Thursday, October 29, 2009

Two book reviews from EPW

T.N. Madan reviews Fazrana Shaik's "Making Sense of Pakistan" in Sense and Sensibilities in Pkistan.
"From the time of Sayyid Ahmad Khan late in the 19th century,many Muslim politicians
were apprehensive that the introduction of democratic institutions from the local up to the national levels would reduce Muslims to the position of a minority in a country (more precisely north India) where they had been the ruling community
for more than half a millennium. This produced what Shaikh calls “the minority complex” ........."

Shaik recommends a conscious effort to renounce " a type of militant Islam that is at odds with Islamic traditions indigeneous to South Asia".
However, there seem to be many elements common with India. The Indian trajectory is discussed in Sujeeb Mukherjee's review Indian Democracy: Puzzle of Unanswered Questions .
See also the discussion in 3quarksdaily on Pervez Hoodbhoy's article
The Saudi-isation of Pakistan. The discussion goes back up to General Zia-ul-Haq's regime.

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