Raza Kazim
Born (1930-01-13) 13 January 1930
British India
NationalityPakistani

Raza Kazim (Urdu: رضا کاظِم, born 13 January 1930[1]) is a lawyer, philosopher, inventor and former politician in Pakistan.

Family

He invented a musical instrument, the Sagar Veena,[2] of which his daughter Noor Zehra is the only player in Pakistan, and through her is the grandfather of the famous pop-rock band Noori duo, Ali Noor and Ali Hamza,[3] while another daughter, Baela Raza Jamil, is one of Pakistan's leading educators, with major contributions in the field of education reform.[4] He is also the uncle of actress and model Juggan Kazim.

Politics

He began his political career with a protest in his school during the Quit India Movement, in 1942 in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh, India),[2] and joined the Communist Party of Pakistan in 1948 for some time before quitting it for ideological reasons in 1951, while he became a lawyer in 1953, and as an activist has been jailed under Ayyub Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto as well as Zia-ul-Haq, the first two for refusing to become a minister, and the third for supposedly attempting a coup d'état. He later on abandoned leftist politics and Marxism altogether, after having studied it for some two decades but ultimately writing a "50-page article on gaps in facts and reasoning in dialectical and historical materialism", and now describes himself as a "post-Marxist."[5]

Later activities

He currently devotes his time to the Sanjan Nagar Institute of Philosophy & Arts, a non-profit organization consisting of a team of fifty (now growing) full-time members working in the fields of Philosophy, Music and Photography. The Institute is currently based in Lahore.

Books and booklets

  • Notes on theoretical aspects of revolution, 1972.
  • Socialist revolution : the alternative to disaster, 1974.
  • Dictatorship of the urban left : Pakistan's road to socialism, 1974.
  • Pākistānī inqilāb aur Islām, 1976.
  • Raz̤ā Kāẓim : mushāhidāt, 1986.

References

  1. "Raza Kazim". Foresight Lab. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  2. 1 2 Nate Rabe (12 June 2016), "Interview: Meet the Lahore lawyer, philosopher and activist who also invented a musical instrument", Scroll.in. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
  3. Noori Duo’s Mother Madam Noor Zehra – The Only Sagar Veena Player In The World
  4. Xari Jalil (25 May 2011), "Baela Raza Jamil — profile of an academician", Pakistan Today. Retrieved 9 February 2009.
  5. Saroop Ijaz (28 September 2014), "Herald Exclusive: In conversation with Raza Kazim", Dawn News. Retrieved 9 February 2019.


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