Shahzad Chaudhry

Only a few questions may have been answered on Mehran — even that is charitable — and a lot more still remain to be answered. I do not think the whole story is yet out on either Abbottabad or on Mehran. Perhaps, in the case of Abbottabad there remains a Watergate moment awaiting a ‘deep […]

From the most preferred allies bound in a proclaimed strategic relationship, the US and Pakistan find themselves estranged and increasingly adrift. This was a relationship founded on weak fundamentals, not one of choice but of convenience. This was a need-based relationship, has always been. For the two to gradually drift apart is but natural and […]

Pakistan could have been an example of a modern nation-state. Founded in 1947, soon after the Second World War when the pre-WWII global political order underwent serious redrawing and an iconoclastic model of a nation-state instituted itself with a clarity not seen since the genesis of the idea in Westphalia, a nation like Pakistan had […]

Does it have anything to do with Karachi’s avatar? We are aware of how and when Karachi as a fishing village was first founded, and then its march with times to its present status as the only metropolis in Pakistan. But where did it go wrong? Not in its serene but playful presence as a […]

This is heretical to Pakistan’s civil society elite; or perhaps not, depending where lies their present fancy, Nawaz Sharif or Imran Khan. Choices beyond are unmentionable: the Chaudhries, a Maulana from some of the various factions that inhabit Pakistan’s political scene, or a breakaway Makhdoom from the main fold of the larger political parties. And […]

Hello, Madame Foreign Minister (FM). Welcome to the premier league of international game-makers. You are a reluctant occupant of the most difficult chair in the government today when all eyes will be on you to recover Pakistan’s image at a time when our country is almost a pariah in the international community. Madame FM, you […]

Are we at another crossroads? Is this a defining moment? Will this too pass? In adversity, is there an opportunity? Will mindsets change all around? Have we learnt a lesson? I try and seek answers to these puzzles that I brought along from my land of black moods, psychoneurosis and schizophrenia to the leafy climes […]

Is there another as fascinating thing as the spectacular free fall of Pak-US relations? None, I believe. And hence hours upon hours of airwaves are being used, in Pakistan at least, discussing the development. In the US, the print space and some important propositions before various committees of Congress keep the focus pervasive. The expected […]

Obama finally made his move and overruled his commanders. He will withdraw his forces from Afghanistan significantly and fast. By the time he is up for a re-election, the 33,000 surge that he granted his military commanders in Afghanistan, following his 2009 West Point pronouncement, is what he will take away first. As I had […]

This state has major distortions in its conception and formulation. We used religion as a means to coalesce consensus and cultivate opinion on seeking independence. The Quaid, after gaining the state, suggested keeping religion out of state matters — to the uninitiated that is patent secularism. Soon after his death, however, our equally venerable leader, […]