The man who killed my father killed him for defending a Christian woman accused of blasphemy and for opposing the laws that had condemned her. For this, he became a hero in Pakistan, a defender of the faith, and my father — in the eyes of many was declared wajib ul-qatl, the Islamic designation given to a man fit to die, a nans-gressor against the hith whom any good Muslim might kill. The trial that followed was less a murder trial — my fathet's killer had laid down his gun and confessed his d under extreme provocation to act against a ttansgressor. The defense, in building their case against my father, sought to tubbish his credentials as a Muslim, moving easily towards the conclusion that if he had not been Muslim in the way they wanted him to be, he desetved to die. In this ugly reconfigutation of reality, Stranger to History, which had been one thing in one time, became another thing in another time. It was used in court to condemn my making the case that he was not a ptacticing Muslim; that he dtank
alcohol; that he ate pork; that he — in another life some thitty years before — had Eithered a half-Indian child by an Indian woman. Stranger to History was written as the expression of a need, the need to face and record a suppressed personal histoty. That histoty began with my parents' meeting in Delhi in 1980. Or even earlier, perhaps, for what was that meeting between a Pakistani politician and the Indian repotter who had been sent to intetview him without its context in the 1947 Partition of India! The arrival of my mothees family as refugees in Delhi; the painful shadow of the Pattition on my matemal gtandfather, an army man who never recovered from the absurdity of fighting wars against men he considered to be his own...that history, unrecorded
gtandfather, an army man who never recovered from the absurdity of fighting wars aglinst men he considered to be his own...that history, unrecorded once, is there now, in these pages. So, too, is the story of my parents* love afEüt and their sepatation: my åthees return to Lahore to fight Genetal Zia's dictatorship, my mothees to Delhi where she taised me. In 2002, at the age of twenty-one, I made a journey to lahore to seek out my father for the first time. We were reunited; a btief happy petiod followed, which, in turn, was followed by more tupture and a new silence. We met for the last time on December 27, 2007, the night Benazir Bhutto was killed. That personal histoty, painful as it can be at times, is also there in
There is no need to go over it again here. What I would like to do instead is to take the stoty fotward to the time after Strareer to History. The book ends with Benazir Bhutto's assassination and my final meeting with my father. I am gtateful for that meeting; it *Ive me an insight into a man I had not always been able to judge kindly. I wrote at the time: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had, in a way, also died from a wound to the neck That had been the beginning of my fathers political fight The person we watched t±en away in a simple coffin, now with no fight Eft in her, was his leader when that career came to fruition It
wound to the neck That had been the beginning of my fathers political fight. The person we watched t:den away in a simple coffin, now with no fight left in her, was his Eader when that career came to fruition It could be said that all my fathers idealism — his jail time, the small success and the great disappointment, the years when he struggled for democracy in his country — were flanked by this father and daughter who both died of fatal wounds to the neck, And running parallel to these futile threads, with which my father could string his life together, were the *nerals, one whom he had fought and the other in whose cabinet he was now a minister. For it to be possible for men to live with such disconzpct, for my father to live so many lives, the
I did not share his optimism. My navels in Pakistan had made me feel that extremism had seeped much deeper than my was willing to admit. I felt that Pakistan's problems were not simply administtative, but existential: that the otiginal idea on which the country had been founded — the idea of a secular nation for Indian Muslims — had eroded; and that nothing had come in its place, mve for an ever closer adherence to reli ion. I felt that this ideolo •cal col se which fish wound to rpck That had been beginning o
alcohol; that he ate pork; that he — in another life some thitty years before — had Eithered a half-Indian child by an Indian woman. Stranger to History was written as the expression of a need, the need to face and record a suppressed personal histoty. That histoty began with my parents' meeting in Delhi in 1980. Or even earlier, perhaps, for what was that meeting between a Pakistani politician and the Indian repotter who had been sent to intetview him without its context in the 1947 Partition of India! The arrival of my mothees family as refugees in Delhi; the painful shadow of the Pattition on my matemal gtandfather, an army man who never recovered from the absurdity of fighting wars against men he considered to be his own...that history, unrecorded
gtandfather, an army man who never recovered from the absurdity of fighting wars aglinst men he considered to be his own...that history, unrecorded once, is there now, in these pages. So, too, is the story of my parents* love afEüt and their sepatation: my åthees return to Lahore to fight Genetal Zia's dictatorship, my mothees to Delhi where she taised me. In 2002, at the age of twenty-one, I made a journey to lahore to seek out my father for the first time. We were reunited; a btief happy petiod followed, which, in turn, was followed by more tupture and a new silence. We met for the last time on December 27, 2007, the night Benazir Bhutto was killed. That personal histoty, painful as it can be at times, is also there in
There is no need to go over it again here. What I would like to do instead is to take the stoty fotward to the time after Strareer to History. The book ends with Benazir Bhutto's assassination and my final meeting with my father. I am gtateful for that meeting; it *Ive me an insight into a man I had not always been able to judge kindly. I wrote at the time: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had, in a way, also died from a wound to the neck That had been the beginning of my fathers political fight The person we watched t±en away in a simple coffin, now with no fight Eft in her, was his leader when that career came to fruition It
wound to the neck That had been the beginning of my fathers political fight. The person we watched t:den away in a simple coffin, now with no fight left in her, was his Eader when that career came to fruition It could be said that all my fathers idealism — his jail time, the small success and the great disappointment, the years when he struggled for democracy in his country — were flanked by this father and daughter who both died of fatal wounds to the neck, And running parallel to these futile threads, with which my father could string his life together, were the *nerals, one whom he had fought and the other in whose cabinet he was now a minister. For it to be possible for men to live with such disconzpct, for my father to live so many lives, the
I did not share his optimism. My navels in Pakistan had made me feel that extremism had seeped much deeper than my was willing to admit. I felt that Pakistan's problems were not simply administtative, but existential: that the otiginal idea on which the country had been founded — the idea of a secular nation for Indian Muslims — had eroded; and that nothing had come in its place, mve for an ever closer adherence to reli ion. I felt that this ideolo •cal col se which fish wound to rpck That had been beginning o
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