Best of
Pakistan

2007

Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons


Adrian Levy - 2007
    Q. Khan and Pakistan's nuclear program, and the complicity of the United States in the spread of nuclear weaponry.On December 15, 1975, A. Q. Khan--a young Pakistani scientist working in Holland--stole top-secret blueprints for a revolutionary new process to arm a nuclear bomb. His original intention, and that of his government, was purely patriotic--to provide Pakistan a counter to India's recently unveiled nuclear device. However, as Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark chillingly relate in their masterful investigation of Khan's career over the past thirty years, over time that limited ambition mushroomed into the world's largest clandestine network engaged in selling nuclear secrets--a mercenary and illicit program managed by the Pakistani military and made possible, in large part, by aid money from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, and by indiscriminate assistance from China.Most unnerving, the authors reveal that the sales of nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya, so much in the news today, were made with the clear knowledge of the American government, for whom Pakistan has been a crucial buffer state and ally--first against the Soviet Union, now in the "war against terror." Every successive American presidency, from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, has turned a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear activity--rewriting and destroying evidence provided by its intelligence agencies, lying to Congress and the American people about Pakistan's intentions and capability, and facilitating, through shortsightedness and intent, the spread of the very weapons we vilify the "axis of evil" powers for having and fear terrorists will obtain. Deception puts our current standoffs with Iran and North Korea in a startling new perspective, and makes clear two things: that Pakistan, far from being an ally, is a rogue nation at the epicenter of world destabilization; and that the complicity of the United States has ushered in a new nuclear winter.Based on hundreds of interviews in the United States, Pakistan, India, Israel, Europe, and Southeast Asia, Deception is a masterwork of reportage and dramatic storytelling by two of the world's most resourceful investigative journalists. Urgently important, it should stimulate debate and command a reexamination of our national priorities.

Emperors Of The Peacock Throne: The Saga of the Great Moghuls


Abraham Eraly - 2007
    At Panipat, five months later, he fought the most important battle of his life and routed the mammoth army of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi, the Afghan ruler of Hindustan. Mughal rule in India had begun. It was to continue for over three centuries, shaping India for all time.In this definitive biography of the great Mughals, Abraham Eraly reclaims the right to set down history as a chronicle of flesh-and-blood people. Bringing to his task the objectivity of a scholar and the high imagination of a master storyteller, he recreates the lives of Babur, the intrepid pioneer; the dreamer Humayun; Akbar, the greatest and most enigmatic of the Mughals; the aesthetes Jehangir and Shah Jahan; and the dour and determined Aurangzeb.

History Of Pakistan: Pakistan Through Ages


Ahmad Hasan Dani - 2007
    Through this book the author takes the reader through an intellectual journey to discover the organic basis of Pakistan. Unlike conventional books of history which tend to follow chronological events, the author has chosen to take the kind of literary license of modifying the sequence, such as a novelist might use.

Diaries of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, 1966-1972


Mohammad Ayub Khan - 2007
    Ayub's diary presents his views and interpretations of the events of the period for which it was kept. The diary was discontinued when declining health preventing him from writing.In his introductory note he stated that the diary must be withheld from publicatoin for an unspecified time as his comments may contain sensitive material. Accordingly, the diary has been withheld from publication for 30 years, although it does include material that is critical of many personalities and events. Ayub also stated that the material contained in the diary might serve as the basis of a sequel to his book, Friends, not Masters.The editor has included additional notes that pertain to many of the persons and events of this turbulent time in Pakistan's history. The diary will therefore provide essential material for those studying the period, and also provide a means for those who lived through these times to understand the views of Ayub

The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories


Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar - 2007
    "India" and "Pakistan" were drawn onto maps in the midst of Partition's genocidal violence and one of the largest displacements of people in the twentieth century. Yet this historical specificity of decolonization on the very making of a nationalized cartography of modern South Asia has largely gone unexamined. In this remarkable study based on more than two years of ethnographic and archival research, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar argues that the combined interventions of the two postcolonial states were enormously important in shaping these massive displacements. She examines the long, contentious, and ambivalent process of drawing political boundaries and making distinct nation-states in the midst of this historic chaos.Zamindar crosses political and conceptual boundaries to bring together oral histories with north Indian Muslim families divided between the two cities of Delhi and Karachi with extensive archival research in previously unexamined Urdu newspapers and government records of India and Pakistan. She juxtaposes the experiences of ordinary people against the bureaucratic interventions of both postcolonial states to manage and control refugees and administer refugee property. As a result, she reveals the surprising history of the making of the western Indo-Pak border, one of the most highly surveillanced in the world, which came to be instituted in response to this refugee crisis, in order to construct national difference where it was the most blurred.In particular, Zamindar examines the "Muslim question" at the heart of Partition. From the margins and silences of national histories, she draws out the resistance, bewilderment, and marginalization of north Indian Muslims as they came to be pushed out and divided by both emergent nation-states. It is here that Zamindar asks us to stretch our understanding of "Partition violence" to include this long, and in some sense ongoing, bureaucratic violence of postcolonial nationhood, and to place Partition at the heart of a twentieth century of border-making and nation-state formation.

