Naidu (1879 – 1949). One letter written on 27 January 1917, expresses her state of mind:

“Life has been such a medley of wild excitement and cold depression!” “And yet it has been so full–so full because of its hollowness! So empty because of its fullness!

“I am joyous and I am sad. But they are the emotions of the soul–and not of the heart! By soul I mean temperament–I long for peace and yet I dread the very idea of it. I revel in the storming passions which burn and tear at the fibres of my being till my very spirit writhes in an agony of excitement. And yet were I asked the cause of all this I could only answer by that one word–temperament! Ay, you may almost call it a form of hysteria.”

Quoted in Sheela Reddy, Mr and Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India (Gurgaon, Haryana: Penguin Randon House India, 2017, p. 53.)

Much has been gleaned from journalist/author Sheela Reddy’s book Mr and Mr Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India  as the content of letters exchanged between Ruttie, Sarojini Naidu, Padmaja and Leilamani (Naidu’s two daughters) exhibit Ruttie’s innermost thoughts. The book throws new light on many aspects, hitherto unknown, on Ruttie and Jinnah’s relationship, and exposes the anguish she was experiencing. The book has shortcomings⁸ including chapters without headings and it has no index.

Ruttie shared her poems with Padmaja and younger sister Leilamani:

Why should I weep / Or groan in despair / While the stars still peep / At a world so fair?

A flower came to me one day in its natural lovliness and it told me the secret of its colours and then faded.

…

Sorrow came to me with its black robed beauteous form, but it has not forsaken me. I have drunk deep of its cup of gall and I taste it when I wake and when I sleep; when I smile and when I weep.

Sorrow knows no satiety!

Ibid. 33, 34.

Marriage

Ruttie and Jinnah waited two years to unite through marriage. On February 20, 1918, Ruttie’s 18th birthday, in Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel with Frederic Chopin‘s “So Deep is the night” being played in the ballroom, Ruttie proposed marriage, Jinnah accepted, and they decided to get married.

Ruttie Jinnah (left) and M.A. Jinna PHOTO/BBC/Duck Duck Go

Sir Dinshaw filed another lawsuit against Jinnah accusing him of abducting his daughter. But Ruttie told the court,

“Mr. Jinnah had not abducted me; in fact I have abducted him; so there is no case and he should be immediately exonerated of all charges.”

In Ajeet Jawed, Secular and Nationalist Jinnah (New Delhi: Kitan Publishing House, 1998, p. 14.)

Ruttie and Jinnah wanted a civil marriage but for that Jinnah would have had to resign from the Central Legislative Assembly where he was a member.

… the Civil Marriage Act at that time was rigid and stipulated that those marrying under the Civil Marriage Act had to affirm solemnly that they belonged to no religion. This would have made it impossible for Jinnah to remain Member of the Central Legislative Assembly representing a Muslim Constituency.

Kanji Dwarkadas, Ruttie Jinnah: The Story of a Great Friendship (Bombay: Kanji Dwarkadas, year not given, p. 12).

Ruttie converted to Islam in presence of Maulana Nazir Ahmad Khujandi, a day before the wedding, in Jamia Masjid. The Muslim name given to Ruttie was Maryam. (Pirzada, Some Aspects of Quaid-i-Azam’s Life.)

Saad S. Khan in his book, Ruttie Jinnah: The Woman Who Stood Defiant, (written with his wife Sara Khan), falsely claims:

“Jinnah, however, had a religious bent of mind and wanted his would-be wife to be Muslim.”

This is not true as post marriage, neither Ruttie nor Jinnah started praying or going to the mosque. She remained Ruttie to all. Nothing about her changed: she wore what she wanted to, smoked cigars and drank alcohol like Jinnah, who also heartily ate pork, prohibited in Islam.

After the wedding, Ruttie’s clothes, books, and jewelry were transferred to South Court, Jinnah’s huge house at Malabar Hill, Bombay.

The Statesman announced:

“Miss Ruttenbai, only daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, yesterday underwent conversion to Islam, and is to-day to be married to the Hon. Mr. M. A. Jinnah.”

On April 19, 1918, in Jinnah’s South Court home, the wedding ceremony was conducted according to Shi’a rites. Ruttie’s name on Nikahnama document (in Persian) read “Ruttenbai.” Shariat Madar Aqai Haji Mohammad Abdul Hashim Najafi signed the marriage contract for Jinnah. For Ruttie, Maulana Mohammad Hasan Najafi signed it. Things were moving fast and Jinnah forgot to get a ring for Ruttie so Raja gave his ring to Jinnah which he then presented it to Ruttie. The witnesses and attorneys present were Raja Mohammad Ali Mohammad Khan of Mehmudabad, Sharif Devji Kanji, Ghulam Ali, and Umer Sobhani. Jinnah accepted just 1,001* rupees as a dowry, a symbolic gesture. His gift to Ruttie was 125,000 rupees.

(*Some outlets falsely reported Jinnah received dowry of Rs 30 lakh or 3 million. Pirzada, p. 47.)

In a letter to Dr. Syed Mahmud (a fellow Congressite), the noted poet/politician and Jinnah’s friend Sarojini Naidu observed:

“So Jinnah has at last plucked the Blue Flower of his desire. It was all very sudden and caused terrible agitation and anger among the Parsis; but I think the child has made far bigger sacrifices than she yet realises. Jinnah is worth it all – he loves her; the one really human and genuine emotion of his reserved and self-centred nature. And he will make her happy.”

In Darwaish, “The softer side of Mr. Jinnah”

According to Motilal Nehru’s (1861 – 1931) daughter Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900 – 1990):

“Mr. Jinnah’s marriage to Ruttie Petit, daughter of a wealthy Parsi banker, Sir Dinshaw Petit, caused a nine-day stir in India.”

Ruttie, according to people familiar with her have said, was fond of reminding people: “Wake it up.”

Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz described Ruttie in these words:

“[Ruttie was] … a very vivacious person and full of life. She often used to be in the mood of shocking people, which some persons did not approve of, but those who knew her well laughed over it. She was fascinating young lady, had beautiful hands and made lovely gesture, and was always dressed in elegant saris of the latest fashion.”

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit writes:

“Ruttie was a friend of mine. We were the same age but brought up very differently. She was spoiled, very beautiful, and used to having her own way. She was much younger than Jinnah and it was certainly not a “love match.” But Jinnah was a Muslim, and the Parsis were, in those days, a very conservative group. This in itself seemed reason enough to Ruttie to shock the community — ‘Wake it up’, as she was fond of saying. ”

In Vijaya Laxmi Pandit, The Scope of Happiness: A Personal Memoir (New York: Crow Publishers Inc. 1979, p. 201.)

(It was a cheap shot at a friend, a very mean one.)⁹)

But this time Ruttie, along with Jinnah, had woken up very many people.

Several Muslims were angry, and for many Parsis it was “Black Friday” leading to a Parsi version of a fatwa against the couple.

She was cut off from her family for a long time.

Even decades later, in 1946, some Muslims hadn’t forgiven Jinnah; Majlis-e-Ahrar’s Maulana Mazhar Ali Azhar accused Jinnah of being an infidel:

“ik KAfirA ke wAste Islam ko chhorA
yeh Quaid-e-Azam hai keh hai KAfir-i-Azam”

For an infidel (wife) he left Islam
Is he the Great Leader or the great infidel

Ruttie and Jinnah were very happy. Ruttie bought decorative things for their house. She also changed the look of Jinnah’s moldy Law Court rooms by getting them brightly painted and fitting them with classy furniture and flowers. Jinnah resigned from the Orient Club, where he used to play billiard and chess to spend time with Ruttie. This was the happiest time for both of them. Ruttie’s extravagant financial expenses were met by Jinnah. She bought her clothes from the exclusive Emile Windgrove tailor’s shop.

Finally, he had:

• a wonderful companion to discuss politics and the British Raj,
• to accompany him to theaters,
• to join him at horse-riding on Chaupaty Beach, and
• to be his partner at parties and dinners.

But when Jinnah’s old pals would drop by to discuss politics it didn’t please Ruttie at all. She wanted to be alone with Jinnah.

Willingdon affair

Jinnah was a renowned politician, a respectable lawyer, an important member of both the Congress Party and Muslim League, and a member of the Imperial Legislative Council. He and Ruttie were invited for dinner by Lady and Lord Willingdon (1866 – 1941), the Crown Governor of Bombay. Ruttie was wearing a low-cut dress. Lady Willingdon didn’t like this; she asked her servant to bring a wrap because Mrs. Jinnah “must be feeling cold.” Jinnah didn’t like it at all and retorted:

“When Mrs Jinnah feels cold, she will say so, and ask for a wrap herself.”

In Wolpert, p. 56.

He stood up and left with Ruttie.

Jinnah did the same when Begum of Bhopal reminded Ruttie that she should dress as a Muslim. Jinnah was extremely displeased; he walked out with Ruttie.

One more incident about Ruttie’s dressing. In 1924 when Jinnah was the Muslim League President and Mahomedali Currim Chagla (1900 – 1981) was the secretary, a meeting was convened in Bombay’s Globe Cinema. Chagla was arranging things when Ruttie, dressed in her usual style, walked in and took her seat by the platform. The bearded ones were mad. Chagla described in his book how he handled the situation.

“The hall was full of bearded Moulvies and Maulanas and they came to me in great indignation, and asked me who that woman was. They demanded that she should be asked to leave, as the clothes she flaunted constituted an offence to Islamic eyes. I told them that they should shut their eyes as the lady in question was the President’s wife, and I could not possibly ask her to leave the hall.”

In M.C. Chagla, Roses in December: An Autobiography (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1975, p.121), via Internet Archive.

Coming back to Willingdon, sometime before the dinner incident, five days after their marriage, a manifesto in Bombay Chronicle had Jinnah’s and others’ names in it. The manifesto demanded a “responsible government” for India before it commits itself to World War I efforts. Jinnah’s words:

“Let England pledge herself definitely to redeem the promise by accepting here, as in Ireland, that which our leaders have asked for in the Congress and League Pact, and we will work heart and soul to save Britain, India and the Empire….
…
“But let us fight under the banner of liberty, for nothing less than that will nerve our men to fight and our women to sacrifice.”

In Bolitho, p. 76.

This was not a challenge of some revolutionary who was questioning British presence in India, but was a request from a moderate constitutionalist. Willingdon couldn’t digest even such meek demand by Jinnah and others. The rift between the two widened.

(Willingdon, like his successor, George Lloyd, next Governor of Bombay, wanted Jinnah, Gandhi, and others to be deported to Burma, now Myanmar.)

Clash with Willingdon

When the Willingdons were leaving India, a farewell party was set up for December 10, 1918. Ruttie, Jinnah, and his supporters weren’t in favor of such a party. So they decided to protest. On the night of 9th, three hundred followers of Jinnah camped out near Bombay’s Town Hall. In the morning when Ruttie and Jinnah came, there were seats kept for them. Ruttie encouraged many to follow Jinnah in the Town Hall, while she succeeded in climbing up on a side-box of the balcony to address the audience. She shouted:

“We are not slaves.”

In Reddy, p. 165.

People listened to her speech. The police commissioner Mr. Vincent asked Ruttie “to stop addressing the crowd for they were making a lot of noise.”

Ruttie countered:

“Mr. Vincent, first of all you have no right to stop me from lecturing because I have a right to speak as a citizen of Bombay. Secondly, whatever you may do I am not going to move from here.”

Ibid. p. 166.

Ruttie, Jinnah, and the people gathered were targeted with water hoses. Undeterred, she kept on addressing. The party was called off. Jinnah and many others were roughed up by police. This was the first and only time Jinnah encountered such a situation. Ruttie must have experienced pride her love made Jinnah fight on the streets, outside legislative councils. Ruttie was on his side when Jinnah addressed the crowd:

“Gentlemen, you are the citizens of Bombay. You have today scored a great victory for democracy. Your triumph has made it clear that even the combined forces of bureaucracy and autocracy could not overawe you. December the 11th is a Red-letter Day in the history of Bombay. Gentlemen, go and rejoice over the day that has secured us the triumph of democracy.”

(Tens of thousands of rupees were provided by his supporters to build The People’s Jinnah Hall to mark that action. See Heritage Times.)

Ruttie’s bold nationalism

Ruttie didn’t mask her feelings and views; she expressed them frankly. In 1918, Lord Chelmsford (1868 – 1933), Viceroy of India, threw a dinner party at Viceregal Lodge in Simla. Ruttie and Jinnah were invited. When Ruttie was introduced to Lord Chelmsford, she shook hands, then, instead of curtsy, folded her hands as if saying “namaste.”

