India and Pakistan Wolpert, Stanley
2010., 20100814, 2010, 2010-09-13, 20100101
eBook
Beginning in 1947, when "India and Pakistan were born to conflict," renowned India scholar Stanley Wolpert provides an authoritative, accessible primer on what is potentially the world's most ...dangerous crisis. He concisely distills sixty-three years of complex history, tracing the roots of the relationship between these two antagonists, explaining the many attempts to resolve their disputes, and assessing the dominant political leaders. While the tragic Partition left many urgent problems, none has been more difficult than the problem over Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan. This intensely divisive issue has triggered two conventional wars, killed some 100,000 Kashmiris, and almost ignited two nuclear wars since 1998, when both India and Pakistan openly emerged as nuclear-weapon states. In addition to providing a comprehensive perspective on the origin and nature of this urgent conflict, Wolpert examines all the proposed solutions and concludes with a road map for a brighter future for South Asia.
This book provides a comprehensive reassessment of the development of the economy of Pakistan since independence to the present. It employs a rigorous statistical methodology, which has applicability ...to other developing economies, to define and measure episodes of growth and stagnation, and to examine how the state has contributed to each. Contesting the orthodox view that liberalisation has been an important driver of growth in Pakistan, the book places the state at the centre of economic development, rather than the market. It examines the state in relation to its economic roles in mobilising resources and promoting a productive allocation of those resources, and its political roles in managing the conflict inherent in economic development. The big conclusions for economic growth in Pakistan are that liberalisation, the market and the external world economy in fact have less influence than that of the state and conflict. Overall, the book offers analyses of the different successive approaches to promoting economic growth and development in Pakistan, relates these to medium-term economic outcomes - periods of growth and stagnation - and thereby explains how the mechanisms by which the state can better promote growth and development.
Fostering the entrepreneurship of women is important for Pakistan's economic growth and inclusion agenda, and access to financial services is an important component of starting and growing a business ...for women entrepreneurs. Most women?owned businesses are small, household?based cottage industries; microfinance products should be a natural source of start?up and working capital finance for this clientele. Microfinance portfolio data suggest that although Pakistan's sector has shown improvement in reaching women, it still lags its regional peers, only 59 percent of microfinance clients are women. The original purpose of this work was to determine whether women entrepreneurs have access to, and are using, microfinance loans as a source of finance for their businesses. However, the findings of the report go beyond the narrow objective of understanding whether microfinance institutions (MFIs) are reaching Pakistan's businesswomen. As the research unfolded, the evidence suggested that not only are women entrepreneurs not being served, but also that the outreach to women in general is potentially more limited than previously assumed and that the issues of consumer protection and responsible lending practices in Pakistan might merit further exploration. The report raises and addresses two distinct issues. First, some evidence suggests that women are often not the final users of loans, but rather are conduits to male household members. The report documents findings that suggest that the practice of passing on loans to male household members is potentially quite widespread; women may be bearing all the transaction costs and risks of accessing loans, but are not the final beneficiaries. Second, a very low proportion of female microfinance clients are entrepreneurs. The report explores why businesswomen in Pakistan may not be using microfinance products to meet their startup and working capital requirements, in spite of identifying access to finance as a key constraint to their business operations. The report focuses on products, services, policies, and other elements of the business model of microfinance in Pakistan that affect both demand for and access to microfinance by women borrowers, some of whom fall into the narrower category of entrepreneurs.
Based on interviews with failed suicide bombers, officials of Pakistani law enforcement agencies involved in interrogating high-profile self-immolation attacks, and content analysis of Jihadi ...publications produced in local languages, this book offers the first empirically grounded analysis of suicide terrorism in Pakistan.
Synthesizing political, anthropological and psychological perspectives, this book addresses the everyday causes and appeal of long-term involvement in extreme political violence in urban Pakistan. ...Taking Pakistan’s ethno nationalist Mohajir party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) as a case study, it explores how certain men from the ethnic community of Mohajirs are recruited to the roles and statuses of political killers, and sustain violence as a primary social identity and lifestyle over a period of some years. By drawing on detailed fieldwork in areas involved in the Karachi conflict, the author contributes to understandings of violence, tracing the development of violent aspects of Mohajir nationalism via an exploration of political and cultural contexts of Pakistan’s history, and highlighting the repetitive homology of the conflict with the earlier violence of Partition. Through a local comparison of ethnic and religious militancy she also updates the current situation of social and cultural change in Karachi, which is dominantly framed in terms of Islamist radicalization and modernization. In her examination, governance and civil society issues are integrated with the political and psychological dimensions of mobilization processes and violence at micro-, meso- and macro- levels. This book injects a critical and innovative voice into the ongoing debates about the nature and meaning of radicalization and violence, as well as the specific implications it has for similar, contemporary conflicts in Pakistan and the developing world.
Nichola Khan is a Lecturer in the School of Applied Social Science at the University of Brighton, UK.
1. Introduction 2. The Post-Partition History of the Mohajirs in Sindh 3. The Transformation 4. Partition Reprised: Grievance, Unification and Violence 5. Women in the Homeland 6. Jamaat E Islami and the Ijt in Liaquatabad 7. Conclusion
In recent years Pakistan has emerged as a strategic player on the world stage -both as a potential rogue state armed with nuclear weapons and as an American ally in the war against terrorism. But our ...understanding of this country is superficial. To probe beyond the headlines, Stephen Cohen, author of the prize-winning India: Emerging Power, offers a panoramic portrait of this complex country -from its origins as a homeland for Indian Muslims to a militarydominated state that has experienced uneven economic growth, political chaos, sectarian violence, and several nuclear crises with its much larger neighbor, India. Pakistan's future is uncertain. Can it fulfill its promise of joining the community of nations as a moderate Islamic state, at peace with its neighbors, or could it dissolve completely into a failed state, spewing out terrorists and nuclear weapons in several directions? The Idea of Pakistan will be an essential tool for understanding this critically important country.
Muslim Zion argues that Pakistan has never been a nation-state, grounded in the historic connections of lands and peoples. Just as Israel is the only Jewish state, Pakistan is the only Muslim state ...to make religion the sole basis of its nationality. Faisal Devji offers a penetrating critique of founding a state on nothing but the idea of belonging.
