Pakistan: A once dangerous idea
10 years ago

Pakistan: A once dangerous idea

Live Mint  

Buried in the archives of the British Library in London, historian Venkat Dhulipala discovered an amazing document that dates to 13 March, 1955. If one can single out one reason for Pakistan’s failure then it is Jinnah’s inability to see that religion and region could never be squared even if Islam is probably a wonderfully homogenous faith. In comparison to India’s two dozen-odd states in 1956 and six Union Territories, Pakistan was far more imbalanced internally—both in a geographic sense and in terms of relative political strength and resources between different provinces. While India continues to sub-divide internally—imparting political cohesion and economic and social disarray at the same time—Pakistan’s provincial boundaries remain etched in stone. Pakistan’s history is a testament to the fact that religion cannot knit together a people divided along regional lines.

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History of this topic

Who coined the term 'Pakistan' and how Indian Muslims accepted it: Details
1 month, 2 weeks ago

Who coined the term 'Pakistan' and how Indian Muslims accepted it: Details

Op India  

Last month, on January 28, was the day when Pakistan was given its name by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan, one of the earliest proponents of the creation of a separate country for Muslims living in British India. Contrary to the popular belief that Mohammad Ali Jinnah proposed the idea of Pakistan, it was, in fact, Choudhary Rahmat Ali Khan who …

Islamists in Bangladesh commemorate Jinnah’s death anniversary with Urdu songs, poetry
6 months, 1 week ago

Islamists in Bangladesh commemorate Jinnah’s death anniversary with Urdu songs, poetry

Op India  

Pakistan would not have been created without Jinnah, and without Pakistan, ‘Bangladesh too would not exist,‘ Islamist Speakers said while commemorating the 76th death anniversary of Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the National Press Club in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In a tragic first, Bangladesh marks Jinnah’s death anniversary, invites Pakistan’s diplomat as Chief Guest: Details On Wednesday, the Nawab Salimullah Academy held …

‘Polluted Politicians Caving to Army, Hardliners’: Multiple Crises Cripple Pakistan at 76
1 year, 7 months ago

‘Polluted Politicians Caving to Army, Hardliners’: Multiple Crises Cripple Pakistan at 76

News 18  

Pakistan is celebrating its 76th independence day amid an economic crisis and political uncertainty. The nation recently secured a handout from the International Monetary Fund which allowed other ‘friendly’ nations to help Pakistan shore up its forex reserves and continue import of essential items. Pakistan’s top newspaper the Dawn reflected on the challenges the nation is facing and in an …

What Imran Khan’s exit could mean for India-Pakistan relationship
2 years, 11 months ago

What Imran Khan’s exit could mean for India-Pakistan relationship

Firstpost  

If Pakistan gets a new government, India can expect changes, but those are likely to be incremental and not sweeping Imran Khan is the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan among the 22 who lost their job before completing their term. Under a boisterous, narcissistic, and increasingly Islamist Imran Khan, Pakistan isolated itself from its traditional allies like the US, Saudi …

Pakistan: Jinnah's statue in Gwadar blown up using explosives, say officials
3 years, 5 months ago

Pakistan: Jinnah's statue in Gwadar blown up using explosives, say officials

India Today  

A statue of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah has been destroyed by the Baloch militants in a bomb attack in the coastal city of Gwadar in the troubled Balochistan province. READ: India's Sneha Dubey trends online for powerful response to Pakistan at UN Babgar Baloch, a spokesman for the banned militant organisation Baloch Republican Army, claimed responsibility for the blast …

Book Review: Ishtiaq Ahmed's "Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History" attempts to understand Partition
3 years, 9 months ago

Book Review: Ishtiaq Ahmed's "Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History" attempts to understand Partition

The Hindu  

Mohammad Ali Jinnah has been praised and dispraised for the partition of India. In his book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx says: “Men make their history, but they do not make it just as they please, they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past.” Core …

TMC Leader Says 4 Pakistan Will Be Created if India’s 30% Muslims Unite, Draws Flak
4 years ago

TMC Leader Says 4 Pakistan Will Be Created if India’s 30% Muslims Unite, Draws Flak

News 18  

Trinamool Congress leader Sheikh Alam’s purported remarks that “four Pakistan” can be created if India’s “30% Muslims come together” drew flak from the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday. BJP leader Amit Malviya, who is the party’s co-incharge for West Bengal, tweeted a video that showed Alam purportedly making the controversial statements. “TMC leaders like Sheikh Alam have the audacity to …

