Babar Ayaz’s book does not present an ordinary diagnostic enquiry into the health of a state called Pakistan. His is no run-of-the-mill attempt—quite a fad today—to put Pakistan in the dock. There are plenty of writers these days looking at Pakistan in an uncharitable manner. ‘A Hard Country’ says one; a country of ‘Magnificent Delusions’ says the other. ‘On the Brink’, ‘Unravelling’, ‘Cauldron’, ‘Tinderbox’, ‘Warrior State’, caution quite a few. Maybe Pakistan deserves such sobriquets, may be it does not. But none of them tries to grapple with a problem called Pakistan with critical empathy. This is what Babar attempts to do.
February 2014, volume 38, No 2