Lessons from Pulwama on March 9, 2019Six months ago, when over two decades of continuous struggle in a system seeped in dynastic politics, Imran Khan finally came to power, there were gasps of apprehension from all corners. The range of skepticssceptics was long and rich –senior political analysts and pundits, influential bureaucrats, career anchors and journalists, and so on. But their […]
India — the greatest story ever told on February 25, 2019Just minutes after the Pulwama attack, India was at it again – baying for blood. It’s the same tale of chest-thumping, threats, and vitriol – nothing new here. “We will give a befitting reply; our neighbor will not be allowed to destabilise us,” roared Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi in the aftermath of the Pulwama […]
Pakistan’s SWOT analysis on February 15, 2019Let’s start with the strengths. There is a new government under a new administration. As always, there are supporters and detractors, as there should be in a healthy democracy, but between change and the status quo, change is always preferred, especially if the status quo is problematic and the country is Pakistan. Six months in […]
Our blindfolded youth on January 30, 2019Imagine a young boy, in his early teens, who lives in a ghetto of a big city. Every day he goes to a run-down government school where he is asked, often by an uninspiring underpaid teacher, to learn everything by rote. On exam day, this poor soul is expected to reproduce, verbatim, all the Urdu […]
A message to Pakistani liberals on January 29, 2019I commend your spirit of introspection. Self-criticism is the primary instrument of course-correction for a society, especially a society as large and as troubled as ours. It is commendable when you roll up your sleeves, say every anniversary of the 1965 or ’71 – wars we fought with India – and point to our follies […]
What would Pakistan’s mission statement be? on January 19, 2019Every institution/collective requires a mission statement, a message which communicates the said entity’s animating ethos and purpose. One must ask, therefore, what is Pakistan’s mission statement? Pakistan was created in the name of Islam, but to this day, debate rages on the viability of a project where one’s religion becomes the criteria of citizenship, indeed […]
Letter to Atif Mian on September 17, 2018I am sorry Atif Mian. We didn’t deserve you. Just like we didn’t deserve Abdus Salam, our only Nobel Prize winner in the sciences. It is true our flag is white and green, because some men some time ago thought that the white would represent all minorities just as much as the green meant liberation […]
Elections — vote for change on July 24, 2018It feels good when something negative is said or done to an enemy. We’ve all had that feeling when one’s anger is satiated, or worldview confirmed; delighting in the warm after-glow of our egoistic triumph. Our brains are wired for confirmation bias: constructing narratives which align perfectly with our preconceptions. Like impressive curators of information, […]
Truth and modernism on May 5, 2018One of the significant shifts of our time is towards social liberalism and humanism. Liberalism is premised on the principle of unregulated individual discretion, so long as there is consent and no threat of harm to anyone else. Humanism is the primacy attached to the human agency; the belief that humans can, in and of […]