“The World After Gaza”: Author Pankaj Mishra on Gaza & the Return of 19th-C. “Rapacious Imperialism”

 This interview “The World After Gaza”: Author Pankaj Mishra on Gaza & the Return of 19th-C. “Rapacious Imperialism” really spoke to me: 

"the primary impulse behind the book was really to put an end to this horrible loneliness that I felt, along with many other people, a kind of desolation induced by the fact that, you know, powerful people, powerful politicians in democracies, journalists, intellectuals were either silent about the ongoing genocide in Gaza or, even worse, vehemently supporting it. So, I think, you know, it forced many of us to reexamining not just sort of narratives of Middle Eastern history or Israeli history or Palestinian history, but a kind of broader history of Western supremacism, of decolonization."

One feels a loneliness and desolation at the silence of Western white friends who have not uttered a peep against the Genocide. It exposes the hollowness of an international life with international careers, international education, international colleagues and friends with whom one doesn't share any soul, any solidarity, any politics, any common consciousness.

This sense of betrayal, this sense of desolation has to be acknowledged but also resisted, I suppose. We have to continue to bear witness to the atrocities and this world order.

Some more quotes:

So, I think, for many people in the West, who have been absorbed with a very different narrative — first of all, the narrative of the Cold War, the narrative of the end of history, the narrative of American unipolar dominance — decolonization still comes as a kind of news, or they confuse it with people asking for decolonizing knowledge in the United States or decolonizing educational syllabuses. So, I think there’s a very broad confusion about this world.

But what it really signifies is greater political, intellectual assertiveness and a very fierce desire to not live in a world where racial privilege, most specifically white privilege, orders and forces a global hierarchy. You know, you can see this very clearly in sort of South African president a few days ago making a speech and saying, “We will not be bullied.”

And you can read the whole transcript here: “The World After Gaza”: Author Pankaj Mishra on Gaza & the Return of 19th-C. “Rapacious Imperialism”: https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/13/pankaj_mishra_world_after_gaza .

By the way, I was lucky enough to see a conversation between Pankaj Mishra and Mohsin Hamid in Lahore at the Lahore Lit Fest a couple years ago.

On International Women’s Day

 

On International Women’s Day, we honor Vietnamese revolutionary Võ Thị Thắng. Here, she smiles after receiving a 20-year labor camp sentence from the US-backed South Vietnamese government. She told the judge: “20 years? Your government won’t last that long.”

One March 8, Thomas Sankara declared a day of rest for women. Men were asked to go to the market to buy vegetables and do the household chores. The best speech by an African political leader on women's freedom came from Sankara in March 8, 1987, a few months before Sankara was assassinated. In the speech, Sankara said: "The revolution and women’s liberation go together. We do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity or out of a surge of human compassion. It is a basic necessity for the revolution to triumph. Women hold up the other half of the sky."

Lucky Irani Circus is in Islamabad

Encourage everyone to support these amazing performers who risk everything to entertain the public. Encourage children to see this and, be amazed at the acrobats , especially the young ones! These are working class people and there are as many women performers as men! PS. There are performers from Ukraine and Africa (couldn't catch which country in the pronunciation) too.

I made many many videos of course. See one: 50 Years of Lucky Irani Circus. 

Dancing Girl of Moenjodaro

 I was really really excited to see the Dancing Girl of Moenjodaro. 

My first reaction was that she's so tiny! She is 10.8cm. This was in the Harappan Gallery, which has has 3,500 artifacts from the Harappan or Indus Valley Civilisation. 

See this interesting history about the division of artefacts between India and Pakistan: 

When one of the major sites of the Harappan civilization, Mohenjo Daro, was excavated in the 1920s, archaeologists deposited its important finds first in the Lahore Museum, and then these were moved to Delhi by Mortimer Wheeler in anticipation of the construction of a Central Imperial Museum there. At the time of the Partition, the issue of ownership of these objects arose and eventually the two countries agreed to share all the collections equally, although this was sometimes interpreted in literal sense, with several necklaces and girdles taken apart with half the beads sent to Pakistan and half retained in India. In the words of Nayanjot Lahiri, ‘the integrity of these objects were compromised in the name of equitable division’.  Of the two most celebrated sculpted figures found in Mohenjo Daro, Pakistan asked for and received the steatite figure of a bearded male, dubbed the 'Priest King', while the National Museum of India retained the bronze statuette of the 'Dancing Girl', a nude bejeweled female.  Considering that the major sites like Mohenjo Daro and Harappa belonged to Pakistan post-Partition, the collections in this gallery also grew out of the discoveries of the excavations made after the Indian independence in 1947 such as Daimabad, Rakhigarhi, and Dholavira.

