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Histories of the Ephemeral: The Qawwali Legacy of Fareed Ayaz and Abu Muhammad

“ To be a qawwal is more than being a performer, more than being an artist, One must be willing to release one's mind and soul from one's body to achieve ecstasy through music. Qawwali is enlightenment itself.” — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Gateway Theatre in Chicago, 1993 in an interview to Andy Carvin The…

ByNarendra Pachkhédé

From Library to Dungeon : Feroz’s Story and His Parents’ Grief

When we chant the slogan "Taleem do, zindan nahi" (Give education, not prison) on the streets in Pakistan. we truly mean it — because as Baloch students, our lives have always been destined for something different from the average students in Pakistan. We have lost thousands of our youth to years of extrajudicial killings…

ByNoorjan Barkat

Sacred, Seen, and Shifting: The New Language of Islamic Art

“What can ‘art’ mean in a culture where the primary organ of perception is not the eye or the ears, but the heart? It requires a shift from the visible to the sensible, in which attention is directed not outwardly toward the object, but inwardly, within the heart.” — Wendy M. K. Shaw, What…

ByNarendra Pachkhédé

Is Pluralism the New Orthodoxy in Global Art?

“What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization—and therefore force—is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased.” —Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. Translated by Joan Pinkham,…

ByNarendra Pachkhédé

Stolen Fathers, Stolen Childhoods: Ten Years of Waiting for Zaheer Baloch

A Name Among Thousands, A Family Among the Broken On April 13, 2015, Zaheer Baloch, a resident of Panjgur district, was forcibly disappeared by Pakistani security forces from Hub Chowki, Balochistan. As of April 13, 2025, ten years have passed. No charge sheet, no trial, not even a confirmation if he is alive. He simply…

ByDilshad Baloch

‘Regimes of Authoritarianism’ and the Need for Organic Intellectuals

What is the role of intellectual leadership in our troubled times? At a time when universities are converted into stock exchanges, singularly focusing on “return on interest” (ROI), and scholars – a chunk of them, at least – investing their ideologies and praxis keeping in mind their own personal extravaganza and leadership positions, while few…

ByOm Prakash Dwivedi

Why the Neoliberal Universities Debunk Critical Thinking

The febrile mood of several neoliberal universities seems to have triggered the death of critical thinking across the globe. While pedagogical inventiveness remains the declared norm of such universities, the learning outcomes are invariably linked to return on interest and customer experience. That said, these neoliberal universities are prettified by posturing the students at the…

ByOm Prakash Dwivedi

Liberalism’s Stage Directions

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple” —Oscar Wilde. The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays. Penguin Classics, 2000, p. 293. It began with a slip—not of the tongue, but of an unguarded conscience. At a campaign rally in…

ByNarendra Pachkhédé

Mahrang Baloch: The Epitome of Courage

We often study figures of resistance in history books—people who became symbols of their time, etched into memory by the scale of their defiance. But sometimes, history walks among us. Sometimes, it wears the face of someone you’ve seen on the street, marching beside you. For many of us, Mahrang Baloch is not just a…

The Hollow Centre – How Canadian Elections Became a Ritual of Consent.

The current framing of Canadian elections is fundamentally flawed "We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” —Didion, Joan. The White Album. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009, p. 3. Canadian electoral politics presents a carefully crafted facade of choice. Party platforms, debates, policy pivots, and rhetorical clashes all contribute to the illusion of a functioning…

ByNarendra Pachkhédé