The fixed fight

Mohammed Hanif, author of the extraordinary novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes (2008), wrote a stinging essay in the Times of India in early January called "Ten Myths about Pakistan". Failed state, religious country, hater of India: these are only three of the misconceptions about Pakistan that have succeeded in sustaining animosities and bloating military budgets. For almost forty years, Tariq Ali has tried to break down these myths. His Pakistan: Military rule or people's power (1970) offered a sophisticated history of the country, concluding with an accurate prediction regarding the break-up of the state. Feroz Ahmed, the activist and intellectual, described this work as "the first book on Pakistan, published in the West, that is not based on the stereotyped 'analysis' of Pakistan's history in terms of palatial intrigues and Bengali versus Punjabi rivalry. It is the first attempt in which the role, aspirations, and struggle of the Pakistani masses have been put in a proper perspective." Ali was only 27 when that book appeared – and was, unsurprisingly, quickly banned in Pakistan.

Thirteen years later, Penguin released his second book about his native land, Can Pakistan Survive?: The death of a state (1983). Far more polemical than its predecessor, it bore all the marks of having been written during the era of Zia ul-Haq. The Zia dictatorship, Ali wrote, "has brought all the contradictions of the Pakistani state to a head. Lack of political democracy, economic inequality, and the oppression of minority nationalities have become deeply embedded in the consciousness of a mass which increasingly begins to question the very basis of the state." At the end of the day, while the people did not abjure their nationality, the state did walk away from the people. For instance, the already meagre state provisions for the growth of social democracy were dismantled such that the working poor and the very poor had to take their medicine and alphabet from the organisations of the faith. From Ayub Khan to Yahya Khan to Zia, dictators pass on; but so too do the talents of the bourgeoisie, whose livelihoods and innovations are squandered for the sake of government-military contracts. This is a fact well illustrated in Ayesha Siddiqa's Military Inc. (2007), another recent book that the Islamabad government has banned.