Pakistan Desires

Drawing on history, anthropology, literature, law, art, film, and performance studies, the contributors to Pakistan Desires invite reflection on what meanings adhere to queerness in Pakistan. They illustrate how amid conditions of straightness, desire can serve as a mode of queer future-making. Among other topics, the contributors analyze gender transgressive performances in Pakistani film, piety in the transgender rights movement, the use of Grindr among men, the exploration of homoerotic subject matter in contemporary Pakistani artist Anwar Saeed's work, and the story of a sixteenth-century Sufi saint who fell in love with a Brahmin boy. From Kashmir to the 1947 Partition to the resonances of South Asian gay subjectivity in the diaspora, the contributors attend to narrative and epistemological possibilities for queer lives and loves. By embracing forms of desire elsewhere, ones that cannot correlate to or often fall outside dominant Western theorizations of queerness, this volume gathers other ways of being queer in the world. Contributors. Ahmed Afzal, Asad Alvi, Anjali Arondekar, Vanja Hamzić, Omar Kasmani, Pasha M. Khan, Gwendolyn S. Kirk, Syeda Momina Masood, Nida Mehboob, Claire Pamment, Geeta Patel, Nael Quraishi, Abdullah Qureshi, Shayan Rajani, Jeffrey A. Redding, Gayatri Reddy, Syma Tariq

108 Earthly Desires of a Dark-Hearted Man is an updated and revised debut in English of the author's first novel originally published in Gujarati, his native language. It is set in the spring of 1990, during a border crisis between India and Pakistan, and is an interpretation of actual historical events. A top spy for RAW, India's equivalent of the CIA, is sent to end the critical situation, one that nearly resulted in the world's first nuclear war. The spy, a complex man, spiritually ambitious but hopelessly licentious, manages to mishandle his morally repugnant personal life while trying to save the world from disaster. There are comic elements as well as serious drama in this behind-the-scenes look at international intrigue.

Provides an up to date overview of the course of Pakistan’s foreign policy There is growing interest in Pakistan due to the instability in the region Jihadism is a hot topic

Does democracy have a chance in Pakistan? In the sixty years of its existence, Pakistan has experienced four military coups and has been ruled by the military for more than half the period. Even during the interludes of democracy, Pakistan's military exercised considerable power and influence. It also supported various militant groups in their causes, thus abetting terrorism. Ill-conceived policies of the military dictatorship in the country and failed intermittent civilian governments fuelled internal turmoil and branded Pakistan as a refuge for Islamic terrorists and a haven for the Taliban. Pakistan: The Struggle Within documents and analyses, among other things, the geopolitical scenario, the ethnic conflicts and civil-military relations in Pakistan, and explores its immediate future, all of which have a great and immediate relevance-not only to India but also to the international community. This book is a collection of essays written by some of the world's best-known scholars and analysts on Pakistan. It highlights how Pakistan continues to battle multiple challenges to its sovereignty, identity and survival as a nation-state.