Hailing from Karachi, Fariha is a Biomedical Engineer, occasional poet, and harbors a keen interest in history and geopolitics.
She tweets as @_FarihaRashid_
Despite its secular facade, some provisions of the Indian Constitution contravene genuine secularism, as evidenced by distinct personal laws, limited religious freedom, religious-based reservations, governmental control over institutions, and religion's influence over politics.
Decades after the Lahore Resolution, the nation celebrates "Pakistan Day" with much fanfare and a kind of nationalism that is made up of a conglomerate of various delusions and desires.
In India, the use of bulldozers as a form of extrajudicial punishment or political expression against rioters, suspected criminals, and instigators of communal violence has come to signify a dark new age, particularly for the country's Muslims.
While the 2002 Gujarat riots may have rendered certain memories of the atrocities unrecoverable and propelled Modi to the pinnacles of fame and notoriety in the last two decades, they surely won him friends across the world who continue to rally around him today.
For centuries, what constitutes good leadership has been an intriguing subject. In South Asia, such paradoxes in theories in the context of nation-building are exemplified by the propensity of the general public to transform their enthusiasm into slavish loyalty.
Without unanimity among the Pak-Afghan-India trio on what should account for a peaceful vision for the future, the region would continue to suffer, with its people repeatedly sacrificed on the altar of long-standing geopolitical rivalries.
The controversy over the domestic release of the Pakistani film ‘Joyland’ brings to the fore the larger debate on mainstreaming LGBTQ discourse under the garb of artistic liberties and their compliance or lack thereof in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
From secularism to systemic persecution of religious minorities, from proscribing international condemnation to unilaterally and forcefully imposing decisions over bilateral territorial disputes; India is essentially paradoxical in dodging global indicators as well as in its very fabric.
As 2500 Afghan students await Indian visas, it is crucial to ask whether transnational relations are relatively stronger for some communities than others, and perhaps if doubts can be cast after all on India's feelings for Afghans.
For all the lip service paid to ‘world peace, the Western governments, in particular, must reflect on whether subjecting Afghanistan to a diplomatic vacuum would win them any favors in the long run.
