Best of
Pakistan

2010

The Culture of Power and Governance in Pakistan, 1947-2008


Ilhan Niaz - 2010
    It argues that South Asia's indigenous orientation towards the exercise of power has reasserted itself and produced a regression in the behavior of the ruling elite. This has meant that in the sixty years of independence from British rule the behavior of the state apparatus and political class has become more arbitrary, proprietorial and delusional. The resulting deterioration in the intellectual and moral quality of the state apparatus is a mortal threat to Pakistan. Regrettably, much of the academic and public discussion about developing societies has been vitiated by the heedless repetition of fashionable jargon that emphasizes national security, democracy and development. The Culture of Power and Governance of Pakistan draws upon the primary declassified record of Pakistan and a diverse array of theoretical inputs to try and balance the debate on the crisis of governance.

50 Stories for Pakistan


Robert J. McCarterAlun Williams - 2010
    Father and son? Uncle and nephew? Teacher and pupil? Or perhaps just a kid, lost, tagging on to an adult in the hope that he will be taken somewhere safe, dry?They are wading away from the light into the darkness and gloom. The unknown. Fear. Hunger. Disease. But they are also wading towards you. They can’t ask for your help. You must choose to give it.A simple way of doing that is to buy this book. Proceeds go to helping the victims of the Pakistan floods.Now please take one more look at the cover. And remember, they can't ask...50 Stories for Pakistan features work by the following authors:Robert J. McCarter, Joanne Fox, Erik Svehaug, Susan Lanigan, Anne Mullane, Lisa Ricard Claro, R.J. Newlyn, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Martin Webster, Jonathan Pinnock, Trevor Belshaw, Julia Bohanna, Iain Pattison, Laura Eno, Dave Clark, Pam Howes, Alun Williams, Annie Evett, Jennifer Stakes, Rebecca Emin, Marjorie Tolchard, Marit Meredith, Paul Malone, Ewan Lawrie, Jarred McGinnis, Alex Tomlin, Gail Richards, Benjamin Solah, Ruchira Mandal, Alyson Hilbourne, Ramon Collins, Darren Lee, Riaz Ali, Nasim Marie Jafry, Heather Parker, Shazia Bibi, Andrew Parrott, Brigid O’Connor, Rob Innis, Tony Williams, Annemarie Neary, Emma Newman, Robert Long, Beryl Brown, Vanessa Couchman, Joanna Campbell, Sylvia Petter, Rosemary Hayes, Paul Anderson, and Alice Turner.The introduction was written by award-winning author, Vanessa Gebbie.

The Last Sunset: The Rise & Fall of the Lahore Durbar


Amarinder Singh - 2010
    By 1825 the empire had annexed eastern Afghanistan and the whole of what is now Kashmir going well into Tibet. The Maharaja was first among non Muslims to annex the Pathan -Pushtun- territories where the Taliban is now active. This brought to an end a one thousand year of loot by Muslim raiders from the north west.Though the Muslim population of the Maharaja was 90% but his rule was, what we now call: the most secular. More than half the ministers in his Durbar -Court- were Muslim or Hindus and many of his Generals were Europeans who modernized his army.His army was so powerful and modern for the times that even the East India Company of the English, having occupied most of the Indian subcontinent by 1805, were not keen to threaten him. The Sikh Khalsa army was the best and even better than what the English had.This book covers in detail the demise of his empire after his death due to lack of an able ruler. The book shows very nicely how the English cultivated certain elements in the Durbar and how the two armies fought Nine battles in two Anglo-Sikh wars of 1845 and 1849 before the Sikh empire could be annexed.The author brings out references to show that the English never had to pay such a high prize for annexing any other Indian kingdom as they had to pay for subduing the Sikhs. The Sikhs never asked for a quarter in battle and never gave one. The English lost so many Generals in those battles that they had never lost that many before or even there after, in all the wars they fought until now.Impressed by the fighting tenacity of the Sikhs, the English enrolled them in large numbers so much so that by the time the Second World War ended, more than half the Indian army was from Punjab of which Sikhs alone were 50%.A very well written book.

