What’s on your summer reading list?
Fiction and non-fiction both are welcome.
I know there is a thread already up on books, but this one is about books that you haven’t read…hence the “summer reading list” theme. Books that you always wanted to read, but you just never had the time, and you will try to read this summer.
Re: Summer Reading List
What I am going to read this summer:
The Longman Anthology of British Literature, volumes A and B.
Yes, I know very high brow 
Re: Summer Reading List
Well I don't have a specific reading list..I am trying to get all of Tariq Ali quartet ..(was a spur of a moment)..I also want to buy two Pakistani writers books..Asghar Khans new book ( do we ever learn from history)..here is another one that sounds interesting
Community problems
Life After Partition
Migration, Community and Strife in Sindh
1947-1962
Sarah Ansari
Oxford University Press, Karachi
Pages: 240
Price: Rs 395
By Tariq Rahman
There are several studies of ethnicity and politics of immigration in Pakistan. Indeed, the rise of the MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement), an ethnic movement of the mainly Urdu-speaking immigrants from India (or Muhajirs) in Pakistan, has merited some useful research on issues of identity-formation and ethnicity. However, these studies are either historical synopses or done from a political angle. There is no significant study which may be called a social history, especially covering the period of the 1950s when the Muhajirs were settling down in Sindh and in the process changing the life of that province. The book under review, however, is the first study of this kind and it fills a serious gap in our knowledge about the experience of immigration for Pakistan, the province of Sindh, the communities concerned (Muhajirs and Sindhis) and for the individuals from all communities in Karachi.
The book has seven chapters including an introduction and a conclusion. After dealing with theoretical issues of community-construction and the partition of India in 1947, Sarah Ansari sets out to describe how community in Sindh looked like before this event. She points out that Sindh was somewhat isolated before the development of modern irrigation system and the railways which brought a number of new people to the province. Thus, the feeling of being dominated by outsiders was part of Sindhi perception even before the Partition. As the cities, and commerce in general, were dominated by Hindus, Sindhi Muslims had, for a long time, found themselves struggling to assert their presence in all fields of life.
This was the scenario in which the Muhajirs arrived during 1947-1954 and even later. At the same time most non-Muslim Sindhis left the province. Local Sindhi Muslims did not quite know how to react to these events. First, because the immigrants were their co-religionists and, secondly, because Sindhi Muslims had voted Pakistan into existence. But the immigrants' arrival in large numbers meant a demographic revolution resulting in the Muhajirs' dominance of urban centres, especially Karachi, in both cultural and economic terms. Very soon the battle lines were drawn -- Sindhi feudal elite started opposing the settling of ever-increasing number of Muhajirs in Sindh and the separation of Karachi from the province because of its status as the federal capital. The central government and the Muhajirs, on the other hand, supported both the moves in the name of Pakistani nationalism and the unity of the Muslim community (Ummah). The press such as the English daily Dawn, which was in Muhajir hands, played a significant role in making middle class opinion support the Muhajir cause and the Sindhis appear as ethnocentric 'provincialists'.
Between 1949 and 1954, Sindh changed not only demographically but in every other way. Karachi became industrialised, like any other mega-city. It also became much more cosmopolitan than it had ever been. However, it became a Muhajir city which considered Urdu its natural language and had a life quite distinct and alienated from rural, Sindhi-speaking parts of the province.
Meanwhile a number of social, cultural and political organisations developed which gave the Muhajirs an articulate voice in the affairs of the city or those concerning Muhajirs in general. There were, of course, many problems peculiar to the Muhajirs: Many of them still lived in slums and temporary accommodations; they complained of evacuee property being disposed off wrongfully and of not being given their due share in the new state. Sindhis, often lining up behind their local politicians who were feudal lords, opposed these claims at the same time fighting among themselves for political reasons. While Sindhi politics appealed to factions within Sindh's own political elite and Sindhis in general, Muhajir politics drew sustenance from Islam and state-sponsored nationalism.
These trends had an impact all over Sindh but more so in Karachi than anywhere else. A wide range of local identities emerged in this huge city and a new, complex, pluralistic urban pattern of life emerged. While discussing these patterns, the author concentrates on the concepts of 'borders' and 'boundaries'. If people from a certain background, or a certain geographical location in India, were concentrated in a certain area in Karachi then this area became a cultural 'colony'. It then had its own perceptual cultural border and boundary outside which were the 'others'. The creation of large suburban areas is described in detail in the book. So one finds out how Karachi turned into an exclusive cultural space for the Muhajirs rather than being a city of Sindh. This consciousness of Karachi being a Muhajir city with Urdu as its lingua franca emerged during the years between the partition and 1955. It was this change, however, which the Sindhis, feeling that they had lost the city, resented very much.