The Viceroy’s ego was hurt. He started a conversation with Ruttie when he found an opportunity to be alone with her.

“Your husband, Mrs. Jinnah, has a great future awaiting him, and you should not mar his chances. You did not greet us in the manner customary at the Viceregal Lodge. In Rome you must do as the Romans do.”

In G. Allana, Quaid-E-Azam Jinnah: The Story of a Nation (Karachi: Ferozsons Ltd., 1967, p. 170.)

Ruttie bluntly replied:

“Your Excellency, that is exactly what I did. You are in India and I greeted you the way Indian women do.”

Ibid.

Ruttie and Chelmsford never came face to face again.

With another Viceroy Lord Reading (1860 – 1935) she didn’t mince words, either. Lord Reading was Viceroy and Governor-General of India. At a luncheon in New Delhi in 1921, Ruttie was sitting next to him. Reading expressed sadness as he felt nostalgic about Germany where he had spent sometime. He expressed his helplessness to her:

“Mrs. Jinnah, how I wish I could go to Germany. I very much want to go there. But I can’t go there.”

In Dwarkadas, p. 17.

Ruttie asked:

“Your Excellency, why can’t you go there?”

Ibid.

Reading replied:

“The Germans do not like us, the British, so I can’t go.”

Ibid.

Ruttie availed every chance she came across to remind the British they were unwanted in India. In one sentence, she summed up the feelings of most Indians. Ruttie questioned him gustily:

“How then did you come to India?”

Ibid.

The Viceroy wisely changed the subject.

Ruttie and Jinnah attended a party at the Viceregal Lodge in 1925. Reading told Jinnah that the British Government wanted to honor his “excellent services” with knighthood but he declined the offer because he preferred to be “plain Mr. Jinnah.” So Reading tried to gauge Ruttie’s temptation for high honors: “Mrs. Jinnah, would you like to be addressed as Lady Jinnah?” Ruttie’s fearless nature shot back:

“If my husband accepts knighthood, I will take a separation from him.”

(Years later in 1942 Jinnah refused an honorary doctorate from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). AMU was also a beneficiary of Jinnah’s 1939 Will, which remained unaltered till Jinnah’s death. For Jinnah’s Will in its entirety, see Khwaja Razi Haider, Ruttie Jinnah: The Story Told and Untold (Karachi: University of Karachi, Appendix IV, p. 155-7.))

On her visit to Kashmir in 1926, when the authorities asked the reason for her visit, Ruttie, without a second thought, replied: “The purpose of visit is to spread sedition.”

Ironically, Kashmir is now under torturous boots of Hindu communalist Narendra Modi’s military.

Nagpur Session

There were times when Ruttie had to restrain her boldness. One such incident happened when she and Jinnah were traveling in a train after attending the Nagpur session of Congress in December 1920.

The Nagpur session witnessed Jinnah being humiliated and hooted for not adding prefixes “Mahatma” (Great Soul) and “Maulana” (Muslim scholar) to the names of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1948) and Mohammad Ali Jauhar (1878 – 1931), respectively; instead he addressed them as “Mr. Gandhi” and “Mr. Mohammad Ali.” Jinnah was “howled down with cries of ‘shame, shame’ and political imposter.’” (Wolpert, p. 71.)

Gandhi’s hold over Congress was absolute; he could have prevented the rowdy elements from disrespecting Jinnah and could have asked them to listen what Jinnah had to say; but he didn’t. Jinnah left the Congress Party.

(Gandhi, a strong believer of Hinduism, had joined hands with strong believers of Islam, the Ali brothers, to save Ottoman Caliphate in Turkey. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888 – 1958) and the Ali Brothers, Maulana Shoukat Ali Jauhar (1873 – 1938) and Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar who wanted to save the institution of Muslim caliph from being ended by the British had, as Aijaz Ahmad points out, misread the internal dynamics of Turkey and the evolution of its political system during the nineteenth century. Turkey had gradually reduced the dependence on the Muslim sharia law and had come to depend more and more on the civil and criminal courts. When the Turks themselves ended the caliphate, the major leaders of the Khilafat Movement such as Ali Brothers and Azad were “utterly dumbfounded” and the movement “petered out in confusion. [Aijaz Ahmad, Lineages of the Present: Ideology and Politics in Comtemporary South Asia (London & New York: Verso, 2000, p. 85-9.)]

Ruttie wrote a letter to The Times of India, under the letter “R” to prevent Jinnah from knowing the real author:

“At Akola [train station], Mr. [Maulana] Shoukat Ali delivered a short lecture to those who had assembled on the platform; and at the end of the lecture, he incited them to hoot Mr. Jinnah, who was seated in the first class compartment, with cries of ‘Shame’. Sir, this sort of thing is the negation of non-cooperation of which non-violence is the essence.”

In Pirzada, p. 49-50.

At the Calcutta Congress in September, Shoukat Ali was restrained by his friends from attacking Jinnah.

K.M. Munshi reminds us in his book “Pilgrimage to Freedom” that

“Jinnah, however, warned Gandhiji not to encourage fanaticism of Muslim religious leaders and their followers.”

In H.M. Seervai, Partition of India: Legend and Reality (Bombay: Emmenem Publications, 1989, 13)

Gandhi later admitted this to Richard Casey, the Governor of Bengal:

“Jinnah had told him that he (Gandhiji) had ruined politics in India by dragging up a lot of unwholesome elements in Indian life and giving them political prominence, that it was a crime to mix up politics and religion the way he had done.”

Ibid.

Dina

Some Indian leaders, including Jinnah, were required to appear before the Joint Select Committee of House of Commons and House of Lords (British Parliament) to give evidence on Montagu Bill, named after Edwin Samuel Montagu (1879-1924), the then Secretary of State for India. Jinnah and Ruttie, who was pregnant with Dina at the time, reached London in May 1919 to attend this and rented a flat near Regent’s Park.

While Ruttie and Jinnah were in a theater, she went into labor and was taken to a clinic, where after midnight of August 15, she gave birth to their only child, Dina.

Kanji noted:

“This is a strange coincidence, as 14th and 15th August are respectively Pakistan’s and India’s Independence Days.”

Dwarkadas, p. 18.

Jinnah’s biographer Stanley Wolpert put it thus:

“Their only child, a daughter named Dina, was born in London shortly past midnight on August 14-15, 1919, oddly enough precisely twenty-eight years to the day and hour before the birth of Jinnah’s other offspring, Pakistan.”

Wolpert, p. 63.

As was the custom among the rich, Dina was given a governess and other helpers to take care of her. Ruttie was raised in a similar manner, too.

Ruttie couldn’t handle her own life so it was out of question that she would take care of Dina. (Years later, Dina spent time with the Petit family.)

For whatever reason, Dina was ignored. Was Dina an unplanned baby? We don’t know. One thing is sure: Ruttie was not ready for motherhood yet. In July 1921, Mrs. Naidu visited South Court to see Dina who had come back with servants from a vacation in Ooty. Ruttie and Jinnah were not there as they had left for Europe.

“I went to see the Jinnah baby this morning.” “It returned from Ooty in its pathetic servant fostered loneliness. It looked so sweet, fresh from its bath. I stayed and played a little with it, poor little pet.”

Reddy, p. 248.

In Oxford Jinnah gave a talk and then he and Ruttie left for London. Ruttie invited Leilamani who was studying at Oxford to join them. They stayed at Ritz for two months. Jinnah was busy with his political work while the girls were enjoying their life. Leilamani also accompanied them to Paris. The Jinnahs went back to India after five months. The day they came back, Ruttie rushed to Taj Mahal to see Mrs. Naidu.

Fatima Jinnah

Fatima Jinnah (1893 – 1967) was Jinnah’s youngest sister. After his father’s death in 1902, Jinnah brought her to live with him, and had her admitted to St. Joseph Convent school at Bandra. It was inconceivable then for a Muslim girl to join a convent school; their relatives and many other Muslims tried to deter Fatima who became the target of their gossip and criticism. Jinnah’s support made her stick to the decision.

On Sundays, Fatima would join her brother at his place. Ruttie didn’t like this because that was the day Jinnah would be off from work, and Ruttie wanted to spend time with Jinnah alone. Besides, Fatima was a serious person, or as Ruttie would say, “deadly serious” and no fun to be around. Fatima had turned religious and carried a copy of the Qur’an with her.

One could imagine a typical Sunday in the Jinnah household: Jinnah would be into his newspapers and books while Fatima, with a copy of Qur’an in hand sitting quietly watching her brother. For Ruttie it must have felt like a prison, where she was sentenced to a day of silence, no doubt a very tough situation for a bubbly person like her.

On one such day, Ruttie teased or rather tormented Fatima in front of her brother about her spinster status at the age of twenty six. Ruttie later communicated the tense atmosphere in her letter to Padmaja:

“By the bye, I told Fatima that I went to Hyderabad to look up some eligible man for her and I showed her Taufiq’s photo as being one of them..”

Reddy, p. 207.

Despite very little talk between the sister and brother, they were close to each other. Of all his siblings, Fatima was the closest to Jinnah. They didn’t like the teasing at all; Jinnah’s displeasure discouraged Ruttie from continuing further.

Even in general conversation, Ruttie felt Jinnah inclined towards Fatima which hurt her. In yet another letter to Padmaja, on 3 March 1920:

“Fatima’s deadly reason quite upset the last Sunday. She was reading the Quran, so I told her that it was ‘meant to be talked about and not to be read.’ So in all seriousness she asked me ‘how one could talk about a book one hadn’t read.’”

Reddy, p. 214.

It seems Ruttie was employing the Socratic method to get Fatima into debate to show her that religious rituals and scriptures are simply a waste of time.

Fatima didn’t like Ruttie, and vice versa. Jinnah had to find some solution. He urged Fatima to join Dr. Ahmad Dental College at the University of Calcutta. She complied. In 1923, after finishing her studies, Fatima Jinnah became the first woman dentist in British India; she then started her own dental clinic in Bombay, another unusual step for a Muslim woman. In the evening, she used to volunteer at Dhobi Talau Municipal Clinic in Bombay.

Trade unions

In May 1919, under president Lala Lajpatrai, the First All-India Trade Union Congress was held at the Empire Theatre, Present on stage were B. P. Wadia, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889 – 1964), S. A. Brelvi, N. M. Joshi, Kanji Dwarkadas, and Dewan Chaman Lal (1892 – 1973). Ruttie, who was sitting in the side box, came on stage, moved a resolution protesting deportation of Benjamin Guy Horniman¹⁰ (1873–1948), the editor of Bombay Chronicle, and spoke for five minutes.

Ruttie was interested in trade unions and Dewan Chaman Lal had offered her a position of a vice president but she didn’t accept it.

Women sex workers

In later years, she started taking a more active role on social problems. Ruttie and Jinnah were aware of Kanji’s work on these issues. In August 1927, Ruttie who was interested in the welfare and well being of women working in brothels visited many of them with Kanji and Miss Davis and saw first hand the condition of women. Kanji did great work getting a law passed which prohibited children under 16 working in such places.

Animal welfare

With Kanji, Ruttie was also involved in the welfare of animals and would visit pinjrapoles or animal shelters in Bhuleshwar (South Bombay), Chembur (a Bombay suburb), and Kalyan and made many recommendations to better condition of animals and of shelters. They wrote a letter to Indian newspapers in September 1927 complaining that the drinking water had the same foulness observed on previous visits; only 5 dogs out of 26 were infection-free; etc. Another letter, that included Mrs. Naidu’s letter with her report on the condition of animals, was published in The Indian Daily Mail. The authorities subsequently looked into the matter and improved the conditions in those animal shelters. Ruttie herself had many pets.

Fissures in marriage

Time seems to be an eternal enemy of purpose-oriented people. Most juggle with time to fulfill and achieve their aim while maintaining balanced and harmonious relations with people who need them most. Jinnah was too constrained for time; he couldn’t keep himself in the newly married mode for too long.

It was as if Jinnah was following the philosophy of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s yet unwritten couplet¹¹:

aur bhi dukh hai zamAne meiN, muhabbat ke sivA / rAhateiN aur bhi hai, vasl ki rAhat ke sivA

there are other sorrows, besides those of love / there are other comforts, beyond the comfort of union

Whereas, it seems, Ruttie was moaning the words Sahir Ludhianvi wrote decades later¹²:

tum mujhe bhool bhi jAo to ye haq hai tum ko / meri bAt aur hai meiN ne to muhabbat ki hai

even if you don’t remember me, which you have a right to / in my case, it’s different, because I have loved you

Also, there were some serious differences between them.

