Pak Tea House » Archive
Pakistan: Not so Islamic
By Salma B Ahmad Recently another person has become a victim of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan. This time the victim is Asia bibi, a Christian woman who allegedly got into a confrontation with Muslim women over the offering of water and then matters got worse. Who knew she would end up facing death charges for the crime of blasphemy? But why not, Bibi should have known. After all she has been living in an ‘Islamic Republic’ which has a track record for persecuting members of the Ahmadiyya Community and other minorities. Pakistan can hardly be called a true Islamic state. It is the only state to implement laws on blasphemy so rigorously and to have very proudly come up with the definition of a Muslim. Those poor souls who fail to … Read entire article »
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Our ‘brotherly’ friends
Raza Rumi Thanks to sensational reporting on WikiLeaks, the relationship of Pakistan with Saudi Arabia has been spotlighted. We have known of ideological links between radical Islamic groups and their Saudi patrons for a long time. However, this has never been debated due to the status the Saudi monarchy enjoys in Pakistan. Criticising it constitutes sacrilege and the moment one even begins to raise a question, the proponents of the ‘warm’ and ‘time-tested brotherly ties’ construe this as an attack on Islam. Let’s be clear: The House of Saud is a temporal, political entity and is not representative of spiritual Islam. … Read entire article »
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Aasia Bibi and Due Process
By Yasser Latif Hamdani Courtesy Daily Times Perhaps the most interesting legal development through the 18th Amendment to the constitution of Pakistan was the introduction of Article 10-A, which reads: “For the determination of his civil rights and obligations or in any criminal charge against him, a person shall be entitled to a fair trial and due process.” This article exists under the unceremonious heading of ‘Right to fair trial’ but is nothing less than a revolutionary concept for a country like ours where liberty has so often been the victim of expediency, state oppression and the tyranny of the permanent majority. What it does — and, unfortunately, this is not appreciated enough by our jurists — is create within our constitution the idea of substantive due process above and beyond procedural … Read entire article »
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From The News “Secularism Debate”
Secularism Debate Separation of church and state is not just the right thing to do but it is the only thing that will help build a progressive and democratic stateOther participants in this debate have already informed the reader of the history of the idea of separation of church and state which is rooted in the power struggle between temporal rulers and the church in largely homogenous nation states of Europe and America. The history of Europe, especially the period that is referred to as reformation and renaissance, is also significant as being the history of Protestant and Catholic sectarian conflict. … Read entire article »
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On secularism, Jinnah and Pakistan
My contribution for Jinnah Institute’s secular space What are we fighting for? What are we aiming at? It is not theocracy, not for a theocratic state – Mohammad Ali Jinnah Sixty-three years after the country was created, the term secular remains the most contested and misunderstoodpolitical concept in Pakistan. Mention the word secular and there is a litany of protests. The right wing thinks that secularism is an outright blasphemy of sorts, while the liberals hold that the genesis of … Read entire article »
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The damage done by Fake Wikileaks
By Husham Ahmed In any country an incident of several big newspapers carrying a headline based on stupid and blatant falsification of news to act as a propaganda tool would have generated a lot of hue and cry. On December 9, The News, Jang, The Nation, Nawai-Waqt and The Express Tribune published stories claiming inaccurately that the newly released cables by Wikileaks prove that there is ‘enough evidence’ of Indian involvement in Balochistan and FATA. The false report also spoke of links of Indian generals with Hindu fundamentalists and described them as ‘genocidal’, while implicating elements within the Indian military in Mumbai attacks. The blogger community questioned the veracity of these reports as soon they were published. Café Pyala did an excellent post, which was followed by a commentary of Five Rupees … Read entire article »
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Islands of Hope – Life and Works of Akhter Hameed Khan
By Raza Rumi Raza Rumi reviews a book on the life and works of Akhter Hameed Khan, a legendary development guru “It is not enough to say that he was a great man. He was one of the great human beings of the past century. He was so much ahead of everybody else that he was seen more as a ‘misfit’ than appreciated for his greatness…” (Nobel laureate Dr. Younas Khan on Akhter Hameed Khan) In a country where idealism has taken a backseat and opportunism and greed are rampant, this book about the life and works of Akhter Hameed Khan (AHK) can be read as a kind of counter-narrative, a perennial challenge to Pakistan’s always-imminent descent into chaos. The AKH Resource Centre has done a fabulous job in putting the various trends of … Read entire article »
Filed under: Pakistan, public policy, south asia, Sufism, Uncategorized
The Giant in the East – IV
By Adnan Syed This four part series examines the rise of India as an economic giant, the threats that India faces in this remarkable rise, and implications for Pakistan. Originally planned as a three part series, I decided to split the series into four parts due to sheer volume of information that I came across while writing this series. (AZW). The Two Fundamental Assumptions Regarding future India, Pakistan must start with two fundamental assumptions: A. India’s progress is for real and will likely continue. Indian economy is beginning to compound and will consequently elevate India as one of world’s top four powers to reckon with on the world’s political stage in coming decades (along with China, US, and Europe). B. India’s military rise is inevitable along with its economic rise. However, Indian’s military rise is being … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, culture, Democracy, Economy, India, Islamabad, Pak Tea House, Pakistan, Pakistan-India Peace Process, Politics, Uncategorized, USA
