In Pakistan and India, invented cultural nostalgia is having disastrous consequences
Creating a make-believe world can be beneficial – and devastating.
I have just finished watching a short smartphone video of seven- to 10-year-old kids playing in some dusty, Seraiki-speaking village of Pakistan’s south Punjab. Each boy has fashioned for himself a crude wood and tin sword, ensconced in a scabbard tied to his shalwar’s narra. What is it for, asks the off-camera interviewer, who seems to be enjoying himself. I am a Muslim, says one proudly, pulling out his sword and waving it in the air. It is for cutting off the heads of kafirs. Your name? Ertugrul, he replies.