Dave’s comment:
“I have in fact met some. In person. Ran into a lovely couple while on vacay in Guatemala. Excellent conversation along a 2 hour shared shuttle ride. Shia muslims from Baltistan – he took great pains to indicate that his community is not like the average Pakistani, and that in his biradari they are proud to educate their daughters and wives, have them take the lead in public lives. Both his daughters were young med students.
The tragedy for Pakistan is that such actual liberals with modern outlooks wisely avoid taking public positions. They don’t want to get lynched. Hence the domination by the nutters and fringe on the right continues. Leading to mis-categorization of the right-wing as “the center”.”
The above praises a “liberal” Shia couple from Baltistan for educating their daughters and living modern lives, contrasting them with “the average Pakistani,” portrayed as a backward, anti-education fanatic. This framing is not just lazy; it’s offensive.
It reflects a deeply colonial hangover: the idea that modernity is rare in Pakistan, that deviation from presumed fanaticism is a revelation. But let’s be clear, Pakistanis, like people anywhere else, are ambitious, aspirational, and complex. Medical colleges are oversubscribed. Education is highly prized. And many people, devout or not, are navigating life with dignity, values, and a deep desire to move forward; not just materially, but spiritually and ethically.
Politics of Projection
Just because a population is not obsessed with hyper-capitalism doesn’t mean it is “backward.” It may simply mean it has not surrendered entirely to the logic that everything must be monetized. That’s not regression; it might be restraint. In a world where the only metric that seems to matter is money, resisting that tide is itself a kind of wisdom.
This kind of patronizing liberalism, one that exoticizes progressive Muslims as rare exceptions, isn’t harmless. It feeds into a narrative that justifies erasure: of language, culture, self-rule, and civilizational continuity. South Asians speaking in English, debating one another with colonial grammars, is not a mark of modernity, it is a symptom of displacement. The Global South doesn’t need to be saved. We need to be seen, on our own terms.
His example of these “liberal Pakistanis” was very problematic. Especially the part about how the guy’s daughters are in medical college. As I pointed out, my mother is a doctor. She was in medical college in the 1970s. One generation earlier, her aunt went to London to study Pathology and later became a professor of Pathology.
Pakistani women study medicine, law, business, engineering etc. And these are not just upper-class women but people from solidly middle-class families. This idea that the “average” Pakistani women is covered in burqa and doomed to produce children is completely uninformed.
also I think the idea that a people are backward simply because of ideology is problematic.. what about the extreme distribution of wealth.
I am really not sure where you got the ‘people are backward’ from. I think some major mental extrapolation is in play, starting with the assumption that I somehow meant to paint “average Pakistanis” with a broad brush. I most certainly did not.
What was the point of “his daughters are studying medicine”? The implication was clearly that Pakistani women don’t become doctors. Which even XTM objected to. He’s certainly not doing Pakistani “propaganda” on BP.
Do you not understand the narration of a travel anecdote? The man explicitly took pride in his daughters, I have a daughter and can relate – That was his prerogative, and his perspective. We had a sweeping conversation about history, modernity, politics, and a whole bunch of things – He was a very vocal pro-PTI supporter btw, and I had an interesting exchange of views regarding Imran Khan with him. It was a wonderful conversation that reinforced my beliefs that not just Indian/Pakistanis, but all humans are just that. Humans. People. We are all – all – more alike than different for the most part.
I was merely responding to a parent comment that asserted that ‘liberal Pakistani is an oxymoron’. I was defending liberal Pakistanis and saying that they do exist.
Seriously, not every comment or every word is some sort of hostile construct aimed at you. With that sort of siege mentality, its no wonder you respond with unnecessary hostility.
Fair point.
However, 1) I am the only Pakistani Muslim on this blog. Qureshi was banned (not that I agree with everything he wrote). A lot of times my opinions are piled on from different commentators. There are few left-leaning Indians on this blog to counter you all without being accused of being “Islamist”. Even XTM has asked for you all not to pile on me.
