Adil Najam

Today is August 15. India’s Independence Day.

As we have done every year (here and here), we send all Indians sincere and heartfelt Independence Day Greetings and the very best wishes. We pray for a peaceful and prosperous future for both countries. May our futures be defined by friendship, mutual respect, and prosperity.

In 2006 we had expressed similar sentiments by presenting some pictures from the past. In 2007 we shared images that expressed these sentiments in the present. Today, our thoughts are focussed on the future. Rightly so, because the future of India-Pakistan relations looks more uncertain on this day today than it did on this day in 2006 or 2007.

Adil Najam

A few years ago a friend gave me a wonderful gift. A copy of the January 4, 1948 issue of LIFE magazine. This is the issue with a rather unflattering portrait of a clearly ailing ‘Jinnah of Pakistan’ on its cover.

For most part the cover story – with pictures by Margaret Bourke-White – is as unflattering as the picture of Mr. Jinnah on the cover. Margaret Bourke-White is an important chronicler of the events of 1947 and beyond in both India and Pakistan. She has strong views on these events, including on the creation of Pakistan and on Mohammad Ali Jinnah. These views, also reflected in the LIFE article, are much discussed and sometimes debated in academic and popular treatise. These are not the subject of this post.

What has always fascinated me much more, and what I want to talk about today, are the pictures and accounts of everyday life in Pakistan at its birth. How severe were the existential challenges of survival the country faced at that time. How much has changed. And how much has not.

This being LIFE, the real story is in the pictures much more than in the text. My favorite picture is the one on the right. The caption reads:

“MODERN PAKISTAN WOMEN are symptomatic of the progress the new nation is struggling to make. Here, led by Zeenat Haroon, young members of the Sind province Women’s National Guard meet to practice the use of the bamboo lathi in self-defense. But most Pakistan women still prefer the old custom, even to the veiled face.”

Adil Najam, Asma Mirza, Darwaish and Owais Mughal

Each Independence Day we have been inviting our readers to share with us what ‘Pakistan’ and ‘Pakistaniat‘ means for you. In our 2006 Independence Day post we offered the verses of Faiz Ahmed Faiz – aaiye haath uthain hum bhi and hum daikhain gay – as manifestations of our Pakistaniat, and sought from you your own ideas about what Pakistaniat at its best means to you. In our 2007 Independence Day post each member of our editorial team offered the verses, the pictures, the songs, the memories that evoked their own Pakistaniat.

Today, to mark the 2008 Independence Day we offer to you our lists of things to do in Pakistan that represent for us our quintessential Pakistaniat. We ask you to share with us your own lists of things that bring out your Pakistaniat. These may not be things that are unique to Pakistan. But they are things that are unique to our expression of Pakistaniat. Some are things we do regularly. Some are things we dream of doing one day. For most part these are ordinary things. But they become extraordinary in the ways in which they evoke our Pakistaniness. All are things that make us feel Pakistani in that moment. Not just the representation of, but the essence of our individual Pakistaniat.