BetweenTheLines

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook A bdul Kadir Khanzada represented Karachi’s Orangi Town in Pakistan's parliament when Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of the eastern Indian state of Bihar, visited his country in 2012. He wanted to invite the visiting leader to his constituency given the composition of the area, where a bulk of the voters have roots in Bihar. Khanzada told me violence uprooted his family from Alwar in Rajasthan at the time of partition in 1947 when I called him for a Times of India piece on Kumar's visit. But since 70 per cent of his constituents were of Bihari origin, he was keen on inviting Kumar. Khanzada emphasised his Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which represents Pakistan's Urdu-speaking people, has always supported peace with India and hoped Kumar’s visit would help the process.  Also Read | How Kinship Bonds Impact Pakistan's Electoral Politics Kumar visited the archaeological site of Mohenjo-Daro, a temple, and addressed a Hindu pan...

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook D eaf and mute Indian woman Geeta returned home in 2015 from Pakistan after 12 years thanks largely to Salman Khan-starrer Indian film Bajrangi Bhaijaan’s success. The reel life story of the film’s main character, Shahida aka Munni, mirrored that of Geeta’s real life. Geeta was found alone at the Lahore Railway Station after she got off the Samjautha Express from New Delhi. She mysteriously boarded the cross-border train after attending a fair on the Indian side of Punjab, where her father worked as a mason. Likewise, Munni gets off a train in the film while chasing a sheep as her mother falls asleep en route to India for pilgrimage.  Also Read | As Imran Khan Faces 4th-Year Itch, Will He Complete His Term The waves the film made with its rare sensitive portrayal of cross-border characters and parallels it drew with Geeta’s story stirred an inept bureaucracy into action. The urgency worked when Geeta identified her family in a remote ...

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook A nother Pakistani prime minister appears to be facing an unceremonious removal from power. Pakistan's media has been abuzz with reports about a possible 'deal' between the country's military establishment and Prime Minister Imran Khan's opponents, including his arch-rival Nawaz Sharif, and the latter's possible return from self-imposed exile in the UK. The speculation has coincided with talk of threats to Khan's government amid anger in the country over price rise and misgovernance. The major reverses Khan's party suffered in its stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the local bodies elections and an upbeat mood in the Opposition camp have also fueled the speculation.  ALSO READ: Religion Is Too Important To Be Left To Clerics Shehbaz Sharif, the Opposition Leader in Pakistan's National Assembly, on Thursday reflected the mood when he claimed the end of Khan's government was a matter of time. He ...

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook I ndian Islamic scholar Maulana Hussain Madani, who headed the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary for three decades from 1927 to 1957, challenged poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal when the latter began pushing his idea of territorial nationalism in the 1930s. Madani held his own against Iqbal, a Cambridge University alumnus and arguably Urdu’s greatest poet, in an informed debate on nationhood. Madani cited Islamic sources to argue for composite nationalism and united India while rejecting Iqbal’s idea. Muhammad Ali Jinnah fleshed out the idea in the shape of Pakistan that was created by partitioning the Indian subcontinent in 1947. He overshadowed people such as Madani as he made Pakistan a reality. The division did not just trigger mass killings and migrations but also led to the Muslim brain drain to Pakistan. The drain accelerated the margination of the Muslims left behind. A decline in clerical quality that scholars such as Madani and Ab...

  Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook I t is now clear as daylight: having Indian Muslims at each other's throats is an aspect of the larger project against them. Much of it is done with a lot of subtlety including through hired guns for deniability. One such hired gun, claiming to be a Shia, released a book this month and in the process revealed the hand of his sponsors by making some incendiary and unpublishable comments against Islam and the Prophet amid usual open calls for violence against Muslims. He got an instant pat on the back from his patrons but in the process ended up exposing himself for a Shia is defined by her devotion to the prophet and his family. ALSO READ: Indian Muslim Invisiblisation & Curious Case Of Pakistani Shias The Prophet, for Shias, tops the group of sanctified Chahardah Masum (14 immaculate from sin, or infallible). It includes the Prophet's daughter, Fatima, son-in-law, Imam Ali, grandsons, Hasan and Hussain, and Hussain’s descendants...

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook O n one of his trips to Srinagar, the capital of the Indian side of Kashmir, veteran BBC journalist Sir Mark Tully heard an unusual, rhythmically rising and falling chanting from a white marble mosque. The chanting at sunrise from the revered mosque on the banks of the Dal Lake in Hazratbal, which houses a relic of the Prophet Muhammad, he wrote, sounded 'not unlike Hindu bhajans'. Tully was not entirely off the mark. The chanting was that of Aurad-ul-Fatiha, an anthology of Quranic verses and the Prophet’s sayings  14th-century saint Mir Syed Ali Hamdani complied for converts to Islam to chant in mosques similar to how it was done in temples. ALSO READ: Once Scorned, How Peshawaris From 'Central Asia's Piccadilly' Ruled Bollywood The faithful have been chanting the anthology in mosques since then in a major departure from the otherwise Muslim practice of silent worship. Hamdani, who popularised Islam among the masses in Ka...

Sameer Arshad Khatlani Follow  on Facebook W hen Haider Qadir, the owner of a haveli Bollywood legend Prithviraj Kapoor’s father built in 1920 in Pakistan’s Peshawar, tried to demolish it, his neighbours intervened and had him arrested in January 2016. Qadir was granted bail a day later along with three other accused after cooling his heels overnight in prison. The four faced trial under antiquity law for damaging the three-storey mansion with arched windows and protruding balconies. Pakistan's provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in 2011 declared the haveli a heritage site along with that of another Peshawar-born actor Dilip Kumar’s ancestral house in Peshawar's Dhakki locality. The move recognised the emotional connect Peshawar has with several Bollywood legends, who were either born or have roots in the city. ALSO READ: Why Sufism Needs To Return To Its Essence Of Selfless Service Peshawar has been known as a cultural powerhouse and nursery for Bollywood. Perhaps no othe...