that was thrown in her honour at the Prime Minister House. When half the country was submerged in water, and when thousands of people were dying of hunger and insufficient medical facilities, the elites were busy impressing a woman who had come to donate five million dollars to rehabilitate what the actress thought was one of the worst calamities to hit the country. It hardly ashamed the elite though. And 11 years later, the report by the former UNDP Director Marc-Andre Franche has the same story to tell: the elites of Pakistan have usurped the rights of the taxpayers and the poor alike.

Whether we like it or not, there is an Altaf Hussain in each of our politicians. While he intimidated, harmed and plundered the people of Karachi,of Jamaat-e-Islami used the term “Ideology of Pakistan” for the first time. Chaudhry Fazal Elahi, who later became the president of Pakistan, objected to the term and asked for clarification on its meaning. The member who had moved the bill replied, “The ideology of Pakistan is Islam.” To this, no one further objected. One can quite well imagine the construction of narratives that was taking place in the guise of nation-building at that time.

The Pakistan Studies book for Class 10 of the Punjab Textbook Board has its first chapter dedicated to an exposition of the ideology of Pakistan. It traces the lineage of Muslim nationalist struggle in India to the day when the first Hindu of the sub-continent converted to Islam. Nothing more on that. The next chapters