Showing 1–40 of 281 results

  • ANGLO-INDIAN LIVES IN PAKISTAN

    In this compelling study Dorothy McMenamin recovers the histories of Anglo-Indians in what would become Pakistan and traces the trajectories of individuals and families into the post-independence world. Grounded in an absorbing series of oral histories, McMenamin’s narrative is full of human drama and complexity. It offers a bold challenge to the strong emphasis on colonial power and racial hierarchies in recent work, forwarding a counter-reading enriched by her own deep personal knowledge of this community within Pakistan and in the Anglo-Indian diaspora

    $ 14.99
  • PAKISTAN UNDER BENAZIR BHUTTO 1993-1996

    Both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif didn’t acquit themselves well in the “trial of democracy” from 1988 to 1993. They did worse confronting the “dilemma of democracy” from 1993-1999 – how an elected government can complete its five year term and also provide a level playing field to the “government-in-waiting” to turn the tables at the end of the period. In consequence, Pakistan was driven straight into the jaws of martial law in 1999.

    This volume traces the rise and fall of the second Bhutto regime from 1993-96. It records how, through the good offices of the Establishment, she began on a conciliatory note with Nawaz Sharif by offering to nominate a consensus candidate (Wasim Sajjad) as President in exchange for jointly undoing the notorious Clause 58-2(B) of the 8th Constitutional Amendment which hung like the sword of Damocles over every prime minister. It tracks the negotiations to breaking point, compelling her to nominate her “own man”, Farooq Leghari, to the Presidency. It records Nawaz Shun cunning ways to drive a wedge between Leghari and Bhutto, which eventually led the former to use the 8th Amendment to sack the latter.

    The major policy issues that preoccupied Benazir Bhutto in her second term were nuclear proliferation, MQM terrorism in Karachi and conflict in Kashmir. The book explains how the US applied economic and military sanctions to pressure Pakistan to cap, freeze and roll back its nuclear programme but failed to achieve its objective. It details how she successfully tackled and put down MQM terrorism through effective use of civil-military power. And it records how she teamed up with the military to promote jihad in India-Occupied Kashmir.

    The book is about foul play by both Bhutto and Sharif; foreign policy blues; warlordism in Afghanistan; mythology of Mohajirism; nuclear policy; Mehrangate; General Mirza Aslam Beg’s “grand plan”; threat of an India-Pak nuclear war; journalists for sale; pains of privatization; Indo-Pak relations; doctrine of necessity; corruption and Surreygate. The analysis covers the mind of Benazir Bhutto, her Achilles heel and fatal flaws.

    It is indispensable reading for the student of history who wishes to understand how and why democracy failed to take root in the 1990s.

    $ 14.99
  • THE END OF INNOCENCE

    Moni Mohsin’s accomplished and moving first novel deals not only with the aftermath of a dangerous love, but with its effects on an entire community; retribution, revenge, and the terrible complicity of the heedless in the destruction of innocence. Deeply sensitive to nuances of class and gender, she dissects the diseased psyche of an "honour killer", showing with patient insight how such crimes are often not so much the result of premeditation as spontaneous violence, with family and clan members conspiring to cover up what has been done rather than colluding with the murderer’s action.

    ‘The End of Innocence is unusual in its setting: the rural farmland? West Punjab, delineated in its changing colours and seasons with the minimal brush strokes of a Japanese artist. The simple, sensual prose reflects the multilingual world in which Its child protagonist lives, moving easily from western references to translations of local proverbs and citations of folklore.’ —Aamer Hussein, The Independent, London

    ‘Pakistan-born Londoner, Moni Mohsin’s debut novel is an utterly engrossing tale of innocence lost. Mohsin vividly recreates the atmosphere of rural Pakistan in all its variety, from the smell of sugarcane to the cool shadows of Laila’s elegant home. The reports of political strife never intrude too far into the story of Sabzbagh’s residents but the worried gossip of adults about their government’s actions add a faint air of menace and a hint of violence and sorrow to come.

    ‘Eager, warm-hearted and bright, without being precocious, Laila is an appealing young heroine. In fact, all the characters are convincingly drawn, even those with the potential to descend into caricature are well-rounded and believable.

    ‘Moving, warm and compulsively readable, The End of Innocence is a very promising debut.’—Anna Carey, The Irish Examiner

    ‘Moni Mohsin’s debut is an absorbing take on The Go-Between set in rural Pakistan in 1971. Mohsin balances an enjoyable polyphony of characters — the wizened old servant, the jolly ex-pat, the flustered nun — as she depicts an idyllic milieu under threat. This is an assured, emotionally engaging novel.’ — Richard Godwin, Literary Review, London

    ‘The End of Innocence is set in 1 970s Pakistan, a world of vibrant colour, rich smells and savage civil wait Mohsin uses words like a palette to paint a vivid picture of the country she grew up in. Themes synonymous with another world — honour killings, family honour-collide with the universal consequences of exposed secrets. This is a beautifully written work which promises to be a real success.’ — Melissa Thompson, The Big Issue, London

    $ 4.98
  • WOMEN WRITER ON PARTITION OF PAKISTAN & INDIA

    Never before has a single volume featured non-fiction writing by women from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh on the Partition of India. Here, for the first time, are Ismat Chughtai, Sara Suleri, Anis Kidwai, Phulrenu Guha, Meghna Guhathakurta, Shehla Shibli, Manikuntala Sen. Kamlaben Patel and many others, speaking and writing about communalism and literature; what they learnt from refugees; what partition means to them 50 years later; and how they define themselves—Hindus? Muslims? Indians? Pakistanis? Bengalis? All of these or none? Either or neither? Not-Indian-not-Pakistani? Bangladeshi not Pakistani? Above all, their accounts raise that most troubling question: do women have a country? An unusual mix of memoirs, interviews, reminiscences and reflective essays, this anthology is the first attempt to present women’s perspective on the partition of India, based on the experience of three countries.

