The famous Marxist, late Meraj Muhammad Khan, once told me that he wept when Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto...

Early political and social ethos of Muslim rule in South Asia Over 95 percent of Pakistanis identify themselves as Muslim....

The Rise and Demise of Muslim Modernism The breakup of Pakistan in December 1971 produced a ‘New Pakistan.’ ZA. Bhutto,...

The now decade-old tussle between Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) is a political...

In 2020, a friend, settled in the US, quipped that never had he heard so many Pakistanis (in the US)...

In his 2015 book The Militant, author and researcher Muhammad Amir Rana published dozens of interviews that he conducted of young...

Nietzsche’s Hammer  Those who romanticise irrationality are convinced that rationality works best when driven by ‘evil’ intentions. To anti-rationalists, passion...

“I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This...

In March 1987, I sat for my final year Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) exams. Pakistan Studies was the last exam....

Faith in the nation-state In 18th-century Europe, philosophers began to note a steady degradation in the influence of Christianity. Sectarian...

Khanspiracy While commenting on PTI’s stunning victory in the recently concluded Punjab Assembly (PA) by-elections, almost all analysts agree that...

Pakistan’s largest city and Sindh’s provincial capital Karachi is like any other large metropolis — especially those in developing countries....

43 years ago in April 1979, a former prime minster of Pakistan, Z.A. Bhutto, was executed for allegedly ordering the...

The Iconoclast Images of fanatical Chinese youth waving Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’ (Máo Zhǔxí Yǔlù) during the Cultural Revolution appeared...

According to the political scientists Michael Bruter and Sarah Harrison, the psychology of voters has remained mysterious and perplexing for...

Freeing Theology In the 19th century, when the idea of ‘Islamic modernism’ first emerged to address the challenges posed by...

Note: This is a work of satire My dear humwatano. I, as in me, and myself and my — want...

Showing signs of exhaustion and complacency during its last few seasons, Coke Studio (CS) returned this year looking refreshed, rejuvenated and...

Political identities formed by ideologies at the core of which is the hatred of ‘the other’ are fragile and volatile....

Folk Devils A moral panic is a widespread fear — most often an irrational one. The fear is about someone...

In the early 2000s, a T-Shirt became popular among the then young ‘millennials.’ The message on the T-Shirt said, “I’m...

Sacralising the Secular The shift from pre-modern societies that were deeply rooted in religious beliefs and rituals, to modern ones...

On the 26th of April, a woman suicide bomber blew herself up near a van carrying Chinese teachers on the...

I’m sure by now you must have come across people (mostly on social media) who let loose a barrage of...

Consumerism, or the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods, largely emerged from the 19th century onwards. It...

There were many who were shocked after witnessing a barrage of hateful posts and tweets when Malala was shot and...