• Jinnah strictly followed punctuality and worked and lived in a very well organized manner. Ruttie, on the other hand, was a carefree person.
• Ruttie liked spicy food whereas Jinnah’s preference was bland food.
• Ruttie preferred people but Jinnah was used to being alone — except where politics was concerned then he wouldn’t mind a gathering. Even at home, Jinnah would be into newspapers from all over India and Ruttie would be left to herself.
• Kanji was their mutual friend who would join them. Ruttie met Kanji quite regularly in the evenings. Sometime Kanji’s elder brother Jamnadas (Jinnah’s lieutenant) would join them too. Another mutual friend Sarojini would visit them or only Ruttie, and Sarojini’s children Leilamani, Ranadheere, and Padmaja (1900 – 1975) would sometime visit her too. Motilal Nehru, when in Bombay, would join them or just Ruttie for food and drink. Another frequent visitor was Raja of Mehmoodabad (1878 – 1931).
• People would gather at Jinnahs’ place when some political issue needed to be discussed or handled.
• Ruttie liked dancing and parties whereas Jinnah preferred billiard.

In 1920, Ruttie and Jinnah were invited to a “grand dinner” at Mirza Abol Hassan Ispahani’s uncle’s place in Putney Hill. Ispahani (1902 – 1981) was heir to the financial and commercial empire in Calcutta. Ruttie’s brother Jamshed Petit who was Ispahani’s Cambridge classmate and friend was also there. Jinnah and Ispahani went to a billiard room to play whereas the rest went for a dance. Ruttie and her brother did the Charleston, a jazz dance, originally a black folk dance from the US South. (Wolpert p.145.) Instead of playing billiard, Jinnah could have stayed with Ruttie and others and if not joining them (it’s a fast dance, here and here and requires great stamina), then at least make a few dance moves then just sit and watch Ruttie, Jamshed, and others dance; it would have made Ruttie happy.

Jinnah’s first biographer Hector Bolitho is not off the mark when he writes:

“For Jinnah, married life was a solemn duty: for his young wife, it was also an opportunity for pleasure.”

In Bolitho, p. 86.

Times were changing fast with new technological and scientific discoveries and inventions. People born or grown up amidst these times of feature films (1906), Ford Model T cars (first affordable car, 1908) and so on, had different expectations and attitudes towards life. Ruttie was born in these times whereas Jinnah’s time was older and a different outlook. Ruttie was born in money whereas Jinnah was looking for a job in his twenties. Jinnah became a very successful lawyer so Ruttie’s financial needs were never unmet. Once when they visited Kashmir, Ruttie spent Rs. 50,000 to decorate a boat they were going to stay on – a very huge amount then. The problem was Jinnah’s inflexibility in other matters. (In our times, look at Gen Z, the Zoomers, who grew up in the internet era are different from millennials.)

In the evenings, Ruttie used to stay home looking forward to be with Jinnah, but then in 1924 this changed. She started going out alone to hotels for dance which Jinnah didn’t approve.

Another difference: Ruttie didn’t care about her status. One example:

In August 1927, Ruttie and Jinnah came to Simla for Jinnah’s Legislative Council Session. Every evening, Ruttie would go out with her dog in a rickshaw to the Mall and from Hussain Baksh General Merchants she would buy chocolate for her dog. Then from the Lower Bazaar – a totally different world from the Mall – she would eat chAt, a spicy South Asian snack. It was served on a large leaf. Once, one of Ruttie’s friends objected to her eating from a street vendor in the Lower Bazaar. Ruttie said, “I do it to tease people like you.” Jinnah would never eat chAt on a leaf from a street vendor!

But it must be said of Jinnah, when craving for chAt Ruttie would sometimes make him get out of the car to get a plate of chAt for her, he would oblige.

The deteriorating relations between Ruttie and Jinnah reached an impasse where no room for reconciliation was left due to a wall of silence between them. The love was there but they sorely lacked communication. Ruttie wanted time, attention, and affection which Jinnah could not provide. There were incidents over a period of time which were performed with good intentions but they backfired. A couple of such incidents.

Ruttie, wanting to spend time with Jinnah, would bring lunch for him. One day she came to the Town Hall with a tiffin and asked Jinnah to guess the contents; he expressed ignorance so Ruttie told him: “I have brought you some lovely ham sandwiches.”

Jinnah was mad:

“My God! What have you done? Do you want me lose my election? Do you realise I am standing from a Muslim separate electorate seat, and if my voters were to learn that I am going to eat ham sandwiches for lunch, do you think I have a ghost of a chance of being elected?”

Ruttie felt disheartened and left. What was more sad was that Jinnah, with M. C. Chagla, went to a restaurant and ate ham.¹³

Since December 1920 when Jinnah was shouted down by supporters of Mohammad Ali Jauhar and Gandhi, bitterness between Jinnah and the younger Ali brother had spilled over in public on the pages of Bombay Chronicle. Jinnah’s refusal to counter Ali’s personal attacks led Ruttie to request Ali through the editor of the newspaper to stop writing “as this would create bitterness.” When Jinnah learned through editor as to what had happened, he was incensed, “Ruttie had no business to intervene.” (Reddy, p. 281.) Ruttie was not wrong in intervening because the war of words, oral and on pages of the Chronicle, was not solving anything. On the other hand, Jinnah, a self-made man, was a very independent person who wanted to fight out his battle himself.

When things were sorted out and Fatima moved out, the Jinnahs went to Ooty, a hill station in Tamil Nadu, for a month and a half vacation. However, Jinnah could neither savor Ooty’s beauty nor could concentrate on cementing his relations with Ruttie because Gandhi was always looming in the background. He had sidelined Jinnah from the national platform and had now joined hands with the Ali brothers whose Khilafat Movement was successful in rousing a significant number of Muslims and Hindus. Jinnah was worried about his Muslim base.

The love between Ruttie and Jinnah, however, was not lost; they always had those feelings in their hearts till the end. But somehow things were not working out.

Jinnah’s endurance 

Jinnah was a serious uncomplaining person who rarely exhibited anger, in itself not a bad trait – but it could become heavy liability because the other party, noticing no reaction, could fail to curb her/his actions beyond a certain limit; this could exert a great toll on the relationship. Jinnah paid all Ruttie’s bills, rarely voicing opposition – the rare occasions when he complained about the money were Ruttie’s trip to Hyderabad visit and her nine month sojourn in Paris. Ruttie had problems handling and converting currencies. British India had several currencies, including, Hyderabadi rupee. (Hyderabad State was under the rule of Nizam but indirectly under British rule.)

In 1923, there was a conference in Jinnah’s chamber attended by M. C. Chagla, among others. In the middle of a conference, Ruttie entered the room and sat herself comfortably on the table-top near her husband. She seemed anxious for the conference to end and kept swinging her feet. Jinnah exhibited no anger, and continued his meeting as if Ruttie wasn’t there. Once the conference was over, they walked out together.

Chagla sympathized with Jinnah:

“But I must say in fairness to Jinnah that no husband could have treated his wife more generously than he did, although she supplied him the greatest provocation throughout their married life.”

In Chagla, p. 120.

In Simla, Jinnah and Ruttie were invited for a dinner with the governor. On their way, Bolitho writes,

“She stopped the carriage and bought a roasted corn-cob from a man beside the road. She began to eat it as they came near Government House.”

Quoted in Reddy, p. 281. The above passage was deleted from Bolitho’s biography of Jinnah because it was an official biography.

Bolitho wrote that Jinnah “accepted the foolish hurt in silence.” Jinnah suffered quietly without a word. Jinnah’s political life saw times when he was at the peak, as during the Lucknow Pact, and at other times without many supporters, but he survived through determination and a certain image he had created of himself. That image wasn’t enhanced by Ruttie’s corn-cob eating. This was an open warfare on Ruttie’s part.

Kanji Dwarkadas

There were two people who later became close to Ruttie. Both of them were close to Jinnah, too. They were Kanji Dwarkadas (1892 -1968) and Sarojini Naidu. Kanji first saw Ruttie in 1914, when she was fourteen, at the Oval:

“I could not take my eyes off this girl and watched the carriage and its occupant till it disappeared from sight. I could not forget her face. Three months later, I found from a photograph in a newspaper that this girl was Ruttie, daughter of the … Sir Dinshaw Petit, Bart.”

Dwarkadas, p. 9.

Kanji was associated with Jinnah in his political work which brought him to Jinnah’s house where he came to know Ruttie well. They became very good friends. Ruttie cared for Kanji and vice versa.

Ruttie was an ocean of energy whose waves knew no halting; always on the move to explore, learn, experience, at the same time, trying to understand and control her inner turmoil. She was also inclined towards literature and art and was a great romantic. She needed a partner in a way that Jinnah was not free to provide. Although initially, he devoted a lot of time to his marriage, later on he was unavailable due to his heavy law and political work. Ruttie was disillusioned. The distance between Jinnah and her increased. Ruttie’s immense energy and inquisitiveness had either to be suppressed or used. She had to find some solace. She sought it in mysticism, spirituality, telepathy, and such. Ruttie’s friend Kanji accompanied her in these activities as he was into it too so it became easier for Ruttie to pursue these. Kanji was a very good friend, and Ruttie felt safe with him. Kanji:

“Ruttie was intensely interested in contacting the non-physical world and she made difficult and dangerous experiments to verify her beliefs and convictions. She wanted first-hand knowledge. She thought she could get it through Seances with the help of mediums or table-tapping.”

Dwarkadas, p. 27.

This 21 November 1924 letter to Kanji shows Ruttie’s quest:

“… Lately I have been very much drawn towards the subject of Spirit Communication and I am most anxious to know more and to get at the Truth. It is such an elusive Subject and the more I hear of it the more puzzled do I become, though still more passionately interested. I have some sort of an idea that you must be cognisant of spiritual circles in our City, whose Seance one may join. I don’t profess any creed nor do I subscribe to a belief, but of late willy-nilly I have been propelled towards the study of so called spiritual phenomenon and I am too deeply immersed in the matter now to give it up without some personal satisfaction for I cannot content myself with other peoples’ experiences, though I fully realise that in a matter of this nature one doesn’t always get the evidence one seeks.

“Anyway I wonder whether you can assist me in this matter by recommending me as a ‘medium’ or ‘Clairvoyant’ professional or otherwise. I would prefer my identity, however, to remain unknown while you make enquiries. And I sincerely hope that you will be able to assist me. With my kind regards to your wife and yourself.”

“P.S. Mrs [Annie] Besant might know of some reliable ‘Medium’.”

Ibid, p. 28.

Besant had told Kanji seances were not safe. He didn’t want to let Ruttie down but wanted to help her and so requested Mrs. Margaret Cousins to see Ruttie in December 1924, during the Theosophical Convention in Bombay. Mrs. Besant, J. Krishnamurti, and Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa were also in attendance. She saw Mrs. Margaret Cousins and was “most inspired” with the address by Jinarajadasa.

Letter to Kanji April 1925:

My Dear Kanji,

Yes, I know of the dream travels of which you speak. But I do all my dreaming in my waking hours. I am not being waggish. There is nothing I would welcome with greater rejoicing than an experience of the sort to which you refer in your letter, but in my heavy druglike sleep there is no redeeming feature …

My soul is too clogged! … I am feeling peculiarly restless and wish one with psychic powers could come to my assistance.

My proud soul humbles before the magnitude of this subject and in my estimation those of us with Second Sight and other such psychic powers should rank with the world’s poets and songsters for their gift if more intelligible is also more divine. The seers and the saints should stand among the world’s prophets. After all we are at present too blind and unseeing to comprehend what the psychics would reveal to our half demented senses. But what the mind often revolts at, and refuses to accept, the intrinsic self within us admits with certain ease which makes the more thoughtful ponder; as though it had some ancient and original knowledge of its own.

…

Yours Sincerely, Ruttie.

Dwarkadas, p. 31-32.

In July 1925, Ruttie was to accompany Kanji, his wife and their four year old son on a visit to Adyar (Madras) but couldn’t so she joined them later. Ruttie wanted to join the Theosophical Society but the morning meeting with Universal Prayers and recitation from scriptures of different religions put her off. She told Mrs. Besant that she was perturbed by this religious slant. Mrs. Besant understood Ruttie’s point and told her that a sincere person like her doesn’t need to formally join the Society.

