Hamza Alvi (10 April 1921 – 1 December 2003) was a Pakistani

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

academic sociologist and activist.

Biography

Alavi was born in the Bohra community in

Karachi Karachi is the capital city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Sindh, Pakistan. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, largest city in Pakistan and 12th List of largest cities, largest in the world, with a popul ...

, then in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

(the area is now in

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

) and migrated in adulthood to the UK. The focus of his academic work was nationality, gender, fundamentalism and the

peasantry A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...

. His most noted work was perhaps his 1965 essay ''Peasant And Revolution'' in the ''

Socialist Register The ''Socialist Register'' is an annual socialist publication. It was founded in 1964 by Ralph Miliband and John Saville. They had criticisms of the ''New Left Review'' (''NLR'') after Perry Anderson became editor of the ''NLR'' in 1962. Miliband ...

'' which stressed the militant role of the middle peasantry. These middle peasants were then viewed as the class in the rural areas which were most naturally the allies of the urban working class. In the 1960s he was one of the co-founders of the

Campaign Against Racial Discrimination The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasted until 1967, that lobbied for race relations legislation. The group's formation was inspired by a visit by Martin Luther King Jr. to Lond ...

. He believed that a “salary-dependent class of Muslim government servants, called the ‘salariat’ led the movement of an independent state for Muslims in the subcontinent as they saw a decrease in their share of jobs in pre-partition India. which finally resulted in the creation of Pakistan. He used the concept of "Colonial Mode of Production" in Indian agriculture, which is different from feudal and capitalist mode.

Selected publications

His publications include: * Jagirdari or Samraaj, fiction house Lhr (Urdu) * Takhleq-e-Pakistan, Fiction House Lhr (Urdu) * Pakistan Ek Riasat ka Bohraan, Fiction House Lhr (Urdu) * Alavi, Hamza (1965) Peasant and Revolution, ''Socialist Register'', pp. 241–77 * Alvi, Hamza & Shanin, Teodor (1982) Introduction to the Sociology of "Developing Societies", Monthly Review PressR S Pannu (1985) Review of Introduction to the Sociology of 'Developing Societies' by Hamza Alavi; Teodor Shanin, ''Third World Quarterly'', Jan., vol. 7, no. 1, p. 162-164 * Alavi, H. (1982). Capitalism and colonial production. London: Croom Helm. * Alvi, H., & Harriss, J. (1989). South Asia. New York: Monthly Review Press. * Alvi, H., & Harriss, J. (1989). Sociology of 'developing societies': South Asia. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education. * Halliday, Fred & Alavi, Hamza (1988) State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan, Monthly Review Press

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alvi, Hamza British sociologists Development specialists 1921 births 2003 deaths Dawoodi Bohras Muhajir people Pakistani Ismailis Pakistani social scientists British writers of Pakistani descent Pakistani sociologists Pakistani Marxists Pakistani emigrants to the United Kingdom English-language writers from Pakistan Pakistani people of Gujarati descent