In Quest of Jinnah: Diary, Notes, and Correspondence of Hector Bolitho


Hector Bolitho - 2007
    In 1953, Beverly Nichols suggested Hector Bolitho, the New Zealand born biographer of Prince Albert, as the person best suited to write the biography of Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Quaid-i-Azam and first Governor-General. Hector Bolitho's Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan (1954) became his most celebrated and influential book. Frustrated however, at what he was not allowed to write or include, Bolitho preserved for scholars the first draft of his biography, his diary and notes, his correspondence with Government of Pakistan functionaries and highly placed individuals in Britain, India and Pakistan who had known Jinnah personally, and the English and American reviews of the book's published version. All of this material is present in this volume.In Quest of Jinnah which gives not only a stereovision of the original published version, but offers fresh and authentic insights into the personality and politics of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. It is a very rare version. To compile and edit such a vast volume of valuable material, an extraordinary scholar of Jinnah and Academy, doyen of Jinnah scholars in Pakistan and author of Jinnah Studies in Interpretation (1981), not only retrieved the material present in this volume but very carefully and meticulously edited it, to create a user-friendly volume for both the scholar and the general reader.

The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947-1967


Joya Chatterji - 2007
    Much has been written about the Punjab and the creation of West Pakistan; by contrast, little is known about the partition of Bengal. This remarkable book by an acknowledged expert on the subject assesses the social, economic and political consequences of partition. Using compelling sources, the book, which was originally published in 2007, shows how and why the borders were redrawn, how the creation of new nation states led to unprecedented upheavals, massive shifts in population and wholly unexpected transformations of the political landscape in both Bengal and India. The book also reveals how the spoils of partition, which the Congress in Bengal had expected from the new boundaries, were squandered over the twenty years which followed. This is an intriguing and challenging work whose findings change our understanding and its consequences for the history of the subcontinent.

The Republic of Rumi - A Novel of Reality


Khurram Ali Shafique - 2007
    This is a fascinating voyage of discovery that stops at nothing short of reaching into the heart of the matter - and spirit.Iqbal reinterpreted Rumi for our times, and now Iqbal has been reinterpreted for the times to come.What you discover here may be of a pertinent relevance to your life and Life in general, which may be better explained now in such terms as:- The Five Wisdoms- The Seven Stages of the Journey- The Fountain of Life- Jamshid's Cup- The Dance of the Soul- The Falcon and the Leopard- and, of course, Joseph!

The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, a Search for Salvation


Shafique N. Virani - 2007
    With these chilling words, the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan declared his intention to destroy the Ismailis, one of the most intellectually and politically significant Muslim communities of medieval Islamdom. The massacres that followed convinced observers that this powerful voice of Shi'i Islam had been forever silenced. Little was heard of these people for centuries, until their recent and dramatic emergence from obscurity. Today they exist as a dynamic and thriving community established in over twenty-five countries. Yet the interval between what appeared to have been their total annihilation, and their modern, seemingly phoenix-like renaissance, has remained shrouded in mystery. Drawing on an astonishing array of sources gathered from many countries around the globe, The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation is a richly nuanced and compelling study of the murkiest portion of this era. In probing the period from the dark days when the Ismaili fortresses in Iran fell before the marauding Mongol hordes, to the emergence at Anjudan of the Ismaili Imams who provided a spiritual centre to a scattered community, this work explores the motivations, passions and presumptions of historical actors. With penetrating insight, Shafique N. Virani examines the rich esoteric thought that animated the Ismailis and enabled them to persevere. A work of remarkable erudition, this landmark book is essential reading for scholars of Islamic history and spirituality, Shi'ism and Iran. Both specialists and informed lay readers will take pleasure not only in its scholarly perception, but in its lively anecdotes, quotations of delightful poetry, and gripping narrative style. This is an extraordinary book of historical beauty and spiritual vision.

Quotes from the Quaid


Sharif Mujahid - 2007
    These inspiring quotes are eminently purposive spelling out Jinnah's vision of Pakistan in his own words. This is a book that should be read by every Pakistani, and by all others who seek to understand the vision behind Pakistan. Although Jinnah spoke on a multitude of issues in the course of his long and illustrious career, this compilation includes his words and thoughts on areas relevant to contemporary Pakistan and provides guidance to Pakistanis in various essential areas of public and private life.