After meeting Ruttie, Mrs. Besant told Kanji: “Look after your great friend, she is unhappy.” he was taken aback, so she further clarified: “Don’t you see unhappiness in her eyes? Look at her.” (Dwarkadas, p. 41.)

In 1926, Ruttie was accompanying Jinnah on a four-month study-tour of Europe, the United States, and Canada, and to attend meetings of the Sandhurst (Army) Committee in England.

Ruttie asked Kanji:

“Kanji, I am going away to Europe and U.S.A. for a few months. You will not be with me to protect me and help me. Do please, therefore, magnetise something for me to keep me in touch with you.”

Dwarkadas, p. 43.

Kanji hesitatingly magnetized a precious jade with “thoughts of love and protection with particular reference to protecting her from any adverse effects of seances” for her.

When Ruttie and Jinnah were back, she met Kanji and asked him: “Good God! What kind of thoughts you put in that jade?” as she had made three appointments with seances but none happened because at first she missed the train, second time the medium didn’t show up, last time she didn’t remember that she had to see the medium.

Jinnah didn’t believe in these spiritual and medium nonsense; he would just laugh it off. He was thankful to Kanji for helping Ruttie to get out of the harmful futile chase.

Kanji seemed truly gentle natured and Ruttie appreciated him:

“You are a dear!–and the more I think on it, I feel you had no business to be born into the world with ‘Dhoti [men’s sarong like lower garment].’ The correct setting for a nature of such fine sensibilities is a Sari–or a Skirt as the case may geographically require.”

Dwarkadas, p. 46.

Kanji on Ruttie:

“She was a source of inspiration in my work and next to Mrs. Besant she was a most helpful and healthy influence on me and my work.”

Ibid, p. 53.

When Ruttie was away, she would ask Kanji to see if Jinnah was doing alright. A 25th September 1922 letter:

“… And just one thing more–go and see Jinnah and tell me how he is–he has a habit of habitually over-working himself, and now that I am not there to bother and tease him he will be worse than ever.”

Kanji, p. 26.

Sarojni Naidu

Sarojini Naidu (1879 – 1949) was the other person with whom Ruttie had very warm relations. Mrs. Naidu was a progressive poet/politician who hailed from Hyderabad but her political work necessitated her prolonged stays in Bombay. This provided Ruttie with a person in whom she could confide some of her inner thoughts. Two of her five children, daughters Padmaja (born the same year as Ruttie) and Leilamani, younger than Padmaja, were close to Ruttie too.

Ruttie would vent her anger, frustration, helplessness, and sarcasm in person or letters to Mrs. Naidu, Padmaja, and Leilamani. Mrs. Naidu sometimes lent support to Ruttie, at other times she complained to her daughters about Ruttie taking up her time. Mrs. Naidu pitied Ruttie and extended her sympathy. Ruttie never asked for Mrs. Naidu ’s help to reconcile her and Jinnah’s differences.

Once when Ruttie was in Hyderabad, she bought a horse but Jinnah disapproved it because it was not vetted in the manner it should have been. The letter of 25 February 1920 to Padmaja, Ruttie’s wit and anger against Jinnah was obvious:

“It is rather a shame about the horse.” “I wish the owner had succeeded in his ruse of bribing the vets. At any rate I do hope J won’t be idiotically sensible about it. After all, I never had him vetted before I married him! But horses I suppose are far more valuable!”

Reddy, p. 209.

It seems Ruttie had flown into the marriage cage too early; this can be detected from Mrs. Naidu ’s letter of 20 January 1928 to Padmaja:

“Don’t force me back into slavery. Let me be free. Let me be free … Poor child … restless and longing to be free of all her shackles. She says her youth is going and she must live …”

Reddy, p. 405.

Ruttie’s health

Ruttie liked spicy food very much. She just couldn’t resist it although it didn’t suit her stomach, and would make her sick for days. She herself cooked food when a friend would visit her. She couldn’t offer that food to Jinnah, as he preferred non-spicy food. During childhood, once in a while, Ruttie would get nauseated and had stomach cramps, but the nannies and nurses were always there at Petit Hall to take care of her. Also, her mother kept an eye on her to see that she didn’t overindulged in fried and spicy food, and sweets.

But at South Court, there was no one to stop her from fulfilling her craving for foods she wanted to eat. That had been going on for almost the last four years.

At the end of December 1921, Jinnah had arranged a conference of nationalists from all over India at his house. Prior to the conference, Kanji came for two nights and all three of them had dinner and talked late into the night. On the third day, Ruttie was bedridden because of the stomach ailment. All during the set up of and the conference itself, the overwhelmingly tired and sick Ruttie stayed in bed. Doctors were unable to figure out what was wrong with her and advised her to get out of India’s “unhealthy tropical clime.” The next time the three of them got together and Ruttie fell ill again, she took much longer to recover. Her illness was recurring.

5 June 1925 letter to Kanji:

“I have been ill again, so almost any evening will find me at home.”

Dwarkadas, p. 38.

Insomnia was another issue that bothered Ruttie a lot. She used to take Veronol, a barbiturate, which gradually turned into an addiction. Without any restrain, the doctors were prescribing Veronol for any kind of sleeplessness. (Reddy, p. 289-290.)

Sandhurst

On 10 April, 1926, Ruttie and Jinnah, a member of the Sandhurst Committee, sailed to England for a study tour in order to set up a military training school in India.

The April 8 and 10 (1926) letters from Mrs. Naidu to Padmaja and Leilamani described Ruttie “is the wreck of herself in body and mind!” “She is looking just the very shadow of herself–a wreck of what was once a beautiful and brilliant vision.” Mrs. Naidu believed:

“I don’t think she will be more than a very few days in England but spend her time in Paris and go to Canada and America with Jinnah, when the Skeen Committee goes there.”

Mrs. Naidu was right. Once Jinnah’s work of interviewing military experts for the Skeen Committee was over, the Jinnahs were to go to Paris. But Ruttie dashed off to Paris ahead of Jinnah. What was her urgency to rush to Paris?

ENDNOTES:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

Nothing can be more diametric and tragic than an unfolding fascist, joined by some of the world’s most richest men, being sworn-in for the second time on January 20, 2025 on the official Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

On August 28, 1963, in the US capital, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addressing a rally at the March On Washington D.C., dreamt:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal.’”

Dr. King’s dream will have to wait until the current system gets destroyed due to its arrogance, terrorism, violence, and overstretch; or, the people in the US revolt to change the over rotten almost two and a half century exploitive capitalist system.

On January 20, 2025, the billionaires, who consider themselves more equal than all other men (women and genders) got their dream for absolute freedom to loot, realized. Martin Luther King Day was turned into Billionaires Maximum Sovereignty Day.

Mind you, the rich have always been in power in the US; it’s just that whatever little facade of restraint there was, is being removed rapidly.

The rich have been running this country since its inception but preferred, mostly, to maintain a thin veneer. However, with Trump, a billionaire, who is more exhibitionist than President Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1901-1909), things were bound to change, and indeed they did. The tech billionaires, Fox News hosts, and big donors were inside the Capitol Rotunda whereas Republican governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Mississippi’s Tate Reeves, Georgia’s Brian Kemp, Indiana’s Mike Braun, and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, were dumped in the Emancipation Hall overflow viewing space. In fact, they do belong there. What are most of the governors, mayors, elected officials, and even presidents? They are merely agents of the filthy rich.

The rich were sitting in the front row but the Trump’s cabinet members were in the row behind.

Many individuals and corporations donated more than $170 million to cover the expenses for inauguration and related events.

Billionaires pageant

Jeff Bezos, the 2nd richest person had this banner on his newspaper Washington Post, bought in 2013: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Now he should change it to “Democracy Shines in Orange Glow.” Washington Post, which had been endorsing presidential candidates for almost 40 years, refrained in 2024 from endorsing Kamala Harris under pressure from Bezos. He wanted to play safe and continue to get his government contracts with the new government — whether under Harris or Trump. Bezos is “extraordinarily aggressive” and uses various tactics to get contracts. (200,000 digital subscribers of Post were angered by non-endorsement and cancelled their subscription. It doesn’t make much difference to the second richest person. Boycotting Amazon services could hurt him to some extent.)

Mark Zuckerberg, who once toyed with the idea of running for the US presidency, now concentrates on making money and pleasing President Trump. Once when he was asked about users’ privacy on Facebook, he asserted: “Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear.”

But Zuckerberg himself is fearful of Trump; who knows what he is hiding. The unpaid taxes, his company Facebook registered in Ireland, and so on. He knows how vengeful Trump [1] is. In January 2021, after the then president Trump incited attack on US Capitol, Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram sites removed Trump from both platforms. In 2023, both accounts were reinstated but with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.” The guardrails were removed in July 2024. Around that period, Trump had threatened to put Zuckerberg behind bars, if re-elected. Zuckerberg also ended third party fact checking program on his sites; now whatever Trump, Musk, and their acolytes say will be treated as fact and so no checking will be needed.

On January 27, 2025, Meta announced it will “allow more free speech by lifting restrictions.” According to Intercept, the training materials include the following racist, anti LQBTQ, anti immigrants, hateful statements: “Black people are more violent than whites,” “Mexican immigrants are trash,” “transpeople are immoral,” “gays are freaks,” “immigrants are grubby filthy pieces of shit,” or the description “look at that tranny [i.e., transgender person],” under the photo of a 17-year-old girl.

Mukesh Ambani, an Indian billionaire who has 250 plus companies, including electronic and print media, under his Reliance Empire, never misses a chance to show off his wealth nor lose an opportunity to put as many people as he can around him to show them he’s the boss. Former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, attended his daughter’s lavish wedding in 2018, which cost $100 million. Ivanka Trump, her husband and daughter, were also guests at Mukesh Ambani’s son’s $600-million extravagant wedding in 2024. [2]

Miriam Adelson, very impressed by what Trump did for Israel, wished in 2019 for a “Book of Trump” in the Bible. Adelson donated $100 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Now perhaps Trump deserves an entire new Bible for his grand plan to cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” This heist was first proposed by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law.

Sundar Pichai was there too. Like an obedient billionaire, Pichai didn’t disappoint the Dear Leader. The Dear Leader wanted a name change and Pichai’s Google agreed to change “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.” If tomorrow, the Dear Leader says the “Planet Earth” should be called “Planet America,” Pichai’s Google will do it. Google has also gone back on its promise to not develop AI (artificial intelligence) weapons “that cause or are likely to cause overall harm.”

Elon Musk, the richest person on earth, is Trump’s non-elected Secretary of Firing — not executions, at least, not yet, but sacking federal employees and throwing them at the mercy of billionaires like him. Musk spent invested almost $300 million dollars of his own on Trump campaign and so will remain busy for quite some time to recover the investment and realize unlimited profit. (Taylor Swift could have saved us from Musk but she didn’t.)

Bill Gates did not attend the inauguration but had kissed His Fascistness‘s ass when he had a three-hour audience with Trump shortly after Christmas. Gates had given $50 million to Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign just three or so months ago. Billionaires, for whom increasing profit without paying taxes is the main goal, are good at changing sides; people evolve, but billionaires evolve extra fast. According to Gates, it was a “long and actually quite intriguing dinner.” Gates was also “impressed” by Trump’s interest in world health problems. How much Trump is interested in world health matters is clear from his announcement that the United States is leaving the WHO (World Health Organization).

Once again, Dr. King on how government’s handing of free money to rich has a different name, then that for the poor.

Whenever the government provides opportunities in privileges for white people and rich people they call it “subsidized” when they do it for Negro and poor people they call it “welfare.” The fact that is the everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of 90 percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all [too] often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr., February 23, 1968 (truthorfiction.com)

The capitalist system is a disaster for our world as it promotes and creates inequality, pollution, climate change, corruption, rat race, family disintegration, etc.; and maybe, for the universe because the rich are planning to colonize Mars, Moon, etc., which will for sure result in space wars.

Those who wants to see our world a better place should heed economist/activist Kshama Sawant’s advise:

“It’s time to declare war on the rich.

“We need to build an organized, unified movement of working people to systematically take on the rich who run society and to undermine their ability to rule. Our goal must be to both fight for radical change in the present and to bring down the billionaires and their system, capitalism.

“There is no other path to avoid total disaster for human civilization and the planet.”

