Pak Tea House » secular Pakistan
Jinnah and secularism; Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed distorts history yet again
By Yasser Latif Hamdani “Professor emeritus” Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed is the sort who loves to take liberties with the facts. In his article today “Jinnah and secularism” he has resorted to two outright lies which need to be exposed so that people are not misguided. The article began well enough: “The vision of Pakistan Jinnah spelled out on August 11, 1947 is the closest any leader in the Indian subcontinent approximated to an ideal secular state: a … Read entire article »
Filed under: Jinnah, Partition, secular Pakistan, secularism
Commemorating Secular Pakistan Day
By Yasser Latif Hamdani Today is August the eleventh. The government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has designated this day as the “minorities’ day” because Mr. Jinnah made a speech on this day in 1947 which is interpreted by some as a charter of rights for minorities. The truth is that Jinnah’s famous speech was a clear policy statement of working towards ending distinctions of majority and minority by following a secular policy whereby religion … Read entire article »
Filed under: Jinnah, Liberal Democratic Pakistan, liberal Pakistan, secular Pakistan, secularism
Dismantling the barriers of hate
By Ghazala Akbar Midway between the cities of Lahore in Pakistan and Amritsar in India each about 25 km away is the village called Wagah. It stands on an ancient pathway that stretches from Kabul in the North West to Calcutta in the North East and beyond to Shonargaon in Bangladesh. Known variously in history as Uttara Patha, Sadaq – e -Azam or the Grand Trunk road, it was until very recently, the only road link … Read entire article »
Filed under: Citizens, culture, Democracy, India, Pakistan, Politics, secular Pakistan, Society
Saleem Shahzad’s Passing: And The Score Is Despair 3, Hope 0
By D. Asghar Nothing can be more disheartening, than news of someone’s brutal murder. This year started out with a tragic and insane murder of Governor Salman Taseer in Islamabad. That killer who was supposed to be the “bodyguard”, Mumtaz Qadri surrendered on the spot. Or else we would still be looking for Taseer’s assassin. The indifferent attitude of many was appalling. Their callous and cruel display towards his point of view was to say the least, beyond shameful. It was followed by the equally gruesome murder of the Minorities Minister, Shahbaz Bhatti. He was gunned down and till date his killers are perhaps roaming. Of course his life was not such a precious thing to many, perhaps because of his belief. In both of these cases, the cold and crazy … Read entire article »
Filed under: Democracy, journalism, Liberal Democratic Pakistan, Pakistan, secular Pakistan, Terrorism
Nations within a Nation – The Search for a Pakistani Nation – 2
By Adnan Syed “Indeed, world is ruled by little else but ideas.” — John Maynard Keynes The Two Nation Theory and Inequality in the New State of Pakistan The two nation theory was primarily based on distinctive majority-two-nations within United India. The distinction was cultural as well as religious, where both of these characteristics freely overlapped each other. Given the dominance of religion within the edifice of the Muslim nation, it was inevitable that religion will form a large part in the new nation state that was carved due to the Muslim nation identity. And given a strong tradition of political Islam within the Muslim body, it was inevitable that the very political Islam will find its way through the vague contours of the shifting idea of an Indian Muslim nation … Read entire article »
Filed under: Democracy, Egalitarian Pakistan, History, Identity, Islam, Islamism, Pak Tea House, Pakistan, Religion, Rights, secular Pakistan, secularism
Fascists strike again in Pakistan: Minorities Minister killed
Raza Rumi Sometimes it feels we are living in stone age where no dissent and no call for a tolerant society is possible. Murder, violence, mayhem are the order of the day. Today, we mourn the death of Shahbaz Bhatti who had been repeatedly threatened, but not intimidated. It is time for Pakistan’s political parties to take stock of this situation and get their own ideological house in order before they are wiped out as well. Pakistani … Read entire article »
Filed under: Democracy, Islamism, secular Pakistan, Taliban, Terrorism
Death of Pakistani Secularism Much Exaggerated
By Juan Cole There has been a lot of hand-wringing about religious extremism in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer. On Sunday the fundamentalist religious parties held a rally some 40,000 strong in the southern port city of Karachi against repealing Pakistan’s blasphemy law, as the Pakistan People’s Party MP Sherry Rahman proposes. It would be foolish to deny that Pakistan has a problem with religious extremism. But outsiders do not actually understand the country very well and have no sense of scale, so it is hard for them to judge the significance of these events. Here I want to offer five ironies of religious extremism in that country, in an attempt to signal that the story is more complicated and requires more nuance than you … Read entire article »
Filed under: Pakistan, secular Pakistan, secularism
Was Jinnah secular?
