The Rohingya genocide: an appeal to Imran Khan on August 30, 2018Once again, the world is witness to horrific crimes against humanity against a hapless people by a state fired by ethnic nationalism. United Nations (UN) investigators have found overwhelming and conclusive evidence of the Myanmar army carrying out raids on Rohingya villages raping women, mutilating babies, killing young and old men and women indiscriminately and […]
The Sikh heritage in Pakistan on March 9, 2018The Quest Continues: Lost Heritage — The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan Author: Amardeep Singh Publishers: Himalayan Books, New Delhi Edition: 2018 The Times of 25 December 2015 published under the title, ‘A heritage all but erased’ a review I did of Amardeep Singh’s first book, Lost Heritage; The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan. In his debut […]
A walk down familiar roads — in the wrong direction on January 31, 2018I belong to an old locality of Lahore – Mozang – where my ancestors on the paternal side have lived for as long as they could remember. In the Civil and Military Gazette of 1880, a news headline read, “A man dies of snakebite in Mozang, a village two miles from Lahore”. By the turn […]
Treading the footprints of Ava Gardner in Lahore on January 9, 2018The Goddess of Hollywood, Ava Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990), was in Lahore in 1955 to shoot for the film Bhawani Junction (1956), which had Stewart Granger as the man opposite her. She stayed at the Falettis Hotel which is inseparable from the history of British India and its many favours to […]
Muslims against the Muslim League: Critiques of the Idea of Pakistan on November 11, 2017A topic greatly under researched is finally attracting the attention of scholars: the opposition to the Muslim League, its idea of Pakistan and the partition of India that was inevitable were the idea to Pakistan materialise as a separate state for Indian Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. In this regard mention must be made of […]
Is Marxism relevant today? on September 17, 2017Karl Marx is undoubtedly one of the greatest thinkers of all times whose ideas have profoundly impacted the modern world. A prolific writer, theorist, polemicist and activist, his revolutionary theory of socialism proved to be the most telling indictment of the horrors, which the industrial society of the 19th century had generated. Addressing the workers […]
Project Lahore: telling a story pictorially on April 20, 2016I am not sure if any city on the Indian subcontinent exercises such mystique and charm as Lahore does. Its origins are shrouded in Lav, son of Lord Rama of Ayodhya, founding it. In Milton’s Paradise Lost (published 1667), Lahore and Agra are mentioned as great cities of the world. At least since the time […]
A Marxist analysis of the class structure of Pakistan on April 20, 2016Dr Taimur Rahman’s book, The Class Structure of Pakistan (Oxford University Press, 2012) is an impressive undertaking in Marxist scholarship. Through painstaking research combining a skilful discussion and elaboration of key concepts — mode of production, class, private property, and so on — with systematic treatment of vast empirical data, he sets out to shed […]
Superstorm Sandy and Gods wrath on April 19, 2016Every time death and destruction result after the ‘normal’ weather pattern is disrupted and hurricanes, typhoons and storms occur or vigorous seismic activity takes place that results in earthquakes and tsunamis, our clerics and even many professionals and intelligentsia describe them as proof of God Almighty inflicting punishment and pain on humanity gone astray. Once […]
Yash Chopra of Lahore on April 19, 2016The news of the death of the famous Bollywood filmmaker and director Yash Chopra (September 27, 1932-October 21, 2012) has been received with great sadness in Pakistan. Almost all leading Pakistani English-language newspapers paid tributes to him, and I am sure the same is true of the vernacular press. Among Lahoria film buffs, the sense […]