Endnotes:

[1] Trump, like India’s Narendra Modi, is a very vindictive person. This prompted the outgoing President “Genocide Joe” to take precautionary measure of pardoning many people, including his own relatives. One of the persons, who really deserved freedom was Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier. Peltier’s sentence, after almost half a century, was commuted to indefinite home confinement. Though it’s not total freedom, but still was good news. Biden should have preemptively pardoned all the Democrats and all anti-Trump people, more than half of the country, this would have saved Trump, a great deal of time, from going after them. Or may be not, Trump almost always finds ways, like the United States, to get people he doesn’t like.

[2] Ambani was invited but Indian Premier Narendra Modi was not, even though he was desperate to attend. Modi’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar did attend the inauguration. During Modi’s last US visit in September 2024, he avoided meeting Kamala Harris or Trump despite Trump’s remark that Modi is coming to meet him. On the other hand, Trump extended an invitation to China’s Xi Jinping, who wisely avoided the Trump spectacle and, instead, sent his Vice President Han Zheng. Modi and company’s efforts for a meeting with Trump have paid off and he’ll be visiting the US in the second week of February.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

Nothing can be more diametric and tragic than an unfolding fascist, joined by some of the world’s most richest men, being sworn-in for the second time on January 20, 2025 on the official Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

On August 28, 1963, in the US capital, Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addressing a rally at the March On Washington D.C., dreamt:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal.’”

Dr. King’s dream will have to wait until the current system gets destroyed due to its arrogance, terrorism, violence, and overstretch; or, the people in the US revolt to change the over rotten almost two and a half century exploitive capitalist system.

On January 20, 2025, the billionaires, who consider themselves more equal than all other men (women and genders) got their dream for absolute freedom to loot, realized. Martin Luther King Day was turned into Billionaires Maximum Sovereignty Day.

Mind you, the rich have always been in power in the US; it’s just that whatever little facade of restraint there was, is being removed rapidly.

The rich have been running this country since its inception but preferred, mostly, to maintain a thin veneer. However, with Trump, a billionaire, who is more exhibitionist than President Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (1901-1909), things were bound to change, and indeed they did. The tech billionaires, Fox News hosts, and big donors were inside the Capitol Rotunda whereas Republican governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Mississippi’s Tate Reeves, Georgia’s Brian Kemp, Indiana’s Mike Braun, and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin, were dumped in the Emancipation Hall overflow viewing space. In fact, they do belong there. What are most of the governors, mayors, elected officials, and even presidents? They are merely agents of the filthy rich.

The rich were sitting in the front row but the Trump’s cabinet members were in the row behind.

Many individuals and corporations donated more than $170 million to cover the expenses for inauguration and related events.

Billionaires pageant

Jeff Bezos, the 2nd richest person had this banner on his newspaper Washington Post, bought in 2013: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Now he should change it to “Democracy Shines in Orange Glow.” Washington Post, which had been endorsing presidential candidates for almost 40 years, refrained in 2024 from endorsing Kamala Harris under pressure from Bezos. He wanted to play safe and continue to get his government contracts with the new government — whether under Harris or Trump. Bezos is “extraordinarily aggressive” and uses various tactics to get contracts. (200,000 digital subscribers of Post were angered by non-endorsement and cancelled their subscription. It doesn’t make much difference to the second richest person. Boycotting Amazon services could hurt him to some extent.)

Mark Zuckerberg, who once toyed with the idea of running for the US presidency, now concentrates on making money and pleasing President Trump. Once when he was asked about users’ privacy on Facebook, he asserted: “Those who have nothing to hide, have nothing to fear.”

But Zuckerberg himself is fearful of Trump; who knows what he is hiding. The unpaid taxes, his company Facebook registered in Ireland, and so on. He knows how vengeful Trump [1] is. In January 2021, after the then president Trump incited attack on US Capitol, Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram sites removed Trump from both platforms. In 2023, both accounts were reinstated but with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.” The guardrails were removed in July 2024. Around that period, Trump had threatened to put Zuckerberg behind bars, if re-elected. Zuckerberg also ended third party fact checking program on his sites; now whatever Trump, Musk, and their acolytes say will be treated as fact and so no checking will be needed.

On January 27, 2025, Meta announced it will “allow more free speech by lifting restrictions.” According to Intercept, the training materials include the following racist, anti LQBTQ, anti immigrants, hateful statements: “Black people are more violent than whites,” “Mexican immigrants are trash,” “transpeople are immoral,” “gays are freaks,” “immigrants are grubby filthy pieces of shit,” or the description “look at that tranny [i.e., transgender person],” under the photo of a 17-year-old girl.

Mukesh Ambani, an Indian billionaire who has 250 plus companies, including electronic and print media, under his Reliance Empire, never misses a chance to show off his wealth nor lose an opportunity to put as many people as he can around him to show them he’s the boss. Former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, attended his daughter’s lavish wedding in 2018, which cost $100 million. Ivanka Trump, her husband and daughter, were also guests at Mukesh Ambani’s son’s $600-million extravagant wedding in 2024. [2]

Miriam Adelson, very impressed by what Trump did for Israel, wished in 2019 for a “Book of Trump” in the Bible. Adelson donated $100 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Now perhaps Trump deserves an entire new Bible for his grand plan to cleanse Gaza of Palestinians and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” This heist was first proposed by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law.

Sundar Pichai was there too. Like an obedient billionaire, Pichai didn’t disappoint the Dear Leader. The Dear Leader wanted a name change and Pichai’s Google agreed to change “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.” If tomorrow, the Dear Leader says the “Planet Earth” should be called “Planet America,” Pichai’s Google will do it. Google has also gone back on its promise to not develop AI (artificial intelligence) weapons “that cause or are likely to cause overall harm.”

Elon Musk, the richest person on earth, is Trump’s non-elected Secretary of Firing — not executions, at least, not yet, but sacking federal employees and throwing them at the mercy of billionaires like him. Musk spent invested almost $300 million dollars of his own on Trump campaign and so will remain busy for quite some time to recover the investment and realize unlimited profit. (Taylor Swift could have saved us from Musk but she didn’t.)

Bill Gates did not attend the inauguration but had kissed His Fascistness‘s ass when he had a three-hour audience with Trump shortly after Christmas. Gates had given $50 million to Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign just three or so months ago. Billionaires, for whom increasing profit without paying taxes is the main goal, are good at changing sides; people evolve, but billionaires evolve extra fast. According to Gates, it was a “long and actually quite intriguing dinner.” Gates was also “impressed” by Trump’s interest in world health problems. How much Trump is interested in world health matters is clear from his announcement that the United States is leaving the WHO (World Health Organization).

Once again, Dr. King on how government’s handing of free money to rich has a different name, then that for the poor.

Whenever the government provides opportunities in privileges for white people and rich people they call it “subsidized” when they do it for Negro and poor people they call it “welfare.” The fact that is the everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of 90 percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all [too] often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem.

Dr Martin Luther King Jr., February 23, 1968 (truthorfiction.com)

The capitalist system is a disaster for our world as it promotes and creates inequality, pollution, climate change, corruption, rat race, family disintegration, etc.; and maybe, for the universe because the rich are planning to colonize Mars, Moon, etc., which will for sure result in space wars.

Those who wants to see our world a better place should heed economist/activist Kshama Sawant’s advise:

“It’s time to declare war on the rich.

“We need to build an organized, unified movement of working people to systematically take on the rich who run society and to undermine their ability to rule. Our goal must be to both fight for radical change in the present and to bring down the billionaires and their system, capitalism.

“There is no other path to avoid total disaster for human civilization and the planet.”

Endnotes:

[1] Trump, like India’s Narendra Modi, is a very vindictive person. This prompted the outgoing President “Genocide Joe” to take precautionary measure of pardoning many people, including his own relatives. One of the persons, who really deserved freedom was Indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier. Peltier’s sentence, after almost half a century, was commuted to indefinite home confinement. Though it’s not total freedom, but still was good news. Biden should have preemptively pardoned all the Democrats and all anti-Trump people, more than half of the country, this would have saved Trump, a great deal of time, from going after them. Or may be not, Trump almost always finds ways, like the United States, to get people he doesn’t like.

[2] Ambani was invited but Indian Premier Narendra Modi was not, even though he was desperate to attend. Modi’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar did attend the inauguration. During Modi’s last US visit in September 2024, he avoided meeting Kamala Harris or Trump despite Trump’s remark that Modi is coming to meet him. On the other hand, Trump extended an invitation to China’s Xi Jinping, who wisely avoided the Trump spectacle and, instead, sent his Vice President Han Zheng. Modi and company’s efforts for a meeting with Trump have paid off and he’ll be visiting the US in the second week of February.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

The criteria for winning a presidential debate is very simple: the candidate who fumbles less, makes less mistakes, avoids too many verbal gaffes, etc., who is able to present a rosy picture for the future, and, who believes in people’s “ambition, the aspirations, [and] the dreams,” is the winner — provided all bullshitting is done with a serious face.

However, it’s entirely a different matter whether that person has any genuine solutions to the problems majority of the people face.

Exactly eight years ago, first time in US history of 240 years, a woman had a chance to reach the highest office — Hillary Clinton won popular votes by almost 3 million votes, but that rare opportunity was snatched away by the Electoral College. The victory went to Donald Trump, a slowly evolving fascist. It is to be remembered that Clinton was not that woman progressives have been waiting for.

This time, another woman, Kamala Harris, is in the race for presidency. Her opponent is none other than Trump. Harris was not in the competition but got her opportunity when the Democratic establishment realized, after the Biden/Trump debate, that the horse they have been trying to steady for three and a half years cannot any more stand on its own, and could give up any moment.

Thus, Joe Biden was pushed aside with a tribute that he left the race for a second term out of patriotic duty. Everyone knows that almost no one gives up power, whether s/he is an authoritarian or a “democrat,” without a rough push.

Kamala is the in-girl

Kamala is the in-girl — so many love and support her, not only most of the Democrats but also some prominent Republicans! Within 36 hours of Biden’s decision not to run, and his nominating of Harris as his successor, Harris campaign raised $100 million that jumped to $310 in less than two weeks, with new donors contributing two-thirds of the amount. By September 6, the number had nearly doubled to $615 million. Andrew Byrnes, a tech policy strategist and Harris fundraiser, said the amount he raised for Kamala in one week was double the amount he raised for Biden in a whole year.

In two months, the amount rose to $1 billion. No other presidential candidate has accumulated such a huge amount in such a short period!

Trump is no match for Harris in fundraising despite the fact that his campaign received $100 million from Miriam Adelson who likes Trump so much that she said “Book of Trump”¹ should be added to the Bible, i.e. the Old Testament. Trump allied PAC also got $150 million from Timothy Mellon. Trump’s equally nasty buddy Elon Musk has contributed $76 million.

Trump is the best thing that has happened to the Democratic Party. Most Democrats never tire of ridiculing him. This enables them and the Democrat-leaning news media to keep their supporters busy in Trump’s antics and eccentricities and thus saves the party from answering hard questions.

MSNBC is also known as MSDNC or Democratic National Committee mouthpiece. MSNBC is a cheerleader for the Democrats. Biden and Harris regularly watch MSNBC’s Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. “A Jacobin analysis of six months of its Gaza coverage reveals an unflagging role cheering on Israel’s genocide.”

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire, is backing Kamala because he wants to get rid of Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Billionaire Mark Cuban endorsed Harris too for the same reason: dump Khan.

Sheryl Sandberg is “thrilled to support” Kamala,² because

She is an accomplished leader, a fierce advocate of abortion rights, and the strongest candidate to lead our country forward.

Ron Conway, a billionaire, has asked tech community to join hands to salvage “our democracy” by getting behind Kamala, whom he has known “for decades” to prevent Trump’s reentry into White House. Conway says she is an “advocate for the tech ecosystem since the day we met.”

Melinda French Gates ($13 million), Reed Hastings (Netflix), George Soros and Alex Soros, Vinod Khosla, Jeffrey Katzenberg (former president of Walt Disney Studios), Bill Gates ($50 million), and other billionaires numbering 81 (or more) have joined the Kamala bandwagon, whereas, Trump has 52 billionaires with him.

Billionaires’ bribes count. Harris, who was with Biden’s plan of raising capital gains tax from 23.8% to 44.6%, opted for 33%, instead.

More than 90 business leaders, including over a dozen billionaires, wrote and signed an endorsement letter to Harris.

“Her election is the best way to support the continued strength, security, and reliability of our democracy and economy. … [She] ensure[s] American businesses can compete and win in the global market. … she will strive to give every American the opportunity to pursue the American dream.”

