The Nine Lives of Pakistan Quotes

“If Pakistani cities were caricatures, most would be easy to draw. Lahore is corpulent and languid, stretched out in a shalwar kameez, twirling its moustache over a greasy breakfast. Islamabad cuts a more clipped figure, holding court in a gilded drawing room, proffering Scotch and political whispers. Peshawar wears a turban or a burka, scuttling among the stalls of an ancient bazaar. But Karachi is harder to sketch. It has too many faces: the shiny-shod businessman, rushing to the gym; the hardscrabble labourer who sends his wages to a distant village; the slinky young socialite, kicking off her heels as she bends over a line of cocaine.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

“In God is Gracious, a satirical essay published in 1954, the writer Saadat Hasan Manto envisaged a Pakistan in which poetry, arts and music were silenced by accusations of blasphemy. His words proved prophetic”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“Insha’Allah translates as ‘If God wills it’, and I heard it everywhere. On my first trip to Pakistan, as the plane descended to Islamabad, the pilot addressed the cabin: ‘Insha’Allah we will be landing shortly,’ he announced, somewhat disconcertingly. The phrase was hardwired into the national psyche – a code, a philosophy, a comfort blanket to get through tough times. Sure, things were hard, people admitted. But Pakistan would stumble through, as it had always done – Insha’Allah. Were they right? About three years into my stay, things really began to fall apart.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“Within a few years of Modi becoming prime minister, the civil and political rights of India’s Muslim minority came under sustained assault. It”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“Ashraf never gave a single reason for his quitting the ISI, a decision that would eventually launch him into exile. Over several conversations, he described his growing disenchantment with a spy agency seen by many Pakistanis as omnipotent and highly competent, but which he came to view, from the inside, as crude, incompetent and corrupt.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“And when it comes to analysis, the ISI has a poor record. ‘They saw everything through pre-determined ideological prisms, rather like the KBG during the Cold War,’ a senior British official who worked with the ISI for decades told me. ‘Frankly,’ he added. ‘None of their analysis was worth the paper it was written on.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“But the most profound effect of that era was on the Pakistan military’s thinking. Intoxicated by victory, the ISI sought to replicate its success in Afghanistan by employing the same tactics elsewhere. Through the 1990s, it established its own jihadi groups and deployed them to attack Indian soldiers in Kashmir, and it funnelled cash to foreign Islamist guerrillas as far afield as the Philippines. At home, the emboldened spy agency meddled aggressively in politics, mostly in an effort to oust Benazir Bhutto. ISI officers rigged elections, bought politicians and strong-armed troublesome judges. Critics began to speak of a ‘state within a state’.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“The ISI was founded, in 1948, by an Australian – General William Cawthorn, a British army officer, who stayed on after partition to help Pakistan establish its military.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“Zia perished in 1988”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State

“On my first trip to Pakistan, as the plane descended to Islamabad, the pilot addressed the cabin: ‘Insha’Allah we will be landing shortly,’ he announced, somewhat disconcertingly. The phrase was hardwired into the national psyche – a code, a philosophy, a comfort blanket to get through tough times. Sure, things were hard, people admitted. But Pakistan would stumble through, as it had always done – Insha’Allah. Were”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation

“was a bizarre turn of events, as jarring and disconcerting as a pitched battle in downtown Brussels or Washington, DC.”
― Declan Walsh, The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Divided Nation