Pakistan marks 81 years since independence resolution
4 years ago

Pakistan marks 81 years since independence resolution

Al Jazeera  

1940 resolution called for all Indian states where Muslims were in majority to be grouped into an ‘independent state’. Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan is celebrating 81 years since the signing of the Lahore Resolution in 1940, a historic document that marked the first time the Indian subcontinent’s Muslim political leadership committed to the formation of independent Muslim states. “23rd March, …

Mohammed Ayoob reviews Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History, by Ishtiaq Ahmed
4 years, 2 months ago

Mohammed Ayoob reviews Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History, by Ishtiaq Ahmed

The Hindu  

Ishtiaq Ahmed’s book Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History is the most comprehensive political biography of the man simultaneously acclaimed for creating a state, and demonised for dividing a country. Jinnah’s disassociation with the Congress led to his next phase of “Muslim communitarianism” with the objective of getting the best deal for Muslims as the country moved towards …

Why M.A. Jinnah was a man of many contradictions
4 years, 7 months ago

Why M.A. Jinnah was a man of many contradictions

Live Mint  

When Narendra Modi led the Bharatiya Janata Party to an electoral majority in 2014, Indians could still assert that, however flawed, their republic aimed to remain secular, unlike Pakistan, which had chosen to be a theocracy and acted as one. As the late Pakistani poet Fahmida Riaz, mocked India once, “tum bilkul ham jaise nikle, ab tak kahan chhupe the …

Pakistan’s Imran Khan: Who was the future once!
5 years, 6 months ago

Pakistan’s Imran Khan: Who was the future once!

Deccan Chronicle  

When the precocious 39-year-old David Cameron took over the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2005, he struck a grandiloquent note by accusing sitting Prime Minister Tony Blair of being “stuck in the past” and thundered that Mr Blair “was the future once”. With an obvious nudge from the “establishment” in Rawalpindi, Imran Khan was busy concocting a deadly political …

Pakistan or Indian Muslims: Who Are We Really Talking About?
6 years ago

Pakistan or Indian Muslims: Who Are We Really Talking About?

The Quint  

His faction began to support the Muslim League’s demand for Partition from the mid-1940s. Even Maulana Maududi, the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, believe it or not, had also opposed Partition. The founder of Jamaat also had no faith in the modernist leaders of the Pakistan movement. Maududi’s change of heart happened only when he moved to the newly-formed Pakistan. While …

‘Jinnah House in Mumbai belongs to Pakistan’: Pak Foreign Office reacts to Sushma Swaraj’s remarks
6 years, 3 months ago

‘Jinnah House in Mumbai belongs to Pakistan’: Pak Foreign Office reacts to Sushma Swaraj’s remarks

India TV News  

Reacting to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement that her ministry is in the process of getting Mumbai’s Jinnah House transferred in its name, Pakistan on Thursday said that the property belonged to it, adding any attempt by India to take the building under its control will not be acceptable. Asked if Pakistan would consider to hand over Kartarpur land …

Amit Shah and Muhammad Ali Jinnah comparable figures, both driven by one-point agenda, says Ramachandra Guha
6 years, 6 months ago

Amit Shah and Muhammad Ali Jinnah comparable figures, both driven by one-point agenda, says Ramachandra Guha

Firstpost  

Guha admits that his narrative of Jinnah in his new book, Gandhi: The Years That Changed The World, 1914-1948, is “not sympathetic”. New Delhi: Describing Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a “straightforward figure”, historian and author Ramachandra Guha says the Pakistan founder was at best an “astute politician” driven by a single-point agenda. “In some ways you can even compare him …

Shashi Tharoor is wrong : It is in fact Congress that takes inspiration from Pakistan. Here’s how
6 years, 8 months ago

Shashi Tharoor is wrong : It is in fact Congress that takes inspiration from Pakistan. Here’s how

Op India  

Senior Congress leader and ‘on bail’ MP Shashi Tharoor has stated recently that if BJP sweeps majority in the next Lok Sabha elections, India will become a ‘Hindu Pakistan’. According to reports, the MP, who is now on bail after charges of allegedly abetting his third wife Sunanda Pushkar’s alleged suicide, stated during an event in Thiruvananthapuram that if the …

Why Jinnah finds a connect with a section of Indian Muslim youth
6 years, 10 months ago

