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This paper is an attempt to explicate the emancipatory limits of a historical figure in a caste society. As a case study, it offers a critical analysis of a metaphor of Shah Abdul Latif, the eighteenth-century poet who inherited enormous caste capital as a Sayed and custodian of a Sufi shrine. The poetry and life history of Shah Latif are often invoked by Sindhi nationalists to pose an ontological challenge to the narrative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Situating Latif in the South Asian political context, this paper offers a historiographical analysis of the vernacular literature on the projection of Latif as the prime symbol of emancipation for the Sindhi nation. It contends that Latif, as we know him today, is an anachronistic construct that was initially inspired by the Orientalist motive, and later used by privileged caste Hindus and Ashrafiya morality to feed the performative Sindhi nationalist agenda.

The ethno-nationalist historiography in South Asia primarily emerged as the postcolonial critique of British colonialism. Alternatively, the anti-caste historiographers have criticized the postcolonial historiography for reflecting the similar hegemonic bias towards the possible pre-or-post colonial histories of the internally colonized classes and castes. In this article, while appreciating with epistemic humility the equally legitimate position of Michel Boivin, I interrogate the concept of the 'declassed' caste groups as it tends to relativize the erasure of caste, the structural aspect that is peripheral to Boivin's avowed goal of capturing diversity instead of difference, but central to the contemporary critical anti-caste scholarship that I rely on as an alternative framework of reference. Contending his selective epistemic prioritizing of the privileged Amil, Khoja, Mirza castes, I argue that Boivin's archival ethnography has not effectively attended to the embedded caste-based political orders. He has failed to adequately address the possible erasure of caste, thereby adding to the ahistorical portrayal of the underprivileged castes such as Kolhi, Bheel, Meghwar, and Jogi. Boivin's rendering of the 'Sufi Paradigm', therefore, is in continuation with the scholarship on Sindh that undermines hierarchical differences based on caste discrimination, and facilitates Sindhi progressive intelligentsia to historicize the privileged caste myth of caste-neutral Sufi Sindh.

Pakistan is often discussed at domestic and international forums in the context of its treatment of the religious minorities and more particularly the alleged forced religious conversions to Islam. This paper is in continuation of a recent report by the author that discussed the narrative of systematic and organized forced religious conversions in Pakistan to show that it is not supported by any data or verifiable evidence. The paper presents preliminary results of the fieldwork that collected data from the province of Sindh in Pakistan. The data gathered comprises audio-visual interviews from a cross-section of the society, official documents, and data of converts. While the study could not find cases of forced conversion, it notes that the force is used against the neo-converts through various means. It identifies 13 push and pull factors that contribute to religious conversions in the context of the area of this study. It also looks into the widespread perception of only women being converted, or the age of converted individuals generally being below 18 years.

This paper attempts the historiographical analysis of the caste as it reflects in Sindhi progressive literature and rural politics. In an attempt to reframe the harmonious image of Sindhi society, the Progressives popularised certain slogans, phrases and historical events as the metaphors of the nationalist and class struggle. Tracing from the early Partition phase (the 1940s), this paper interrogates the progressive's orientalist literary trajectory that reframes caste metaphors and constructs the Sindhi nationalist narrative. It is contended that the reframing of some key historical events of Dalits and peasants seem uncritical and apologetic of caste friction, create an illusion of neutrality and at times even sanction casteism as a functional aspect of Sindhi society. The 'progressive' literature condones caste hierarchies and flattens the question of caste adding to the pre-existing hegemonic relations between the historically dominant and the subordinated caste groups. This diminishes the possibility of deploying the framework of caste-as-class for understanding caste, organising Dalits reckoning their agency as it may shape their immanent narratives and subverting caste hierarchies.

This paper evaluates the definition of 'forced conversion' as presented in various reports—mostly published by different non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—about Pakistan and its projection through social as well as print media outlets. Taking insights from the writings of Lewis R. Rambo, Nathaniel Roberts and Katy Sian, the paper compares the narrative in Pakistan with the studies undertaken in the West on conversion and its politics. It analyzes the political perspectives and their sources used to conceive the meaning of proclaimed forced conversion based on the age and maturity of alleged victims and perceived vulnerability. By presenting social media activism as the case study, this paper interrogates the narrative that relies on ambiguous definitions explicated in legislative bills on 'forced conversion' and the NGO reports. It argues that the narrative reflected in proposed bills, reports, and social media reinforces the role of patriarchy and caste as the social forces. The paper concludes that this narrative is politically motivated and does not take into account multiple push and pull factors that lead to religious conversion while defining the term.