These billionaire and multimillionaire business people have nothing to do with democracy. The main thrust of the letter is US “businesses can compete and win in the global market,” under Harris, that is, the US government either diplomatically or through military force opens up foreign markets for them like US Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open up for business in 1853. The other fallacy is that Kamala will try to provide people with “the opportunity to pursue the American dream.”

A few corporations are controlling most businesses in US. People are free to dream but whose dreams get realized is decided by the people in power.

Many US presidents, have warned about the increasing corporate power and its harmful effect on country. Thomas Jefferson had hoped in 1816 to “crush” the corporate power which was challenging government and defying laws. Instead the corporations crushed the government power and as journalist and novelist Theodore Dreiser puts it, “the corporations are the government.” (China is a capitalist country but the government controls the capitalists; this is anathema to the US; it wants China to go the US way.)

Women are elated with Harris entering the race for two main reasons: one is that someone from their gender has a chance to win and the other is Harris’ support for abortion. Sadly, most of these women have no Palestinian and Lebanese women and children on their mind.

Porn actors, some of them, are spending over $100,000 in seven swing states in support of Harris because they fear Trump presidency and Project 2025 will ban the porn industry. Harris should thank them but should ask them to stop violence and degradation of women in many of their videos.

Jeff Bridges extended his support to Kamala who is “just so certainly our girl.” He proudly proclaimed: “I’m white, I’m a dude, and I’m for Harris.” Bridges was a part of White Dudes for Harris Zoom call; over 180,000 joined in and raised about $4 million for her campaign. The invitation to join in was based on: “Are you a white guy who believes in science, human rights, and democracy?”

There have been several similar events: such as Latinas for Harris; White Women: Answer the Call; the Black Women Zoom; Caribbean-Americans for Harris; South Asian Women for Harris; Disabled Voters for Harris; Black Men for Harris; Win With Black Women; and South Asian Men for Harris.

Salman Rushdie, an author, joined the South Asian Men for Harris virtual meet and declared he’s in for Harris “1,000 per cent.”³ One could understand Rushdie’s worry as a writer because if Trump wins and turns dictator, of which there are great chances, then he and his ministers, like Elon Musk, won’t tolerate any kind of criticism. The Kamala government would let them write in small publications and press which have limited reach and do not disturb or threaten the ruling class and the system.

Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is for Kamala too because “She is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”

Billionaire Swift resides in her own bubble and is unaware that, until now the US has been led by calm leaders, but most people have achieved nothing but decline.

In 1982, when the Forbes 400 list was initiated, one could join the list with $100 million ($300 million in today’s money). There were only 13 billionaires then. Today, you need eleven times that amount or $3.3 billion to be one of 400 wealthy in US. So, 400 billionaires made it to the list but 415 individuals couldn’t make it, including Oprah Winfrey who has $3 billion, less than the required $3.3 billion.

What about the rest of the people? A whopping 37% of people in US have less than $400 in savings!

Singer-songwriter Beyonce joined Kamala at a rally in Houston to extend her support. Many celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eminem, Bruce Springsteen, Patti LaBelle, Jennifer Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Clooney,⁴ and Sarah Jessica Parker (who is voting for Kamala for 31 things, including “For our military, past and currently serving” but not for peace or ceasefire in Gaza).

Dick Cheney, the Vice President in George W. Bush regime and one of the major architects of the Iraq War, a Republican, has also announced that he’ll vote for Kamala Harris.

“[There had] never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump”

“He [Trump] tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him.” “He can never be trusted with power again.”

“As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our constitution.” “That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice-President Kamala Harris.”

Liz Cheney, a Republican and Dick Cheney’s daughter, supports Harris too, and joined her campaign events thrice in early October. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , the progressive supporters and Democrats like Harris, are campaigning for her but have not been invited to appear with Harris, as yet.

Liz Cheney criticized Trump: “He is petty, he is vindictive, and he is cruel.” If she had not mentioned Trump’s name, one would have assumed she was talking about her dad Dick Cheney who is not any better, in any respect, but is worst than Trump –until now. Liz Cheney also added: “Violence does not and must never determine who rules us. Voters do.”

Trump called Dick Cheney (whose approval rating, when he left office, was mere 13%) a “King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars,” and blasted both father- daughter duo on his TruthSocial account.

“… Her father, Dick, was a leader of our ridiculous journey into the Middle East, where Trillions of Dollars were spent, millions of people were killed – and for what? NOTHING! Well, today, these two fools, because the Republican Party no longer wants them, endorsed the most Liberal Senator in U.S. Senate, further Left than even Pocahontas or Crazy Bernie Sanders – Lyin’ Kamala Harris. What a pathetic couple that is, both suffering gravely from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Good Luck to them both!!!”

Trump is correct about Dick Cheney. He was George H.W. Bush’s Defense Secretary when US went to war against Iraq and destroyed that country. Dick Cheney was Vice President of Bush Jr., when US devastated Afghanistan in 2001, and again went to war against Iraq, in 2003.

Trump lies a great deal but then every now and then he also shows a mirror of the US empire, and its imperialist crimes. Trump once told Bill O’Reilly, “We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think — our country’s so innocent?” Or just recently he said: Trillions of Dollars were spent, millions of people were killed. Now this kind of talk can’t be conducive to people running the empire because they suffer from spectrophobia.

238 staffers from four previous Republican governments and many more, including John Negroponte, one of the criminal minds of US imperialism, endorsed Kamala. Barbara Pierce Bush (daughter of former Republican president George W. Bush) is supporting Kamala with the hope the US moves “forward and protect women’s rights.”

Why so many wealthy and powerful people have gotten behind Kamala? The reasons, as we have seen vary, but the most important one is that Kamala will maintain the statue quo. She’s not going to make any drastic changes, but just the cosmetic type.

On the other hand, many rich, and not very rich, in the ruling class are scared of Trump’s unpredictable nature. The wealthy class may benefit much more under Trump than under Harris. In 2017, Trump lowered the corporate tax rate from (Obama government’s) 35% to 21% and corporations benefited a lot. (Biden raised it to 28% and not the 35% it used to be during his vice presidency.)

Trump may concentrate on domestic issues rather than waging foreign wars; but, then if something triggers him, or he is incited by his aides, or perceives a threat from foreign leader(s), then he may go unhinged.

Biden praised Liz Cheney’s “courage” to appear with Harris. “I admire her. Her dad and I worked together a long, long time.” Biden, like Cheneys, loves violence and war. Republicans and Democrats working together can screw the people within and without the US. It becomes so much easier to wage a war against “foreign enemy” when both parties are working together.

Trump will probably do within the US, what the US has been doing to the world for several decades. He will unleash the army on his opponents and critics. Here is Trump:

“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within, Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”⁵

Irony

In 2021, Trump’s vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance had portrayed Vice President Kamala Harris and other women Democrats as, “a bunch of childless cat ladies miserable at their own lives.”

During the presidential debate in September 2024, Trump falsely charged Haitians residing in Springfield, Ohio, of “eating the dogs … the cats … the pets of the people that live there.”

On October 31, Trump said “Well, I’m going to do it whether the women like it or not. I am going to protect them.”

On October 27, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made racist fun of Latino people by saying “These Latinos, they love making babies,” he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage,” and repeated the lie about Haitians eating pets.

Donald Trump and his team, it seems, is striving to lose the election. Despite that, the polls show a tight race between Trump and Harris.

On Harris’ side, she is careful but had to distance herself from Biden telling Latinos “The only garbage I see floating out there is his [Trump] supporters — his — his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable, and it’s un-American.” Harris has yet to comment on former president Bill Clinton‘s “racist Michigan speech” as Sanjana Karanth puts it. Bill Clinton said:

“I understand why young Palestinian and Arab Americans in Michigan think too many people have died — I get that, but…” “Hamas makes sure that they’re shielded by civilians, they’ll force you to kill civilians, if you want to defend yourself.”

Harris is very popular, was able to amass great amount of money, got lot of support but somehow the polls — which may be wrong , as often happens — are not favoring her. Who knows, as investigative reporter Dave Lindorff points out, Harris could win if she gets “secret women’s vote” in rural Pennsylvania similar to what happened in Kansas in 2022 regarding the banning of abortion referendum. Julia Roberts encouraged women to exercise their right to choose, within the privacy of the election booth:

This is an election where voters will decide between possible drastic changes that result in fascism, versus, maintaining the unjust pro-war inegalitarian status quo.

However, those who are fed up with the two main lesser and greater evils, there are two other candidates to choose from who are anti-war and pro-common people: Jill Stein of Green Party and Claudia De la Cruz of Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL).⁶

ENDNOTES:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

In today’s capitalist world, once a capitalist sees profit in an idea, it’s turned into a commodity whether there is demand for it or not. Demand is then created through advertisement.

The pharmaceutical companies’ ads on TV depict drugs with exotic looking names, shot in beautiful locales, in a friendly or familial atmosphere — without ever showing the true patients actual pain and push you to ask your doctor about their medicine. So the drug companies are forcing patients to pressure doctors to prescibe the said medicine. Only the US and New Zealand permit such direct-to-consumer ads.

These ads are banned in Europe. One wonders where is the need for a doctor then; the companies should sell the medicine directly to the customer, through mail.

Then there is the business of plastic surgery: a big one, at that.

According to The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), the year 2021 saw an overall increase of 19.3% in procedures performed by plastic surgeons. Globally, 12.8 million surgical and 17.5 million non-surgical, procedures were performed that year.

In 2023, the global cosmetic surgery market was valued at $57.67 billion. In rare cases, plastic surgeries are needed; others are simply, what are known as, “augmentation,” enhancement,” and so on of various anatomical parts. A huge number of cases go wrong in an unfixable manner — and end up victims of looking “beautiful,” forgetting the famous adage: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

This article is about a London based facelift surgeon named Dr Julian De Silva. Cosmetic Surgery Reviews has the following write-up about De Silva.

“Dr Julian De Silva is a renowned surgeon who specialises in only facial plastic surgery. With an international client base and use of pioneering regenerative medicine, he has built a reputation natural looking signature blepharoplasty, rhinoplasty, face and neck lift surgery. Voted internationally as one of the top 10 plastic surgeons in the world.”

This same website has listed him number 12 in its lists of 30 Best Facelift Surgeons in Western Europe 2023.

ClinicSpots website lists “15 Best Plastic Surgeons in the World” but De Silva’s name is not mentioned in that list, not that it matters much. Neither did The Luxe Insider include his name in its Top 10. In reality, any magazine or website can come up with their list of the “best.”

De Silva is a very savvy advertiser. He comes up with a list of the 10 most handsome men which he figures out by applying the Greek Golden Ratio. On his business website, he has this article: “Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson – tipped to be the new James Bond – is the most handsome man in the world, according to science.” That science is “Greek Golden Ratio of Beauty Phi – which measures physical perfection.”

Looking at his website, the impression created is as if the article was published in The Clinic London on October 7, 2024. However, the link, when clicked, takes you back to De Silva’s site. De Silva or his staff may have written the article where De Silva is addressed in the third person.

Below is the 2024 list and the criteria applied by De Silva: the most attractive nose, eyes, eyebrows, chin, lips, forehead and face shape.

British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson IMAGE/LondonFacialPlacsticSurgery

The most handsome men in the world – and their Golden Ratio scores

1. Aaron Taylor-Johnson  – 93.04%
2. Lucien Laviscount  – 92.41%
3. Paul Mescal – 92.38%
4. Robert Pattison  – 92.15%
5. Jack Lowden – 90.33%
6. George Clooney – 89.9%
7. Nicholas Hoult – 89.84%
8. Charles Melton – 88.46%
9. Idris Elba – 87.94%
10. Shah Rukh Khan – 86.76%

He has made this list before too, in 2017 with mostly different actors as he updates the list according to the times. In that year, he was advertising Jamie Foxx’s “handsome chin” and Brad Pitt’s “eyes.” Whoever is the in-thing is in the the new bunch list of “most handsome.”

The July 2017 Marie Claire (French international magazine) article titled “These are the most handsome men in the world” “(according to science)” listed the following actors

1. George Clooney — 91.86%
2. Bradley Cooper — 91.80%
3. Brad Pitt — 90.5%
4. Harry Styles — 89.63%
5. David Beckham — 88.96%
6. Will Smith — 88.88%
7. Idris Elba — 87.93%
8. Ryan Gosling — 87.48%
9. Zayn Malik — 86.50%
10. Jamie Fox — 85.46%

There are millions of beautiful people all over the world. Just in London, if De Silva visited different localities, he would come across many, many handsome people. But then, to attract clients, he relies on well known actors.

