SMOKERS’ CORNER: COUNTER HISTORIES

In last week’s column, I discussed how certain Pakistani historians challenged the ‘reactionary’ national narrative constructed by the state after 1971, when the country’s eastern wing violently broke away to become Bangladesh. The post-1971 narrative amplified Political Islam, weaving it into what was officially branded as the “Pakistan Ideology” in 1978. Though some historians began dismantling this construct in the 1980s, it took another three decades for their efforts to bear fruit. Today...

By [email protected] (Nadeem F. Paracha)