National Museum of India 

The secular conversations in Pakistan that ask us to reject a narrow and weird Islamic Arabic national narrative ask us to remember Gandhara, Indus Valley Civilisation , Buddhism, Hinduism and so on. The Dancing Girl often pops up as a metaphor for what was here long before any Empire , modern religion or Pakistan came along. 

Interestingly, Pakistan has asked for the the Dancing Girl to be returned: Sindh seeks return of Moenjodaro’s Dancing Girl from India. Why? Do we have any good museums? Do we have thriving Archaelogical , Cultural or Historical societies? Are our ancient monuments preserved? Do we appropriately educate children of the history of this land ? All I see is evidence of anti Hindu, anti Indian brainwashing at a very young age to justify Communalism, Partition and the ethnic cleansing that ensued. 

I just remembered reading this idiotic column by Rafia Zakaria which ENRAGED me when I read it. She suggests that Tipu Sultan's Tiger should be given to Pakistan because " it is time that the tiger came to Pakistan, which, being the Muslim successor state after colonial India, should have a right to it." She can't invoke the UNESCO Convention here but invokes Pakistan's identity as a Muslim state. You can read it here: The fate of Tipu’s Tiger. 

But what about Lal Qila the mightiest symbol of Islamic India? How about the Taj? How about Tipu Sultan's seat of government? Why don't we bring everything back to Pakistan brick by brick, Ms. Zakaria? 

This modern obsession with claiming, owning, distorting and mutilating history is sick. 

Back to the Dancing Girl, another reason I was excited to see her was recalling some recent articles I read that suggest the Indus Valley Civilisation was egalitarian. There's a hopeful idealistic glow to knowing that human society isn't programmed to be unjust and unequal. 

And the Dancing Girl of Moenjardo will forever be dancing in our collective imaginations. 

I made a video too: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WcT1WO26hzM. 

Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia

Visiting or rather paying respects to Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia Dargah was spellbinding. This is where Amir Khusrau is also buried. Ghalib is also buried close by. This visit and subsequent visit to Humayun's Tomb (and the adjoining world class museum) helped me to understand the spiritual and artistic North Hindustani /Classical culture. That all Indian rulers chose to be buried in this area that was founded by Nizammuddin Aulia , close to the Yamuna River. The legacy of Nizammuddin Aulia , a 14th century Sufi saint, carries on to this day. I was also personally very very happy to have paid respects to Amir Khusrau, the poet scholar artist musician who apparently invented the sitar, the tabla and the qawali. 

"Agar firdaus bar ruh zameen ast, hameen ast o hameen ast o hameen ast!"

The Red Fort, also known as Lal Qila is a historic Mughal fort in Delhi, India, that served as the primary residence of the Mughal emperors. Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the construction of the Red Fort on 12 May 1639, following his decision to relocate the Mughal capital from Agra to Delhi. Originally adorned in red and white, the fort's design is attributed to Ustad Ahmad Lahori, the architect behind the Taj Mahal. The Red Fort represents the pinnacle of Mughal architecture during Shah Jahan's reign, blending Persian palace influences with indigenous Indian architectural traditions. (Wikipedia)

We entered the Fort through the Lahori Gate which faces Lahore, as told to us by our guide. And, of course, there is a Delhi Gate in Lahore. 

Amir Khusrau's lines, "Agar firdaus bar ruh zameen ast, hameen ast o hameen ast o hameen ast!" (If there be a paradise on earth, this is it, this is it, this is it!), are inscribed on the walls of the Diwan-i-Khas within the Red Fort. 

Lal Qila is massive. (The Red Fort in Delhi covers an area of approximately 255 acres (103 hectares), enclosed by 2.41 kilometers (1.50 miles) of defensive walls. ) The Yamuna River is at the back of the Fort. The Yamuna also flows through the Nizamuddin area. 

We didn't get there until 3 pm but a full tour requires at least a full day. There are so many Mahal, gardens and monuments inside the Fort, not to mention the 5 different museum buildings. We were only able to see the first one and that too only half of it.