Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia on January 16, 2019The following is a summary of the main ideas of my recently published book entitled Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia: an Intellectual History. The book was published by De Gruyter publishers in Berlin in October 2018 but it has not arrived in Pakistan in large numbers so the following summary will enable potential readers […]
Obituary: Mushirul Hasan on January 2, 2019It was a nice winter day in Delhi when I and my wife visited Jamia Millia Islamia in January 2008. My publishers in India, Orient Longmans (now Orient Blackswan), had published the revised edition of my book Language, Ideology and Power: Language-learning among the Muslims of Pakistan and North India first published by the Oxford […]
Censoring Manto on December 20, 2018About two days ago the Federal Censor Board of Pakistan did not allow the release of Nandita Das’s film ‘Manto’ in Pakistan on the grounds that it ‘has anti-Partition narrative theme and explicit scenes which is against the norms of Pakistani society’. The film has, however, been released on Netflix and the Minister of Information […]
Professors, teachers and academics on December 9, 2018In Pakistan and India the English language is used differently from those whose first language is English. This is a common phenomenon observed all over the world. In Singapore, Malaysia, Africa and other places there are different ways of using the English language. The pronunciation and use of words is different though competent users of […]
Parliamentary language on November 26, 2018The British parliament is the mother of all parliaments. Over the last nearly three hundred years of its present incarnation, it has evolved a set of expressions which are considered parliamentary. There are over a hundred — one cannot be precise but the figure of 107 is given by some — things you cannot say. […]
The postponed writ on November 8, 2018When the Supreme Court of Pakistan gave its judgment in the Asia Bibi case I thought the postponed writ might limp back to take its place in the hierarchy of the writs of states. When the Prime Minister of Pakistan gave his speech promising to uphold that writ, I thought there was finally a silver […]
Assault on dignity on October 24, 2018Recently there was much criticism of the sorry spectacle of academics in handcuffs. This was precipitated by the arrest of the former vice chancellor of the Punjab University, Dr Mujahid Kamran, by NAB for having made illegal appointments etc. However, this is not the first time we have seen assaults on the dignity of citizens […]
Robbing children of childhood on October 11, 2018On Saturday, September29, a moving article by Ayesha Nasir appeared in the Daily Times. The author began with the case of Ahmed Shujaan, a highly successful former Aitchisonian who had just graduated from Harvard University. Apparently the young man — he was only twenty-four — just died in his sleep. This article, however, is not […]
Universities must be independent on September 27, 2018With the coming of the new government there is much talk about ‘Naya Pakistan’. The question concerning academics is whether this new way of doing things will extend to the country’s universities or not. To understand how universities can improve for the better, we should understand the nature of the institution called the university. There […]
Evaluating Indus Water Treaty II on May 2, 2017Indus Water Treaty: Political and Legal DimensionsAuthor: Ijaz HussainPublishers: Oxford University Press, 2017 KarachiPrice: Pak Rs 2,595Pgs: 563 The fourth major water dispute between Pakistan and India is about the Kishenganga (called Neelam in Pakistan) Hydroelectric Project. India is building it on a major tributary of the Jhelum River in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2009, […]