Anita Joshua’s article in The Hindu , ‘ A growing intolerance’ (Aug 21, 2012), shows how Pakistan has become a nation of haters. The Pakistanis hate not only the Hindus (7 million Hindus live in that country – imagine the magnitude of the hatred!) and Christians (who are, according to the article, changing their names to “Shahbaz, Shazia, Nasreen, Tahira, and such like”), but also the Muslims of denominations other than Sunni. Shias, says Joshua, “are pulled out of buses and summarily executed in broad daylight in various parts of the country.” Sufi shrines are bombed. “Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated,” says Undershaft, a Shavian character ( Major Barbara ). How can there be so many cowards in a country who feel so intimidated as to hate such large numbers of people? Joshua’s article quotes Harris Gazdar of the Karachi-based Collective for Social Science Research: “Some of these crimes might be committed by groups with religious motivation, but mos
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