Despite its large population and strategic location, Pakistan remains a poorly understood nation, a distant land which served as Osama bin Laden’s sanctuary for years and whose prime minister recently welcomed the return of the Taliban in Kabul.
Those looking to unravel these mysteries should read ‘The Nine Lives of Pakistan' by Declan Walsh, an international correspondent for The New York Times. Originally from Ireland, he was based in Pakistan for nearly a decade until 2013 when he was abruptly expelled.
This book is written with rare panache. It makes the country come alive. In riveting prose, Walsh describes his encounters with Pakistan’s leaders and commoners. As he converses with each, you feel like you are in the room with them. The book’s narration is rich with historical, political, sociological and anthropological insights, but unlike most academic tomes that may bore you to tears, this one’s a page-turner.
It’s a tale of the precarious twists and turns that fate has visited on Pakistan. Walsh finds the country’s culture marked by two overriding emotions: nostalgia and denial. However, these two emotions cannot “mask the cruel, ugly and downright terrifying side of Pakistan,” a land where justice is a function of income: “the rich and well connected could steal, kill and avoid taxes with wide impunity." Horrific crimes against women, the poor, and religious minorities are “so banal as to merit” just a few lines in the newspapers.
Every day the state reminds its people that the country is surrounded by enemies on all sides but in reality, its most sensitive borders lie within. Pakistan is a nation “riven by ethnic, tribal and sectarian fault lines. Depending on who you asked, Islam or the army were the glue holding the country together. Yet both, in their own way, seemed to be tearing it apart.” Thus, conspiracy theories are rampant. The usual suspects: India, Israel and the United States.
Pakistan has bonded closely with China for decades. After the Tiananmen Square massacre, Pakistan’s military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, was among the few foreign leaders who openly supported Beijing’s brutality. While Walsh does not mention it, Zia had indulged in similar brutal action against the Palestinians in an operation known as Black September on behalf of the King of Jordan, who had feared that the Palestinians would demand independence from the kingdom.
Walsh’s critical eye also rests on Jinnah, whose legacy has been spun into “mystical gossamer.” Decades after his death, Pakistanis are still bitterly divided about Jinnah’s vision. Even after independence, Jinnah had refused to sell his beautiful mansion at Malabar Hill in Bombay, hoping to return to India regularly, perhaps even spending his winters there.
Unfortunately, creating the country proved to be a lot easier than governing it. During the 13 months that he ruled, Jinnah was unable to “pull together the fraying fabric of his creation,” which was “held together by the thinnest of threads.” Jinnah’s vision of a secular democracy died with him.
General Pervez Musharraf’s shadow loomed large over the first-half of Walsh’s time in Pakistan. The fourth in a line of military dictators, General Musharraf had come to power after launching a failed incursion into Kashmir. Only the revolt of the Taliban and the attack on the red mosque brought his “foolish” tenure to an end. Musharraf, not schooled in the art of politics, was forced to resign, and with his departure, “another bout of army rule shuddered to an ignominious end.”
During his stay, Walsh maintained a professional relationship with Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He says the agency came to the forefront after the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. Flush with triumph, it began interfering in domestic politics, leading some to conclude it was “a state within a state.” The ISI did “little to dispute its reputation as an omnipotent force.”
Not everyone concurs with that assessment. A British official who had worked with the agency for decades told Walsh that the ISI was caught in a pre-determined ideological prism, rather like the Russian KGB during the Cold War, which severely impaired its effectiveness.
Pakistan’s relations with the US were marked by “a love-hate relationship,” citing Milt Bearden, an American who ran the CIA station in Islamabad in the late 1980s. These days there is no love lost between the two countries. Prime Minister Imran Khan, who said the Taliban had broken the shackles of slavery when the US pulled out of Afghanistan, further irritated the Americans by visiting President Vladimir Putin on the day the Russian military invaded Ukraine.
Comparing the cultures of Lahore and Karachi, Walsh says that in Karachi “People dress differently, jeans rather than shalwar kameez. The buildings are unlovely glass and concrete, no Mughal splendour here […] a newcomer in Karachi might make a million, or have his wallet stolen at gunpoint in traffic.” In Karachi, it’s not your ethnicity that defines your status but your wealth.
Karachi is “a city plagued by shootings, bombings, strikes and floods.” Yet, the residents proudly proclaim their resilience, making “a virtue of necessity, glossing over the realities of their chaotic, cruel city where it seemed that nobody was in charge, not even the police.”
Wealthy Karachiites waxed lyrical about the glorious sixties and seventies. Besides resilience, “nostalgia was the other psychological crutch for Karachiites struggling with the present.”
Five years after Walsh left Pakistan, Imran Khan took the oath of office. But the new prime minister was “struggling to deliver on his heady promises. Instead of ending corruption and dynastic politics, he ruled with an authoritarian touch, and, as feared by his critics, abdicated control of key areas -- national security, Afghanistan and India -– to the military.” In fact, many felt that he was simply an army puppet.
Seventy-five years on, much has and has not changed in Pakistan. Wisely, Walsh does not prognosticate about the future, leaving that to political theorists.
This book may be too pessimistic for those who only wish to read only a positive portrayal highlighting Pakistan’s natural beauties and Mughal monuments. But those looking for a critical appraisal of the country’s culture and politics will love it.