    $ 2.49
  • GENDER, NATION, STATE IN PAKISTAN

    The three essays in this volume explore the changing parameters of struggles over gender in Pakistan. In the process, the author attempts to theoretically traverse the boundaries between public and private domains, the State and what is often referred to as ‘civil society’, the individual and the collective, and the local and international. She does this through a discussion of sovereignty and citizenship; the growing nexus between militarism, masculinism and fundamentalism; and the rapid shrinking of democratic spaces in the country.

    $ 4.98
  • AGRICULTURE IN PAKISTAN

    Agriculture in Pakistan has come a long way since 1947. Much has changed but it remains a dominant sector of the national economy. This book contains a critical analysis of the transformation process that agriculture has undergone in Pakistan. The analysis is based on a wealth of past and current data and an extensive review of literature. The book begins with a bird’s eye view of the changing role of agriculture in the national economy, its overall performance, and references to some of the underlying factors. It looks at the effects of agriculture on rural income distribution and poverty. It then focuses on the natural resource base for agricultural growth and examines changes in the production and productivity of crops and livestock. These changes are given an institutional context in terms of farm structures by ownership of and tenure on land and their differences in the use of resources and farm enterprises (crops and livestock), followed by an analysis of markets for agricultural products, resources and inputs. This completes the production and marketing processes. Finally, it addresses two important questions. Who are the main players in the process of change in Pakistan’s agriculture? What role has public policy played in terms of its effects on the observed changes and outcomes?

    $ 6.48
  • PAKISTAN

    ‘A well – written and authoritative account from someone who knows Pakistani politics from the inside’.
    -Peter Bergen, CNN Terrorism Analyst and author of the bestselling Holy War Inc; Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden

    ‘We are in Husain Haqqani’s debt for providing an authoritative account of the linkages between Pakistan’s powerful Islamists and its professional army. He conclusively demonstrates that these ties are long-standing, complex and very troubling. This brilliantly researched and written book should be required reading for anyone who wishes to understand this increasingly important state’.
    -Stephen p. Cohen, Brookings Institution,
    Author of The Idea of Pakistan and the Pakistan Army

    Husain Haqqani’s Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military analyzes the origins of the relationships between Islamism groups and Pakistan’s military, and explores Pakistan’s quest for identity and security. Tracing how Pakistan’s military has sought U.S. support by making itself useful for concerns of the moment – while continuing to strengthen the mosque – military alliance within the country – Haqqani offers an alternative view of political developments in Pakistan since the country’s independence in 1947.

    $ 8.97
  • BRITISH MILITARY POLICY IN INDIA, 1900-1945

    The decline of British imperialism had far reaching colonial and post-colonial consequences. British policy and Indian history, for obvious reasons, unfolded in the foreground of this decline from 1900 onwards. This volume contextualizes crucial aspects of modern India’s military past. It contends that British imperialism, like all empires, declined due to its inherent contradictions. Managing the military affairs of the British Raj comprised a crucial element of these contradictions.

    While mentioning the challenges posed by India’s military system to British policy, this volume highlights the tension between the imperatives of reform and the compulsions of economy and traditions felt both by the British and the Indians involved in managing colonial military affairs. Between 1900 and 1939 the colonial Indian war machine could be refurbished only up to a point, primarily because of the very system which had produced it. The significance of military reform and decolonization were first underscored by the Great War (1914-18) and subsequently even more by the Second World War (1939-45).

    This socio-political history of the colonial Indian military organization investigates why reform remained largely theoretical even as the British used Indian resources to defend a weakening empire through two world wars. Ultimately, World War II transformed the Indian armed forces but eventually, as this book asserts, this transformation worked against the British.

    $ 4.98
  • GANDHI

    Over the years I have discussed Gandhi with many Americans, both formally and informally… What continues to irk me is the amount of Gandhi ‘propaganda material’ that has flooded our libraries and bookstores. For an unsuspecting Westerner, the reading of Gandhi as he is portrayed on these shelves can bring about the intended result. That is understandable. This book is an attempt to close the gap between the popularized Gandhi and the historical Gandhi. It will incite readers to be more open-minded and to seek to validate the ‘truths’ presented. My hope is that it will provoke honest, healthy, and open dialogue and foster more critical scrutiny about him…

    Years of dedicated research on Gandhi convinced me that our hero was fundamentally a racist. In this book, I present the facts. The evidence presented here is not a matter of speculation or distorted interpretation. Much of the irrefutable evidence lay buried beneath a mountain of Gandhi’s own writings – in his own words, which I have uncovered – comments that will be difficult to dispute once they are read. In this book you will read the evidence in its entirety. My primary intention is to untangle the web that Gandhi wove – and his followers are still weaving – for many years. Only through a methodical probing can we expose Gandhi’s campaign of deception: the lies, the propaganda, the misinformation, the half-truths, and the efforts to hide behind religion. Where Gandhi left off, his followers have picked up, and they continue their own sophisticated campaigns, both in India and abroad. This book should not be looked upon as another Gandhi biography. Rather, it should provide a standard by which to weigh Gandhian literature for accuracy and objectivity. Also, this book, though narrowly focused, should stand as a guide alerting us to how thoroughly the Gandhi propagandists and others have succeeded in deceiving us.

