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The ‘aubash’ hand in India’s pain

‘AUBASH’ is a Persian word whose meaning, if grasped correctly, could help explain the runaway success of Hindutva as an Indian phenomenon. Japanese scholar Hiroshi Kan Kagaya’s insightful work on the…

The fear of India-Pakistan bonding

THERE’S no gainsaying that vested interests within and without do not want India and Pakistan to have friendly relations. In the early days, conjured falsehoods placated a vile nationalist streak…

Education for all?

PAKISTAN is a signatory to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of which obligates the country to provide inclusive and equitable education for all. Once again, the question has…

As opium is to heroin addicts

ROMILA Thapar delivered yet another magisterial lecture on history last week. Titled ‘Our history. Their history. Whose history?’, the 91-year-old professor wove the theme around a quote from Eric Hobsbawn…

Kashmir: facing multiple assaults

Just about every aspect of life for Muslims in occupied Jammu and Kashmir is under assault by India’s ruling BJP. The year 2022 saw Indian actions aimed at disempowering its…

Jinnah and Gandhi

HECTOR Bolitho’s biography, Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan, doesn’t get the attention it deserves, even though it was the Quaid-e-Azam’s first biography in English by an internationally recognised author. American writer…

Jinnah’s citizens

HISTORIANS have aptly noted that Jinnah kept his notion of Pakistan ambiguous — more promised homeland and less concrete reality, a tactical manoeuvre that ensured its clarion call would appeal…

A billion Indians minus the four

ELECTIONS are underway in five Indian states. The BJP lost all five last time, though it has created the impression that it won the round hands down. Many see the…

Wider aperture to a truer world

RENOWNED actor Amitabh Bachchan made unusually bold observations recently about the problems with film censorship in India. He spoke of the perennial hardball played between filmmakers and the state since…

A world sacrificed at Israel’s altar

IT isn’t concealed from the keen observer of politics that the Five Eyes Anglosphere created the modern state of Israel in 1948, which in turn birthed the Hamas as a…