An intellectual deficit

February 11, 2016

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Farahnaz Ispahani’s scholarly book and Sultan M Hali’s conspiracy theroies

According to UNESCO, Pakistan published a total of 3,811 books in 2013 of which 2,943 were in Urdu and 868 in English. This abysmally low figure includes books of all kinds: religious books, poetry, prose, cook books, books of fiction and nonfiction. Only a handful of books written by Pakistanis fall in the category of research work.

For a country of 190 million this is nothing short of a disgrace when compared with the book output of other countries. Japan with a population of 127.3 million published 82,589, the Czech Republic with a population of 10.52 million published 18,985 and Romania with a population of 19.96 million published 14,84 books. Our neighbour and rival India published 90,000 books in 2013.

With these figures in mind, Pakistanis should celebrate when one of their own publishes a research book that is acclaimed internationally. Alas, that is not our culture. Just as we are unable to celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize of Dr Abdul Salam because we do not agree with his religion and are predisposed to be dismissive about Malala Yousafzai’s Nobel Prize and global fame, we cannot admire our authors if we have an issue with their political views.

At least that is what one can conclude from the negativity demonstrated by Sultan M Hali, who after serving in the Pakistan Air Force seems to be serving our invisible defenders’ media team, while writing about Farahnaz Ispahani’s scholarly book ‘Purifying the Land of the Pure,’ published recently by Harper Collins Publishers.

Compare Mr Hali’s cussed remarks insinuating conspiracy with the praise offered by The Financial Times, one of the world’s most respected newspapers. FT correspondent Victor Mallet commended ‘Purifying the Land of the Pure’ for laying out “how the non-Muslim share of the population [in Pakistan] dropped from 23 per cent at independence to 3 per cent today” and for pointing out how critical an understanding of this issue is to “the crisis of Islamist violence in Asia”.

In her book, Ispahani methodically discusses the plight of Pakistan’s religious minorities most of which even Hali agrees with. For example, he writes, “She rightly points out that Pakistan has the most dangerous anti-blasphemy laws in the world which are used to whiplash the minorities in Pakistan.”

Ispahani’s book is an analysis of the country’s policies towards its religious minority populations, as well as an attempt to set the record straight about why Pakistan was created and where it moved away from Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s modern pluralist vision. It contains elaborate footnotes and references.

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The book methodically examines how a country conceived as a Muslim-majority, albeit liberal, state that would safeguard its minorities has moved increasingly towards an Islamic state with an ever-intensifying prejudice against its religious minorities.

Instead of appreciating and acknowledging the dedication and intense research undertaken by Ispahani, Hali berates her for the book being launched in India. He forgets that the capital of South Asian publishing is Delhi, where all international publishers now have their headquarters. Perhaps he and others of his ilk need to memorise the statistics at the beginning of this article.

The largest book festivals in South Asia are held in Jaipur and Kolkata. Some Pakistanis have started a valiant effort through Karachi Literary Festival and Lahore Literary Festival but they have a long uphill task in a country that does not have a culture of reading and writing books.

Unfortunately, the harsh reality remains that even major books on Pakistan that reach international audiences are published by India-based international publishers. One recalls former Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s book ‘Neither a Hawk nor a Dove,’ which was published by Oxford University Press (Pakistan branch) but still launched in Mumbai.

Declaring think tanks (or even publishing houses) as part of India’s external intelligence agency, RAW, as Mr Hali does without a shred of evidence in his article, will not change Pakistan’s intellectual deficit. It is not surprising that Hali and others like him are obsessed with conspiracy theories and believe any one writing anything about Pakistan that does not fit the national security narrative must be attacked.

Ironically, Mr Hali’s book ‘Defence and Diplomacy’ was launched by Pakistan’s Chief of Air Staff Air Marshall Sohail Aman at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad in August 2015 but is not available internationally or on Amazon. Like many others from the newly minted ‘Defence Expert’ category, he writes and publishes only for domestic consumption.

Pakistan is large enough and should be strong enough to handle intellectual pursuits and research by all its citizens. It is time to break Pakistan out of its international isolation. Books written by Pakistanis should be judged on their worth not on the basis of limited hyper-patriotic criteria.

Instead of disparaging Ispahani, it would be better if Hali musters different arguments and researches and publishes an internationally acclaimed book of his own.

That would help Pakistan break its international intellectual isolation, something often complained about by Ms Ispahani’s husband, former Ambassador Husain Haqqani, who is a well-known author of international renown and another target of hyper-patriotic abuse.