Why Jinnah finds a connect with a section of Indian Muslim youth

Op India  

Each portrait tells a story. While to the Hindus, Jinnah represents a treacherous villain piercing a dagger of religion in the body-mass of India to fork it into two, to some of the Muslims he comes across as the greatest leader, the undisputed Quaid-i-Azam who pulled off a valiant coup on the belligerent Hindus led by an ‘obstructionist’ Gandhi to …

Jinnah portrait row: Mani Shankar Aiyar sparks fresh controversy, calls Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam
6 years, 10 months ago

Jinnah portrait row: Mani Shankar Aiyar sparks fresh controversy, calls Pakistan's founder Quaid-e-Azam

Firstpost  

With the row over the portrait of Mohammed Ali Jinnah in AMU intensifying, comments by Mani Shankar Aiyar have sparked new political outrage With the row over the portrait of Mohammed Ali Jinnah in Aligarh Muslim University intensifying and protests even reaching the national capital, comments by suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar have sparked new political outrage on Saturday. …

Chanakya's View: Alienating in the name of Hinduism
6 years, 10 months ago

Chanakya's View: Alienating in the name of Hinduism

Deccan Chronicle  

There are two entirely separate issues for consideration in the ongoing unrest at the Aligarh Muslim University regarding the portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah hanging since 1938 in the student union’s office. In fact, even in the midst of the current turmoil in AMU, Swami Prasad Maurya, a BJP minister in UP, lauded Jinnah saying that his contribution to the …

Mohammad Ali Jinnah: A Legacy of Leadership and Independence
6 years, 10 months ago

Mohammad Ali Jinnah: A Legacy of Leadership and Independence

India Today  

Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a prominent lawyer and politician, played a pivotal role in the establishment of Pakistan. Born in Karachi, India, in 1876, Jinnah received his education at prestigious institutions in Bombay and London. He was a vocal advocate for the rights of Muslims and played a significant role in the All-India Muslim League, which eventually led to Pakistan's independence …

Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress, not Muhammad Ali Jinnah was responsible for Partition: Farooq Abdullah
7 years ago

Jawaharlal Nehru-led Congress, not Muhammad Ali Jinnah was responsible for Partition: Farooq Abdullah

Firstpost  

National Conference chief and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah blamed Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad for the Partition of India and not Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan In a statement which may once again open the contentious debate over the Partition of India, National Conference chief and former Jammu and Kashmir …

Jinnah didn’t want to create Pakistan, says Farooq Abdullah, stirs up controversy
7 years ago

Jinnah didn’t want to create Pakistan, says Farooq Abdullah, stirs up controversy

Op India  

Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad are responsible for the partition of India and not Jinnah ‘Sahab’, said Farooq Abdullah, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Jinnah ne maana magar Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad aur Sardar Patel ne nahi maana. Aaj na Bangladesh hota, na Pakistan hota, ek Bharat hota: Farooq Abdullah in Jammu pic.twitter.com/aIURqKUk6I — ANI March 3, …

India and Pakistan's 70 years of Independence: A look back at how destiny set the midnight’s children apart
7 years, 7 months ago

India and Pakistan's 70 years of Independence: A look back at how destiny set the midnight’s children apart

Firstpost  

Nehru and Jinnah would not have had the slightest of idea on how the destinies of India and Pakistan would pan out in the next seven decades. While Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech set the tone for India’s future role as a responsible voice of the third world, Jinnah’s “secular State” speech sought to position Pakistan as a country where …

Pakistan Isolated in South Asia But China’s Still Got Its Back
8 years, 3 months ago

Pakistan Isolated in South Asia But China’s Still Got Its Back

The Quint  

In the end, as was expected, India once again managed to isolate Pakistan at a multilateral forum – this time, at the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar. The two-day conference concluded on Sunday with a strong declaration, which called for concerted regional and international cooperation to ensure the elimination of terrorism as well as the dismantling of terrorist sanctuaries …

View from Pakistan: The history wars
9 years, 3 months ago

View from Pakistan: The history wars

Deccan Chronicle  

Karachi: It is not news that the ascent of Narendra Modi has marked a change in India’s outlook on its past. It is no surprise, then, that the effort to rewrite Indian history, such that it fits better with a narrative of Hindu supremacy, has spread into India’s academia. In his address, head of the department, Ramesh Bhardwaj, said, “The …

Book review 'Creating a New Medina': Re-tracing Pakistan’s polemical origins
9 years, 9 months ago

