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This fascinating book uncovers the hidden stories behind Pakistan's
fixation with blasphemy--tales of revenge, political scheming and
sovereign betrayal. Hussain's account opens in nineteenth-century
colonial Punjab and traces blasphemy killings to the present,
linking their emergence to polemic encounters between Hindu and
Muslim revivalist sects, namely the Arya Samaj and the Ahmadiyya.
It offers, for the first time, the arresting backstories to the
assassinations of Pandit Lekh Ram, a leading Hindu nationalist;
Swami Shraddhanand, an early progenitor of Hindu nationalism and
the principal advocate for converting Muslims; and Rajpal, the
Hindu publisher of a sensationalist book on the Prophet Muhammad.
'Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan' then maps the curious
afterlives of these killings, illuminating the most critical
moments in Pakistan's history: 1953, when outraged protestors
smashed stores owned by religious minorities, triggering the
country's first state of emergency; 1974, when Islamist parties
pressured Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to put blasphemy on the
constitutional agenda; 1984, when Zia-ul-Haq transformed Pakistan
according to his Islamist vision, which included more severe
punishments for blasphemy; and the twenty-first century, when
digital media has dramatically increased the visibility of
blasphemy killings, prompting political parties to demonstrate
their commitment to the cause.
'An important contribution ... Delving lucidly into the most
significant ideological battles of the era, this book deftly
outlines the thinking and dialogue that laid the foundations of the
Republic - and which remain deeply relevant and contentious today'
Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire A history of Nehru that
dives deep into the debates of his era to understand his ideology -
and that of his contemporaries and opponents, asking what India
would look like had another bold young mind with fiercely held
views led during the country's formative years of independence.
Sixty years after the death of Jawaharal Nehru, the independence
activist and first prime minister of India continues to be deified
and vilified in equal measure. And still in contemporary political
debate, the ideological spectrum remains defined by the degree of
divergence from Nehru's ideas. With the Nehruvian ideals
increasingly juxtaposed against the positions of Nehru's erstwhile
contemporaries and questions asked about what might have happened
on the Indian subcontinent had another hero of that era taken
leadership, this book explores his encounters with key
contemporaries to excavate and evaluate the views that were in
circulation. It examines the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali
Jinnah and his cause of Hindu-Muslim unity, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee
of the Hindu Mahasabha and his fierce defence of the constitution,
the Congress leader Sardar Patel, with whom Nehru often disagreed
about the threat of China, and Mohammad Iqbal, the poet and
politician whose letters on Muslim solidarity were often issued
from a prison cell. The correspondence and interactions that Nehru
had with these key personalities captures the essence of how
post-independent India was projected as a nation, and the early
directions it took towards self-definition.
'An important contribution ... Delving lucidly into the most
significant ideological battles of the era, this book deftly
outlines the thinking and dialogue that laid the foundations of the
Republic - and which remain deeply relevant and contentious today'
Shashi Tharoor, author of Inglorious Empire A history of Nehru that
dives deep into the debates of his era to understand his ideology -
and that of his contemporaries and opponents, asking what India
would look like had another bold young mind with fiercely held
views led during the country's formative years of independence.
Sixty years after the death of Jawaharal Nehru, the independence
activist and first prime minister of India continues to be deified
and vilified in equal measure. And still in contemporary political
debate, the ideological spectrum remains defined by the degree of
divergence from Nehru's ideas. With the Nehruvian ideals
increasingly juxtaposed against the positions of Nehru's erstwhile
contemporaries and questions asked about what might have happened
on the Indian subcontinent had another hero of that era taken
leadership, this book explores his encounters with key
contemporaries to excavate and evaluate the views that were in
circulation. It examines the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali
Jinnah and his cause of Hindu-Muslim unity, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee
of the Hindu Mahasabha and his fierce defence of the constitution,
the Congress leader Sardar Patel, with whom Nehru often disagreed
about the threat of China, and Mohammad Iqbal, the poet and
politician whose letters on Muslim solidarity were often issued
from a prison cell. The correspondence and interactions that Nehru
had with these key personalities captures the essence of how
post-independent India was projected as a nation, and the early
directions it took towards self-definition.
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