Resistance and Control in Pakistan

Resistance and Control in Pakistan
Author: Akbar S. Ahmed
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780415349109

In this extraordinary book one of the world's leading authorities on Islam explains what is happening in the Muslim world today and assesses the underlying causes.


Religion and Politics in Muslim Society

Religion and Politics in Muslim Society
Author: Akbar S. Ahmed
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 1983-10-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780521246354

This analysis of Muslim unrest is based on an extended case study of northwestern Pakistan. Professor Ahmed examines power, authority, and religious status as the critical intermediary level of society: that of the district or Agency, which was the key unit of administration in British India. Amhed has joined his insights as anthropologist with his experience as a political agent in Waziristan to produce an innovative and detailed work. The book focuses on the emergence of a mullah in Waziristan who challenges the state. A religious leader's challenge of the state is not new; but contemporary Muslim society's widespread concern over these conflicts reveals that the influence of religion in a traditional society undergoing modernization is greater than many scholars have assumed. The author identifies three types of leaders: traditional leaders, usually elders; representatives of the established state authority; and religious functionaries. From this analysis he constructs an 'Islamic district paradigm,' which he uses not only in making sense of contemporary Muslim society, but also in understanding some aspects of the legacy of the colonial encounter.


The Military and Denied Development in the Pakistani Punjab

The Military and Denied Development in the Pakistani Punjab
Author: Shahrukh Rafi Khan
Publisher: Anthem Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2014-11-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1783082984

This book focuses on the retrogressive agrarian interventions by the Pakistani military in rural Punjab and explores the social resentment and resistance it triggered, potentially undermining the consensus on a security state in Pakistan. Set against the overbearing and socially unjust role of the military in Pakistan’s economy, this book documents a breakdown in the accepted function of the military beyond its constitutionally mandated role of defence. Accompanying earlier work on military involvement in industry, commerce, finance and real estate, the authors’ research contributes to a wider understanding of military intervention, revealing its hand in various sectors of the economy and, consequently, its gains in power and economic autonomy.


Afghanistan and Pakistan

Afghanistan and Pakistan
Author: Riaz Mohammad Khan
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-08-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781421403847

This timely study surveys the conflict in Afghanistan from Pakistan’s point of view and analyzes the roots of Pakistan’s ambiguous policy—supporting the United States on one hand and showing empathy for the Afghan Taliban on the other. The author, a former foreign secretary of Pakistan, considers a broad range of events and interweaves his own experiences and perspectives into the larger narrative of the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship. Beginning with the 1989 departure of Soviet troops—and especially since the 2001 NATO invasion—Riaz Mohammad Khan examines the development of Afghanistan and surveys the interests of external powers both there and in Pakistan. He discusses the rise of extremism and religious militancy in Pakistan and its links with ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan. Ultimately, Khan argues, Pakistan reveals a deep confusion in its public discourse on issues of modernity and the challenges the country faces, an intellectual crisis that Pakistan must address to secure the country’s survival, progress, and constructive role in the region.


The Pakistan Paradox

The Pakistan Paradox
Author: Christophe Jaffrelot
Publisher: Random House India
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2016-06-16
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 8184007078

The idea of Pakistan stands riddled with tensions. Initiated by a small group of select Urdu-speaking Muslims who envisioned a unified Islamic state, today Pakistan suffers the divisive forces of various separatist movements and religious fundamentalism. A small entrenched elite continue to dominate the country’s corridors of power, and democratic forces and legal institutions remain weak. But despite these seemingly insurmountable problems, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan continues to endure. The Pakistan Paradox is the definitive history of democracy in Pakistan, and its survival despite ethnic strife, Islamism and deepseated elitism. This edition focuses on three kinds of tensions that are as old as Pakistan itself. The tension between the unitary definition of the nation inherited from Jinnah and centrifugal ethnic forces; between civilians and army officers who are not always in favour of or against democracy; and between the Islamists and those who define Islam only as a cultural identity marker.


The Women's Movement in Pakistan

The Women's Movement in Pakistan
Author: Ayesha Khan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2018-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1786735237

The military rule of General Zia ul-Haq, former President of Pakistan, had significant political repercussions for the country. Islamization policies were far more pronounced and control over women became the key marker of the state's adherence to religious norms. Women's rights activists mobilized as a result, campaigning to reverse oppressive policies and redefine the relationship between state, society and Islam. Their calls for a liberal democracy led them to be targeted and suppressed. This book is a history of the modern women's movement in Pakistan. The research is based on documents from the Women's Action Forum archives, court judgments on relevant cases, as well as interviews with activists, lawyers and judges and analysis of newspapers and magazines. Ayesha Khan argues that the demand for a secular state and resistance to Islamization should not be misunderstood as Pakistani women sympathizing with a western agenda. Rather, their work is a crucial contribution to the evolution of the Pakistani state. The book outlines the discriminatory laws and policies that triggered domestic and international outcry, landmark cases of sexual violence that rallied women activists together and the important breakthroughs that enhanced women's rights. At a time when the women's movement in Pakistan is in danger of shrinking, this book highlights its historic significance and its continued relevance today.


U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan

U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan
Author: Richard Lee Armitage
Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations
Total Pages: 87
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0876094795

The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of current and critical importance to U.S. foreign policy and provide policymakers with concrete judgments and recommendations. Diverse in backgrounds and perspectives, Task Force members aim to reach a meaningful consensus on policy through private and non-partisan deliberations. Once launched, Task Forces are independent of CFR and solely responsible for the content of their reports. Task Force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that they endorse "the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation." Each Task Force member also has the option of putting forward an additional or a dissenting view. Members' affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply institutional endorsement. Task Force observers participate in discussions, but are not asked to join the consensus. --Book Jacket.


The Unraveling

The Unraveling
Author: John R. Schmidt
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 355
Release: 2011-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1429969075

How did a nation founded as a homeland for South Asian Muslims, most of whom follow a tolerant nonthreatening form of Islam, become a haven for Al Qaeda and a rogue's gallery of domestic jihadist and sectarian groups? In this groundbreaking history of Pakistan's involvement with radical Islam, John R. Schmidt, the senior U.S political analyst in Pakistan in the years before 9/11, places the blame squarely on the rulers of the country, who thought they could use Islamic radicals to advance their foreign policy goals without having to pay a steep price. This strategy worked well at first--in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad, in Kashmir in support of a local uprising against Indian rule, and again in Afghanistan in backing the Taliban in the Afghan civil war. But the government's plans would begin to unravel in the wake of 9/11, when the rulers' support for the U.S. war on terror caused many of their jihadist allies to turn against them. Today the army generals and feudal politicians who run Pakistan are by turns fearful of the consequences of going after these groups and hopeful that they can still be used to advance the state's interests. The Unraveling is the clearest account yet of the complex, dangerous relationship between the leaders of Pakistan and jihadist groups—and how the rulers' decisions have led their nation to the brink of disaster and put other nations at great risk. Can they save their country or will we one day find ourselves confronting the first nuclear-armed jihadist state?