Best 220 quotes in «pakistan quotes» category

He could not help but admire his posters every time he saw them---the son of a rickshaw puller, now the chief of a prominent political party in this town, who was expected to win by an unprecedented margin of votes in the coming elections. There were many people in the party who begrudged his presence, his power, but they could do nothing. The people of Amrapur loved him and his speeches. Some people called them inflammatory, divisive, and harmful to the peace and harmony of the town. A smile spread across his face every time he heard that word. Has anything ever been achieved by harmony? What would the leaders do with harmony? Why would people come to listen to his speeches in droves if they wanted harmony? Elections can never be won by harmony.

His sisters -- my aunts -- did not go to school at all, just like millions of girls in my country. Education had been a great gift for him. He believed that lack of education was the root of all of Pakistan's problems. Ignorance allowed politicians to fool people and bad administrators to be re-elected. He believed schooling should be available for all, rich and poor, boys and girls. The school that my father dreamed of would have desks and a library, computers, bright posters on the walls and, most important, washrooms.

How do you eat your roots?

History judges a leader by results. Let my results do the talking.

I believe I did succeed in making Indian uslims look upon me as a friend: when I was nominated to be a member of the Rajya Sabha many said, "We have another Muslim in Parliament." Others who disliked my views called me an unpaid agent of Pakistan. I treated both views as compliments.

if a colonizer replaces language, clothes and names of a nation then what remains is a mere shadow of the colonizer.

If I considered the Partition an archeological site, and the many experiences of those who witnessed it as the site’s structural sedimentation, then the deeper I excavated, the more I found, and that too in innumerable renditions.

I felt like the Islamic scholar Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), who said on his return from a trip to Europe to his homeland Egypt 'I saw no Muslims in Europe but I saw a lot of Islam,' and of his homeland 'There are a lot of Muslims here but no Islam.

I do not need to understand words to know he is disappointed I am not a boy. Some things need no translation. And I know, because my body remembers without benefit of words, that men who do not welcome girl-babies will not treasure me as I grow to woman - though he call me princess just because the Guru told him to. I have come so far, I have borne so much pain and emptiness! But men have not yet changed.

If we had more reliable systems of law and governance perhaps our friendship would be shallower.

If you come to Karachi for a few days you will hate it, but if you come to Karachi for forty days, you will love it and never want to leave.

If you think of the world as a global village, a fight between India and Pakistan is like a fight between the poorest people in the poorest quarters - the Adivasis and the Dalits. And in the meantime, the zamindars are laying the oil pipelines and selling both parties weapons.

I have grown up listening to my grandparents’ stories about ‘the other side’ of the border. But, as a child, this other side didn’t quite register as Pakistan, or not-India, but rather as some mythic land devoid of geographic borders, ethnicity and nationality. In fact, through their stories, I imagined it as a land with mango orchards, joint families, village settlements, endless lengths of ancestral fields extending into the horizon, and quaint local bazaars teeming with excitement on festive days. As a result, the history of my grandparents’ early lives in what became Pakistan essentially came across as a very idyllic, somewhat rural, version of happiness.

I have no sense of what War is like; It may be like disaster Hollywood movies. But i wish india and Pakistan fight a War and devour all ; instead of decapitating one-by-one

If there were lessons to be learnt from the East Pakistan/ Bangladesh fiasco, Pakistan’s civil and military leaders did not learn them. Instead of recognizing the inadequacy of the two nation theory, religious ideology and brute force in keeping the country together, the break-up was rationalized as the result of Indian hostility, malfeasance of Pakistani politicians, and the geographic remoteness of the eastern wing.

In any case, Jinnah died within a year of independence, leaving his successors divided, or confused, about whether to take their cue from his independence eve call to keep religion out of politics or to build on the religious sentiment generated during the political bargaining for Pakistan.

I hid myself behind Baba. It was like being in the shadow. Shadows are empty places in things. The colour of shadow is also black, which is the color of empty things. Blackboard is also black when it is empty No one can draw shadows on blackboards because shadows keep on changing. You cannot draw changing things. But it happens, you know; you draw and you look and it has changed.

