We will all be nomads now
More than one million nomads of Jammu and Kashmir, mostly from the Gujjar and Bakkarwal communities, who prefer to live in temporary sheds or mud houses in the forests and…
The consequence of resistance literature – Part II
This is the second and final part of my column in response to some observations made by readers on the series about resistance writing. One reader, Retired Col Aizaz, asked…
Can Congress survive sans the Gandhis?
Without a Gandhi at the top, India’s Congress Party is increasingly looking and acting like a headless chicken. Since its debacle in the recent general elections, there has been a…
Driving to liberty?
I met Inaam Bacha and his wife Sumera in Thana City – a beautiful leafy town surrounded by beautiful mountains in Malakand District. It was inspirational to have a conversation…
Between myth and reality
Nine months after the 25th Amendment effectively ended the Fata status and started a new era of reforms and merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the prospects for democratic, prosperous, liberal and…
Policing former Fata
WHILE the Mughals governed India through arrangements embedded in local conventions and traditions to address the needs of a multiracial and multicultural empire, it was the British who tried to…
The PTI’s contempt problem
Imran Khan has finally reached out to Shahbaz Sharif. The four-page letter he wrote last week is the first communication between the leader of the house and the leader of…
Discovering – and preserving – Mehrgarh
The word ‘heritage’ means something that we inherit from earlier generations. It comprises both the tangible and the intangible including culture, value and traditions. It represents history and identity. The…
Marx and the end of orientalism
In ‘Marx and the End of Orientalism’, Bryan S Turner has critically explored the inherent theoretical flaws of both the traditional sociological approach and the Hegelian/Marxist approach. This book is…
Let them dance
The vitriol and vilification spewed through social media against female students of Karakoram International University (KIU) for performing a local dance in the morning show of a private TV channel…