Making Lahore Modern: Constructing and Imagining a Colonial City


William J. Glover - 2007
    British and Indian officials had designed a modern, architecturally distinct city center adjacent to the old walled city, administered under new methods of urban governance.In Making Lahore Modern, William J. Glover investigates the traditions that shaped colonial Lahore. In particular, he focuses on the conviction that both British and Indian actors who implemented urbanization came to share: that the material fabric of the city could lead to social and moral improvement. This belief in the power of the physical environment to shape individual and collective sentiments, he argues, links the colonial history of Lahore to nineteenth-century urbanization around the world.Glover highlights three aspects of Lahore’s history that show this process unfolding. First, he examines the concepts through which the British understood the Indian city and envisioned its transformation. Second, through a detailed study of new buildings and the adaptation of existing structures, he explores the role of planning, design, and reuse. Finally, he analyzes the changes in urban imagination as evidenced in Indian writings on the city in this period. Throughout, Glover emphasizes that colonial urbanism was not simply imposed; it was a collaborative project between Indian citizens and the British.Offering an in-depth study of a single provincial city, Glover reveals that urban change in colonial India was not a monolithic process and establishes Lahore as a key site for understanding the genealogy of modern global urbanism.William J. Glover is associate professor of architecture at the University of Michigan.

Descent into Chaos: The United States & the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan & Central Asia


Ahmed Rashid - 2007
    His unique knowledge of this complex, war-torn region gives him a panoramic vision and grasp of nuance that no Western writer can emulate.

Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Borderland


Sana Haroon - 2007
    Examines the history of Islam - especially that of local mullahs, or Muslim clerics-in the North-West Frontier, an autonomous zone straddling the boundary of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self


Laura Bear - 2007
    From the design of carriages to the architecture of stations, employment hierarchies, and the construction of employee housing, Laura Bear explores the new public spaces and social relationships created by the railway bureaucracy. She then traces their influence on the formation of contemporary Indian nationalism, personal sentiments, and popular memory. Her probing study challenges entrenched beliefs concerning the institutions of modernity and capitalism by showing that these rework older idioms of social distinction and are legitimized by forms of intimate, affective politics. Drawing on historical and ethnographic research in the company town at Kharagpur and at the Eastern Railway headquarters in Kolkata (Calcutta), Bear focuses on how political and domestic practices among workers became entangled with the moralities and archival technologies of the railway bureaucracy and illuminates the impact of this history today. The bureaucracy has played a pivotal role in the creation of idioms of family history, kinship, and ethics, and its special categorization of Anglo-Indian workers still resonates. Anglo-Indians were formed as a separate railway caste by Raj-era racial employment and housing policies, and other railway workers continue to see them as remnants of the colonial past and as a polluting influence. The experiences of Anglo-Indians, who are at the core of the ethnography, reveal the consequences of attempts to make political communities legitimate in family lines and sentiments. Their situation also compels us to rethink the importance of documentary practices and nationalism to all family histories and senses of relatedness. This interdisciplinary anthropological history throws new light not only on the imperial and national past of South Asia but also on the moral life of present technologies and economic institutions.

Karachi During the British Era: Two Histories of a Modern City


Behram Sohrab H.J. Rustomji - 2007
    J. Rustomji, and Karachi: That Was the Capital of Sindh by Sohrab K. H. Katrak, that provide an interesting and informative picture of Karachi as it once was. Both the authors wrote their respective histories of the city in the early years of Independence. Both authors trace the story of this fishing village-cum-trading post from the time of its occupation by the British, with a population of a few tens of thousands, up to the year of the emergence of Pakistan, with the city of 400,000 as its capital. Aside from nostalgia, this book provides an insight into the 'love for Karachi' that motivated many of its early residents to contribute selflessly to its growth and development. This account will be of great interest to residents, administrators and planners of today's population of over 15 million who live together in a ‘melting pot’ that contains virtually 10 per cent of the population of Pakistan.

From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition


Dipesh Chakrabarty - 2007
    It looks at decolonization as a long-term process and highlights some of the historical complications involved in nations born under the aegis of the colonial rule evolving into postcolonial polities. It concentrates on particular aspects of the social and political processes involved in the transition from the colonial order to postcolonial regimes. The contributors include a range of distinguished scholars from North America, the United Kingdom, South Asia, and Australia. They approach the issue of decolonization in different but mutually reinforcing ways, through constitutionalism, sports, regionalisms, housing, gender, minority issues, mass-politics, and class formation, The contributors include Dipesh Chakrabarty, David Washbrook, Barbara Metcalf, Ian Copland, Gynaesh Kudaisya, and Anumpama Rao.