Mohammad Ayaz Abdal
Behind the Dubai palace in Karachi, near the seashore, there lives a merry old man. He holds a treasure which is unparallel in this world. A treasure which is most likely to be destroyed……… The reason being, most of us still questions the validity of the argument that it is indeed a treasure.
In his house under specially built cabinets are rows and rows of audio tapes. When played they tell you the history of Indo Pakistan music, literature and poetry. You can find Ustad Bundo Khan playing his Sarangi, Pathanay Khan singing his tunes, Chotay Bukhari and Baray Bokhari reciting their essays in the earlier days of Radio Pakistan, Maulana Thanvi and Rasheed Turrabi reciting Quran or giving sermons or Faiz Ahmed recording his entire Nushka Hai Wafa in a span of 20 years in his studio.
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Raza Rumi
This post is the third in our series on recapping the fall of East Pakistan in 1971. The previous two posts of this series can be read here and here.
Every year the sixteenth day of that deadly December invited little attention in the mainstream media as the new Pakistan struggles to manage the multiple crises of statehood, governance and cohesion.
Whether we like it or not, history and its bitter truths have to be confronted. When the united Punjab was being ruled by the Unionists and the Congress and the NWFP had a chief minister from the congress-Khudai Khidmatgar alliance, and almost all the custodians of South Asian puritanical Islam were opposed to Pakistan, the peasantry and the intelligentsia of East Bengal were spearheading a movement for Pakistan. There were indeed economic reasons, but there was an unchallengeable mass support for and belief in Pakistan. What happened after 1947 is well known; and within two decades or so, those who wanted Pakistan in the first place were subjected to state excesses and brutal treatment by the groups and elites that had actually little commitment to Pakistan or its idea. Nothing could be more ironical.
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Owais Mughal
Following 2 photos are the scenes of 2 more cowardly attacks by the enemies of Pakistan in my Lahore and my Peshawar. Very sad and our prayers go to the innocents who got martyred. If anything, these cowardly acts are going to make our resolve stronger against the terrorists. Dawn coverage here and here.
Photo Credits: Dawn and M. Ramzan
