Macro N Cheese

A false dawn is a promising situation which comes to nothing. This is how Aqdas Afzal describes the situation in his native Pakistan and India at the end of the Raj. “The point to remember here, Steve, is that the British were in India not to govern. They were in India to extract surplus and to maintain what they called law and order. And so the British left without giving the local people any taste or mechanism for bringing about accountability or democracy. But they did leave behind these two very, almost draconian institutions for keeping law and order. And because of these two institutions - these two state institutions that the British left behind - in the case of Pakistan, the first 25 years of Pakistan's history was complete chaos.” Aqdas talks to Steve about the chaos of partition – a humanitarian crisis. Remember, Pakistan was not only separated from India, but it was also cleaved from its own Eastern wing, now known as Bangladesh. The generation that sacrificed and struggled to gain independence wa