Myths, fables and lies: The murder of history in Pakistan
By Raza Rumi KK Aziz’s seminal study, ‘The Murder of History’ is essential to understand what went wrong inPakistan. The most worrying sign of an insecure and fissured polity is when it reinvents, twists and lies about its history especially relating to its genesis and progress. K K Aziz was not an Indiannationalist, nor a screaming ideologue who wanted Pakistan to fritter away. In fact his early work The Making of Pakistanremains an essential reading on how Pakistan came into being. He believed in Pakistan despite his emotional links to the separated eastern part of the Punjab. However, at the zenith of his career he could not conceal his deep anguish and disappointment with the way ‘History’ in his beloved country had turned into sham-narratives comprising fables, myths and outright deceit. Three brutal realities by the end … Read entire article »
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Trade with India is a rational policy choice
By Raza Rumi China and Taiwan are sworn enemies. In 2009, the total volume of their trade was 110 billion dollars. India’s trade is expanding with China, and the current volume is nearly 60 billion dollars per annum. On the other hand, the total volume of formal trade between India and Pakistan is around a billion dollars. What does this say about keeping rational economic interest over emotional narratives of nationalism and politics? The politics and troubled past has ruined South Asia’s present and potentially its future. It is time to review the situation and reverse this trend. True, we have unresolved issues with India. It is also well-known that India has not respected the United Nations’ resolutions on Kashmir. But our mercurial rulers have not been consistent in their stance either. The last … Read entire article »
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Pakistan: “It is time for the judiciary to address incompetence and prejudice within its own ranks”
By Raza Rumi Ali Dayan Hasan, Senior South Asia Researcher for Human Rights Watch, spoke to Raza Rumi about the blasphemy law. What is your position on the blasphemy law and how is it viewed internationally? The blasphemy law is a blot on Pakistan and brings disrepute to Islam. It is precisely the kind of law that reinforces, with good reason, negative stereotypes of Pakistan and Muslims. Because it is justified in the name of religion, it is difficult to explain to the world that this is a law imposed by a military dictatorship in the ‘80s for cynical political purposes and does not enjoy any “divine” sanction. It is our view that Sections 295 and 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which include the blasphemy law, should be repealed forthwith. The obscene … Read entire article »
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The Giant in the East – III
By Adnan Syed This four part series examines the rise of India as an economic giant, the threats that India faces in this remarkable rise, and implications for Pakistan. Originally planned as a three part series, I decided to split the series into four parts due to sheer volume of information that I came across while writing this series. (AZW) Bottom line: It Mostly Comes Down to the Economy Arguably, in recent memory, the United States came dangerously close to losing its mantle as a modern economic and military power on September 15, 2008. That was the day when famed Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. As the financial markets opened the next day, the economic engine of the United States quickly started stalling. Banks balance sheets were severely compromised as their assets were falling … Read entire article »
Filed under: China, Economy, India, Pak Tea House, Pakistan, poverty, south asia, state, Uncategorized, USA
The Lost Mandate of Parliament
By Ahmad Nadeem Gehla The Lahore High Court (LHC) has barred the government from amending the blasphemy law, till the final decision of the court in Asia Bibi’s case. Earlier, in the same matter, Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif directed President Asif Ali Zardari and the governor of Punjab to abstain from making any move to pardon blasphemy convict. Respect for judicial process does not require a dumb and deaf society. There are certainly some legitimate questions to be asked. Can a court restrain the head of state from exercising his constitutional powers? Or. Can a court prohibit parliament from performance of its constitutional function? In a sane society, such question may not even arise. Obviously, there can be no restraint, if a functionary or institution of state is acting within constitutional boundaries. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Law
Beyond political opportunism
By Raza Rumi While Pakistan’s policy debate hovers around political machinations and power configurations, the neglected issue of economic recovery remains central to the viability of country’s future. We are sandwiched between two economic giants who are growing despite the global recession. China has eradicated absolute poverty after decades of high growth rates and effective social policies. India’s GDP growth rate is projected to be 9 percent this year. Both India and China have also improved tax administration, enhanced their revenue generation capacity and implemented economic reforms, which are likely to result in long-term sustainable growth rates. India needs years to catch up with its issues of hunger, poverty and inequity, but its progress appears to be in the right direction. What have we done to ourselves? We have no consensus on … Read entire article »
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PTH biweekly Cartoon
Picture of the Week
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Sunrise at the Arabian Sea, Charna Island
24 Dec 2011
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