“Being a critic is easy… Criticism without a solution is merely an inflation of the critic’s ego,” so says Haemin Sunim, a Buddhist teacher and writer. Muhammad Zaman Khan, better known for his two-word name, Zaman Khan, takes both the paths. A left-wing, progressive political and peace activist and intellectual, he remains committed to his democratic and humanitarian ideals. Although a rally-regular, carrying placards and raising human rights slogans, he is always on the lookout for an alternative in his intellectual discourses. And so, his resistance does not show up without offering counter proposals. In this pursuit of construction of alternatives, he has interviewed 67 people of eminence — public figures, scholars, intellectuals and artists – for newspapers. He has put these interviews together in an anthology titled Alternative Vision: Voices of Reason to present in one bouquet a different vision of a livable society built on major principles of social justice and equity.

The book has been called “a treasury of free voices” by veteran rights campaigner and journalist IA Rehman. “Instead of taking refuge in pessimism or stepping aside in a cynic’s robe, he [Khan] discusses all human concerns with whosoever is accessible to him from within his society or the foreign celebrities he can access.” Just have a look at some of the interviewees: writers and artists including Amrita Pritam, Abdullah Husein, Afzal Ahsan Randhawa, Ibrahim Joyo, Intezar Hussain, Kishwar Naheed, Shams Ur Rehman Faruqi, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Dr Manzur Ejaz; history heavyweights and social scientists Prof Romila Thapar, KK Aziz, Hamza Alavi, Harbans Mukhia, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Jean-Luc Racine, Tatiana Oranskia, Audrey Truschke and Sucheta Mahajan; and rights, peace and political activists like Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim, Asma Jahangir, Sher Muhammad Mari, Namboodripad, Latif Afridi, Aitezaz Ahsan, Imam Ali Nazish, Gunther Rauz, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Begum Nasim Wali Khan, and Tariq Ali - each one, chipping in their bit to build an alternative vision of society founded on freedom, creativity and equity beyond the biases of gender, race, class and creed.

There are things Khan has struggled for or against his whole life. These concerns do take the shape of questions but without harming his intellectual integrity. His questions are simple, short and crisp. He is able to get his interviewees to really open up without being pushy or tricky. A civil, passionate, informative and moving conversation is what readers get here. And the answers he gets have some of the best quotable quotes. See Amrita Pritam on her idea of a complete woman: “One who is independent economically, emotionally and culturally. Freedom cannot be begged for, nor can it be seized. It cannot be put on either – it rises from the dust of the body.” On whether he is with the left or the right, Abdullah Husein says: “It is important for a writer to stand alone”. Or poet Nasreen Anjum Bhatti on the cultural milieu of Pakistan: “We are talking about a country where camels and horses can dance, but human beings cannot.”

Typos in the book show that it has not gone through a rigorous editing process. However, this compendium has great value for now and for the times to come. Some of the persons interviewed here have died but their thoughts on a remarkable array of topics will live on through this collection. It is hard for a single book to encompass the vast scope of their stimulating erudition quite like this book. It is empowering. It suggests that there is a lot that one can do to change one’s circumstances, even if things seem bleak. It comes up with revelations that some people may not like. It busts certain fallacies as well. Closely interlinked with human rights and equality, social justice is about identifying and seeking to address structural disadvantage, discrimination, and inequality. This book seeks to do that and so, this attempt makes it a must-read for anyone studying or teaching social justice. Such a wonderful, provocative, indispensable repository of ideas is quite rare.

Of course, no struggle can succeed without a constructive, alternative vision of society. And there is so much here to glean from to shape that.

Alternative Vision

Voices of Reason

Author: Zaman Khan

Publisher: Badalti Dunya

Publications

Pages: 576

The writer is a print, broadcast and online journalist associated with Jang Group of Newspapers as Editor, Special Assignments