Nadeem F. Paracha is a researcher and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com. He is also the author of ten books on the social and political history of Pakistan.
In an age of algorithmic outrage, identity politics and collapsing trust in institutions, the most outrageous claims can become expressions of loyalty and powerful instruments of persuasion.
The demand for a separate Karachi province is often presented as a battle between a Sindhi provincial administration and Mohajirs, but the city's communities have their own reasons to resist the idea.
Decentralised movements can mobilise millions without a central command, but their greatest strength can also become their greatest weakness. Once the common enemy disappears, what holds the movement together?
States and leaders rarely act without reason, and it’s usually flawed assumptions, rather than irrationality, that drive policy failures and political crises.
Changing dynamics within the country and in the region are pushing Pakistan towards a different imagination of itself — as the modern inheritor of the ancient Indus civilisation.
The rise of Nigel Farage and Reform UK demonstrates how modern populists are constructed through strategic narratives of decline, grievance and cultural anxiety.