Constructing Pakistan: Foundational Texts and the Rise of Muslim National Identity, 1857- 1947


Masood Ashraf Raja - 2010
    Masood Ashraf Raja's main assertion, challenging the conventional andpostcolonial appraisals of the Indian national history, is that the Indian Muslim particular identity and Muslim exceptionalism preceded the rise of Congress or Gandhian nationalism. Using major theories of nationalism-including works of Benedict Anderson, Anthony D. Smith, John Breuilly, ParthaChatterjee and others-and analysis of literary, political, and religious texts produced by Indian Muslims, Constructing Pakistan traces the varied Muslim responses to the post 1857 British ascendancy. This study provides a multilayered discussion of Indian Muslim nationalism from the rise of post1857 Muslim exceptionalism to the beginnings of a more focused struggle for a nation-sate in the 1940s.In this dual act of retrieval and intervention, a varied mixture of literary, political, and religious texts are employed to suggest that if the Muslim textual production of this time period is read within the realm of politics and not just within the arena of culture, then the rise of Indian Muslimnationalism can be clearly traced within these texts and through their affective value for the Indian Muslims.Raja states that no such work exits either in the postcolonial field or in the field of area studies that combines close readings of the texts, their reception, and the politics of identity formation specifically related to the rise of Indian Muslim nationalism. The author's main argument hinges ontwo important assumptions: 1) After the rebellion it becomes extremely important for the Muslim elite to force the dominant British regime into a hegemonic view of the Muslims, and 2) this forces the Muslim elite to develop a language of politics that must always invoke the people in order to enterthe British system of privileges and dispensations. Consequently, the rise of early Muslim exceptionalism and its eventual specific nationalistic unfolding, of which Pakistan was one outcome, can then be read as political acts that long preceded the Indian national party politics. The reason mostIndian and European historians cannot trace a pronounced Muslim sense of separate identity before the 1940s is because they trace this identity either in the form of resistance or in the shape of party politics. The early loyalism of the Muslim elite, in such strategy, remains unexplained, as itdoes not fit the resistance model. Constructing Pakistan attempts to re-read this loyalism as a sophisticated form of resistance that, in the end, makes the Muslim question central to the British politics of post-rebellion era.

Karachiwala: a subcontinent within a city


Rumana Husain - 2010
    A selection of over sixty interviews converges into s unique celebration of the people and their chosen city. Karachiwala elaborates upon the lifestyle, language, values and interests of each community. Whether ethnic, professional, religious or social, each individual / family / community has a unique story. This heavily researched book is also replete with photographs.

Rococo and Other Worlds: Selected Poems


Afzal Ahmed Syed - 2010
    The poems in Rococo and Other Worlds explore the mythology and historical realities of South Asia and the Middle East; their bold imagery creates narratives of voluptuous perfection, which remain inseparable from the political realities that Syed witnessed as a young observer of the violent separation of East Pakistan and emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 and of the Lebanese civil war in 1976. Musharraf Ali Farooqi's sensitive translations bring this extraordinary work to English readers for the first time.

Look at the City from Here: Karachi Writings


Asif Farrukhi - 2010
    It is a city of myriad metaphors. It is a city which will be the pride of the East, wrote a visitor in the last century while a recent essay describes it as the saddest of the cities. It is the city nobody loves, says another. Millions and millions continue to live and work in this city, hating and loving it at the same time. But who understands its story? Karachi is also the city of many texts. It has drawn a range of writers across languages and genres, from Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai to Kamila Shamsie, Qurratulain Hyder to Asad Muhammad Khan and Hasan Manzar, Faiz Ahmed Faiz to Fehmida Riaz, Sir Richard Burton to Lawrence (of Arabia). This anthology of writings in and about Karachi presents the many moods and features of the city through writings which collectively highlight the city of many realities and multiple identities.

Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia


Iftikhar Dadi - 2010
    Art historian Iftikhar Dadi here explores the art and writings of major artists, men and women, ranging from the late colonial period to the era of independence and beyond. He looks at the stunningly diverse artistic production of key artists associated with Pakistan, including Abdur Rahman Chughtai, Zainul Abedin, Shakir Ali, Zubeida Agha, Sadequain, Rasheed Araeen, and Naiza Khan. Dadi shows how, beginning in the 1920s, these artists addressed the challenges of modernity by translating historical and contemporary intellectual conceptions into their work, reworking traditional approaches to the classical Islamic arts, and engaging the modernist approach towards subjective individuality in artistic expression. In the process, they dramatically reconfigured the visual arts of the region. By the 1930s, these artists had embarked on a sustained engagement with international modernism in a context of dizzying social and political change that included decolonization, the rise of mass media, and developments following the national independence of India and Pakistan in 1947.Bringing new insights to such concepts as nationalism, modernism, cosmopolitanism, and tradition, Dadi underscores the powerful impact of transnationalism during this period and highlights the artists' growing embrace of modernist and contemporary artistic practice in order to address the challenges of the present era.

Where Three Dreams Cross: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh: 150 Years of Photography from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh


Sabeena Gadihoke - 2010
    Pages: 375 Publisher: Steidl. Histories of photography, as presented through books or exhibitions in the twentieth century, have been dominated by Europe and America. This publication and the exhibition it accompanies, articulate the untold story of an equally significant history, as rich and as formally innovative, yet embedded in the culture and politics of South Asia. Where Three Dreams Cross traces the characteristics of contemporary photography through its historical precedents, revealing the roots of the medium's development over the past 150 years. Its starting point is the crucial moment when the power to hold a camera, frame and capture images was no longer exclusively the preserve of colonial or European photographers. Both the major upheavals of politics and technology and the quotidian events of family, culture and ritual have been captured through the lens of some 80 artists. Their work also demonstrates formal experimentation and aesthetic lines of enquiry that are indigenous yet of universal interest. With essays by Sabeena Gadihoke, Geeta Kapur and Christopher Pinney, among others.

The Jinnah Anthology


Liaquat Merchant - 2010
    It aims to re-emphasize Jinnah's vision and principals as they related to a variety of things including democracy, justice, equality, integrity, honesty, supremacy of the rule of law, and the rights of women and minorities. Featuring a collection of previously published and new articles by well-known academics, historians and analysts, as well as various speeches delivered by Jinnah between 1911 and 1947, it creates a documentary history of the Quaid's life, work and achievements.

Isma'ili Modern: Globalization and Identity in a Muslim Community


Jonah Steinberg - 2010
    Informed by the richness of Isma'ili history, theories of transnationalism and globalization, and firsthand ethnographic fieldwork in the Himalayan regions of Tajikistan and Pakistan as well as in Europe, Jonah Steinberg investigates Isma'ili Muslims and the development of their remarkable and expansive twenty-first-century global structures.Led by a charismatic European-based hereditary Imam, Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, global Isma'ili organizations make available an astonishing array of services--social, economic, political, and religious--to some three to five million subjects stretching from Afghanistan to England, from Pakistan to Tanzania. Steinberg argues that this intricate and highly integrated network enables a new kind of shared identity and citizenship, one that goes well beyond the sense of community maintained by other diasporic populations. Of note in this process is the rapid assimilation in the postcolonial period of once-isolated societies into the intensively centralized Isma'ili structure. Also remarkable is the Isma'ilis' self-presentation, contrary to common characterizations of Islam in the mass media, as a Muslim society that is broadly sympathetic to capitalist systems, opposed to fundamentalism, and distinctly modern in orientation. Steinberg's unique journey into remote mountain regions highlights today's rapidly shifting meanings of citizenship, faith, and identity and reveals their global scale.