    $ 4.98
  • ALIVE AND WELL IN PAKISTAN

    ‘Casey plunges into Pakistan like a knife, unearthing and unravelling the often unexplainable and unpredictable contradictions of a country on the edge. Pakistan just happens to be one of the most complex and difficult countries to describe, but Casey does a magnificent job. Casey’s prose sings, and his portraits are master class. A conjuror of images and sensations in an unpredictable land.’ Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban.

    Ethan Casey explores what life is like in a Muslim country on the frontline of the US-declared ‘war on terror’ while living, working and teaching in Lahore, Pakistan. Drawing observations from the street, university classrooms and interviews with lawyers, journalists and politicians, Casey updates his understanding of the Pakistani experience and sets it within a context of recent and contemporary history. Revisiting a decade of ground-level reporting, he humanises domestic politics; attitudes towards the West and India; and the Kashmir and Afghanistan issues.

    Alive and Well in Pakistan is an engaging and well-informed literary reportage that demystifies the uneasy place that Pakistan occupies in an uncertain world.

    ‘Ethan Casey documents his travels in Pakistan, reflecting the moods of the historical moment in compelling prose. Like Conrad and Greene before him, he is, I suspect, out to travel dangerously.’ Norman Sherry, author of The Life of Graham Greene.

    $ 6.48
  • THE IDEA OF PAKISTAN

    In recent years Pakistan has emerged as a strategic player on the world stage – both as a potential rogue state armed with nuclear weapons and as an American ally in the war against terrorism. But our understanding of this country is superficial.

    To probe beyond the headlines, Stephen Cohen, author of the prize-winning ‘India: Emerging Power’, offers a panoramic portrait of this complex country – from its origins as a homeland for Indian Muslims to a military dominated state that has experienced uneven economic growth, political chaos, sectarian violence, and several nuclear crises with its much larger neighbor, India.

    Pakistan’s future is uncertain. Can it fulfill its promise of joining the community of nations as a moderate Islamic state, at peace with its neighbours, or could it dissolve completely into a failed state, spewing out terrorists and nuclear weapons in several directions? ‘The Idea of Pakistan’ will be an essential tool for understanding this critically important country.

    $ 7.97
  • THE FIVE BIGGEST LIES BUSH TOLD US ABOUT IRAQ

    ‘The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq’ is the comprehensive source on the administration’s campaign of disinformation before, during, and after the second Gulf War. From the careful linking of Saddam Hussein with AI Qaeda, to the WMD canard, to the September 2003 damage-control sideshow, AlterNet’s Christopher Scheer, and Lakshmi Chaudhry team up with renowned journalist Robert Scheer to take the full measure of official deception.

    This book offers the first analysis of this pattern, underscoring that the move to war was highly managed. The public did not commit troops and dollars to the invasion acting on the best information its government could provide. Instead, we fell victim to a marketing campaign conducted by a small group of influential radicals inside the Bush administration who were pursuing their own narrow, hubristic agenda.

    $ 4.48
  • PROFIT OVER PEOPLE

    “PROFIT OVER PEOPLE is Noam Chomsky at his best. His critique of our political and economic system is brilliant and devastating. This is a powerful rush of facts and ideas. Don’t stand too close.” —HOWARD ZINN In Profit Over People, Noam Chomsky takes on neoliberalism: the pro-corporate system of economic and political policies presently waging a form of class war worldwide. Chomsky critiques the tyranny of the few that restricts the public arena and enacts policies that vastly increase private wealth, often with complete disregard for social and ecological consequences. Profit Over People presents Chomsky’s thoughts on free market philosophy corporate control of public opinion, and the unreported impact of nondemocratic forces and policies like the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment-and the widespread resistance movements that often emerge to oppose them. Chomsky offers a profound sense of hope that social activism can reclaim people’s rights as citizens rather than as consumers, redefining democracy as a global movement, not a global market.

    $ 4.98
  • ISLAM, GLOBALISATION AND MODERNITY

    It is more than a mere coincidence that in 1992 when the Euro-American world celebrated the five hundredth anniversary of the Columbian campaign to the Indies, Muslims in Bosnia bled in the longest-ever siege in European history. Cities like Sarajevo, Mostar, Vitez, Gorazde, Ahmici, Banja Luka, Pale, Srebrenica and several other small towns across this beautiful, mountainous Balkan peninsula suffered the worst-ever destruction in recent history. But while Bosnia burned, the United Nations, the EU and the Muslim regions watched passively. Was Bosnia a unique case where the primordial identities struck back jingoistically or is it a microcosm of a Third World-wide malady where the processes of globalisation and modernity have gone haywire, causing serious fragmentation? Can we define it simply as the revival of age-old rivalries, or could it be characterised as an anarchic void following the dissolution of a state-based centralism?

    The relationship between modernity and Islam is still a largely under-researched intellectual realm, though the erstwhile discourse defining it as a contestation between tradition and modernity, universalism and cultural particularism, or between change and stagnation, is gradually giving way to a fresher academic perspective. The ‘recent’ forces of modernity brought into the Muslim heartland by colonialism and highlighted by post-coloniality and mobility have intensified the debate on Muslim identity itself. The Bosnians, especially the Bosnaks/Bosniaks, have been undisputedly European, rooted in a secularist vision of Islam, pursuing modernity with full force in reference to liberalism, rationalism, feminism and, of course, pluralism. Their nationalist aspirations never hinged on religio-lingual monoethnicity, yet still they suffered from the most harrowing crimes ever committed against a human community. In other words, here it was not Islam battling against modernity, rather the latter itself became disputed and went wild, negating the entire thesis of clash of civilisations or Islam being static or pre-modern. The very core of this modernity, nationalism became the most reactionary weapon for ethnic cleansing. Subsequent upon the dissolution of communist centralism, the ideological vacuum in the former Eastern bloc is being claimed by xenophobic nationalism in collusion with religious extremism. This phenomenon largely explains the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. The Balkan tragedy is a mixture of old and new; globalisation and peripheralisation; integration and fragmentation, and a contestation between primordial and modernist loyalties.

