Adil Najam

As the fourth part of our series on the events of 1971, we are reposting this post which was first published at ATP on December 16, 2006. We are reposting it with all the original comments since they, as a whole, are very much part of the conversation we all need to have with ourselves. The previous three parts of the series can be read here, here and here.

Today is December 16.
Today Bangladesh will mark its 35th ‘Victory Day.’

Most Pakistanis will go about their lives, not remembering or not wanting to remember. We should remember – and learn – from the significance of this date.

Not because it marks a ‘defeat’ but because it marks the end of a dream, 24 years of mistakes, horrible bloodshed, traumatic agony, and shameful atrocities. The constructed mythologies of what happened, why, and who is to be blamed need to be questioned. Tough questions have to be asked. And unpleasant answers have to be braced for. We need to honestly confront our own history, for our own sake.

But right now, the goal of this post is different. We at ATP just wish to extend a hand of friendship to our Bangladeshi friends. May the memories we make in our future be very different (and more pleasant) than the scars we carry from our past.

Owais Mughal

I am watching TV and writing these lines. Just now the news has come that Supreme Court of Pakistan has struck down National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

As I am changing channels, I just saw Imran Khan demanding mid-term elections. PML(N) guys seem to be asking for the resignation of President on ‘moral’ grounds where as PPP guys seem to be saying ‘nothing doing’ while on record they are saying they ‘welcome’ the decision. Atleast one, Farhatullah Babar has said President ‘will not’ resign.

The implication of this decision is that all the cases taken back as part of reconcilitation will/can be reopened.

Deeda-e-Beena

Iqbal bhi Iqbal say aagah naheen hai

Mea culpa, Mea culpa, Mea culpa!

After a lapse of some fifty years I am re-visiting Iqbal’s Urdu poetry. It is a revisitation I would highly recommend we all do.

To begin with I was not English-medium but talaash–ai–maash turned me into one – I being part of the first generation of Pakistani brain-drainers. Confessedly again, I was brought up appreciating and enjoying Urdu and Persian prose and verse. English became the language of my thought and expression, as a consequence of my long working life as Diaspora.

Studying once again, today, the Urdu poetry of Iqbal is opening up entirely new vistas and new dimensions of understanding for me.  What Iqbal wrote a hundred years ago has not changed, it is my understanding of him today compared to decades ago that has. This can happen to all of us in time. We all grow up, mature and find new meanings that may have eluded us earlier.

For this neglect I have no one else to blame but myself.