I mooted the idea of creating the Ishq Karo Party ( hereinafter referred to as IKP ) to my friend Irfan Ali, who has been in USA for about 20 years, and lives and works in Princeton, New Jersey.
Irfan was impressed by the idea, and immediately created a website, and an instagram and facebook account , and an email id ishqkaroparty@gmail.com for it.
When I tweeted about it, many people thought it was only a joke, a kind of Valentine’s Day invitation to boys and girls for promoting romance between them. But that is a total misconception.
In fact it is a very serious endeavour to deal with the huge problems facing India.
By ‘ishq’ ( love ) is meant by IKP not love between men and women, but love for our country India, and the people living in it. whatever be their religion, caste, language, or race, and an appeal to them to unite, forgetting their differences.
Today India has massive poverty, massive unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition ( every second child in India is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index, and the situation has become worse in recent years ), almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for our masses, skyrocketing prices of essential commodities, caste and communal hostility, etc.
We can never solve these huge problems unless there is unity among our people. However, the sad truth is that we are today divided on caste, communal, lingual and racial lines, which is promoted by our selfish politicians, who only seek power and pelf, and do not genuinely care for the people’s welfare.
The aim of the IKP is to combat this evil, and promote unity of our people. We must have love ( ishq ) for all our people, irrespective of caste, religion, race etc. Only then can we wage a mighty people’s struggle ( jan sangharsh ) led by modern minded leaders, for the emancipation of our people from their terrible plight.
The word ‘ishq’ occurs frequently in Urdu poetry, and is often misunderstood as physical love and attraction between a man and a woman. But that is not its real connotation or purport. Urdu poetry has a heavy sufi influence, and among sufis the word ishq really connotes love not for a woman but for God (ishq-e-haqiqi).
Thus, the word ishq in Urdu poetry really means a passion for an ideal, a noble principle, for which one is prepared to selflessly give up all comforts, and even his life.
Ghalib writes :
“Ishq par zor nahi hai yeh woh aatish Ghalib
Ki lagaaye na lage aur bujhaaye na bane”
Here again, the word ‘ishq’ must not be understood as mere physical attraction between man and woman. It means an intense obsession or infatuation, which cannot be rationally explained, and which consumes a person like fire.
Two of the most important intellectual creators of modern Europe were the great thinkers and writers, Voltaire and Rousseau ( both Frenchmen ). While Voltaire emphasised reason, Rousseau said that without passion and emotion mere reason makes one a selfish calculating being, who will do nothing for the welfare of the country or for others, but will only think and care for his own and his family’s comfort.
All great revolutionaries had ishq in this sense i.e. a selfless passion for serving one’s country even at the risk of losing all one has, even his life.
In America, George Washington was a very rich landowner, but when he was called upon to create and lead the Continental army in the American War of Independence ( 1775-81 ) against the British rulers, he accepted, though he was taking the risk of being hanged if the British had caught him.
The Britishers like Cromwell who fought for liberty and against the absolutism of King Charles I in the 17th century, the great French leaders in the French Revolution of 1789, Robespierre and Marat, and the Russian leader Lenin, all had the fire of ishq in them, that is, an intense passion for serving their countries selflessly.
In our own country great fighters against British rule like Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen, Chandrashekhar Azad, Bismil, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Ashfaqulla, Khudiram Bose etc gave their lives for their ishq, and ‘sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai’ became the battle anthem of the Indian freedom struggle.
Today when our country is facing huge challenges, social, economic and political, with massive poverty, unemployment, child malnutrition, and almost total lack of proper healthcare and good education for our masses. Geenuine patriots with the passion of ishq for the country are sorely required among a large number of our people to begin a mighty people’s struggle ( jan sangharsh ) led by modern minded secular leaders, which will culminate in a people’s revolution ( jan kranti ), which alone can alleviate our people’s plight.
In this struggle, unity of our people is absolutely essential if we are to have success. Taking advantage of our tremendous diversity, our enemies, internal and external, always seek to divide us, as our British rulers did, on the basis of caste, religion, language, or race. We must therefore expose such anti-national elements, such as most of our present political leaders, who try to polarize society and incite caste, religious, lingual, and racial hatred among us, for vote banks, and must safeguard and maintain our unity.
The real transformation of India can only begin after this heroic people’s struggle, led by patriotic, modern-minded leaders is over, and an alternative political order is created under which India rapidly industrializes, and the standard of living of our people is steadily raised.
It is high time now that the genuine patriots who wish to contribute in this historical endeavor get organized, so as to become more effective.
IKP intends to organize our patriots, who will then guide the Indian people in this noble cause, and that is its objective.
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