    $ 4.98
  • MEDIA CONTROL

    Chomsky’s classic on wartime propaganda and opinion control has been updated and expanded into a two-section book, following the acclaimed format of his anti-war bestseller, 9-11(also available by Natraj). This new edition of Media Control, available in India for the first time, includes “The Journalist from Mars,” Chomsky’s talk on the media coverage of America’s “new war on terrorism.”

    Chomsky begins by asserting two models of democracy—one in which the public actively participates, and one in which the public is manipulated and controlled. According to Chomsky “propa ganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state,” and the mass media is the primary vehicle for delivering propaganda in the United States. From an examination of how Woodrow Wilson’s Creel Commission “succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population,” to Bush Sr.’s war on Iraq, Chomsky examines how the mass media and public relations industries have been used as propaganda to generate public support for going to war.

    Chomsky touches on how the modern public relations industry has been influenced by Walter Lippmann’s theory of “spectator democracy,” in which the public is seen as a “bewildered herd” that needs to be directed, not empowered; and how the public relations industry in the United States focuses on “controlling the public mind,” and not on informing it.

    $ 4.98
  • POWER AND TERROR

    Immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, Noam Chomsky’s always tightly scheduled life ratcheted several levels higher in intensity. In the months that followed, he gave a great many public talks and countless interviews, many of them to the foreign media, who turned to him as one of the small handful of American intellectuals who stood opposed to the Bush administration’s aggressive military response to the attacks.

    With unflagging conviction, Chomsky must have repeated a thousand times his argument that we cannot address terrorism of the weak against the powerful without also confronting ‘the unmentionable but far more extreme terrorism of the powerful against the weak’.

    The argument, supported with an ever expanding array of historical case studies, documents, and analyses, fell on deaf ears in Washington and in the mainstream American media, but resonated with large audiences in the United States and abroad who turned once again to Chomsky for the voice of reason and conscience that he has provided for decades.

    Chomsky does not see himself as a vehicle for social change but perhaps its enabler, by providing his audience with the information and analysis that are the fruits of his research.

    He repeatedly emphasizes that there are choices to be made, and that it is up to the individual to act according to moral principle and to force those in power to do the same.

    $ 4.98
  • PAKISTAN

    Born from a vision of political idealism, caught up in termoil from its first day of independence, this is the tale of one nation’s journey from the margins of history to the center of the world stage. Forced into the spotlight by the international fight against terror, Pakistan has become a global player and an acknowledged nuclear power; today, struggling to balance Western influences with internal demands, it stands poised at the very crosscurrent of history.

    Lawrence Ziring, political scientist and long-time observer of the Pakistan scene, combines all the salient facts with astute analysis to track Pakistan’s history from the pre-Partition era, through Independence in 1947, to its changing role in the post 911 world. Guiding us through three wars, numerous periods of political instability and martial law, he offers a penetrating analysis of the conflicts between tradition and modernity, religion and secularity, which continue both to burden this Muslim country and to shape its destiny.

    Definitive, readable, and uncompromising, this new account is not a glib survey, but a roadmap through a rocky past, opening on to an uncertain future.

    Readers will find in this book all the historical and political insight they may need in their search for answers to the question burning in the minds of international powers and Pakistani citizens alike: ‘Whither Pakistan?’

    $ 6.48
  • PAKISTAN

    Although Pakistan achieved independence in 1947, it has still not succeeded in integrating its diverse peoples into a nation, as its short yet turbulent history vividly demonstrates.

    The nation’s search for stability is traced in this new introduction to Pakistan’s political, economic and social development.

    New chapters detail political developments since 1991, including the elections of 1993 and 1996. Particular attention is paid to economic changes, including the financial crisis that led to the fall of Benazir Bhutto’s government in 1996.

    Also included is an extensive analysis of the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan, an issue of global concern.

    $ 6.48
  • THE MURDER OF HISTORY

    In Pakistani schools and colleges what is being taught as History is really national mythology, and the subjects of Social Studies and Pakistan Studies are nothing but vehicles of political indoctrination. Our children don’t learn History.

    They are ordered to read a carefully selected collection of falsehoods, fairy tales and plain lies. Why and how has this come about? Who is responsible for it? In what ways is this destroying the country? Why doesn’t anyone protest against it? In this book, the distinguished Pakistani historian K K Aziz asks and answers these questions for the first time, by making an in-depth study of 66 textbooks on these subjects currently in use in the schools and colleges of the country.

    He (1) lists their errors of fact, emphasis and interpretation, (2) enumerates their major omissions, (3) corrects their mistakes, (4) brings out the distortions they teach and perpetuate, (5) estimates their ravaging effects on the students, and (6) measures their impact on the nation at large.

    He does this with documented scholarship, meticulous care, deep understanding, acute concern, and rare courage.

    This is a stinging but fully deserved attack on the governments which order and prescribe these textbooks, the scholars and educationists who plan and approve them, the professors who write them, and the parents who accept them.