In Pakistan, a perception has been officially cultivated that anyone who offers facts, statistics or opinions that do not coincide with the national narrative does so at the behest of Pakistan’s many external enemies.

In Pakistan both branches [of the Ahmadis] fell to persecutions, sanction by the state in 1984 with General Zia Ul-Haq's Ordinance XX, which forbade Ahmadis of either branch from calling themselves Muslims, their religion Islam, or their temples mosques. Under penalty of law, they could not perform the call to pryaer, pray in the manner of Muslims, quote the Qur'an or hadith, greet each other with "as-salamu alaikum," or receite the shahadah... In the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, it was illegal for some people to say, "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger.

In recent years, army families have played a significant part in social media mobilization and lending support to pro-military politicians (such as former cricket star Imran Khan) and clerics.

Invisible violence in Pakistan, violence against brown people, ongoing violence in Iraq — that's got to be quantified in the same way as the cinematic glamorous violence that happens in recognisable cities.

Ironically, support for the idea of Pakistan was strongest in regions where Muslims were a minority and Jinnah, as well as most of his principal lieutenants, belonged to areas that would not fall in Pakistan. To emerge as chief negotiator on behalf of Muslims, Jinnah and the All-India Muslim League had to prove their support in the Muslim majority provinces. ‘Such support’, Jalal points out, ‘could not have been won by too precise a political programme since the interests of Muslims in one part of India did not suit Muslims in others.’ Jinnah invoked religion as ‘a way of giving a semblance of unity and solidity to his divided Muslim constituents’.

Islamists also pushed back on Ayub’s efforts at controlling what he saw as the ‘menace of over-population’ through a comprehensive family planning programme. ‘I cannot believe that any religion can object to population control’, Ayub declared, adding that ‘no good religion can object to anything aimed at the betterment of human lot, because all religions, after all, come for the good of the human race and human beings do not come into the world for the religions.’75 But once Ayub’s hold over power was weakened, mullahs railed against family planning and birth control as conspiracies of unbelievers aimed at keeping down the number of Muslims.

Is it possible to leave Karachi after living here for so long?

[...] I stated to them among other things that no country inflicts death so readily upon the inhabitants of other countries, frightens so many people so far away, as America.

[Taken from a BBC documentary] Tariq was born in Lahore, now in Pakistan, then part of British-ruled India, in 1943. A Catholic school education did nothing to shake his life-long atheism, which he shared with his communist parents.

If Jinnah—a Western educated and, by all accounts, nonpracticing Muslim—could inspire India’s Muslims to create a state by appealing to their religious sentiment, Maulana Maududi reasoned there was scope for a body of practicing Islamists to take over that state.

In popular sentiment, just as conspiracies have made Pakistan weak and vulnerable, its destined economic greatness has been thwarted by corruption, not poor policy choices.

International assistance, especially from the United States and some from China and Saudi Arabia, has brought Pakistan back from the brink in the past. But rising xenophobia and Islamo-nationalism— exhibited prominently after the discovery of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town—coupled with Pakistan’s policies in Afghanistan make continued US support for Pakistan difficult.

In the process of moulding a nation on the basis of Islam, Pakistan has ended up earning for itself the reputation for being home to the world’s angriest Muslims.

I often wonder how my neighbours from my old cell are doing. There are around a hundred of us women locked up here, mostly accused of adultery. But in reality many of them have been raped. Although these women are victims, they’re regarded as guilty.

I passed by General Zia's tomb and knew that I never would have become Muslim if I was raised in this country [Pakistan]. As a rebellious American adolescent, I had chosen Islam because it was the religion of Malcolm X, a language of resistance against unjust power. But in Pakistan, Islam was the unjust power, or at least part of what kept the machine running. Pakistan's Islam was guilty of everything for which I had rebelled against Reagen-Falwaell Christianity of America.

It was too quiet for hope, and then too loud for safety. She thought of the people she had lost, of the affection, the smiles, the belonging she could never again take for granted. It was the end of a life, and as she stood there, shivering in the brief night-time chill, it dawned on her that it was the end of her childhood.

it was too loud for hope it was too silent for victory.

