Last week a video clip of a morning show hosted by one Maya Khan on a local TV channel began doing the rounds. The clip shows Ms. Khan with a posse of assorted thirty-something women and a cameraman raiding a famous public park of Karachi and prowling the lush vicinity looking for young unmarried couples. [...]
Pakistan, we are told, is a deeply polarised nation. But sometimes I feel what especially the ‘establishment’ means by polarisation is the presence of the rich ethnic, religious and sectarian diversity the country has. These different people on most occasions have simply refused to come under the all-encompassing umbrella of ideological unity the country’s establishment, [...]
Many years ago, when Swat was still green and free from bushy warlords, I knew a middle-aged man there who was also a tracking guide. His name was Atique Ali Khan and I remember every time I used to ask him about how his two children were doing at school, he had this habit of [...]
The Pakistan army as an institution is a curious creature. A self-absorbed bulky white elephant, it can suddenly transform into becoming a raging bull in a china shop every time it feels the vast political and economic space it needs to move around in is being shrunken with the help of fences and boundary walls. [...]
It’s back. That vague, all-encompassing term, ‘Islamic Welfare State’. Imran Khan has been advocating it loudly in his recent speeches; but so have been the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI), Jamat-i-Islami (JI) and the like. During his party’s impressive rally in Karachi, Khan equated his concept of such a state with the celebrated welfare states of Scandinavian [...]
Every time he used to see a religious inscription painted or plastered across the back of a vehicle, a friend of mine used to say that the owner of the vehicle had doubts about his faith. “Alhamdulillah, I am a Muslim and a Pakistani.” How often does one come across statements such as this? But [...]
So much is said and written about Islamophobia. It’s a tendency found in some non-Muslims, especially in the West, who question and discriminate against ‘Muslim attire’ and beliefs. But those who speak the loudest against Islamophobia have very little to say about a social illness that is haunting their own societies: religiomania. I would like to [...]
Two of the most common comments I receive through emails are: ‘If only Pakistan imposes a true Islamic system, we’ll be able to get rid of the hypocrisies committed in its name.’ Of course, such suggestions are proposed by fellow Pakistanis. The other comment is usually from readers in India or the West. It’s a [...]
In the last thirty years or so, the Urdu word ‘jiyala’ has come down to become an iconic term in the realm of Pakistan’s populist politics. Almost entirely associated (in this context) with diehard supporters and members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), it is used both as a term of endearment as well as [...]
When on December 18 leaders from more than a dozen radical religious parties, certain down-and-out politicians, one very verbose former ISI chief and the son of a bygone and dead dictator graced the ‘Defend Pakistan’ rally organised by the controversial Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), I wondered, was the military touched by this gesture? Were the military’s top [...]
