Intellectuals and Leader: Two Need To Work in Tandem

Z. G. Muhammad

Some days back, on a morning walk I had a chance meeting with a schoolmate,
now retired college professor- a downtown boy and traditionally a votary of
sentiment. Like many others with their conscience not pawned to the power that
be, brimming with anguish, he was feeling deeply concerned about the prevailing
situation. His face indexed that his heart was bleeding for the killing of ninety-one
children and teenagers, blinding of seven hundred of them with lead shots, the
wounding of about fifteen thousand children, men and women and detaining ten

thousand people in 100 days.

Generating personal catharsis by releasing his anger about the macabre situation
that to him seemed irretrievable he complained why intellectuals are shy of
working in tandem with the leaders for delivering people out of the morass of the
political uncertainty. Picking up a trite sentence, he said that our movement
suffered during past seventy years because of lack of intellectual input.
Historically, our intellectuals failed to rise to the occasion whenever leaders
needed suggestions and course correction to steer the movement in the right
direction.
The schoolmate perhaps, for my writing weekly columns and analytic pieces in
newspapers or participating in some seminars and conferences mistook me also as
an intellectual. He wanted to see people in my tribe to sit on the rudder to direct
the movement for carrying out course corrections as and when needed. I for one
believe columnists and commentators who opine on economic, political and social
issues according to their understanding and analysts are primarily critics who try to
critically evaluate an economic issue or a political development from their point of
view for the general public. I have my doubts if columnists and political analyst
by any stretch of the imagination could be called as public intellectuals. Equally, I
doubt if they are competent enough to sit on the keel to give direction to political
movements. Moreover, I doubt if intellectuals are people with better judgment
than leaders to know if a political struggle is off of its trajectory and determine its
course vector.
In a world of internet and social media, public intellectuals are redefined. Many
contemporary scholars see public intellectual as an extinct species. But, there are
a couple of others like Daniel W. Drezner who in todays world see public
intellectuals as free floating generalists that write on any subject. By this
definition friend in my fraternity also could be called as public intellectuals. This
much contested sweeping definition of an intellectual besides columnists and
analysts could also apply to bloggers and writers on social media. Nonetheless,
this sweeping definition is bound to stumble if people in the tribe of columnists,
writers and analysts do not understand that it is their responsibility to speak to
powers the truth and expose the lies and realize as Edward Said says, an
intellectuals mission in life is to advance human freedom and knowledge. And the
role of an intellectual is to challenge and defeat both an imposed silence and the
normalized quiet of unseen power, wherever and whenever possible. He is
someone who visibly represents a standpoint of some kind and articulates the same
without barriers. He is neither a pacifier nor a consensus- builder but someone
who is staked on a critical sense of being unwilling to accept easy formulas or
ready-made clichs or smooth, ever- so -accommodating confirmation of what
powerful have to say and do.
In our society, there are many who far refusing to bow before the mighty, raising
voice against injustice and protesting the denial of the fundamental right to the
people could be in broader sense rightfully counted as the intellectuals. Coming to
the concern of my schoolmate that because of lack of intellectual inputs our
struggle has so far got delayed is not justified. In the political struggles intellectual
contributions are supplementary and they work as a catalyst for furthering the
cause, but fundamentally it is the clarity of mind and indomitable will of the
leadership that is paramount for enabling nations to achieve their freedom and
political goals. Stanley Wolpert had rightly said about M. A. Jinnah, Hailed as
Quaid-i-Azam of Pakistan and Governor-General Jinnah virtually conjured that
country into statehood by the force of his indomitable will. Same holds true about
Ahmed Ben Bella, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and many
others who succeeded in defeating the mighty colonizers and ending apartheid in

their country.
True, histories of freedom struggles of nations like Algeria and Vietnam without a
mention about the role played by intellectuals are incomplete. In the mobilizing,
the public opinion in France for granting independence to Algeria beside Jean-Paul
Charles Aymard Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and many other intellectuals were on
the forefront. It was because of mobilization of the public opinion in France and
internationally by these intellectuals that Charles de Gaulle finally held a
referendum in Algeria that led to the freedom of Algeria. Perhaps the conscience
French intellectuals conscience would not have been shaken so aggressively but
for the role played by lawyer Gisle Halimi, in highlighting the torture of Djamila
Boupacha by French soldiers. It was her zealous campaign against shameful
human rights violations that prompted support of prominent artists and writers of
France such as Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Henri Alleg, Andr Philip, and Pablo
Picasso. So holds true about Vietnam. It was strong words of Jane Fonda; a New
York-born film actress broadcast over Radio Hanoi to American Servicemen
involved in Vietnam War that worked as a catalyst in the mobilizing intelligentsia
and public opinion in America against the war. In her broadcast, she had said,
One thing that I have learned beyond the shadow of a doubt since I have been in
this country is that Nixon will never be able to break the spirit of these people; he
will never be able to turn Vietnam into a neo-colony of the United States by
bombing. After that, we see American writers and poets camping outside the
White House demanding the withdrawal of the army from Vietnam. And
ultimately Nixon bows down before the public pressure and withdraws from
Vietnam.
Sitting on keel for directing to political movements, in my opinion, is work of
leaders. It will be disastrous if intellectuals in Kashmir start thinking to don as
leaders for leading the peoples struggle. The job of public intellectuals in
Kashmir to my understanding is to tell people in India and rest of the world
candidly the whole truth. Instead of self-flogging, which has a negative impact on
the struggling people, their job should consolidate the gains of the struggle in

mobilizing the public opinion in India and outside. It is a hard

reality that 2008- 2010 uprisings had stirred minds of some Indian intellectuals and
people like Swaminathan Ayer and Arundhati Roy had moved an extra mile in
supporting the people of Kashmir. Equally, these uprising had generated a lot of
international public opinion. But, our intellectuals failed to reach out to
intelligentsia in New Delhi and the world for consolidating the public opinion and
converting it into a movement as powerful as Sartre and de Beauvoir had been able
to do.
First Published in Greater Kashmir on 24-10-2016