Pod#190 - Hafsa Khawaja - Pakistan's 'Unprecedented' Current Events vs 1971

The great Hafsa Khawaja is finally on the podcast. Despite our stated goal of not talking about ISSUES, Pakistan's continued spiral has recently left us no choice. But if we must talk about Pakistan's issues, we need the right people and the recent political turmoil leaves no better person than Hafsa, a teaching fellow at LUMS focusing on Pakistan Studies and the Politics of South Asia. Things discussed in this episode: 00:00 Who is Hafsa, why is she here, what is her history connection? 04:05 What is critical analysis of history and how that doesn’t mean you hate your history 09:37 Pakistan has one official “history” and you shouldn’t ask questions 15:55 How was the experience studying South Asia at Columbia for her Masters? 20:21 Was teaching always the plan? 21:41 Why are people SO surprised whenever something goes wrong in Pakistan? 27:45 Summarizing the recent political and social madness in Pakistan 33:36 How “unprecedented” is the recent turmoil really? 38:22 The 1971 War - what Pakistanis are and are not taught 45:53 Pakistan exceptionalist narrative and how 1971’s realities are suppressed 53:16 Do her students take their learnings with them in life? 56:41 How is the current scenario going to play out in the near future? 1:03:31 What is she worried about? 1:07:57 Outro LINKS: Hafsa's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hafsa_Khawaja Hafsa's article in Dawn on the current crisis and 1971: https://www.dawn.com/news/1753896/stop-equating-recent-events-with-1971-period Support the podcast by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/tprpod) or send a one-off token on Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/tprpod)! Find all our previous episodes on SoundCloud, Spotify & Apple Podcasts and follow us all on Twitter! Links to everything below! SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/tprpod Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6PvTahp... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tprpod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TPRPod Ali: https://twitter.com/themaholupper Rizwan: https://twitter.com/RizwanTakkhar Sarkhail: https://twitter.com/Sarkhail7Khan