    The contents of this book should shake every general reader and throw every parent into a panic.

    $ 5.98
  • CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR

    In a little over a decade, two events have transformed the world we live in: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of militant Islam. Charlie Wilson’s War is the untold story behind the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the new jihad.

    George Crile tells how Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the Agency’s history.

    In the early 1980s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson’s attention to the ragged band of Afghan “freedom fighters” who continued, despite overwhelming odds, to fight the Soviet invaders, the congressman became passionate about their cause. At a time when Ronald Reagan faced a total cutoff of funding for the Contra war, Wilson, who sat on the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee, managed to procure hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen.

    The arms were secretly procured and distributed with the aid of an out-of-favor CIA operative, Gust Avrakotos, whose working-class Greek-American background made him an anomaly among the Ivy League world of American spies. Nicknamed “Dr. Dirty,” the blue-collar James Bond was an aggressive agent who served on the front lines of the Cold War where he learned how to stretch the Agency’s rules to the breaking point.

    Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers conventions, to the Khyber Pass, Charlie Wilson’s War is brilliantly reported and one of the most detailed and compulsively readable accounts of the inside workings of the CIA ever written.

    $ 7.47
  • HINDUTVA

    A hundred years ago, when Hitler’s third reich was little more than a nebulous concept of nationhood based qn racial inequality and exclusion, perhaps no one might have thought that the name of the individual and his “empire” would come to be associated with the gravest notions of immorality, atrocity, and ruination, in the history of mankind.

    it is perhaps for this very reason that the fourth reich -in india, under hindutva- will never actually claim such a title for itself. This is little other than semantics, of course. Let there be no doubts at all,; irrespective of the name it might choose for itself, the fourth reich is alive and well, and growing ever more powerful, and polemical, with each passing day.

    it is, thus, high time we awakened ourselves to – and are outraged by – the unspeakable acts of cruelty in the name of religion that are transpiring in india under the watchful eye of the fourth reich, today. The absence of opprobrium and censure to what we are witnessing today, will only render us liable to be judged by those that will inevitably follow us, for maintaining the most damning sort of neutrality in this time of moral crisis. We will be judged by history.

    we must never allow that to happen.

    $ 6.48
  • PAKISTAN

    It’s a collection of sixty-one essays written in the last twenty-six years. They cover a wide range of issues related to Pakistan an:1 beyond. There are reflective essays about freedom, old age, good life, evolution, and gossip. Another group of essays focus on culture and society: leisure and work, the art of discussion, Muslim societies, and nostalgia. A third group covers international politics: conflicts in the Holy Land, Kashmir, Afghanistan and Xinjiang, Bangladesh at 50, and Islamophobia. The fourth group of essays are about the history and politics of Pakistan, including three counterfactuals. The focus of the next group of essays is on Pakistan’s economy, its performance and comparison with Malaysia and Bangladesh. The largest number of essays are in the sixth group on agriculture and rural development in Pakistan. In the final croup are seven biographical essays about the life and work of individuals who are simply inspirational.

    $ 12.50
  • LOOKING FOR THE ENEMY: MULLAH OMAR AND THE UNKNOWN TALIBAN

    For twenty years, the Taliban was the number one enemy of Western forces in Afghanistan. But it was an enemy that they knew little about. And they knew even less about its founder and leader, Mullah Omar.

    With only a fuzzy black-and-white photo of the man, investigative journalist Bette Dam decided to track down the reclusive Taliban chief. But in the course of what had seemed an almost impossible job, she got to know the Taliban inside out, realized how dangerously misinformed the global forces fighting it were, and made a startling discovery about the elusive Omar’s whereabouts.

    The outcome of a five-year-long pursuit, Looking for the Enemy is a woman journalist’s epic story that takes the reader deep into Afghanistan as it throws up several unknowns about a movement that is now once again at the helm of the country.

    $ 12.50
  • PAKISTAN UNDER BENAZIR BHUTTO 1988-1990: TRIAL OF DEMOCRACY – 1, PAKISTAN UNDER NAWAZ SHARIF 1990-1993 TRIAL OF DEMOCRACY – 2, REPORTAGE, COMMENT, ANALYSIS BY NAJAM SETHI

    This is the first volume of a series of books by veteran journalist Najam Sethi on Pakistan’s sputtering journey under democracy from 1988 to 2021 after it emerged from a stifling decade of autocracy under Z A Bhutto from 1972-1977 and ruthless dictatorship under General Zia ul Haq from 1977 to 1988.

    It contains an insightful collection of over 100 weekly reports, comments and analyses by Najam Sethi on the state of democracy under Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from 1988-90.

    These articles highlight the politics of conspiracy, corruption, mismanagement, disinformation, victimization, invisible government, rigged elections, politicization of financial institutions, traitors, ‘ slandering matches, All Parties Conferences, Afghanistan imbroglio, jihad in Kashmir, shariat shock, budget blues, Indo-Pak impasse, mullahs on warpath, police lawlessness, judiciary under pressure, mockery of justice, Uncle Sam, etc.

    The shenanigans of COAS General Aslam Beg and Opposition Leader Nawaz Sharif are as interesting as the games of hide and seek played by Salmaan Taseer or Mustafa Khan; there are fascinating insights into the personality and politics of Baloch leaders Ghaus Bux Bizenjo and Ataullah Mengal, and British journalist Christina Lamb’s angst in the Land of the Pure is both revealing and intriguing.

