For and against Malala Yousafzai on April 19, 2016The world at large and particularly the majority of the people of Pakistan are holding their breath as the 14-year old Malala Yousafzai struggles for her life after suffering grievous injuries at the hands of Taliban gunmen, who on October 9, 2012, stopped her school bus, in Mingora, Swat and shot her in the head […]
Sufism and the East Punjab Dalit assertion II on April 18, 2016By probing the Sufi connections of the social and cultural world of East Punjab Dalits, Ajay Bhardwaj has opened new vistas for us in West Punjab. After 65 years of a violent partition, we catch glimpses of the other part upholding the 1,000-year old common heritage. In the second documentary, Rabba Hun Kee Kariye (English […]
Sufism and the East Punjab Dalit assertion I on April 18, 2016We have a discussion-cum-social group in Stockholm that has been meeting regularly every month since 1991. It comprises almost entirely Punjabis, mostly from Lahore but other places as well and from East Punjab. Last time we met, an excellent paper was read by Ajmal Butt on Sufism in which he assessed its overall political and […]
Ethnic politics: Baloch, Sindhi and Mohajir movements on April 17, 2016Post-colonial states are susceptible to ethnic conflict because the ‘nationalism’ that bound their disparate ethnic groups together to establish the state proves brittle after independence as they assert their specific sectional interests vis-à-vis the central government. In the case of Pakistan, its identity crisis has compounded such tensions and in the absence of an agreed […]
The legacy of Ronald Reagan on April 16, 2016On September 11, 2012, Swedish television showed a two-hour long documentary on the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan (1981-89). A number of people who knew him closely and had worked with him, including some who had written his biographies, were interviewed. To my very great surprise, I realised that he was an […]
The bloody Punjab partition VIII on April 15, 2016In February 1947, the British government announced the transfer of power to Indians by June 1948. Although the Muslim League agitation had ended on February 26 and all Muslim League detainees released, Premier Tiwana had lost heart because British rule would soon end. He therefore resigned on March 2, 1947, precipitating an acute political crisis. […]
Sufism and the East Punjab Dalit assertion I on April 15, 2016We have a discussion-cum-social group in Stockholm that has been meeting regularly every month since 1991. It comprises almost entirely Punjabis, mostly from Lahore but other places as well and from East Punjab. Last time we met, an excellent paper was read by Ajmal Butt on Sufism in which he assessed its overall political and […]
The bloody Punjab partition VII on April 14, 2016The biggest deception that Pakistani Marxists and liberals have been indulging in is that the ulema as a whole opposed the creation of Pakistan. Maududi did oppose, but he was an outsider who shifted to Pathankot, Punjab, where in 1941 he founded the Jamaat-e-Islami. It had no significant following in Punjab in 1945-46. The Deobandi […]
Punjabi should be taught in schools on April 14, 2014I am not sure if any other major cultural group in the world maintains a more convoluted relationship with its mother tongue as do Pakistani Punjabis. Pakistan is generally understood regionally and globally as a state in which the Punjabis are the most privileged ethno-cultural group. Such an observation is largely true in many ways. […]
The last of the Mohicans II on February 24, 2014Last week, we read that Allama Iqbal had instructed Colonel (retd) Amjad Hussain Syed and Hameed Nizami to meet Jinnah whenever he came to Lahore. This is what Shahji told me about his meeting with Jinnah: “In 1936, Jinnah came to Lahore in connection with a case at the Lahore High Court (LHC). We learnt […]