Lazy Sunday and I didn’t want to spam the BP Whatsapp Group so here goes (I may update as the day goes on):

• Like Most Americans, I Was Raised to Be A White Man
• Raza Rumi’s new book uses Pakistan’s culture to reveal a diverse, layered, contested country

• The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of Imran Khan, Pakistan’s Next Leader

• How White Is London?! Interesting that Nas (I follow him on Facebook) is an Israel-Palestinians Harvard Grad and uses Brown to define himself. I once wrote in one of my first posts in BP that there has always been an other category in the American imagination that was occupied by the Native Americans (Black, White & Red). America has space for three colours..
• I’m proud to say Pakistan probably has one of the best looking Leaders (on par with Croatia & Canada) in the world and it may have a female president. I’m extremely optics conscious.. Meet Pakistan’s playboy-turned-prime minister
• I always admonish Pakistanis who let down the side by not being aesthetic enough that’s why I’m probably anti-Hijab, I don’t like badly worn Hijabis. I do think however that Indian women are obviously the best-looking in the world. I admonished my niece yesterday when she thought that on average white women were better looking than Asian women; psychological colonisation.
• PTI MNA-elect decides not to take salary, other allowances. I’m rapidly winning over to the PTI side since they present the right image of Pakistan, young electable and non-corrupt chaps. I’ll of course be condemned as someone who supports authoritarian candidates and that’s probably true.
• Pakistan needs to work on its danger image and with our kin-nations Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan form that erogenous-erotic zone of danger, heady sensuality and restrictions. One interesting thing in the West has been that with the increase in sexual liberalism there is a correspondent decline in eroticism and increase in weird fetishes and an ever increasingly Cornucopia of sexual orientations.
• Pakistan is a split border territory our kin nations are both Afghanistan and Iran and the Stans however we are of course also tied to our kin nations of SAARC. We aren’t one or the other exactly. Afghanistan is a SAARC nation in the same way as Burma; it doesn’t speak an Indo-Aryan or Dravidian or Munda language which is a central requirement.
• I think the greatest leader in South Asian history happens to be Indira Gandhi since she neutralised the greatest threat to India for generations to come. Even though I’m partial to Pakistan (how can I not be since I’m partially Paki). I’m quite convinced that one of the avatars of Indira is Vidhi, probably the other is Priyanka..

Imran Khan of course has made a Faustian bargain and Mephistopheles is probably some shady top-brass general. A few points:

(1.) PTI + Army is the “National” pan-ethnic party of Pakistan that relies on the young frustrated nationalistic religious (but not fanatic) Pakistanis active on social media. As said it’s the BJP equivalent but since Pakistan is an Islamic Republic; the populist right-wing stance is of a different stance.

(2.) PPP & PML are the provincial parties and will have to work some sort of grand coalition deal to survive. The ethnic messy substratum layer of Pakistan that Partition and Paknationalism has tried so hard to erase will form half the country. Pakistani politics must adapt and will be interesting.

(3.) there is no doubt that there has been vote fudging; close seats haven’t been declared. I would imagine there is a PTI wave and approximately 10-20 seat victories are questionable however the PTI has arrived.

(4.) I personally find Imran Khan odd (like the Donald) as Vidhi quipped “Pakistan, like the US, has a thrice married leader.” I find Maryam or Fati much more palatable since women present a gentler side of our Islamic Republic..

(5.) I do think that today has been a victory for Pakistan. Democracy with Mughal characteristics has won the day. I jest but on a serious note; the democratic process is taking seed in Pakistan and the fact that the military are being push behind the scenes is a force for good.

(6.) this is very offensive; after 1948 & 1971, any more meddling in Pakistani sovereign territory is simply unacceptable and I say this as someone who is on the Barkha Dutta/Arundhati Roya spectrum of Pakistan (believe it or not so is Kabir).

(7.) Pakistan’s economy is in a right mess let’s see if Mr. Clean can fix it up but the biggest reason is of course Mephistopheles himself. I’ve seen the Marlow play twice (once with the Game of Thrones chap & Marlow descendant Kit H) and I genuinely can’t remember how the play ends. I’m not going to google it but let the suspense play out; let see how the reality tv version goes..

Since BP in general lacks positively-inclined Pak-nuanced voices; I thought this was an important comment to highlight.

There was more than Jinnah involved in the ‘Pakistan Movement’ even if it was a one man show when it came to actual negotiations with the British.

Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani was instrumental in mass mobilization (using Islam khatray mein heh! naturally) and countering Congress’s anti-Jinnah propaganda campaign orchestrated by Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani of the JUH. This was the so called Muttahida Qaumiat movement that held that Jinnah and Aligarh Islamic Modernism was more dangerous than an independent India dominated by the Hindus.

In a nutshell, the insurmountable problem was simply this. Jinnah and some others (non-caste Hindus) wanted absolute safeguards for minorities before independence; Congress and caste-Hindus wanted independence first and then would decide whatever safeguards the minorities would get. As a part of this, Jinnah and others wanted a weak Centre and power devolution to the provinces/groupings while Congress (Nehru and Patel but not Gandhi, who was a hopeless romantic when it came to actual politics anyway) wanted a strong Centre and the provinces to have whatever powers the Centre didn’t want.

If you look at the Cabinet Mission Plan, that is EXACTLY what is being offered: a weak Centre. Of course Congress rejected it and Jinnah embraced it.

What must always be remembered is that the Pakistan Movement meant many different things to many different people.

Tomorrow is the Royal Wedding and the rumour is that Priyanka Chopra may be a bridesmaid, which would be huge.

At any rate on our Pakistani Literati group this was circulated around and I found the initial bit about Quaid e Azam (personally using Jinnah is like using Holy Prophet without the PBUH; there is a sliver of me that is a parochial Paki) about wanting to be an actor is fascinating.

I find the trope of QeA not wanting Partition to be a tiring; then why didn’t the Master Negotiator back down from his demands if he found them so unreasonable. If QeA and his ilk hadn’t messed it up; the HM the Queen’s Bahu would have probably been a desi and Harry would have been short for Harinder!

How Pakistan ended up trapping Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Jinnah’s close friend Kanji Dwarkadas agreed that Jinnah was not in earnest in his demand for Pakistan. After a 90-minute talk with Jinnah on August 28, 1942, Kanji wrote: “Jinnah was not thinking in terms of Pakistan. Nor did he think of becoming the head of a new state of Pakistan. In fact, Jinnah never imagined that Pakistan would ever come into being.”

When Kanji asked Jinnah about Pakistan, the latter replied: “My dear Kanji, one gesture, one friendly gesture was all that I was asking for and it was not forthcoming from the Congress. If the Congress would make this gesture, the whole problem would not be difficult to solve.”

Feeling trapped into accepting a Pakistan he had no intention of creating, Jinnah was yet too proud to call it off. Instead, he put up a brave front, as he told a Hindu friend in Karachi, Hashoo Kewal Ramani, an industrialist: “Look here, I never wanted this damn Partition! It was forced upon me by Sardar Patel. And now they want me to eat humble pie and raise my hands in defeat.”

The Quaid-i-Azam was the role of a lifetime that Jinnah found hard to turn down. But once he took on and played the part so convincingly, the “mad mullahs and extremists”, as Jinnah disdainfully called them, made sure he would never slip out of it again, keeping him a “virtual prisoner in his palace” and censoring all lines that went contrary to the script they had in mind.