In 1958, Ayub Khan imposed marital law. This, too, had a direct impact on Karachi. First, Sindh, like other provinces which had merged into the one unit of West Pakistan in 1954, now became more centrally controlled than before because Ayub Khan was a firm believer in a unitary system. Sindhi politicians, some of whom expected positive rewards from unification, grew increasingly disenchanted. The Muhajirs, who welcomed the military government's efforts to provide them accommodation and did initially benefit from the bureaucratisation of governance, were also disenchanted because Ayub Khan's policies brought in a lot of Punjabis into Karachi's police and bureaucracy. The Muhajirs felt they would lose power to both the emerging Sindhi middle class as well as the Punjabis as a result of Ayub Khan's policies. In their disillusionment, the Muhajirs turned more and more to Ayub Khan's opponents, above all, Jamaat Islami.
Gradually, however, ethnicity replaced the religious identity and by the 1980s the Muhajirs started feeling they had a distinct identity. The author refers to this major change in the very last chapter of the book and concludes that the boundaries between communities in Sindh were as sharply delineated during the 1960s as they were before the partition. She also points out that the state could not create the unity it desired, with assimilation of the Muhajirs remaining problematic in Sindh.
The conclusion of Life After Partition offers insights into the construction of boundaries and a sense of community. The author argues that communities 'tend to assert their boundaries symbolically, and in this way they are able to sustain distinctions between their members and others, which are based on cultural rather than structural differences'. From this follows that the unified 'community' of Indian Muslims was only an expedient construct to oppose an equally divided 'Hindu community'. After the pressure of competition with the 'other' was removed, 'Muslim community' reverted to its localised identities.
This conclusion refers back to historiographical debates about the nature of identity construction during the Pakistan movement. It also reinforces the insights of political scientists working upon identity construction and ethnicity in many parts of the world. Sarah Ansari's book will remain an important contribution to this branch of learning as well as social history. The empirical evidence of the settling of Muhajirs in Sindh and its effect on Sindhi perception of identity is the most relevant part of her book in this regard.
The author has used a lot of archival material collected from Karachi, London and Washington which makes the book authentic and scholarly. One feels, however, that the author should not have stopped at 1962 because the most important events in the social history, politics and perception of the Muhajir and Sindhi communities took place after that year. Maybe the author thinks that it is the material for another book. In that case, and I would agree that it is, let us wait for a sequel to Life After Partition.
Re: Summer Reading List
i just got this book called The Middle East by Bernard Lewis.. its on top of my list and i want to read this urdu book my cousin sent me from pakistan.
Re: Summer Reading List
man, does no one here read American/Brit literature?
I saw this in the other thread too - everyone is reading stuff on Pakistan or in Urdu or about Arabs
Re: Summer Reading List
I'm takin a british literature class, does that count??
Re: Summer Reading List
almost everything i never read in 8th- 10th grade..
Re: Summer Reading List
Conspiracy of Fools
Smartest Guys In The Room.
Re: Summer Reading List
i go through books which i have already read before, i'm such a freak.
Re: Summer Reading List
The Almond - by Nadjma
Re: Summer Reading List
my list in no particular order … and yeah I read a lot 
Tangerine dreams
the known world
any place I hang my hat
the secret life of bees
middlesex
the transit of venus
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Re: Summer Reading List
Books I've read so far...
1776 - David McCullough
The Almond -- Nedjma (I think Madhanee already mentioned this one - It about women in Islam and sexuality).
Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt (I really wanted to burn this book! The theories/ideas were just plain weird and could have been explained in depth!)
The World is Flat - Thomas L. Friedman
China, Inc. - Ted Fishman
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
4th of July - James Patterson (I wouldn't recommend this one to anybody)
In the Face of Jinn -- by uh I forgot the author (It's also about tribes/clan of Pakistan and Afghanistan)
Broken Prey - John Sandford
The Closers - Michael Connelly
The United States of Europe -- T. Reid (I want my money back for this one!).
Bhoot Ka Baap, Conspiracy of Fools is also in my reading list.
Re: Summer Reading List
'In the Hands of Taliban' by Yvonne Ridley...
Re: Summer Reading List
snow
the bee keeper.
Both by Maxene somethingorother.
Re: Summer Reading List
actually i had to read it as a reference for an assignment, but i dropped that class. However, the book is pretty intresting and a good read.
