BAD MANNERS – The idea of India versus the idea of Pakistan
BY MUKUL KESAVAN
March 19th, 2009
Courtesy and Thanks: Wichaar.com
During the Jaipur Literary Festival in 2009, Pakistani writers experienced a special kind of Indian incivility. Both in casual conversation and in formal question-and-answer sessions, they were asked if they thought that Pakistan was a good idea, the implication being that it wasn’t. Mohammed Hanif, the author of a wonderful satirical novel about Zia’s Pakistan, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, responded to a variation on this question by saying, patiently, that debating the virtue of Pakistan’s founding idea was less important than coming to terms with the fact that Pakistan was a real country that had to be reckoned with.

Continue reading Uncivilized Indians? →