    This is the second volume of a series of books by veteran journalist Najam Sethi on Pakistan’s sputtering journey under democracy from 1988 to 2021 after it emerged from a stifling decade of autocracy under Z A Bhutto from 1972-1977 and ruthless dictatorship under General Zia ul Haq from 1977 to 1988.

    In this collection of nearly 200 articles, reports, commentaries and analyses, Sethi discusses a wide range of issues relating to state, society and government under the Nawaz Sharif regime from 1990 to 1993. Among the many subjects covered are: mockery of justice and judiciary under pressure; the “law of necessity”; state terrorism; humour in uniform; thinking beyond Saddam; privatise or perish; cold war blues; Nawaz Sharif’s options; freedom, fairness, state and party; disintegration of the social contract; the rise of Nawaz Sharif; India’s dangerous legacies; waylaying the press; the price of press freedom and accountability; the “great game” revisited; how the other half dies; US-Pak agenda for nuclear talks; art of stealing elections; dialoguing with India; unravelling Afghanistan; grasping cynics and power plays in Islamabad; Benazir Bhutto’s social contract; “cleaning-up the fanatics”; killing fields of fundamentalism; how and why to get rid of the 8th Amendment; third force vs third solution; the tragedy of General Asif Nawaz; Establishment vs Civil Society; Discretion vs Justice; Nawaz Sharif’s Lafafah legacies; and grand delusions of Mairaj Mohammad Khan and Rao Rashid.

    The writing is full of sardonic humour, wit and penetrating analysis.

    $ 19.98$ 22.47
  • THE SPY CHRONICLES

    SOME TIME in 2016, a series of dialogues took place which set out to find a meeting ground, even if only an illusion, between A.S. Dulat and Asad Durrani. One was a former chief of RAW, India s external intelligence agency, the other of ISI, its Pakistani counterpart. As they could not meet in their home countries, the conversations, guided by journalist Aditya Sinha, took place in cities like Istanbul, Bangkok and Kathmandu. On the table were subjects that have long haunted South Asia, flashpoints that take lives regularly. It was in all ways a deep dive into the politics of the subcontinent, as seen through the eyes of two spymasters.

    Among the subjects: Kashmir, and a missed opportunity for peace; Hafiz Saeed and 26/11; Kulbhushan Jadhav; surgical strikes; the deal for Osama bin Laden; how the US and Russia feature in the India-Pakistan relationship; and how terror undermines the two countries attempts at talks.

    When the project was first mooted, General Durrani laughed and said nobody would believe it even if it was written as fiction. At a time of fraught relations, this unlikely dialogue between two former spy chiefs from opposite sides a project that is the first of its kind may well provide some answers.

    $ 9.97
  • PAKISTAN UNDER NAWAZ SHARIF 1990-1993

    This is the second volume of a series of books by veteran journalist Najam Sethi on Pakistan’s sputtering journey under democracy from 1988 to 2021 after it emerged from a stifling decade of autocracy under Z A Bhutto from 1972-1977 and ruthless dictatorship under General Zia ul Haq from 1977 to 1988.

    In this collection of nearly 200 articles, reports, commentaries and analyses, Sethi discusses a wide range of issues relating to state, society and government under the Nawaz Sharif regime from 1990 to 1993. Among the many subjects covered are: mockery of justice and judiciary under pressure; the “law of necessity”; state terrorism; humour in uniform; thinking beyond Saddam; privatise or perish; cold war blues; Nawaz Sharif’s options; freedom, fairness, state and party; disintegration of the social contract; the rise of Nawaz Sharif; India’s dangerous legacies; waylaying the press; the price of press freedom and accountability; the “great game” revisited; how the other half dies; US-Pak agenda for nuclear talks; art of stealing elections; dialoguing with India; unravelling Afghanistan; grasping cynics and power plays in Islamabad; Benazir Bhutto’s social contract; “cleaning-up the fanatics”; killing fields of fundamentalism; how and why to get rid of the 8th Amendment; third force vs third solution; the tragedy of General Asif Nawaz; Establishment vs Civil Society; Discretion vs Justice; Nawaz Sharif’s Lafafah legacies; and grand delusions of Mairaj Mohammad Khan and Rao Rashid.

    The writing is full of sardonic humour, wit and penetrating analysis.

    $ 12.50
  • HONOUR AMONG SPIES

    In May 2018, a book was published that set off a perfect storm in the intelligence circles in the subcontinent, and made people in the spy community sit up around the world. What made The Spy Chronicles unusual was that two of its authors, A.S. Dulat and Asad Durrani, co-writing with journalist Aditya Sinha, had headed their respective spy agencies — Dulat had been chief of India’s RAW, and Lt Gen. Durrani of Pakistan’s ISI.

    More remarkably, these former chiefs of two of the most powerful spy agencies in the world, which were also bitter rivals, discussed the necessity for peace and how the relationship between their two countries could be improved. The fallout of the book would result in Lt Gen. Durrani, a man who has been spoken of as one of the clearest and sharpest thinkers to head the ISI, being put on the exit control list and having his pension revoked.

    Honour Among Spies is a fictional account of a spy who is sent out into the cold, but one that reflects all too accurately the predicament of a distinguished officer fighting to protect his reputation. Woven into the novel is a throwback to another famous incident the raid on Osama bin Laden, about whose hideaway and the raid itself Lt Gen. Durrani had made some prescient comments. These and other elements come together in this taut battle of wits that takes forward, in a way, the narrative of The Spy Chronicles.