This paper is an attempt to investigate the discursive bases of the categorical and identity-based choices available to the Dalits under the Ashrafia hegemony, and the resultant denial of Dalitness prevalent among the Dalits and the Sindhi civil society in, Pakistan. Informed by the Ambedkarian (subaltern) perspective, I analyse the conversational interviews conducted with the Dalit activists (mostly Scheduled Castes), and with their Ashrafia class counterparts. Interrogating the superior status of Sayed caste(s), I contend that the the denial of casteism, the opposition to the use of the 'Dalit' identity marker and the negation of the Dalitness seemed to have as much to do with the belief in Ashrafia values as it had with the normative sanction of the Savarna. values.Both the Savarna and the Ashrafia values seemed to seek legitimacy from the dominant ethnocentric forms of the politicized Sufism. Political Sufism merges the Savarna and Ashrafia norms by means of the syncretic narrative based on interfaith harmony and the civilisational rhetoric. Ashrafisation (also Savarnisation) and the reverence towards Sayeds were the key self-perpetuating hegemonic processes underlying the attempts by the Dalits and the civil society activists to dissipate cognitive dissonance underlying the existing Dalitness and the Ashrafia hegemony. I, therefore, conclude that the practices and the narratives prevalent in Sindhi civil society undermined the Dalit agency to come up with their own counter-hegemonic and emancipatory narrative(s).

The airport infrastructures in Pakistan are ranked very low in comparison to airports around the world. Poor airport facilities hinder the growth of aviation sector and of national economy. In their present conditions, airports fail to attract the passenger and cargo carriers. Therefore, a large number of international passengers and cargo carriers have shifted their operations from Pakistanis to Gulf and Middle East. At the time when aviation sector is growing around the globe, the need for airport infrastructure development is immense. As a result, in many developed and developing countries, the Governments are involving private sector to develop the existing airports and to build new airports. Considering the current economic situation of the Pakistan, the Government is unable to invest heavily to develop world-class airport infrastructure. In order to modernize the airports in the country, the Government of Pakistan should infuse private capital.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare the applicability of transformational leadership and substitutes-for-leadership theories in Malaysia's and Pakistan's work settings.


Design/methodology/approach
This study employed a survey-based approach using professional employees in both countries as respondents. In total, 215 responses to a web-based survey in Malaysia and 523 responses to a survey administered using personal methods in Pakistan were used for the analysis.


Findings
The results revealed that Malaysia's leaders were rated high on the dimensions of transformational and transactional leadership. The transformational leadership dimensions produced desirable effects on subordinates' outcomes in both samples, but the contingent punishment dimension of transactional leadership produced especially undesirable effects on subordinates' outcomes. Substitutes for leadership also independently affected subordinates' outcomes and produced similar effects on subordinates' outcomes in both samples. In general, the effects in the Malaysian sample are larger than those in the Pakistani sample.


Research limitations/implications
The results suggest that the transformational leadership style is effective in both cultures, but the transactional leadership style is culturally contingent. While leaders in collectivist cultures like Malaysia and Pakistan should practice more transformational leadership than transactional leadership, leaders in Pakistan should be particularly careful while practicing transactional leadership because of the society's high level of collectivism and moderately high-power distance orientation.


Practical implications
The results suggest that the transformational leadership style is effective in both cultures, but the transactional leadership style is culturally contingent. While leaders in collectivist cultures like Malaysia and Pakistan should practice more transformational leadership than transactional leadership, leaders in Pakistan should be particularly careful while practicing transactional leadership because of the society's low power distance orientation.


Originality/value
Since this study is the first to compare the applicability of western theories in collectivist cultures that differ significantly in their power distance orientation, it contributes meaningfully to the cross-culture leadership field.

AbstractDrawing on stakeholder theory and contingency theory, this study examines the effects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on corporate reputation and financial performance of Pakistani firms with a moderating role of responsible leadership. Perceptual data on CSR, reputation, and performance were collected from 224 senior‐level Pakistani managers through a questionnaire survey. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The results reveal that socially responsible initiatives for disparate stakeholders significantly and positively influence corporate reputation and financial performance. Moreover, CSR–reputation and CSR–performance direct relationships were found to be negatively moderated by responsible leadership. It suggests that when socially responsible firms have leaders with strong stakeholder values, they practice excessive CSR that hurts performance.

Cigarette smoking is a menace and is contagious problem. Every effort is being made at governmental level to stop smoking. Even it has been declared as crime and punishable act. Ordinance about the penalty to cigarette smokers has been passed but in spite of all these efforts the cigarette smokers are still flourishing. Objectives: The aim of this study was to provide the calculated and measured values about the damage incurred by smoking on the respiratory health. Only by this information the smokers can abstain from smoking. Design: Cross-sectional comparative study. Setting: General public from Lahore. Materials and Methods: The study was done on a random sample of 1290 persons collected in six months duration from different areas of Lahore. After collecting the required data, peak expiratory flow rate of these subjects was recorded by mini-Wright's peak flow meter. Results: The quantitative analysis of peak expiratory flow rate of smokers was less than non-smokers. Conclusion: Smoking adversely affects the respiratory tree. So if this calculated damage is brought to the public notice it will help them to quit smoking. Key words: Cigarette smoking, Peak expiratory flow rate, mini Wright's peak flow meter and non-smokers.