India and Pakistan: Searching for humanity in the age of madness (part 1) on August 12, 2020My article will be in three parts. The first will be called Madness, the second Hatred and the third Hope. I will then present my conclusions. Madness: Bernard-Henri Levy, the French celebrity philosopher, has coined the phrase for the period in which we are living as the age of madness. The coronavirus, he has argued, […]
Remembering The Wali of Swat on June 24, 2020The Wali of Swat was the stuff of legend. Edward Lear wrote a nonsense rhyme about his ancestor the Akhund of Swat (“Who or why or which or what, is the Akhund of Swat?”) and the Queen of England stayed in his home. His visitors’ book reads like an International Who’s Who. He was the […]
The Battle for Pakistan on June 13, 2020“In 2008” Shuja Nawaz writes in the preface to his recently published book, The Battle for Pakistan: The Bitter US Friendship and a Tough Neighborhood, “I began working on the event that led to The Battle for Pakistan as a Pakistani citizen and ended it as an American.” It is a labor of love, but, […]
A Conversation with Shuja Nawaz on June 6, 2020In the last few years Shuja Nawaz, Distinguished Fellow and Founding Director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C, has emerged as one of the most prominent Pakistanis in Washington DC. It is a reputation built on his solid scholarship and his sober commentary especially on the relationship between the […]
A paean to humanity in South Asia Part II on May 4, 2020Another Indian student at American University, Sushmita Kamboj, provides my next example. When Sushmita joined my World of Islam class as a student several years ago, she spoke of the vast distances between Islam and Hinduism in India. Growing up in Yamunanagar, about three hours north of New Delhi, she recalled, “In school, every joke […]
A paean to humanity in South Asia Part I on May 4, 2020The controversy around Panipat, the recent Bollywood historical blockbuster about an invading Afghan warrior king, that erupted last year in India was not an isolated incident. Just as President Donald Trump had labeled immigrants coming to the US from the Latin south as rapists and murderers, Bollywood had aggressively begun to make films depicting Muslims […]
Religion in the time of the pandemic on April 17, 2020 The signs are all around The lessons before us: Something so small That we cannot see it Has brought the mightiest nations Of the world With their mighty nuclear ships and missiles To their mighty knees. Buddha was right Life is suffering So be warned And search for Nirvana Confucius wanted us To […]
The Royal VISIT on January 4, 2020In October 2019, Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, visited Pakistan and utterly charmed the nation. They wore local dress like the shalwar-kameez, spoke Urdu, and expressed their heartfelt feelings for Pakistan and Pakistanis. Neither William nor Kate are known for glamorous dressing, yet in Pakistan they discovered their sense […]
Pakistan reinterpreted (Part-II) on November 26, 2019This is why for Mr Zafar the Pakistan movement has such significance. It was the expression of a large minority that believed democracy itself would not be able to guarantee either their security or future in the united country which ignored the minority. Mr. Zafar also warns us that, “without harmony there is no democracy. […]
Pakistan reinterpreted (Part-I) on November 25, 2019At a time when Pakistan’s rivers are drying up, the rains flood the villages and the drought kills the crops, when the population seems beyond control and resources cannot match up to it, when violence and conflict stalk the land and its neighbours appear hostile, the calm, scholarly and reasonable voice of S.M. Zafar, one […]