Articles

THE ban on the film on Manto made in India by Nandita Das must be rescinded because it is a bad and indefensible action on more counts than one. First of all, banning a work of art is a serious matter and it should be resorted to as rarely as possible and only in extraordinary situations. These conditions have not been observed in the present case. Nandita Das has exercised her right, which belongs to anyone who wishes to make a film on Saadat Hasan Manto, to interpret the celebrated writer’s life and work in a way that appeals to her. She has emphasised Manto’s commitment to telling society the truth it does not want to face. For explaining Manto’s art as a storyteller she has offered dramatised versions of his three short stories and the method has worked. She is also keen to present the loving human being Manto was, and how much he cared not only for his wife and their daughters but also for the hungry, dirty street urchin. She has made a film that, despite som...

The writer is CEO of LEAD Pakistan, an Islamabad-based think tank specialising in environment and development issues. PAKISTAN depends heavily on its neighbours for most of its surface water. Many of our rivers originate in other countries; yet relations with most water neighbours are estranged. And we have yet to develop a coherent narrative and consistent policy to protect our long-term water interests. Instead of laying a foundation for sound water relations, we are allowing our water interests to become subservient to temperamental political relations. It is imperative for Pakistan to have mechanisms in place to discuss the development of neighbouring countries’ water infrastructure, with or without formal treaties. We need regular, ongoing discussions with our neighbours on infrastructural development, surface water flows and diversions. This includes Afghanistan that is planning feasibility studies of about a dozen dams; China for developments in Tibet where th...

IT was an illuminating discussion between different factions from across the Irish fault lines at Yale University last month, which may hold useful lessons for warring sides elsewhere. The charged debate — including between those whose politics once accepted the killing of each other as legitimate — was markedly civil. Can the Afghan Taliban sit across the table with the current rulers in Kabul, I wondered. The mind travelled also to the embattled Kashmiris; the Sikhs fighting for Khalistan; the Maoists and their state-backed detractors in Chhattisgarh; the decades-old rebellion in India’s northeast; Muslim extremists in Pakistan and elsewhere, to their ­liberal or secular quarries too. I also thought of Patrice Lumumba’s fratricidal Congo. The complex skein of the Middle East conflict came to mind with Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Palestine caught in a perennially haemorrhaging bind. I met former US Senator George Mitchell at the conference, the man who crafted ...

IT takes an outsider to point out the anger within us. Last week, a former US ambassador to Pakistan,  Cameron Munter, spoke at an event , arguing that our anger prevents us from telling the good story about Pakistan to the world. It reminded me of an interaction that took place nearly 20 years ago. Back in 2000, a soft-spoken Indian professor from Delhi had asked why the Pakistani people were always so pessimistic about their country — present and future — despite the fact that till the 1990s, Pakistan had always enjoyed better social and economic indicators (including a higher growth rate) than India. It was a question I had no answer to. The hostile questions about Kargil and military rule were easier to answer during that trip to India than this gentle insight and a sense of bewilderment about our state of being. But since that morning in New Delhi, there have been so many moments when the professor’s question has come back to mind. Countless memories that ...

. AT a recent gathering of friends in Coimbatore, the centre of attraction was a Sri Lankan political research scholar who almost didn’t make it to the get-together. Her visa was delayed till the last moment for unexplained reasons and threatened to dampen our spirits. But arrive she did finally and to a double celebration since she landed on the day the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka ruled decisively to end a six-week crisis that had threatened to destroy the country’s rule of law. Since October, when President Maithripala Sirisena had created a grave constitutional crisis by deposing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replacing him with a rival party leader and former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, the dramatic turn of events in the neighbouring state had kept us riveted. If ever there was a non-military coup this was it, and the fast-changing developments appeared to portend the worst for the oldest democracy in South Asia. But fortunately for Sri Lanka, Sirisena’...

A FEW days ago, some of the leading television channels were almost simultaneously flashing the ‘breaking news’ that Prime Minister Imran Khan would be attending the National Assembly session. In a normal parliamentary democracy, the expected attendance at a parliamentary sitting by a prime minister would have hardly been news, let alone breaking news. Sadly, the attendance of prime ministers in parliamentary sittings has been dwindling in the recent past. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif attended only 10 per cent of National Assembly sittings during his truncated third term. His attendance in the Senate was even less. Prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi did somewhat better by attending 19pc of Assembly sittings during his short term spanning 10 months. Imran Khan has so far attended 20pc of the sittings but his last appearance in the National Assembly was three and a half months ago. According to parliamentary traditions, prime ministers are generally considere...

IF you have heard the qawwali Kangna by Farid Ayaz and Abu Muhammad, it is impossible not to notice a Persian interlude which goes: “Ma ra ba ghamza kusht o qaza ra bahana sakht” (Am struck by the beloved’s coquettish ways; death is but an excuse) The famous ghazal was penned by the 12th-century poet Nizami Ganjavi. It has been sung by dozens if not hundreds of singers wherever Persian is understood including by Iqbal Bano in our neck of the woods. Nizami’s birthplace Ganja was part of the Persian Empire back then and came under Russian control half a millennia later. Though the Republic of Azerbaijan was proclaimed only in 1918 this did not deter the Azeris from embracing and celebrating him by establishing the Nizami Museum of Literature in Baku, the country’s capital and putting his picture on a currency note of 500 manat, among myriad other commemorative initiatives. Nazrul Islam, Gul Khan Naseer, Ameer Hamza Shinwari, Shaikh Ayaz, Nasir Kazmi, Ahmad Faraz, If...

IMAGINE an emergency room packed to the brim with patients in need of immediate medical attention. There are gunshot victims bleeding out on the floor, there are people with broken bones and asthmatics gasping for breath waiting in line. Now imagine that the doctor on duty ignores all these patients, and instead, decides to treat a hypochondriac for a runny nose. What sort of action would we demand be taken against such a doctor? Now hear this: there is a museum in Lahore called, unimaginatively enough, the Lahore Museum. Outside this museum was a rather demonic looking and frankly ugly 20-foot-tall statue. This drew the ire of an individual who felt that this “sculpture of Satan” was frightening children and also had “nothing to do with our culture”. Not content with ranting on Facebook like the rest of us, she went and filed a petition in the Lahore High Court. This petition was taken up by a high court bench which issued notices to the Punjab chief secretary an...

The writer teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad. NEW forms of resistance to old systems of oppression; three girl-children of near impossible courage have captured the world’s imagination. Ahed Tamimi, Malala Yousafzai and Rahaf Mohammed are iconic symbols from the West Bank to London and from Toronto to Tokyo. None is celebrated in Pakistan although one is our very own. Why? And what does this say about us? Tamimi, who turned 18 this month, has fought Israel’s occupation of Palestine since she was 11. At 16 and still tiny, a hard slap on a fully armed Israeli soldier’s face bought her  eight months in prison . She spent jail time educating other incarcerated youngsters in legal methods to confront their oppressors. In the Palestinian territories, she is revered. In Israel, she is reviled, the sentence considered too light. Tamimi knows occupation firsthand. Her father had been beaten into a coma, her brother is still in jail. Her aunt died, pushed down t...