Iqbal and Jinnahs visions and Pakistan II on March 17, 2014Carving out a separate state for Muslims in a geographical-cultural context where in every town and village plurality of religious communities was the rule rather than the exception was never going to be easy. Unlike Western Europe where one religion reigned supreme for 2000 years and minorities were persecuted as a rule, in South Asia […]
Iqbal and Jinnahs visions, and Pakistan I on March 10, 2014The extended interview with Colonel (retd) Amjad Hussain Syed has been received with great interest by readers. Shahji did not elaborate on the Iqbalite-Jinnah vision of the welfare state but I presume he believed it would be an ideal Muslim democracy. However, in my doctoral dissertation (The Concept of an Islamic State in Pakistan: An […]
The last of the Mohicans III on March 3, 2014In this concluding article on the interview with Colonel (retired) Amjad Hussain Syed, we learn some very interesting facts with regards to the movement for Pakistan. Shahji told me: “The next time I saw Quaid-e-Azam was when he came to attend the historic March 1940 session of the Muslim League. Just before his arrival, the […]
The last of the Mohicans I on February 17, 2014Colonel (retd) Amjad Hussain Syed is perhaps one of the last persons alive who bear witness to the earliest musings on the Pakistan idea. He was the first military attaché of Pakistan to Indonesia. He was conferred with the highest Indonesian Award of Bintang Dharma (star of merit) by then President Seokarno of Indonesia for […]
Pakistan: a phantasmagoria par excellence on February 10, 2014According to the online Oxford dictionary, a phantasmagoria is “A sequence of real or imaginary images like that seen in a dream.” The online Merriam-Webster dictionary proffers a range of meanings: an exhibition of optical effects and illusion, a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined, a scene that constantly changes, a fantastic […]
Centenary of Krishan Chander on February 3, 2014This year we should be celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of the great Urdu short-story writer and novelist Krishan Chander. There is some confusion about his year and place of birth: Lahore, Wazirabad and Poonch have been mentioned in different publications. However, with the help of my dear friend Satish Chopra sahib, I was able […]
THAAP: a nursery for Punjab research on December 14, 2013The annual conference of the Trust for History, Arts and Architecture of Pakistan (THAAP) was held in Lahore between December 6 and 10, 2013. The theme this year was ‘Cultural Roots of Art and Architecture of the Punjab’. The first three days consisted of paper presentations and discussions, and on the last two days the […]
The Punjab book wins another award II on December 7, 2013In my first article last Sunday on the Punjab book winning a second award, I had talked about Indian feminists Urvashi Butalia, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin establishing a new trend in partition historiography by relying on oral histories and thus taking the Punjab story to the people, making it real and human. However, their […]
The Punjab book wins another award I on November 30, 2013My book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Accounts (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012), was awarded the Best Non-Fiction Book Prize by UBL (United Bank Limited) and the Jang Group at an elaborate ceremony held at the famous Alhamra in Lahore on November 22, 2013. […]
A history of Punjab a subject long overdue II on November 23, 2013The death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1839 brought to an end 40 years of uninterrupted rule of a native Punjabi. The maharaja left behind a formidable fighting force but not a framework for succession that could provide stability and continuity. The British exploited the dissensions among the sons of Ranjit Singh and provoked war. […]