Is Jinnah really our founding father? on December 20, 2015In a few days the nation will once again pretend to pay homage to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on his birthday, which falls on Christmas Day. There will be a change of guard at his mausoleum. Politicians and functionaries of the state will go lay floral wreaths on his grave. It happens every year. Every […]
Selective freedom of speech? on December 13, 2015Last week the Punjab government and in particular the city district government of Lahore took the admirable step of curbing hate speech by taking down posters targeting the Ahmedi community that were displayed in Lahore’s Hafeez Centre. Earlier in the week, the police arrested a Punjab University professor for allegedly propagating the anti-state and anti-democracy […]
Intolerance versus legalised persecution on November 29, 2015Events in India, the Dadri lynching, cow politics and now Shiv Sena’s offer of Indian Rs 100,000 to anyone who slaps Indian Muslim actor Aamir Khan have laid bare the shocking intolerance and discrimination that is rife in the world’s largest secular democracy. No doubt, it vindicates our decision to have Pakistan in the first […]
Pakistan and its hate crimes on November 22, 2015The burning down of a factory owned by an Ahmedi family followed by the ransacking of an Ahmedi place of worship in Jhelum has once again showed how precarious the situation is for that community in Pakistan and how easily they can become victims of mob outrage and hatred, which has been cultivated slowly and […]
Iqbal Day on November 8, 2015The government’s decision not to give a day off on Allama Iqbal’s birthday has been the subject of much criticism. Some quarters have even responded to it by calling it a full frontal assault on Pakistan’s ideology. It would be interesting to investigate when Iqbal Day first became a national holiday but more importantly it […]
Negotiating a dangerous world order on November 1, 2015Now, more than ever, the world seems to be hurtling towards a third world war. The partisans of the Syrian dispute seem to be utterly incapable of coming to a compromise on how to end the civil war there and how to deal with the menace of the so-called Islamic State (IS). A Saudi prince […]
Internet access as a policy priority on October 25, 2015Last week, I was again privileged to attend the Stockholm Internet Forum in Sweden. It reinforced just how disconnected and out of touch we in Pakistan are with the monumental changes that the world of cyberspace and technology is undergoing. Having been a part of the forum for three years now, I have seen the […]
The South Asian mechanism on October 18, 2015Events this past week have confirmed the worst about South Asia. First, came the attack by Shiv Sena on Sudheendra Kulkarni, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician, for the crime of hosting Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri and organising his book launch. The week then ended with Mir Waiz Umar Farooq, a separatist Kashmiri leader, warning the […]
Indias sharp right turn? on October 11, 2015In the past two weeks, since the Dadri killing and numerous incidents of violence against ‘beef eaters’ in India, some Pakistanis have reacted with surprise at what is being called India’s sharp right turn. These Pakistanis, who believe religiously that the grass is greener on the other side, seemed to be living under the illusion […]
The bogey of Pax Iranica on October 4, 2015Husain Haqqani, whose byline always emphasises that he was Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, recently wrote an article for The Huffington Post where he sounded the alarm against what he calls the “Pax Iranica” or the Iranian Empire, playing deliberately on ancient prejudices of both the Arabs and the west. He chose to do […]