Monthly Archives: April 2015

After Sabeen, who’s next?

The Killing Fields of Karachi
So after expressing our anguish and our anger, our protests and our protestations, on Facebook and Twitter and in drawing rooms, at the brutal killing of Sabeen Mahmud, how long will it be before we go back to our French Beach and our fashion shows, our restaurants and our raves, our overseas vacations and overboard lifestyles? How long before Sabeen too becomes a fading memory and spoken of as a ‘bechari’?

PTI’s folly in NA-246

Leading up to the by-election on National Assembly seat NA-246 in Karachi, perhaps nobody except Imran Khan and his PTI cohorts believed that anyone but MQM will win NA-246 again. If political acumen instead of ego had been driving PTI, the smart thing to do would have been to withdraw the PTI candidate in favour of the JI candidate. This way JI would have been deeply obliged, and owed PTI one. Further, the win of MQM would not have come across as a win against PTI.

Beyond the Crossroads

Ardeshir Cowasjee once wrote that Mr. Jinnah once remarked to his friend, and Ardeshir’s father, Rustom Fakirjee Cowasjee, that “each successive government of Pakistan will be worse than its predecessor.” If Mr. Jinnah indeed said this, then we have surely lived to see this sad prophecy come true.