Skip to content Skip to footer

Qalandar Bux Memon

is a editor of Naked Punch Review.

19 articles published

How the Riyasat of Pakistan Rules in Balochistan.

On a late summer evening, my eyes vary from life itself; it's often the case, a cloudy malady. I was on the hunt for writers on Balochistan when I came across a blog by a journalist. It was 2013, the blog was called Terra Incognita. I read the biographical note on the blog first: Sajid…

ByQalandar Bux MemonJune 25, 20260Comments

The Prince of the Mountains: On Agha Abdul Karim and His Guerrilla Foco

The mountains, as a symbol of guerrilla resistance against the riyasat of Pakistan, have played a crucial part in the politics and life of Balochistan. “To take to the mountains” is a euphemism for starting or joining a guerrilla war. There have been at least six significant “takings to the mountains” since 1948. The first was that…

ByQalandar Bux MemonNovember 8, 20250Comments

The Genius of Bacha Khan

Most geniuses have one masterwork for which they are famous. For Che and Fidel, that work was surely the Cuban Revolution and its international humanism, just as it was for Lenin, the Russian. For CLR James, we can list "The Black Jacobins” as an extraordinary work of genius, as well as the underground Marxist group…

ByQalandar Bux MemonOctober 19, 20251Comment

Philosophy POLITICS

Reading Fanon in Pakistan

I do not have an extensive library but I students who visit my home from Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan or from FATA. Young intellectuals from these areas have long been enticing me to hand over the original books of Fanon. There are three reasons that Fanon speaks to me (as a Sindhi) and to young students from…

ByQalandar Bux MemonSeptember 1, 20250Comments

Resisting Necropolitics: The Story of the Banuks, Mama Qadeer and the Voice For Baloch Missing Persons

Necropolitics of ‘kill and dump’ of the Pakistani riyasat has been primarily resisted by subaltern working class young women, men and a few older Baloch activists such as Mama Qadeer and Mir Muhammad Ali Talpur. Just sixteen to twenty such people made the world aware of the brutality of necropolitics in Balochistan and set the…

ByQalandar Bux MemonAugust 9, 20250Comments

The Birth of Necropolitics: How the Riyasat of Pakistan Governs Balochistan

Ask any Baloch, and they will tell you: governance here means "kill and dump." They’re not wrong. In academic language, this is called necropolitics - a mode of rule that governs through the power to decide who lives and who dies. Coined by Achille Mbembe, necropolitics refers to a form of sovereignty in which the…

ByQalandar Bux MemonJune 29, 20250Comments

INTERVIEWS POLITICS

The Lawyer vs the Oligarchy: An Interview with Ehsan Ali Advocate

Below we present a composite write up of three interviews with Ehsan Ali by Qalandar Bux Memon, Haider Ali, and Sonia Qadir. The interviews took place between 2015 and 2022. Comrade Ehsan Ali is a Marxist leader from Gilgit-Baltistan and member of Inqalabi Communist Party. He is the founder of Gilgit-Baltistan Awami Action Committee and…

ByQalandar Bux MemonMay 23, 20250Comments

EHSAN ALI AND THE GILGIT-BALTISTAN WHEAT MOVEMENT

‘Gandum Subsidy Tehreek’ (Wheat Subsidy Movement) stands as thelargest protest in the history of Gilgit Baltistan region. At its height, it spanned every area and involved hundreds of thousands of people — men, women, children, Shia, Sunni, Ismaili, Noorbakshi, Balti, Burusho, Wakhi, Yasini, Puniali, Astori, Shin, Pathan, Kashgari, Gujjar, Chilasi and Dareli. In Skardu city…

ByQalandar Bux MemonMay 16, 20250Comments

ART Fiction Poetry

To Contend With The Heart In Winter (For Sushi Anarkali)

It is strange to contend with the heart in winter to carry blood so visible to each passer-by, To bleed with memories of colour, To carry to friends choked tears verses, moments and now sumptuous pain To coil reprieves and apologies, To consider eulogy but to write laments, In winter it is hard to contend…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

ART Fiction Poetry

To Contend With The Heart In Winter (For Sushi Anarkali)

It is strange to contend with the heart in winter to carry blood so visible to each passer-by, To bleed with memories of colour, To carry to friends choked tears verses, moments and now sumptuous pain To coil reprieves and apologies, To consider eulogy but to write laments, In winter it is hard to contend…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Zahid Mayo: The Painter of the Subaltern.

REVIEW OF ZAHID MAYO EXHIBITION AT SANAT GALLERY, KARACHI. (to view images: click here) I see Zahid Mayo as an artist of the subaltern. He is not their spokesperson but he senses them and is able to register that sense on canvas. This is his, almost unique, success among contemporary artists. I recall in my first visit to Zahid's studio about four…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments

Poetry POLITICS

Ode to SOAS Occupation

The Space On the 6th of October at around 7 pm sixty students entered and occupied the Brunei Suite, which is on the ground floor of the Brunei gallery of SOAS, and thus began the SOAS occupation. The Suite is a rectangle space about 18 meters by 11 with a total area of around 170 square…

ByQalandar Bux MemonFebruary 9, 20240Comments