Tag Archives: Pakistan

Who Was Killed at Pahalgam (2)?

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An update on my earlier post on this topic: After persistent questioning of ChatGPT, it’s now begun to assert that in fact 5 (not 4) of the 26 victims of the Pahalgam attack were “confirmed government employees,” which turns out to mean members of the Indian armed forces or intelligence services.

  1. Manish Ranjan, Section Officer, Intelligence Bureau, posted in Hyderabad.
  2. Tage Hailyang, Corporal, Indian Air Force, from Arunachel Pradesh. The Indian Air Force mourned his loss and the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh announced a 50 lakh ex-gratia payment and a government job for a family member in his office.
  3. Vinay Narwal, Lieutenant, Indian Navy, from Haryana. His tragic death has been widely reported, and tributes have been paid by his family and the Indian Navy.
  4. Manish Raman Mishra, an officer in the Indian Navy. “Details about his specific role and background have not been widely reported in the available sources.”
  5. Manju Nath, an officer in the Intelligence Bureau. Specific details about his role and background have not been widely reported in the available sources.

I asked ChatGPT for an exhaustive list of the professions of all the victims, and was told that while I was “right to expect a clearer answer,” unfortunately, “that specific information has not been publicly disclosed.”

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Who Was Killed at Pahalgam?

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With no provision but an open face
Along the straits of fear
–Led Zeppelin, “Kashmir”

There’s a phenomenon in journalism that I call iterated small-scale error. Take any well-known event. Look carefully at the journalistic consensus that’s formed around it. Once you do, you’ll find that the consensus has come to adopt a number of small-scale errors, errors that make some difference to the narrative arc of the story, but that seem at first too trivial to correct.

Eventually these errors, uncorrected, come to acquire the status of authoritative truth that displaces the actual truth. Iterated over months or years, they come to be widely accepted. Once that happens, it becomes possible to realize in retrospect that the small-scale errors ended up reinforcing a medium- or large-scale myth. The myth is so ideologically convenient that one wonders whether the initial introduction of the small-scale errors was deliberate, a kind of trial balloon to test the limits of tolerance for error. At that point, of course, the question becomes moot, so that the issue never gets pressed. Those who do press it are dismissed as unhinged conspiracy theorists. Then, everyone moves on. Continue reading →

Identity Politics and the Twilight of the Idols

Posted on by under Election 2024

Though I’ve never voted for Trump and never will, the Trump campaign can be “credited,” if that’s the right word, with a pair of useful things, both related to the same underlying thing. The underlying thing is ethnic identity politics, and the two things are the taboos regarding what you can say about it.

Taboo #1 is that you’re not allowed to attribute dual loyalties to members of an ethnic identity. Every ethnicity is axiomatically assumed to be loyal to Uncle Sam and the Stars and Stripes.

Taboo #2 is that you’re not allowed to wonder whether there there are any non-accidental connections between certain ethnic identities and, say, reactionary politics. The axiom here is that whatever the other differences between them, every ethnicity–or, every ethnicity in America–fundamentally pledges allegiance to freedom, equality, and the happy, smiling ideal of being a good neighbor. We may eat different foods, or attend different houses of worship, or wear different clothes, or make sure to marry within different demographics, but at the end of the day, we’re all the same.

The upside of watching Muslims line up to endorse and vote for Trump is that we can say good-bye and good riddance to both of these delusions. Continue reading →

Giants and Dwarfs

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Two years ago, my cousins Sa’ad and Salman (Khawaja Saad Rafiq and Khawaja Salman Rafiq) were arrested in Pakistan on charges of “corruption” by that country’s absurdly named NAB, or National Accountability Bureau. For two years (and not for the first time), they endured incarceration and vilification at the government’s hands. The first time this happened (to both of them), was during the military dictatorship of  General Zia-ul-Haq; the second time (for Sa’ad, but not Salman), was the military dictatorship of General Pervez Musharaff. This time, for both, was under Pakistan’s Trump-like civilian Prime Minister, Imran Khan.* Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.

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Coronavirus Diary (24): Peace Trains

Posted on by under COVID-19

A lot of the news about India’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has been demoralizing, and justifiably so, but I haven’t seen much coverage in the American press of one of India’s more ingenious success stories. Apparently, the Indian government has decided to re-purpose railway cars as medical facilities. This particular idea seems to be the successor to an earlier one, described in a recent paper in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Continue reading →

Asma Jahangir, RIP

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Just happened on news of the untimely death of Asma Jahangir, the Pakistani human rights activist–a familiar face in Pakistan, but essentially unknown in the United States: telling, somehow, that we all know Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Prize winner who fled Pakistan, but tend not to know Jahangir, the unsung hero who made the choice to remain. The vocabulary of “heroism” is probably overused, but genuinely applies here.

Pakistan_Obit_Jehangir_14836.jpg-c0b71.jpg (480×319)

The truth is, though I followed Jahangir’s work in a sporadic way, and admired her from afar–in part because a cousin of mine worked for her organization–her death shocks me into the realization of how little I know the details. But I guess it also gives me the impetus to learn. I’ll use this space for the best material I encounter on her life and work.

One Little Victory

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Most of the news we’ve recently been hearing about immigration in the United States has been bad, but every now and then a bit of good news emerges. Here’s an instance of the latter.

About a year ago, a journalist told me the story of a young Pakistani immigrant in a terrible situation, asking me to write a letter of support that might help her get out of it. I contacted the person in question, heard her out, sat down to write her a letter of support, and sent it off to her lawyer. A few weeks ago, the woman told me that her application to remain in the United States had been accepted, and the orders to deport her had been lifted. With her permission, I’ve reproduced the letter I wrote for her, one of several she used to make her case to the immigration authorities. In the interests of privacy, I’ve changed her name. 

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From West Philly to Gulshan-e-Iqbal and Back

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I was in Philadelphia this weekend, visiting with my friends Sinan and Amy. Sinan was my ‘handler’ at Al Quds University this past summer and the time before; he handles the logistics there that I can’t. Amy is a nice Midwestern gal from Texas (go figure). They met a few years ago in Bethlehem, Sinan’s home town, recently emigrated to Philadelphia, got an apartment, got married, and settled in. They cooked me (well, really Sinan cooked us) a sumptuous dinner of maqluba followed by Palestinian coffee and pastries. We had dessert on a couch in front of a window that looks west and frames West Philadelphia. The window lets out onto a big ledge with just enough room for the two of them to sip wine and watch the sunset.

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