The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

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A man cleans portrait of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in Karachi. Photograph: Rehan Khan/EPA SHAPIRO: Declan Walsh's new book is "The Nine Lives Of Pakistan: Dispatches From A Precarious State." Thank you for talking with us about it. It is quite common for statesmen to display three qualities: mixed motives, ambiguous character and abnormal drive. Cold and impenetrable, Jinnah, as Walsh shows, was no exception. He was however, committed to the idea of a secular and democratic Pakistan which is at peace with its neighbours. The ideal soon wilted as Pakistan was beset- right from the start- by issues of faith and identity, which were later exploited by military dictators to prolong their stay in power although the price which the country has paid is heavy. And so Asma Jahangir with this small, formidable, fiery woman who was willing to stand up for the most dispossessed people in her country and was also willing to stand up loudly to the most powerful ones. SHAPIRO: Declan Walsh told me he happened to be in Pakistan during a particularly explosive period. But then, the entire history of the country is a parade of fragile episodes.

If you live in Pakistan, the relentless onslaught of turbulent events and ensuing incessant high drama leaves one with a permanent case of deja vu. In this vein, Walsh had the gruelling task of culling anecdotes from these events that took place in 2010 within one month. Walsh spent nearly a decade living in and covering Pakistan, first for The Guardian, then for The Times. His tenure coincided with some of the country’s most turbulent modern years: fraught elections, assassinations and military rule; a war next door and within; and a tenuous alliance with the United States fraying to the breaking point, particularly after American Special Forces found Osama bin Laden hiding inside Pakistan, and killed him. Many extremist groups looked on western journalists as legitimate targets, for kidnapping at least, and at one point Walsh is saved by the man he has hired a car from. Overhearing a group of men discussing the logistics of grabbing Walsh, the rental man bundled the Irish journalist into the vehicle and sped away. Islam or the army were supposed to be the glue holding the place together. Yet both seemed to be tearing it apart Declan Walsh The scale of the struggle for women’s rights is encapsulated by Asma Jahangir, a crusading lawyer whose first client – an eloping lover – is murdered in Jahangir’s office by her own mother. (In “our folklore… the man who stops two lovers from meeting is evil,” yet in real life they “may be killed”, Jahangir wonders in sorrow.) Through Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a preacher whose company Walsh “enjoyed, jihad puffery aside”, you learn of the rise of the Pakistani Taliban. In a chapter entitled “The Good Muslim”, Walsh contrasts the life of the senator Salmaan Tasser, a “hard-charging, money-grubbing sinner”, with the bodyguard who assassinated him for trying to save minorities who had been sentenced to death on dodgy blasphemy laws. A country long viewed globally as terribly volatile and ever on the brink of collapse, Pakistan is, in fact, despite all odds, incredibly resilient and has proved much tougher to disintegrate than was believed. This is the idea Declan Walsh attempts to drive home in the Nine Lives of Pakistan. The People of Pakistan

Reviews

The common denominators in the chaotic events that Walsh recounts are also what constitutes the Achilles' heel of Pakistan – religion and army. This book charts the trajectory of the creeping post-9/11 radicalisation and the rising Deep State, “the semi-visible iceberg of army garrisons, military spies and their political satraps”. Exocitism over nuance But despite the rhetoric about a boundless China-Pakistan relationship — “higher than the mountains, deeper than the seas” — I suspect there are limits, and I think they are becoming more apparent. Chinese loans and other financial assistance can carry a high cost, and as the coronavirus pandemic exacts a stiff economic price in the coming years, we may see China call in its chips with countries like Pakistan. China’s harsh treatment of its own Muslim citizens in western Xinjiang province is likely to strain relations, no matter how much Prime Minister Imran Khan tries to glass over the story (or pretend he hasn’t read the reports of those abuses). The book has an immense literary touch. You’re quoting Sadat Hasan Manto, a giant of 20th century Urdu literature, with regard to Pakistani history, culture, and politics. How and why did Manto seem relevant to contemporary Pakistan?

I found this claim glaringly assumptive. This quote is in fact in direct accordance with The Charter of Madina, widely considered the first civil constitution to set the basis of a multi-religious Islamic state in Medina, drawn up on behalf of the Prophet Muhammad. A vital clause of the document granted non-Muslim members autonomy and freedom of religion. SHAPIRO: You know, beyond the violence and struggle that you chronicle in the book, what made you love Pakistan enough to devote a decade of your life to telling its story? The demise of Pakistan – a country with a reputation for volatility, brutality and radical Islam – is regularly predicted. But things rarely turn out as expected, as renowned journalist Declan Walsh knows well. Over a decade covering the country, his travels took him from the raucous port of Karachi to the gilded salons of Lahore to the lawless frontier of Waziristan, encountering Pakistanis whose lives offer a compelling portrait of this land of contradictions. Walsh is a wonderful writer, with a gift for sketching an impression of a place, time and ambience with a few brief lines. He knows how to interweave travelogue with an account of the relentless tensions that always threaten to burst through each vignette in the book. What also shines through is the relish with which Walsh throws himself into the far corners of Pakistan, into crowds, celebrations and rites, with a drive born of fascination with the land and its people.Apart from his silky prose, Walsh’s accurate portrayal of events and objective evaluation of his characters forces the reader to proceed with breathless attention. His characterizations are spot-on: the Bhutto family saga is described as “part Greek tragedy and part The Godfather”; police officer and encounter specialist Chaudhry Aslam is termed as Karachi’s Dirty Harry; his chapter on Asma Jahangir is titled-the wonderful Senorita; ex-spy “Colonel Imam” saw himself as a “kind of Pakistani TE Lawrence”; Pakistan’s roller-coaster relationship with United States is referred to as a forced marriage based on shared interests rather than values and devoid of any affection- rather punctuated with dispute and betrayal. The Munir Commission report, authored in the aftermath of anti-Ahmedi riots in 1953, could not have been written in today’s Pakistan due to the prevailing religious bigotry.