Second, you personally write comments with a very hostile tone. Perhaps you want to work on that?
I am not out here to “express hostility”. But I do enjoy a good debate and discussion. And if I see a provocative perspective being expressed, especially one that I see as factually inaccurate, I consider it ‘kosher’ to counter it, and as forcefully as it merits. The problem for you is that you are utterly unaware of the double standards you operate under. Perhaps you “want to work on that”?
You can say what you like. Your tone however is downright rude. Would you talk to me like that in person? Probably not (at least I hope not). I would probably punch you in the nose if you disrespected me to my face.
Your tone reeks of zamindari class entitlement.
You could certainly try to punch me, but this isn’t Pakistan. You’d find yourself behind bars if you assault people. Not to mention the fact that you have failed to consider my ability to defend myself 🙂
Talking about ‘punching people in the nose’ (sic) while preaching about avoiding hostility. Irony is indeed, dead!
Fine. I would probably get up and leave.
The point is that it’s easy to be rude to someone over the internet but you lose credibility when you do so.
ok, its great that you spotlighted my off-the-cuff sharing of an anecdote.
However, Please allow me to clarify – I am not stereotyping the average Pakistani – merely narrating what I was told by my temporary travel buddy. Perhaps I should have put it in “quotes” to make that clear.
As far as my personal opinion is concerned – people are mostly just…people. Everywhere. A comfortable majority are sheep when it comes to narratives, and will happily switch from an ‘aggressive anti-xxx narrative’ to a peaceful co-existence with xxx one.
My larger point was completely lost in this isolated phrase-picking – the fact that right-to-left spectrum in Pakistan is utterly skewed to the right, especially when it comes to India, Islam or non-muslims.
In fact my entire comment was in response to a claim that ‘liberal Pakistanis’ don’t exist. I was defending against blanket assertions about Pakistanis and ironically, just the 2 random words get cherrypicked and the actual point gets over-looked. 🙁
And the right-to-left spectrum in India is not skewed to the right? The Hindu Right has been in power for the last decade. Even the Communist Party (of all parties) supported attacking Pakistan after Pahalgam.
I would support the centre-left party in any country. It doesn’t matter the country. The Democrats in the US, PPP in Pakistan, Congress in India. I’m consistently centre-left and always will be.
now we are getting into an academic debate on ‘right-to-left’ spectrum. Which is… going to go nowhere, because its a subjective and relative scale.
My point is only limited to this – Pakistani flavor of “centre-left” especially on Islam, Secularism, minority rights, and India would not qualify as center left in any of the “western countries. Or even India.
Of course, you will reply with the usual obfuscations and justifications about “rating a country according to its own constitution”. No offense, but Pakistan doesn’t really have a ‘constitution’. It is simply what the current Military despot in charge deems it to be.
You do realize that when the military comes to power they usually abrogate the constitution?
Forgive me for not having all the minutae of the umpteen PakMil coups and ‘constitution’ re-writes at instant recall. During various versions of “real democracy aka totalitarian rule, if I remember correctly, there have been PakMil defined versions of the “constitution” imposed on the ghulaam awaam.
And even when the constitution is not abrogated, there are variants of so-called “hybrid regime” where forget ordinary citizenry, even elected Prime Ministers or former PMs can be instantly imprisoned until further notice.
So essentially, Pakistan is a kleptocracy that really doesn’t have a constitution in practice. That’s my argument.
There’s only one constitution. It’s from 1973. Do read it.
I forget which avatar of PakMil dictator called it a worthless piece of paper. In this alone, I think he was right.
my curiosity made me google it! In fact it was more than one who did! Its an institutional mindset clearly. And the feudal oligopoly that lords it over the entirety of Pakistan is the only institution that ‘matters’.
The Pakistani Supreme Court has always defended the Constitution.
