Written by: Muhammad Asif Nawaz
Posted on: January 29, 2021 | 
Declan Walsh and The Book Cover
“Above all, Pakistanis are survivors. Yet a country, like a person, may only have nine lives. Rather than fate to overtake them, some of the people I met in the Insha’Allah nation took matters into their own hands…”
This sets the tone for Nine Lives of Pakistan, a book teaming with tales of survival from Pakistan, of people taking matters into their own hands while countering fate or falling prey to it all the time. Declan Walsh, a well-reputed journalist of The New York Times who had spent about a decade reporting on Pakistan, uses this book to contemplate his unceremonious expulsion from the country. Tracing through his personal tribulations, he narrates the story of a country that is too complex even for itself to understand. Divided in various chapters catering to a specific facet of the nation, it’s only natural that the product comes out to be like the country itself: interesting, overwhelming, promising, flamboyant and utterly frustrating. Walsh lives through it all and tells as things are.
Western commentary on Pakistan is often lopsided, for it’s too easy to write op-ed pieces on the country and provide a 500-word solution for its various problems. Walsh’s greatest achievement is bringing to the fore all the dimensions of a very complicated place. Hope can be found in adversity, feminist icons are born in a system of patriarchy, ideas of liberalism are nurtured in remote places. Notions of belonging often take unfortunate turns, and people still take on sensitive issues, even at the cost of their lives.
Salman Taseer
Does it always make sense? No. And this is just as fitting. The comparisons between this book and Anatol Lieven’s “Pakistan: A Hard Country”, are somewhat justified. Both feature very insightful work on the country, even though the writing styles are immensely different.
Anatol Lieven’s Book
Walsh engages the country with all its drama, using his insights to try to explain this complex and contradictory society. He uses personal experiences and interviews, academic articles and journalistic reporting on Pakistan, sources and hearsay. Walsh makes adept use of all the sources available on the country to spin a tale that holds one’s attention. It reads like a thriller at times, and a tragic drama at others.
If Pakistan is a misunderstood country, Walsh doesn’t tell the readers how to understand it. He also doesn’t contend with greater, loftier questions on the future of the country. He just takes a back seat, and lets his characters drive the story. And the characters are all familiar. The book isn’t an eye-opener for anyone who has been following the developments in Pakistan and the region. But the intricate details brought forward lend a different color to everything we know.
Nawab Akbar Bugti
Often the chapters focus on a central figure, and the scope eventually zooms out to bring in the bigger picture and Walsh’s own interpretation of it. In “Insha’Allah Nation”, Walsh sheds light on the history of the country, replete with accounts of its political figures and their various dilemmas. In “Red Zone”, he gives a personal account of the notorious Lal Masjid episode. The idea of Pakistan, and what the founder envisioned it to be, is talked about in depth in “The Prodigal Father”. If “Arithmetic On the Frontier”, talks about the war torn swathes of North Western Pakistan, “The Fabulous Señorita”, takes readers to the activism scene in the country, spearheaded by Asma Jehangir. Accordingly, Salman Taseer, Colonel Imam, Chaudhary Aslam Khan and Nawab Akbar Bugti are the main characters in “The Good Muslim”, “Lost in Waziristan”, “Minimum City” and “War of the Flea”. “Undesirable Activities” is where the writer gets the semblance of a closure of his tenure in Pakistan, while “A House on a Hill” makes metaphorical use of Jinnah’s South Court on Malabar Hill to talk about the country’s foreign relations.
The Quaid's Malabar Hills Home
Captivating, vivid and enthralling, Declan Walsh’s book adds considerably to the collection of non-fiction books on Pakistan. It transports the readers to far flung places in the heart of the country, and to timelines that underscore very contemporary problems. Despite the country closing its doors for Walsh, he admits one third of the guests at his wedding ceremony were Pakistanis. So maybe, the hope for his return is not lost.
Asma Jehangir
For the characters of his book, however, things aren’t always celebratory. Even if hope sustains, many of the characters Walsh has written about were killed in terrorist attacks, and some of the other individuals he mentions have left the country. But then, all the characters are human, with all their follies and failings, struggling against the odds and shaping a peculiar portrait of this country. This sums up nicely in the Faiz Ahmad Faiz verse that Walsh uses to start his book, “Who is without sin in the city of my beloved?”.
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