Overview

""Why Pakistan's mind-not just its institutions-must change for democracy and the state to survive?"" Culprits in the Mind: Perspectives on Pakistan is a lucid, unsparing diagnosis of Pakistan's political and social pathology - and a humane blueprint for repair. Imran Khalid Usman traces the country's dilemmas to deep psychological, historical and institutional causes: the legacy of Muslim separatism and the ""conquistador-minority"" mindset born of centuries of conquest (see part 1, Muslim Nationalism). He maps how Islamic dogmatic fundamentalism hollowed out intellectual freedom (The Problem with Islamic 'Dogmatic' Fundamentalism) and how migrant/urban middle class solipsism, bureaucracy and the military shaped a dominant anti-democratic zeitgeist (part 2, Pakistani Zeitgeist). Usman moves beyond accusation to prescription: decentralised federalism, strengthening rule of law, rural development and a modern economic strategy that ties resource gains to provincial welfare - remedies aimed at restoring pluralism, tolerance and a democratic Pakistan (see Statecraft, Upper Classes; Rule of Law and Corruption; Pakistani Effervescence; Epilogue). Written with historical sweep, intellectual rigor and moral urgency, this book will interest readers of South Asian history, political theory and anyone seeking to understand why states and societies fracture and how they might be mended. Clear, readable and fiercely honest, Culprits in the Mind reframes Pakistan's troubles as solvable problems - if the country can shed the myths, prejudices and anxieties that still govern its public life.

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9781970749007

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The author is a civil engineer by profession. He was politically active during the era of General Zia ul Haq's military regime in Pakistan and was a member of the now defunct Pakistan Socialist Party of C. R. Aslam up to the early 1990s. He views favourably the policies of Gorbachev in the last years of the Soviet Union without ascribing to the view that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was historically a foregone conclusion. However, he conclusively considers communism and socialism as systems to be obsolete for the modern world. Email: mhikhalid@yahoo.com.

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