Golden Ratio

Now let’s check out what Golden ratio is and if this was widely applied by the Greeks. Spencer McDaniel on her website Tales of Times Forgotten explains what Golden Ratio is:

The so-called “Golden Ratio,” or φ, occurs when the ratio of the greater of two quantities to the lesser of two quantities is equivalent to the ratio of the sum of the two quantities to the greater of the two quantities. Expressed using incomprehensible math symbols, it looks like this:

Mario Livio, on his website +Plus explains the Golden Ratio like this:

In the Elements, the most influential mathematics textbook ever written, Euclid of Alexandria (ca. 300 BC) defines a proportion derived from a division of a line into what he calls its “extreme and mean ratio.” Euclid’s definition reads:

A straight line is said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the lesser.

In other words, in the diagram below, point C divides the line in such a way that the ratio of AC to CB is equal to the ratio of AB to AC. Some elementary algebra shows that in this case the ratio of AC to CB is equal to the irrational number 1.618 (precisely half the sum of 1 and the square root of 5).

C divides the line segment AB according to the Golden Ratio.

Over a period of time, the honorifics “Divine Proportion” and “Golden Ratio” were bestowed on the theory and that got associated with aesthetics.

McDaniel points out that Greeks were not that much into the “Golden Ratio.”

Many people believe that the “Golden Ratio” is the pinnacle of aesthetic perfection and that, the closer something is to the Golden Ratio, the more beautiful it is automatically. Many people also believe that the ancient Greeks were obsessed with the Golden Ratio and that they incorporated it into all their buildings and works of art. Unfortunately for those who love a good math story, we have no good evidence to support either of these conclusions.

In fact, the Golden Ratio is not even mentioned in any Greek text until as late as the early third century BC. The Greeks were arguably fascinated with the idea of using mathematical proportions in art to a certain extent, but they were by no means obsessed with the Golden Ratio in particular. The story of how we came to believe that the Greeks were obsessed with the Golden Ratio, though, is as fascinating as it is bizarre. It involves a friend of Leonardo da Vinci, an eccentric nineteenth-century German psychologist, and Donald Duck.

Ancient Greece’s temple known as The Parthenon, also considered a symbol of Western Civilization and democracy, has, it has been claimed, to perfectly fit the Golden ratio. McDaniel disagees and illustrates the points in a couple of pictures of the Parthenon.

The argument McDaniel makes is that superimposing rectangles and spirals on images of artworks, buildings, or any other object, does not prove that it was constructed according to the Golden Ratio.

She herself superimposed spirals over the illustrated image of satan, over her own face, and over a dumpster (see above) and then sarcastically questions:

“Can you even begin to fathom how incredibly aesthetically appealing this dumpster is? Is it not the most beautiful dumpster you have ever seen?”

That is the gist of her argument: superimposing spirals and rectangles does not make the object beautiful — if it is aesthetically pleasing, then it is beautiful — irrespective of whether the Golden Ratio was applied or not.

Similarly, drawing some lines on a photo of human face and giving percentages to various facial parts does not make a person the “most handsome man in the world.” The claim itself shows how narrow the person’s outlook is equating to tunnel vision.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Arguably, every being can be characterized as being striking, beautiful, appealing, attractive. One just needs to look at the creation deep emough. There is room for all things in our beautiful blue planet.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

When faced with two adverse unethical options, a person may try to avoid the more harmful immoral choice. This is ancient strategy people have talked and written about, and applied in various situations. In the US political parlance, the term “lesser of two evils,” is choosing the evil that will be less damaging.

There is talk about voting for the “lesser of two evils.” The rationale behind this thinking is to prevent the greater “evil” from gaining power and thus causing more havoc. This is an intelligent thing to do especially in countries where million of peoples’ future is at stake — but when the United States is involved, the well being of the entire planet is at stake.

In the US, it is understood by many that the greater evil is the Republican Party or the proverbial Charybdis. Noam Chomsky once said, “Republican Party is the most dangerous organisation in human history.” The lesser evil’s title goes to the Democratic Party or the proverbial Scylla.

In dire situations, one could accept voting for the lesser evil – Democrats. But when the Democrats don’t want to address the root causes then voting for them election after election turns into a futile exercise, while the sick state keeps on deteriorating. This is a serious problem. It’s like a person who has a tumor that in initial stages is ignored due to carelessness. However, a timely realization as to the consequences rushes in emergency for treatment as if he/she had not headed for the doctor, the malignancy would have proved fatal.

The above example is equally applicable to the United States — a Sick Empire — physically, that is, in economic decline and mentally, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” to use Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s words spoken on April 4, 1967. The US has steadfastly held on to the title of “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” as if it doesn’t want to prove Dr King wrong in his assessment.

The Republican Party openly supports the capitalist class by lowering taxes for the rich, opposing unions, resisting pay raises, waging foreign wars or domestic ones, such as “war against drugs,” etc. In return, they get favors and election campaign contributions.

But there is something to be said about the lesser evil of the two choices.

Democratic Party is not that naked — it uses a fig leaf to cover up its hypocrisy, it pretends to be what it is not; it claims it is working for the common folks, complains about rich not paying taxes (but does not do anything), and so on. In reality, they do very little for the general public because they too get lots of money from the big donors to contest elections. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (worth $2.5 billion), in 2024 gave $10 million to Biden-Harris campaign donated another $7 million to Kamala Harris (after Biden quit the presidential bid and nominated Harris as the Democratic candidate, without any intra-party election). Hoffman wants Harris to fire Lina Khan, the FTC chair who is fighting big corporate mergers and monopolistic corporate practices. This is what Hoffman said:

“I do think that Lina Khan is a person who is not helping America in her job in what she’s doing. And so, I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her.”

Expedia Chairman Barry Diller (worth $4.5 billion) called Khan a “dope,” but then he said he misspoke; he wants her fired. Who knows, may be Harris would listen to her paymasters, as has been the custom.

It is sad that people like Lina Khan, who are honest, incorruptible, and are working for the welfare of the majority, and are rare to find in government, have to face so much opposition from the billionaire class. Lina Khan and people like her are hated by the rich, like Hoffman because they try to enforce laws which assist most people rather than fattening the already obese (financially) like Hoffman and his ilk.

The Young Turks put it rightly: “… we don’t have a democracy. We have an open auction 100%.“

Biden, when he was running for president, had told the wealthy donors:

“I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.” “The truth of the matter is … nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”

One cannot not sympathize with the Democratic presidential candidates who are (or aiming to be) multimillionaires, who hobnob with billionaires, are mostly interviewed by anchors making millions of dollars, who have to feign they are for ordinary people, in order to get their vote.

But the problem with this line of strategy is that it is simply prolonging the onset of the overdue implosion rather than trying to eliminate the rot in the system. If you watch or read the news and various commentaries or watch late night shows in the liberal news media, many a times they are making fun of Donald Trump, his wife and children and portray him as an evil person and thus imply Biden/Harris are virtuous people. (In the mid 1980s, then President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” hinting that the US is a sanctimonious entity.) These same people never accuse Biden or his cabinet, as bloodthirsty murderers.

So why go for the lesser evil?

The Democrats and the Republicans are almost twins,¹ as far as warring against foreign countries or overthrowing their governments is concerned. It’s within the US, where the slight difference comes into play. Democrats would not want to go total fascist at home — they permit some freedom to maintain the facade of the US being “the greatest democracy.” On the other hand, the Republicans want to treat, actually mistreat, most people indiscriminately, within and without the US, in the same fascist manner. Many people in the US don’t mind foreign countries becoming victim of US imperialistic fascist policies, either due to their ignorance or indifference or are misled by Republicans’ and Democrats’ warmongering or news media’s and think tanks’ fear inducing presentation etc. On the other hand, many people are frightened now that, it seems if Trump wins, fascism is going to hit most people in the US. That’s why most people prefer the lesser evil.

Mind you, fascism has never been absent in many people’s life in the US, such as incarcerating a huge segment of population, people who are victims of police violence (injured or killed), PTSD-(Post traumatic stress disorder) traumatized soldiers returning from fabricated bloody wars, homeless people, and so on. Most Democrats haven’t created meaningful improvement in the lives of these people.

The Democrat and Republican led governments have overthrown many governments and are still trying to overthrow many more but Democrats don’t want Trump to do that in the US, such as the purported January 6, 2021 attempt.² It was an unorganized, clumsily executed foolish attempt. Trump should have consulted the experienced hands from both parties and also the CIA before the January 6 attempt. He would have succeeded, for sure.

Q: Why will there never be a coup d’état in Washington?

A: Because there’s no American embassy there.

Is there a difference between Trump and Harris etc.?

Without a second thought, one has to admit that Trump’s virile oral member is long and ejects idiocies and hate on a non-stop basis. Trump is a very cruel person, indeed. But the question is: are Biden, Harris, Anthony Blinken, Lloyd Austin, Harris’ supporter greater evil Dick Cheney any less cruel?

No.

In fact, they are more cruel and have excessively more blood of innocents on their hands than Trump has, that is, until now. His next term will be full of vengeance and who knows, greater bloodshed. Isn’t Biden too full of hate for Palestinians, Lebanese, and Iranians or anyone fighting for their rights and want to go their separate ways? Biden, a grandfather, who still grieves for his son Beau Biden’s death in 2015 due to glioblastoma has neither shed a tear nor has grieved for the 42,511 Palestinians (including 16,660 children) plus 1974 [A Lancet article from 10 July 2024 reported a much higher estimate: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death⁹ to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.” — DV ed.] (which includes 127 children) Lebanese killed by Israel with US encouragement, arms and ammunition, money, personnel, and intelligence –without which Israel could not have caused such incredible loss of lives. The opposition to war within the US is squashed by the Israel Lobby.

At this juncture in human history, who deserves more loathing, Trump or Biden and Harris? Of course, today the answer is the Biden/Harris team.

• See also a related article: “A Moral Imperative for the 2024 US Elections.”

ENDNOTES:

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

A quote, wrongly attributed to Abraham Lincoln, reads:

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Well, that may be true but what is also true is that you can fool most of the people (followers of politicians, political parties, religions, celebrities, stars, social media influencers, businesspersons, and so on) most of the time because followers place blind trust in their heroes, heroines, religious leaders, influencers, etc.

This was visible during the quadrennial spectacles called Republican National Convention (July 15 to July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and Democratic National Convention (August 19 to August 22, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois).

Of course, there is a difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party: the Republicans are overtly hostile and will screw you unashamedly in broad day light without any kind of lubrication or apology.

The Democrats are, in that respect, a bit less rough. They’ll beg your pardon; would plead with you to understand the criticality of the situation; but will screw you, nonetheless — of course, in a dim light with a bit of lubricant.

Both the conventions took place during the ongoing Israeli slaughter, displacements, starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza since October 12, 2023. Both parties have supported the Israeli carnage. There is a division in the Democratic Party about supporting Israel, but the strong voices are few and many a times become victims of the Israel Lobby. One of the powerful group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) has spent more than $100 million in the 2024 election campaign: $15 million was spent to defeat US House Representatives Jamal Bowman who was critical of Israeli genocide of Gazans and $9 million to oust Cori Bush, another critic of Israeli war.

Danaka Katovich, National Co-Director CodePink, describes how a woman outside the convention center calling out the names of the children killed in Gaza was ignored and laughed at.

“There was a young woman that sat outside the exit of the Democratic National Convention on its third night reading the names of the children Israel has killed in the last ten months. She did it for hours, until her speaker battery died. She did it alone, taking care to pronounce every child’s name correctly and to say their age at the time of their murder. Without her, many of the DNC guests wouldn’t necessarily be confronted with the carnage members of their party is carrying out.

“Outside the gates of the DNC I saw a young woman making sure the children of Palestine weren’t just numbers, and I saw people laughing at her for doing so. They laughed loudly and mocked her voice. They mocked the names of the dead babies. They yelled at her to leave them alone. They left the coronation ceremony livid that they had to even hear about Gaza.”

Things were not too different inside the convention center, either.

The DNC allowed the parents of one of the hostages held by Hamas to speak and highlight their plight but no Palestinian was permitted to talk about the killing of over 41,000 [1] Palestinians (33% of them children and 18.4% women) and about ceasefire. Even a speech which included support for Kamala Harris was disallowed.

The speakers who did talk about Gaza and Palestine knew very well that their speeches were not going to make any difference.

AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez):

“She [Vice President Kamala Harris] is working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home.”

After five and a half years in the US Congress and as an active member of the Democratic Party, progressive AOC [2] knows damn well that no efforts on part of Kamala or Biden administration is needed to secure a ceasefire — the US just has to stop money and arms flow to Israel and that’s it.

On August 21, AOC posted on X:

“Just as we must honor the humanity of hostages, so too must we center the humanity of the 40,000 Palestinians killed under Israeli bombardment. To deny that story is to participate in the dehumanization of Palestinians. The @DNC must change course and affirm our shared humanity.

Bernie Sanders:

“We must end this horrific war in Gaza. Bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire.”

Two progressive members devoted a total of 31 words to the more than 10 month old continuing tragedy without mentioning the over 41,000 Palestinians killed!

Senator Raphael Warnock (Georgia) talked about children’s (including Gaza’s) safety.

“I need all of my neighbors’ children to be okay — poor inner-city children in Atlanta and poor children in Appalachia.” “I need the poor children of Israel and the poor children of Gaza, I need Israelis and Palestinians, I need those in the Congo, those in Haiti, those in Ukraine. I need American children on both sides of the tracks to be OK. Because we are all God’s children.”

The speakers, including (Barack Obama), touched on various topics, but as Lorraine Ali in Los Angeles Times observed,

“But little was said about Gaza or Israel, and the silence spoke volumes. Let’s talk about everything but that war.”

When hawkish Harris opened her mouth she roared about defending the security of the most powerful and technologically advanced country, Israel, against the broken Palestinians.

“With respect to the war in Gaza, President Biden and I are working around the clock because now is the time to get a hostage deal and cease-fire done.

“Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on Oct. 7.

“Including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival. At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again.

“The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war such that – Israel is secure – the hostages are released – the suffering in Gaza ends – and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity.”

Hamas of the Israeli occupied Gaza is a “terrorist organization” but there is no mention of who caused the loss of “so many innocent lives” or who is making “desperate, hungry people” flee for “safety, over and over again.”
No mention of Israel. This, from one who is the would-be next President of the US.

She said she and Biden are “working around the clock.” The clock must be out of order. The war will only stop when the US decides to halt its support.

Back in July, Netanyahu addressed the US Congress. Many Democrats abstained, Harris included. But then the very next day, she met Netanyahu in private. Her facial expressions didn’t show she was angry in any manner. Now look at Obama’s picture with Netanyahu where Obama’s displeasure is visible. Netanyahu was trying to undermine Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

The statement by Harris after her meeting with Netanyahu was the same diplomatic bullshit. [3]

The conventions are basically a feel good exercise to create excitement and hope among supporters and to denigrate and make fun of the opposition. The Democrats did exactly that; made fun of former president and the current Republican Party presidential candidate, Donald Trump and frightened, rightly so, their followers/die hard supporters with fascism replacing “democracy” if Trump gets reelected.

The Democrats, however, didn’t remind their supporters that they (the Democrats), when in power, do act in a fascist manner overseas with their wars, sanctions, embargoes, blockades, seizing money and gold belonging to countries they don’t like.

On domestic issues the Democrats and Republicans differ on certain issues but both support capitalism and get plenty of money from the corporations. The hands of both parties are drenched with blood of foreigners, including children and women. Even within the US, the Democrats are cruel with many segments of the society. Republicans are openly cruel.

Notes

[1] After every Israeli deadly crime, the usual statement, actually a warning, from its major supporter, the United States, is,

“We are engaged in intense diplomacy pretty much around the clock, with a very simple message: All parties must refrain from escalation.”

That is, Israel’s murderous act should remain unpunished or else we’ll jump in to defend Israel. The above warning was for Iran to refrain from any retaliation against Israel which had assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had also ordered killing of Lebanese militia group Hezbollah’s commander Fuad Shukr.

[2] The Democratic leadership was using one of their presidents’ tactic by inviting AOC to speak and thus mainstreaming her but also blunting her voice. President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 – 1973) said the following about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

“It’s probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

[3] A couple of paragraphs from Harris’ statement;

“I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.  And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.

“What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating — the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time.  We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies.  We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering.  And I will not be silent.”

Lip service completed, let the one-sided hostilities continue …

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.

Democracy can be considered a commodity with multitude of varieties. Each elite ruling class claims theirs is the best suitable for its people, and thus imposes it on them. Mind you, not pure democracy — government of the people, by the people, for the people” — because that would amount to nothing less than socialism. The “democracy” that countries profess to practice is nothing but an interpretation of the ruling class in those countries with the aim to control its general populace.

India has Modi-cracy where one man, Narendra Modi, is running the show. A year ago, he boasted: “India is the mother of democracy.” If India is the mother of democracy, then Modi must be the illegitimate father of democracy who was till last month busy Hindu-izing the country. (He did not get a simple majority in the June 2024 elections, so his Hindu-ization project has slowed down, but it remains doubtful he’ll give up so easily. He could instigate a war with Pakistan, declare an emergency, and assume extraordinaire power. Never underestimate the power of elected fascists.)

England has monacracy and the taxpayers bear the burden of monarchy which can’t be called a true democracy.

The United States has oligacracy where a small group of extremely wealthy people decide the fate of more than 335 million common people in the name of democracy. Biden could fight the proxy war against Russia or support the genocide of Palestinians and nothing changes; but he loses a debate against Trump and the wealthy halt $90 million in donations.

Military Power

Then there is Pakistan’s militocracy. The military has ruled that country, directly or indirectly, for most of that nation’s existence. When the military favors a politician, that person becomes the prime minister but has to be subservient because the rein (important portfolios such as foreign policy, defense, etc.) is always determined by the military. When the premier tries to control the entire government machinery, that person is deposed and could be sent to prison. Politicians are at the army’s mercy.

The Pakistan military and governments constantly plead and beg the IMF, Saudi rulers, and UAE rulers for a billion dollars or more.

The military torpedoed Nawaz Sharis’s past efforts to improve relations with India. But it now wants better relations. The increase in trade with India can help Pakistan to overcome its dire economic and financial condition.

The 2018 election saw cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party become the Prime Minister, with the military’s blessing . But when Khan tried to do things his own way, a vote of no-confidence was engineered and Khan was ousted in 2022. At present, he’s in jail with over 100 cases registered against him. Even when a case is dismissed, police or some agency person issues another arrest warrant and he gets re-arrested. Khan, his wife Bushra Bibi, and some PTI members are entangled in this vicious cycle.

After more than a year in various prisons all over Pakistan, Sanam Javed of PTI was released on July 10, 2024 by the Lahore High Court (in Punjab province) but soon after the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested her and took her to Islamabad. On July 14, she was let go but was re-arrested by the police of Balochistan. She was freed on July 15 by the Islamabad High Court which restrained police from arresting her till July 18. The IHC justice asked her to “avoid unnecessary rhetoric” or else the court would reverse its order. In other words, keep your mouth shut. Her lawyer guaranteed that she would refrain from such language. On June 18, the IHC considered her arrest to be illegal and she was set free. Immediately, the Punjab government challenged IHC verdict.

While in power, Khan had visited Russia the day it had launched the special military operation into Ukraine. Khan was also critical of the US. The US is never too busy not to interfere in other countries’ affairs. David Lu, the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, asked Pakistan’s then ambassador to the US, Asad Majeed, to get rid of Khan.

The army’s open hostility and its tactics to break up Khan’s party PTI by levying various charges and arresting and re-arresting PTI members, including Khan, saw Khan’s supporters out on the streets on May 9, 2023; they did some damage to military installations. The army in response, came up with an event called Youm-e-Takreem Shuhada-e-Pakistan or Martyrs’ Reverence Day to be celebrated on May 25 every year to remember the soldiers who lose their lives while serving.

Seven and a half months after Khan was ousted, in November 2022, the retiring army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa conceded the army’s meddling in politics.

“… our army which day and night remains busy in serving the nation, is often made the subject of criticism.” “A major reason for this is the army’s interference in politics for the last 70 years which is unconstitutional.

“This is why in February last year [2021] the army, after great deliberation, decided that it would never interfere in any political matter. I assure you we are strictly adamant on this and will remain so.”

One wonders why leaders accept their lies and mistakes, or talk peace and the danger of military-industrial complex, etc only when they’re leaving or have left. Bajwa was lying.

Today, the army is still omnipresent. The current army Chief Asim Munir meets with the business community, invites winning athletes, issues regular statements, and so on. The current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) took over power after military approval. His older brother and former three-incomplete-term prime minister Nawaz Sharif came back from exile with military’s approval.

Disappearing Critics

The intelligence agencies in Pakistan such as MI (Military Intelligence), IB (Intelligence Bureau), ISI (Inter Services Intelligence), etc. take care of the critics — journalists and common people — who write, speak, or protest against the military interference in government affairs.

Sometimes they are abducted, tortured, and then released. Other times they are killed with no clues left.

In 2011, the Islamabad Bureau Chief of Asia Times, Syed Saleem Shahzad was tortured and murdered. News anchor and journalist Arshad Sharif, a critic of military, was shot dead in 2022, by police in Nairobi, Kenya. In May 2024, four journalists were murdered. Since 1992, more than 60 journalists have lost their lives. Then there are those who have disappeared and never reappeared. In many instances, the victims are harassed and blackmailed, their phones are tapped, and they are detained illegally. The agencies never issue any kind of statement because that would be tantamount to accepting guilt.

Thousands of people are missing in Pakistan, without any clue as to where they are. The number of enforced disappearances in 2023 was 51.

Then there is the Pakistani province of Balochistan — a vast land mass with the smallest population that is underdeveloped and ignored by governments. This has caused resentment among the Balochis that has resulted in insurgency. The first six months of 2024 saw 197 persons missing — most of them Balochis. On July 28, three persons died and eight were injured during a clash between Balochistan Yakjehti Committee (BYC) and security forces. People from the province overcame roadblocks set up by the authorities and met at Gwader’s Marine Drive for the Baloch Rajee Muchi (Baloch National Gathering). BYC leader Dr Mahrang Baloch asked security officials to free the apprehended protestors. She proclaimed:

“Until the release of our people, the sit-in will continue at Marine Drive.”

More than 5,000 Balochis are missing. Families of missing and/or killed Balochis demonstrate holding photos of victims every now and then but to no avail. In protests, Baloch women are in the forefront. They live in a tortured state of mind not knowing whether their sons, husbands, fathers are alive or not. In January 2024, Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, got mad at Baloch protestors and called supporters and “relatives of those fighting against the state” as “advocates of terrorists in Balochistan.” Kakar himself hails from Balochistan.

On the night of May 14, 2024, the Kashmiri poet, journalist Ahmed Farhad Shah was kidnapped by four men outside his home while returning from a dinner. A petition from his family was filed with Islamabad High Court (IHC) saying that Shah was abducted for his criticism of ISI. According to his wife, Syeda Urooj Zainab, the agencies felt that Shah was a PTI and Imran Khan supporter, so they were after him. Zainab refutes that impression and says he has also supported PML-N when it was under pressure by the Pakistan’s military. One of the judges at IHC, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, initiated an enquiry and ordered that Shah be found and produced before the court. Two weeks later, it was reported that he was in police custody. But then the federal government asked the IHC on June 1 to close the case. On June 4, his bail was rejected by an anti-terrorism court in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Critics are treated as terrorists! Since then, there has been no news on Shah, it is doubtful if they’ve found him.

The Advocate Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, a Baloch, who is Shah’s counsel, has herself been harassed, threatened, arrested, re-arrested, for calling the Pakistan army “terrorists” and for supporting the protesting Baloch students.

Ahmed Farhad Shah is a poet whose poems are critical of the army. Here is the translation of one of his poems originally written in Hindi/Urdu.

he thinks of his own freewill

he thinks of his own freewill, pick him up
he’s somewhat different than our henchmen, pick him up
the arrogant ones we abducted before him, pick him up
he’s is enquiring about them, pick him up
he was clearly ordered what to speak and what not to, but he speaks his own mind, pick him up
the minions whom we honored with positions and rewards, he’s laughing at those clever souls, pick him up
he questions why there’s peace and security problem, he is the peace and security problem, pick him up*
he was told to see only what we show him, but he uses his own discretion, pick him up
this lunatic is questioning extent of our power, he has crossed the line, pick him up

* Farhad reminds his audience that just for raising the question of peace and security, fifty people were imprisoned.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by B.R. Gowani.