    $ 7.47
  • THE FORGOTTEN LEGACIES OF GANGA RAM 1851 – 1927

    Rai Bahadur Sir Ganga Ram (13th April 1851-10th July 1927) was a renowned Indian civil engineer and architect. His extensive contributions to the urban fabric of Lahore prompted Khaled Ahmed to describe him as the Father of Modern Lahore.

    His birth had taken place in a small village in Nankana Sahib district of West Punjab into a Punjabi Hindu Baniya family of Agarwals who had migrated from Uttar Pradesh. On completing his school years in Amritsar he managed to secure scholarships to two of the best institutions of the country, Govt College Lahore and Thomason College of Engineering Roorkee. His stellar academic records here enabled his entry to the Public Works Department Lahore, something still rare and unusual for native engineers. His 12 year period as the Executive Engineer witnessed many outstanding contributions to the urban landscape of the city of Lahore and is oft referred to as the Ganga Ram Architectural period. The early structures built by him were the famous Mayo School of Art-1880 and the Aitchison Chiefs College-1886. This was to be followed among many others by the Lahore Museum in his trademark redbrick style as was the ornately structured Lahore General Post Office.

    His feats in agriculture and his philanthropic endeavors were to follow on the heels of his retirement in 1903, and are delineated in detail in this biography. But sadly for most people in Pakistan his story is lost in the obscurities of time and his name seems to be now solely associated with the hospital in his name. That is the case in India too and here the hospital named after him was built by his family in the 1950s but little else is known of him or remembered. The hope with which I embarked on writing this biography was to revive these forgotten legacies and to honor him as an integral part of the precious heritage of our shared history.

    $ 7.47
  • RUTTIE JINNAH

    An immaculate political biography of Ruttie Jinnah by a Pakistani civil servant-cum-scholar Saad S. Khan, co-authored by former head of Jinnah Academy and his better half, Sara Khan. Painstakingly researched for over 12 years by personally visiting almost every conceivable place associated with Ruttie’s life – India, Pakistan and England, and interviewing scores of historians, family members and lawyers of Jinnah’s descendants, this hard-hitting book analyses the role Jinnah’s wife played during the freedom struggle.

    Would Pakistan have still been created if Jinnah’s terminal illness was leaked? So, would India have still been partitioned if Ruttie was not his wife? Why did Gandhi ji, never known to have communicated with any other Muslim leader’s wife, choose to write letters directly to Mrs. Jinnah? Why did Motilal Nehru’s descendants distance themselves from Mrs. Jinnah despite his great regard for her? Was it merely a coincidence that nationalist Jinnah’s reorientation towards his two-nation theory took place during his married years?

    This book is an attempt at incisively understanding Jinnah’s politics through his lover and a highly influential yet unstudied historical figure, Ruttie Jinnah’s eyes!

    $ 9.97
  • HYBRID RULE IN PAKISTAN

    Since its creation as an independent state in 1947, Pakistan has alternated between authoritarian military regimes and ineffectual civilian rule. For most of its history, the country has been ruled by powerful military with short spans of elected civilian democracy in between. But since 2018 Pakistan has experimented with what many have described as hybrid rule. The system has been unique for many reasons. The security establishment has always been the determiner of national security and foreign policy in Pakistan but that role has become more pronounced under the lmran Khan government. Its extending shadow can be discerned in all dimensions of the state. In this book, collection of his columns, Zahid Hussain examines Pakistan’s experiment with a hybrid rule and its consequence.

    $ 9.97
  • THE RELUCTANT REPUBLIC ETHOS AND MYTHOS OF PAKISTAN

    Nadeem Farooq Paracha’s quest to explore various questions of identity in the nation-state of Pakistan continues. In this sixth book of his, The Reluctant Republic, he ventures even deeper to investigate the history of statist-nationalist narratives in Pakistan and how the country’s diverse ethnic, sectarian and sub-sectarian groups responded to these narratives. Paracha posits that statist experiments in this context have largely failed to build a cohesive and confident nation-state which is always in fear of coming apart. As is often the case in his books, parallel to investigating the faultlines that crisscross Pakistan’s existence as a nation-state, Paracha simultaneously weaves a counter-narrative. He challenges and deconstructs the statist narratives to provide a constructive alternative to experiments and narratives that have been unable to shape a unified and progressive nation-state but continue being repeated with minor modifications. Paracha builds a compelling case to conclude that the state of Pakistan must come to terms with the fact that the formulation of a civic-nationalism – or a nationalism based on a nation of diverse ‘micro-nations’ joined to an integrated economy rather than to a dominant ethnic group or a specific faith – is the country’s only way out of the vicious cycle it seems to be stuck in. A cycle that weakens the resolve and structure of the nation-state every time it completes one futile rotation after another.

    $ 7.47
  • PHILOSOPHERS OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAM

    “In this inspiring book Professor Akbar Ahmed continues his personal quest of bridging the gap between the Orient and the West, as he did in his earlier books and projects.” Dr. Husein ef. Kavazovic, Grand Mufti of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

    “Amongst all of his important books, this gem of a book is Ambassador Ahmed’s magnum opus.” Dr. Amineh Hoti, Fellow-Commoner, University of Cambridge, and author of Gems and Jewels: The Religions of Pakistan.

    “Akbar Ahmed is a Muslim treasure himself. ” Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, President, co-founder, and senior faculty member of Zaytuna College, Berkeley, California.

    $ 6.48
  • PAKISTAN UNDER BENAZIR BHUTTO 1988-1990

    This is the first volume of a series of books by veteran journalist Najam Sethi on Pakistan’s sputtering journey under democracy from 1988 to 2021 after it emerged from a stifling decade of autocracy under Z A Bhutto from 1972-1977 and ruthless dictatorship under General Zia ul Haq from 1977 to 1988.