Book review 'Creating a New Medina': Re-tracing Pakistan’s polemical origins

Deccan Chronicle  

Was the idea of an independent, sovereign Pakistan an “exceedingly vague idea in both elite and popular consciousness”, an idea staunchly opposed throughout by the ulema of Deoband, merely a bargaining chip for Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League that tragically turned real in an accident of history? Debunking the notion that Pakistan was “insufficiently imagined”, Dhulipala offers us …

Pakistan’s march to theocracy
11 years, 1 month ago

Pakistan’s march to theocracy

Al Jazeera  

It was a quick call from my editor’s office in Karachi informing me not to bother writing anymore about the Tehreek Taliban Pakistan or any other militant outfit, religious party or even the cricketer-turned-politician’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. This was followed by an attack on January 20 in Rawalpindi Cantonment near the Pakistan Army’s GHQ, bringing the death toll up to 33 …

The quest for peace in South Asia
11 years, 5 months ago

The quest for peace in South Asia

Live Mint  

As a Pakistani I would have liked to see Asia Society’s recent gathering of young Indian and Pakistani leaders in Islamabad meet under happier circumstances. But for all the history of animosity and violence between our nations, this small gathering proved that our children might be able to meet in those better circumstances if we realize how much our two …

AIR hands over Jinnah speech recordings to Pakistan
11 years, 6 months ago

AIR hands over Jinnah speech recordings to Pakistan

Firstpost  

All India Radio has handed over to Pakistan the recordings of two important speeches by the country’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Islamabad: All India Radio has handed over to Pakistan the recordings of two important speeches by the country’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation is planning to broadcast these speeches, delivered June 3 and Aug 11, 1947, after …

Pak is a needless distraction: China is the real enemy
12 years, 2 months ago

Pak is a needless distraction: China is the real enemy

Firstpost  

Indians must not waste time in obsessing with Pakistan. Inspite of being a smaller country we have humiliated you so badly yet you want to be friends with us.” “We supported the Khalistani movement, jehad in Kashmir, the 1993 Mumbai blasts, Kargil, the Kandhahar Indian Airlines hijack, the 2001 attack on Parliament, the Godhra burnings, the 2002 Akshardham Temple attack, …

Pakistan's miserable month of May
13 years, 9 months ago

Pakistan's miserable month of May

Firstpost  

If Pakistan was granted one wish it would probably seek to undo everything that’s happened this month. Islamabad’s strategy— and also its resounding success—was summed up aptly by a senior American senator last week when he said that Pakistan is America’s most important ally in the global war against terror. The tracing down and subsequent killing of the world’s most …

Taliban and extremists alien to the spirit of Jinnah: Holbrooke
15 years, 6 months ago

Taliban and extremists alien to the spirit of Jinnah: Holbrooke

The Hindu  

There is a growing recognition among the people of Pakistan that the Taliban and other extremists in the country are alien to the spirit of the founder of the country Muhammad Ali Jinnah, special US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, has said. “There seems to be a growing recognition that the Taliban and other miscreants, to use the …

Mohammad Ali Jinnah as ‘The Hindu’ saw him
15 years, 7 months ago

Mohammad Ali Jinnah as ‘The Hindu’ saw him

The Hindu  

The news of the sudden death of Mr. Jinnah will be received with widespread regret in this country. What Mr. Jinnah did was to build up a political organisation, out of the moribund Muslim League, which gave coherence to the inchoate longings of the mass by yoking it to the realisation of the doctrinaires’ dream. Two world wars within a …

Search for the real villain of Partition divides India again
15 years, 7 months ago

Search for the real villain of Partition divides India again

The Independent  

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. A controversial new book by a senior politician from …

Divided minds
16 years, 9 months ago

Divided minds

The Hindu  

Partition has led to sectarian strife in Pakistan; in India it fuels the Sangh Parivars hate industry. Its evil consequences are still being felt: in Pakistan, where it led to sectarian strife and in India, w here it fuels the hate industry that the Sangh Parivar set up decades before Partition. If Partition is a tragedy of monumental proportions, the …

Jinnah in India's history
19 years, 7 months ago

Jinnah in India's history

The Hindu  

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, canonised in Pakistan and demonised in India, has a contemporary relevance. Jinnah's close friend Kanji Dwarkadas was made a "Parsi" and Sir Abdullah Haroon "a princely ruler" of Khairpur state. Even after he had become the Quaid-e-Azam and advocate of Pakistan, Jinnah praised Gopal Krishna Gokhale's liberal and broad-minded statesmanship in his presidential address …

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