It seemed to me then - and to be honest, sir, seems to me still - that America was engaged only in posturing. As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away. Such an America had to be stopped in the interests not only of the rest of humanity, but also in your own.

I was devastated to learn that both my parents were facing persecution and insults from the entire family. They had failed to raise me to follow the “right path.” The fact that I was adopted was cited as a reason, I was told. Town gossips gleefully whispered juicy details about my misdeeds and my parents’ equally horrific failure to raise their only son to be a good Shia Muslim. The fact that my dear parents were being judged and persecuted felt worse than anything anyone could have done to me personally. It was second only to their desperate pleas with me to label my decisions as mere crimes of passion...

Lund Lund e Pakistan! Maa Chudaega Pakistan! Chuchhi Chodu Pakistan! Kargil Me Mushi ki begam chodo subah shaam

I walk in the direction she tells me. I feel my pores opening, sweat and heat radiating out of my body. A firefly dances in the distance, leaving tracers, and if I turn my head from side to side, I see long yellow-green streaks that cut through my vision and burn in front of my retinas even after the light that sparked them has gone. I emerge from the mango grove into a field. In the distance unseen trucks pass with a sound like the ocean licking the sand. A tracery of darkness curls into a starry sky, a solitary pipal tree making itself known by an absence of light, like a flame caught in a photographer's negative, frozen, calling me.

No global corruption scandal can be complete without mentioning Pakistani politicians.

My dear, you are not one person. You have many people in you, and each one can ask only some kinds of questions.

No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you. We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live.

Now, standing here, it is clear as day: more than anything else, you want to find words for what you feel and think and everything that is dark. And then this terrifying thought hits you: Yes, your father wrote poetry to find a language for his wounds. Yes, you in your own way have become your father

Memorialization is not a passive practice but an active conversation.

No one who is a friend of Pakistan must say anything that harms its reputation; anyone who dares to ask tough questions or make adverse remarks must be prepared to be categorized as Pakistan’s enemy.

One can sympathize with the sentiment of Pakistanis who must constantly defend their country against criticism ranging from questioning of its very creation to its current policies. But it is equally important to understand that mere survival does not equate success and that progress often requires uninhibited introspection.

On the subcontinent, Pakistan has passed the point where solar power is cheaper than a lot of electricity that comes from diesel generators,and India is upping its target from 20 to 33 gigawatts to be installed by 2020

Over the years, the British had strategically pitted the Muslims against the Hindus, supporting the All India Muslim League and encouraging the notion that the Muslims were a distinct political community. Throughout British India, separate electorates had been offered to Muslims, underscoring their separateness from Hindus and sowing the seeds of communalism. Teh Morley-Minto reforms in 1908 had allowed direct election for seats and separate or communal representation for Muslims. This was the harbinger for the formation of the Muslim League in 1906. In 1940, the Muslim League, representing one-fifth of the total population of India, became a unifying force. They were resentful that they were not sufficiently represented in Congress and feared for the safety of Islam.

Pakistan has been unfortunate that its leaders and rulers have repeatedly chosen ideological wooden-headedness over pursuit of reasonable and viable options.

Pakistanis are a pious, warm and hospitable people,’ wrote Richard Leiby, a Washington Post reporter who spent a year and a half there, lamenting that the news from Pakistan did not reflect that. He noted, however, that the bad news about Pakistan was not untrue. In his view, ‘Just like average Americans’, the simple Pakistani people ‘pay the price of their leaders’ magnificent mistakes’.

Pakistan’s poor performance in education is not a function of poverty but of according lower priority by successive governments. There are forty-three countries in the world that are poorer than Pakistan on a per capita GDP basis45 but twenty-four of them send more children to primary school than Pakistan does. Pakistan’s budgetary allocation for education—a meagre 2.6 per cent of GDP in 2015—is abysmally low and actual expenditure—1.5 per cent of GDP—is even less. Pakistan spends around seven times more on its military than on primary education. According to one estimate, just one-fifth of Pakistan’s military budget would be sufficient to finance universal primary education.