By Yasser Latif Hamdani (In wake of the national debate on ideology and textbooks, Mr. Raza Rumi, the founder and editor of Pakteahouse, recently asked me to revisit the issue of Jinnah’s secularism through a comprehensive blog-post. This blog post is written for PTH exclusively and may be reproduced by giving PTH credit.) Many people (though not all) on all sides of the ideology divide in Pakistan take umbrage with the description of Mahomed Ali Jinnah – … Read entire article »
Filed under: Jinnah, Liberal Democratic Pakistan, liberal Pakistan, Pakistan, secular Pakistan
Why are some Secular Pakistanis Afraid to be Identified as Such
By Feroz Khan Pakistanis are not ashamed of being secular but they are afraid of being seen as secular. The reason lies in the question of who made the mullah strong and powerful in Pakistan? It was the so-called western educated Pakistanis, who in hopes of retaining their hold on power repeatedly appeased the religious right. The failure of secularism in Pakistan is the faliure of its liberals, educated classes to define what secularism stands for and this failure paved the way for the religious right’s assendency to power. From Objectives Resolution in 1949 to Z. A. Bhutto constitutionally declaring the Ahmedis as non-Muslims to Pervaiz Musharraf supporting the MMA into power, it was the educated, westernized, liberal Pakistanis who have historically helped the religious right into making Pakistan a theocratic state. … Read entire article »
Filed under: secular Pakistan, secularism, Society
Jinnah And Jefferson : Dreams From Two Founding Fathers
Originally published by Washington Post on the independence day of the US and Jefferson’s death anniversary, we reproduce the same article on our Independence Day. By Akbar Ahmed Sunday, July 4, 2010 “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship. . . . We are starting in the days when there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination … Read entire article »
Filed under: History, Jinnah, secular Pakistan, secularism, USA
Under-reporting of non-Muslim Pakistanis – a major problem
Sardarji patrol- I almost got ticketed by him on Multan Road the other day for driving and taking his picture while driving. By Yasser Latif Hamdani According to our official census Non-Muslims make up 3% of the Pakistani population. In Punjab the number of Hindus is reported less than 20,000. Sikhs are fewer than 10,000 – this too according to the official census. Christians are said to be the second largest religious group in Pakistan with … Read entire article »
Filed under: Pakistan, secular Pakistan, secularism
Good luck, General Kayani
Raza Rumi http://tribune.com.pk/story/30713/good-luck-general-kayani/ In a hurried non-speech, the prime minister has confirmed that the incumbent army chief will stay on for three years. Unprecedented as the decision might be, it is perhaps the best option under the current circumstances. Pakistan is battling against domestic and external terrorism. Given how the army works, it is clear that the military establishment wants a continuation of national security policy. Lack of policy continuity has been the hallmark of Pakistan’s governance. At least with General Kayani’s extension, the military operations in the northwest and approach to the Afghanistan imbroglio will also remain unchanged. This is good for Pakistan for three reasons. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Afghanistan, Islamabad, Islamism, Pakistan, Politics, public policy, secular Pakistan, Taliban, Terrorism, USA, violence, war
Multiple Identities II
By Yasser Latif Hamdani Part III of Ishtiaq Ahmed’s article, reproduced on PTH website, has considerably clarified his position on many issues. While he is on the money on the issue of exclusive nationalism, especially when such an idea is adopted by a state to the disadvantage of those who are not from that group, he fails to see that nationalism, inclusive or exclusive, is ultimately the ideology of the other. For example the difference all but disappears between the inclusive and exclusive variety when both nationalisms try to over-ride diversity and differences. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Pakistan, Partition, secular Pakistan
Daily Times: Nationalism: inclusive versus exclusive — III
Cross Post from Daily Times Published July 13, 2010 By Ishtiaq Ahmed Rather than hate India, we should learn from India. It has five times a greater population, far greater ethnic and linguistic variation and myriads of religious faiths and cults. It is not a democracy in the social sense but it is a sophisticated democracy in the political sense I have presented, mainly, the exclusive model of nationalism and state-nationalism that I have argued emerged in Pakistan, notwithstanding the very bold attempt of Jinnah to supplant it with inclusive nationalism. Exclusive nationalism — whether based on race or religion or some other cultural factor — discriminates, constitutionally, people who do not qualify as members of the community because they do not share the specific cultural ties that have been chosen to define the … Read entire article »
Filed under: Democracy, Identity, India, Islam, Islamabad, Islamism, Jinnah, Liberal Democratic Pakistan, minorities, Pakistan, Religion, secular Pakistan
Daily Times – Nationalism: inclusive versus exclusive — I
At PTH, we have argued for the partition as a nuanced set of events that were characterized by extreme mistrust between the two major political forces of that time. These major parties harboured deep distrust against each other. The Muslim League politics increasingly focused on the idea of Pakistan as a bargaining chip to win the rights for the sizeable Muslim majority within the United India. The British hurry to leave the United India, emergence of Muslim League as the sole spokesman for the Muslims, and Congress unwillingness to recognize the Muslim nation demands within the United India resulted in a bloody and messy partition. We still live with the scars of the partition that resulted in one of the largest uprooting and human migration of modern times. … Read entire article »
Filed under: culture, Democracy, Egalitarian Pakistan, History, Identity, Islam, Islamabad, Islamism, Jinnah, minorities, Pak Tea House, Pakistan, Religion, secular Pakistan
Recent Comments