Should we give Imran Khan a chance? on September 3, 2018Even though the first 12 days of Naya Pakistan have been somewhat disappointing, one is willing to heed the Prime Minister’s (PM) call that judgment on the government’s performance should begin after the first three months are over. Teething problems can be overlooked. There are of course good things too and these must be mentioned […]
Changing Pakistan’s social trajectory on August 27, 2018Pakistan’s economy declining rapidly and little — if anything — is being done to curb this massive slide. Almost everyone has contributed to this in some way or the other. Despite the economy growing at a respectable rate of 5.4 percent, the structural problems are so severe that we have managed to make a complete […]
Imran Khan’s motley crew on August 20, 2018Any person who has followed the progress of Naya Pakistan this week cannot help but be disappointed by the progress so far. The parliamentary session to elect the Leader of the House was total chaos. Obviously the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) during Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s speech was designed to make things as hard […]
The bogey of Fifth Generation Hybrid War on August 13, 2018Human beings are distinguishable from other animals because of one reason — our ability to intellectualise everything, from procreation to violence. Organised violence or warfare has been one of the main preoccupations of humanity’s thinkers. We read Clausewitz and Liddelhart and think the entire world is neatly stacked into singular monolithic identities where one state […]
Can PM Khan deliver Jinnah’s Pakistan? on August 6, 2018For all his talk of a “Naya Pakistan”, our Prime Minister (PM) in waiting harked back to two old Pakistan ideas, which seem to resonate with Pakistanis on an emotional level. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chief spoke of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s Pakistan of Medina as his ideal. Obviously these two are distinct ideas. While […]
How low have we fallen? on July 30, 2018I originally wanted to write about the election results this week, but this rigged election is no longer worth writing about. Immortan’s half-life war boys and girls are welcome to their chance at ruining the country further. May they succeed in proving me wrong though I doubt it. There is much more to life than […]
Vote for the right people on July 23, 2018Two days from now, many of you will get the opportunity to exercise your right to vote. Even if it in means precious little in the end — especially after the active persecution of PML-N in Punjab and PPP in Sindh — please exercise your right to vote wisely and cautiously. Because whatever little it […]
Elections and religious minorities on July 16, 2018One of the common refrains one gets from apologists of the religious apartheid when one speaks of the denial of basic and fundamental human rights to Ahmadis in Pakistan is that if they, the Ahmadis, accept their status as non-Muslims, they would be given all their rights as Pakistanis. As if we are giving Non-Muslim […]
Jinnah’s Pakistan is finally dead on July 9, 2018Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam was a religious party closely allied with Indian National Congress during the 1930s and 1940s. While its president Mazhar Ali Azhar himself claimed to be from a Shia background in evidence before the Munir-Kayani Inquiry Committee after partition, the party by and large was a Sunni-supremacist party. In the curious political permutations of pre-partition […]
Ludicrous myths about the Pakistan Movement on July 5, 2018One of the persistent myths repeated by Barelvi Ulema in Pakistan is that they helped the Muslim League win the 1945-1946 elections in Punjab. This lie has been repeated so many times that it has come to be accepted as the truth. Unthinking and mediocre academics from around the world have jumped on the bandwagon […]