Those looking to unravel these mysteries should read ‘The Nine Lives of Pakistan' by Declan Walsh, an international correspondent for The New York Times. Originally from Ireland, he was based in Pakistan for nearly a decade until 2013 when he was abruptly expelled.
This book is written with rare panache. It makes the country come alive. In riveting prose, Walsh describes his encounters with Pakistan’s leaders and commoners. As he converses with each, you feel like you are in the room with them. The book’s narration is rich with historical, political, sociological and anthropological insights, but unlike most academic tomes that may bore you to tears, this one’s a page-turner.
It’s a tale of the precarious twists and turns that fate has visited on Pakistan. Walsh finds the country’s culture marked by two overriding emotions: nostalgia and denial. However, these two emotions cannot “mask the cruel, ugly and downright terrifying side of Pakistan,” a land where justice is a function of income: “the rich and well connected could steal, kill and avoid taxes with wide impunity." Horrific crimes against women, the poor, and religious minorities are “so banal as to merit” just a few lines in the newspapers.
Walsh’s critical eye also rests on Jinnah, whose legacy has been spun into “mystical gossamer.” Decades after his death, Pakistanis are still bitterly divided about Jinnah’s vision.
Every day the state reminds its people that the country is surrounded by enemies on all sides but in reality, its most sensitive borders lie within. Pakistan is a nation “riven by ethnic, tribal and sectarian fault lines. Depending on who you asked, Islam or the army were the glue holding the country together. Yet both, in their own way, seemed to be tearing it apart.” Thus, conspiracy theories are rampant. The usual suspects: India, Israel and the United States.
Pakistan has bonded closely with China for decades. After the Tiananmen Square massacre, Pakistan’s military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, was among the few foreign leaders who openly supported Beijing’s brutality. While Walsh does not mention it, Zia had indulged in similar brutal action against the Palestinians in an operation known as Black September on behalf of the King of Jordan, who had feared that the Palestinians would demand independence from the kingdom.
Walsh’s critical eye also rests on Jinnah, whose legacy has been spun into “mystical gossamer.” Decades after his death, Pakistanis are still bitterly divided about Jinnah’s vision. Even after independence, Jinnah had refused to sell his beautiful mansion at Malabar Hill in Bombay, hoping to return to India regularly, perhaps even spending his winters there.
Unfortunately, creating the country proved to be a lot easier than governing it. During the 13 months that he ruled, Jinnah was unable to “pull together the fraying fabric of his creation,” which was “held together by the thinnest of threads.” Jinnah’s vision of a secular democracy died with him.
General Pervez Musharraf’s shadow loomed large over the first-half of Walsh’s time in Pakistan. The fourth in a line of military dictators, General Musharraf had come to power after launching a failed incursion into Kashmir. Only the revolt of the Taliban and the attack on the red mosque brought his “foolish” tenure to an end. Musharraf, not schooled in the art of politics, was forced to resign, and with his departure, “another bout of army rule shuddered to an ignominious end.”
During his stay, Walsh maintained a professional relationship with Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He says the agency came to the forefront after the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. Flush with triumph, it began interfering in domestic politics, leading some to conclude it was “a state within a state.” The ISI did “little to dispute its reputation as an omnipotent force.”
Not everyone concurs with that assessment. A British official who had worked with the agency for decades told Walsh that the ISI was caught in a pre-determined ideological prism, rather like the Russian KGB during the Cold War, which severely impaired its effectiveness.
Pakistan’s relations with the US were marked by “a love-hate relationship,” citing Milt Bearden, an American who ran the CIA station in Islamabad in the late 1980s. These days there is no love lost between the two countries. Prime Minister Imran Khan, who said the Taliban had broken the shackles of slavery when the US pulled out of Afghanistan, further irritated the Americans by visiting President Vladimir Putin on the day the Russian military invaded Ukraine.
Wealthy Karachiites waxed lyrical about the glorious sixties and seventies. Besides resilience, “nostalgia was the other psychological crutch for Karachiites struggling with the present.”
Comparing the cultures of Lahore and Karachi, Walsh says that in Karachi “People dress differently, jeans rather than shalwar kameez. The buildings are unlovely glass and concrete, no Mughal splendour here […] a newcomer in Karachi might make a million, or have his wallet stolen at gunpoint in traffic.” In Karachi, it’s not your ethnicity that defines your status but your wealth.
Karachi is “a city plagued by shootings, bombings, strikes and floods.” Yet, the residents proudly proclaim their resilience, making “a virtue of necessity, glossing over the realities of their chaotic, cruel city where it seemed that nobody was in charge, not even the police.”
Wealthy Karachiites waxed lyrical about the glorious sixties and seventies. Besides resilience, “nostalgia was the other psychological crutch for Karachiites struggling with the present.”
Five years after Walsh left Pakistan, Imran Khan took the oath of office. But the new prime minister was “struggling to deliver on his heady promises. Instead of ending corruption and dynastic politics, he ruled with an authoritarian touch, and, as feared by his critics, abdicated control of key areas -- national security, Afghanistan and India -– to the military.” In fact, many felt that he was simply an army puppet.
Seventy-five years on, much has and has not changed in Pakistan. Wisely, Walsh does not prognosticate about the future, leaving that to political theorists.
This book may be too pessimistic for those who only wish to read only a positive portrayal highlighting Pakistan’s natural beauties and Mughal monuments. But those looking for a critical appraisal of the country’s culture and politics will love it.