    It contains an insightful collection of over 100 weekly reports, comments and analyses by Najam Sethi on the state of democracy under Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto from 1988-90.

    These articles highlight the politics of conspiracy, corruption, mismanagement, disinformation, victimization, invisible government, rigged elections, politicization of financial institutions, traitors, ‘ slandering matches, All Parties Conferences, Afghanistan imbroglio, jihad in Kashmir, shariat shock, budget blues, Indo-Pak impasse, mullahs on warpath, police lawlessness, judiciary under pressure, mockery of justice, Uncle Sam, etc.

    The shenanigans of COAS General Aslam Beg and Opposition Leader Nawaz Sharif are as interesting as the games of hide and seek played by Salmaan Taseer or Mustafa Khan; there are fascinating insights into the personality and politics of Baloch leaders Ghaus Bux Bizenjo and Ataullah Mengal, and British journalist Christina Lamb’s angst in the Land of the Pure is both revealing and intriguing.

    $ 9.97
  • PEN AND POLITICS RESISTANCE IN PAKISTAN

    This impressive collection of short essays by Dr. Naazir Mahmood centers upon the theme of resistance to hegemonic domination. What resistance means, of course, depends upon the particular context. His canvas is super-sized, spanning continents and drawing examples as different as the Bhakti movement in India to the birth of Protestantism in Europe. But most of the book deals with forms of resistance on the Indian subcontinent about which, quite naturally, the author has the most to say and in some cases has intimate knowledge of.

    By excerpting particularly poignant parts of Urdu novels and short stories, the author brings before us the wealth of Urdu literature -both prose and poetry – created under the shadow of military rule. This deals with how West Pakistanis sneered at and trod upon Bengalis, the plight of Biharis who had fought for Pakistan but were abandoned, the resistance literature that Zia-ul-Haq’s oppression gave birth to, how the Baloch have struggled for their rights under different governments, and so much more. There are well-deserved eulogies to those Pakistanis who have stood up to the powers-that-be and refused the ideological straitjacket. Among them are Aslam Azhar, Fahmida Riaz, Kishwar Naheed, and Sobho Gianchandani. The author’s impressive breadth of reading and familiarity with left-wing politics is most evident here and therefore, in my opinion, this is perhaps the strongest part of this book.

    To question received wisdom is not in our culture or habit. But the author is unusual in having been born into a family that was different. A passion for reading and interactions with people from different parts of Pakistan has made the author different from most. Not everyone will be comfortable with his views. Some will question the author’s patriotism but he knows how to answer them: patriotism is a farce if it does not involve loving all people, including the disabled, the transgender, and the other marginalized peoples. Patriotism cannot be built on hating others.

    $ 12.50
  • INDIAN MUSLIMS

    India is projected to have the world’s largest Muslim population surpassing Pakistan and Indonesia by the middle of this century. This book makes a compelling case that Indian Muslims have not been equal beneficiaries of India’s economic growth. Their status now is not very different from that of the lowest-ranked Dalits in Indian society. The evidence shows that socio-economic status of the Indian Muslim community has been slipping for a long time. The book challenges the dominant image among majority Hindus that Muslims are innately prone to religious fundamentalism, militancy and extremism. Using information from official reports and data from a survey of Muslims from ten Indian states, the book explores the architecture of Muslim religiosity, the status of Muslim women, social and political attitudes and their socio-economic well-being. The evidence defies the myth of religious orthodoxy and shows that Indian Muslims are less orthodox and patriarchal than their co-religionists from Muslim majority countries. Theoretically informed and empirically grounded analysis and discussion in the book offers fresh insights into the social, political and economic conditions of Indian Muslims in the current context of rising Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric in India. This is undermining the constitutionally mandated promise of equality of citizenship and opportunity to all Indian citizens including minorities.

    $ 9.97
  • CIRCULAR HISTORY OF PAKISTAN

    This book’s central thesis is that our cyclical political history is, in fact, like a short movie clip, set on a time-loop, that creates a perpetual déjà vu for those in the theater. Every political scene has been enacted before and is being re-telecast repeatedly. We are stuck in circular time and history and have not found our Nirvanic moment to follow the alternative trajectory of linear growth and development.

    The first part of the book, ‘Our Circular History’, recounts our political journey of a recurring, predictable, painful, and vicious decade-long Samsara of cyclic birth and death of order and freedom. This bird’s eye view shows how the same episodes keep happening with mind-boggling regularity, and how each of our institutions is responsible for our entrapment in circular time and history.

    The second part of the book, ‘Chronicles of our Times’, narrates what is currently happening in our polity. Our circular political past primarily shapes contemporary events, but we also mimic what is currently happening in other parts of the world, where new weaponized and micro-targeted social media has facilitated the trend of cartoon-history and political jokers.

    The last part of the book, ‘Future Panoramic Realities’, uses a broad angle lens to view developments in the Indian subcontinent, in Eurasia, and in the wider world.

    We cannot escape our Malthusian dilemmas, without redefining our national priorities, our Hobbesian snare. Without that shift away from geo-rentals and geo-politics, we may not be able to escape our entrapment in vicious cycles, or even downwards spiral.

    The key to an endless growth cycle is investment in innovation, knowledge, people, and creativity. That is the only real virtuous cycle: without that, there can only be one-off spurts of growth. Only by investing in geo-economics, people, knowledge banks, and critical technologies can we join the virtuous growth and development cycles.

    $ 9.97