This book addresses the everyday causes and appeal of longterm involvement in extreme political violence in the urban Pakistan. It injects a more critical and innovative voice into the ongoing debates about the nature and meaning of radicalisation and violence and the specific implications it has for similar conflicts in Pakistan and the developing world.

Synthesizing political, anthropological and psychological perspectives, this book addresses the everyday causes and appeal of long-term involvement in extreme political violence in urban Pakistan. Taking Pakistan’s ethno nationalist Mohajir party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) as a case study, it explores how certain men from the ethnic community of Mohajirs are recruited to the roles and statuses of political killers, and sustain violence as a primary social identity and lifestyle over a period of some years. By drawing on detailed fieldwork in areas involved in the Karachi conflict, the author contributes to understandings of violence, tracing the development of violent aspects of Mohajir nationalism via an exploration of political and cultural contexts of Pakistan’s history, and highlighting the repetitive homology of the conflict with the earlier violence of Partition. Through a local comparison of ethnic and religious militancy she also updates the current situation of social and cultural change in Karachi, which is dominantly framed in terms of Islamist radicalization and modernization. In her examination, governance and civil society issues are integrated with the political and psychological dimensions of mobilization processes and violence at micro-, meso- and macro- levels. This book injects a critical and innovative voice into the ongoing debates about the nature and meaning of radicalization and violence, as well as the specific implications it has for similar, contemporary conflicts in Pakistan and the developing world.

In 1947, young Jawad Hassan gives up his ancestral home in India and his fiancee Maimuna for a dream country founded by Jinnah. And even though the newly created state of Pakistan is thronged by a huge number of zealous Muslims ready to lead from the front, the rapid breakdown of law and order in Karachi makes many, like Jawad, retreat into reminiscences of their past in undivided India. The second in Intizar Husain's acclaimed trilogy, The Sea Lies Ahead takes up the story of Pakistan where the first novel Basti (1979) ended: poised on the verge of breaking off from its eastern arm. This is a novel about those muhajirs, the author himself among them, who went to the promised Land of the Pure and were met with mistrust, prejudice and apathy. Equally, it is a rich portrait of the new culture of urban Pakistan fostered by people who came from the countless towns and hamlets in and around Lucknow, Meerut and Delhi. Bringing alive unforgettable characters with its sparkling prose, this novel is a powerful exploration of Islamic history and the story of Pakistan's great disillusionment.

In order to understand the Pakistani state and government's treatment of non-dominant ethnic groups after the failure of the military operation in East Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh, this book looks at the ethnic movements that were subject to a military operation after 1971: the Baloch in the 1970s, the Sindhis in the 1980s and Mohajirs in the 1990s. The book critically evaluates the literature on ethnicity and nationalism by taking nationalist ideology and the political divisions which it generates within ethnic groups as essential in estimating ethnic movements. It goes on to challenge the modernist argument that nationalism is only relevant to modern-industrialised socio-economic settings. The available evidence from Pakistan makes clear that ethnic movements emanate from three distinct socio-economic realms: tribal (Baloch), rural (Sindh) and urban (Mohajir), and the book looks at the implications that this has, as well as how further arguments could be advanced about the relevance of ethnic movements and politics in the Third World. It provides academics and researchers with background knowledge of how the Baloch, Sindhi and Mohajir ethnic conflict in Pakistan took shape in a historical context as well as probable future scenarios of the relationship between the Pakistani state and government, and ethnic groups and movements.

Fascinating vignettes about the men and woman who ruled PakistanWhat did Muhammad Ali Jinnah say when he received a royal salute from the last British regiment about to leave Pakistan? Did Ayub Khan consider turning Pakistan into a monarchy? Why was Yahya Khan so confident that the 1970 elections would return a hung parliament? What did Zulfikar Ali Bhutto say when the Pakistan Army launched a brutal crackdown in March 1971? How did Zia-ul-Haq get Bhutto to appoint him the army chief? In 2007, did Benazir Bhutto misread the extent of American support for her return to Pakistan? Had Pervez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif agreed to a pull-out from Kargil even before the latter went to meet President Clinton in July 1999? Backed by meticulous research, the second book from Tilak Devasher, author of Pakistan: Courting the Abyss, provides enthralling insights into the lives and times of the leaders of Pakistan over the seven decades of the nation's existence. Anecdotal and engrossing, Pakistan: At the Helm presents a human side to the country's political history for anyone who is curious about the inner workings of its corridors of power.