Whither the Islamic Welfare State? on June 1, 2019On the 18th of August, 2018, Imran Khan took the oath of office and promised to give the nation just about every good thing that it could imagine. The wish list included the construction of five million new homes within his first 100 days, discovering new tourist destinations, swiftly recovering $200 billion of looted wealth […]
Can Pakistan become an Asian tiger? on May 28, 2019In the early 1960s, Pakistan was poised to become an Asian tiger. It was in the “take-off stage.” Why did rocket fizzle out on the launch pad? The 1965 war with India was one factor. The increasingly unequal distribution of wealth and the rise of the 22 families was another. In the ensuing economic upheaval, […]
Exploring The Big Sky country of Montana on May 25, 2019My destination was Bozeman in the state of Montana which lies in northwestern United States. As I boarded the Embraer 175, I noticed that there was something odd about the shoes that some passengers were wearing. Their soles had treads on the name, the kind that you see on the tires of four-wheel drive vehicles. […]
The costs and benefits of being a praetorian state on May 21, 2019Since its inception in 1947, Pakistan has been in a state of war with India. The two countries have fought two major wars and two minor wars over Kashmir. The wars have hardly moved the ceasefire line from that approved when a UN-approved ceasefire took hold in January 1949. In 1971, Pakistan fought a bigger […]
How the oligarchs seized the reins of power on May 7, 2019Since the departure of its founders early in its history, the oligarchs have been running the show in Pakistan. Initially it was the civil servants. Then came the feudal lords. And eventually the generals. Over time, the weight shifted away from the civil servants and the feudal lords to the generals. They called the shots, […]
To the sea — a memoir from Point Reyes on May 6, 2019Point Reyes Seashore lies just an hour north of San Francisco. During the past four decades, I must have visited it half a dozen times. Every time I go there I encounter something different. Sometimes the fog is heavy, sometimes the wind cuts through your clothing and sometimes the weather is perfect. On one of […]
Why Pakistan became a praetorian state on April 30, 2019Marvin Ott poses a provocative question in his recent article, “The price of strategic folly,” Despite the difficulties that attended its birth, could Pakistan have become a prosperous and secular democracy? That question has occupied historians for decades. A consensus has yet to emerge. Amazingly, back in April 1946 when the Cabinet Mission was holding […]
A memoir of British Columbia on April 29, 2019We boarded the ferry from Seattle, Washington to Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. What was going to be a three-hour ride turned into a five-hour ordeal because the seas were rough and the captain had to take an alternative route that went past a number of islands, including San Juan Island. We managed to arrive […]
It’s time to bury the hatchet on April 12, 2019After the recent skirmish with India over Kashmir, Imran Khan did the right thing by returning the Indian fighter pilot. In his recent meeting with the press, which was cited in the New York Times, he said that there was no place for armed militants in Pakistan. And then he went on to make the […]
How Shakespeare became Shakespeare on April 11, 2019It has been said that much of English literature grows out of the writings of William Shakespeare. Tomes have been written about him. So what should one expect from yet another book about William Shakespeare? Harvard’s Stephen Greenbelt takes on a less explored topic. How could a man who grew up in a small town, […]