You are determined to hate Pakistan. It’s fine but kind of sad for you.
And you came to this conclusion… because I pointed out that the Pakistani constitution does not offer its citizens any real protection in practice throughout the nation’s entire historical existence?
You are of course, wrong in presuming this. But that’s OK. I understand that you need to argue against the man, not the point. Losing the argument does tend to make one go that way…
Your tone towards Pakistan in all the time I have been here has always been very obnoxious.
But that’s fine. You do you.
again, please try and substantiate your blanket accusations with specifics. Quotes help. Failure to do so, is implicit acceptance that you in fact, cannot. What’s left is just hapless desperate name-calling and insult-hurling.
Dude, you have in the past accused me of “taqqiya” and called me an “Islamist”. You are really no one to say anything about “name calling” and “insult hurling”.
You need to learn how to debate.
I used taqqiya not in a religious sense but as a colloquial phrase for obfuscation. And you have called me a Hindooootva radical even though I’m an atheist. You profess to be secular, and yet you justify murder and colonial abuse of the Baloch because their rulers are quote “muslim”, so its acceptable. That is, in fact, Islamist logic at work. And I take pains to debate the point and the comment, not the man.
I have never justified murder.
“Taqqiya” is extremely offensive.
You come off as a troll. But that’s fine, you don’t want to comment more respectfully. Maybe if the moderators of this site ask you to?
btw, if you read the entirety of my comment, you would see that in my hypothesis, I even attribute illiberalism in Pakistani public discourse to the “nutters and the fringe on the right” – not on the average Pakistani.
the comment didn’t read well. As though educated Baltis are so different from the savage lowlanders.
I get it, and thats not unfair. But totally not at all the intent. This is sometimes the issue when we are paraphrasing our thoughts as short comments. In hindsight, it would have been better if I had used quotes around that phrase/sentence.
This is why I so frequently find myself editing my comments – I generally end up adding extra clarification or emphasis…
Nivedita commented on “Let Hindus decide”: “Liberal Pakistani is an oxymoron”.
This is a very broad (and very stupid generalization). I can name three people who are liberal under any definition. Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, Alia Amirali (Hoodbhoy’s daughter, she is associated with the Awami Workers Party, which is explicitly socialist) and Beena Sarwar (of “Aman ki Asha”)
Hoodbhoy has criticized Quaid-e-Azam and the Two Nation Theory. He’s not at all considered mainstream in Pakistan.
I would suggest that rather than issue such blanket statements, people should do a bit of basic research.
All I’m saying is don’t generalize about 240 million people.
Someone who is a member of an explicitly socialist party is not liberal according to you? That’s quite a strange definition you are using.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alia_Amirali
What is required to be a genuine Pakistani liberal according to you? (I’m genuinely asking not being snarky).
Is one required to denounce Islam entirely? Because if so, that’s an unreasonable criterion. For one thing, doing so can get you killed.
Liberalism is complex and overrated..
For me, liberalism basically boils down to respecting the rights of others to make their own decisions. For example, women have the right to get abortions, gay people have the right to get married, trans people have the right to gender transition.
One doesn’t have to agree with other people’s choices but one has to accept that one cannot impose one’s own worldview on others.
Conservatives (in general) like to tell other people what to do. Islamic conservatives want women to dress a certain way etc. Hindu conservatives want to impose vegetarianism on people (for example). Evangelical Christians have their own set of issues.
Expecting people to denounce their religions is unrealistic. By that standard, there are few genuine liberals anywhere. Is it just Islam you want people to denounce or do people have to denounce Christianity and Judaism as well?
I am a cultural Muslim not necessarily a religious one.
Faith is …complex. and its easier for non-muslims to acknowledge that Islam has a serious illiberalism problem.
Don’t most religions have serious illberalism problems?
Islamic fundamentalism is certainly a problem. Anyone who tries to literally apply a 7th century ideology in the 21st century is going to have problems. But we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.