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Aatish Taseer

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Aatish Taseer
BornAatish Ali Taseer
(1980-11-27) 27 November 1980 (age 43)
London, England
OccupationWriter, journalist
Alma materAmherst College (B.A., 2001)
Spouse
Ryan Davis
​
(m. 2016)​
ParentsSalmaan Taseer
Tavleen Singh
RelativesM. D. Taseer (paternal grandfather)

Aatish Ali Taseer (born 27 November 1980) is a British-American writer and journalist.

Taseer was born in London and raised by his mother Tavleen Singh in New Delhi. Taseer had no contact with his father, Salman Taseer, until he was 21. He received his education at Kodaikanal International School and Amherst College, where he earned degrees in French and Political Science. Taseer's early life and estrangement from his father were central themes in his first book, Stranger to History (2009).

Taseer has contributed to Time magazine and other publications, gaining recognition for his pieces on feudal Pakistan, the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy, and situation in Pakistan following his father's assassination. His article arguing Pakistan has an obsession with India, published in The Wall Street Journal, sparked widespread debate and controversy, leading to a notable exchange between journalists and politicians across India and Pakistan.

Personal aspects of his life include his marriage to lawyer Ryan Davis in New York, and his cultural and religious identity, which he describes as culturally and historically Hindu, worshiping Shiva. In 2019, Taseer's Overseas Citizenship of India was revoked, a move he claims was retaliatory for his critical coverage of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Taseer became a US citizen in 2020.

Taseer's work includes translations of Saadat Hasan Manto's short stories and several novels, with Stranger to History being translated into 14 languages. His literary contributions have earned him a place on the 2010 Costa First Novel Award shortlist for "The Temple-Goers."

Early life

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Taseer was born in London, England, to Pakistani businessman and politician Salman Taseer and Indian journalist Tavleen Singh. His parents had a brief extramarital relationship and never married; he was raised by his mother and had no contact with his father until he was aged 21.[1][2] According to Taseer, his father met his mother during a book promotion trip to India in 1980 and the affair lasted "little more than a week."[3] His father served as the 26th Governor of Punjab from 2008 until his assassination in 2011.

Taseer was raised in New Delhi, before attending Kodaikanal International School, a residential school in Kodaikanal.[4] Taseer later studied at Amherst College[5] in Massachusetts, earning dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in French and Political Science in 2001.[6] In his first book Stranger to History (2009), which received many reviews in India, he wrote about his estrangement from his father.[2][1]

Career

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Taseer has worked for Time,[7] and as a freelance journalist also written for Prospect,[8] The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, TAR magazine and Esquire.[9] Taseer's opinion pieces have garnered both attention and critical appreciation. David Goodhart drew attention to Taseer's piece on feudal Pakistan, Travels with the mango king[10] in his article "Prospect's 10 Most Influential Articles".[11] In 2010, he wrote a piece on the controversy surrounding the possible construction of the "Ground Zero Mosque" in Manhattan, Tolerance test for New York.[12]

Since his father's assassination on 6 January 2011, Taseer has written about the situation in Pakistan leading up to and following the incident. These pieces attempt to go far beyond the immediate events surrounding his father's murder. A piece for The Daily Telegraph[13] published just two days after, extended his view from the incident.

On 5 May 2011, a few days after the death of Osama bin Laden, Taseer wrote a piece for the Financial Times titled "Pakistan’s Rogue Army Runs a Shattered State".[14] It was one of the first pieces of journalism to point to the significance that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a Pakistani cantonment town, Abbottabad. In the article, Taseer stated that "he was found in this garrison town because he was the guest of the army."

On 16 July 2011, The Wall Street Journal published a piece its editors provocatively, and somewhat misleadingly, titled "Why My Father Hated India".[15] Although Taseer used his father's distaste for all things Indian as an example, or metaphor, the article attempted to explain a much bigger question – a question about Pakistan's apparent unhealthy obsession with India. It argued that "to understand the Pakistani obsession with India, to get a sense of its special edge – its hysteria – it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan", He continued: "In the absence of a true national identity, Pakistan defined itself by its opposition to India." The article remained the most emailed and commented-on on The Wall Street Journal website[16] for days and at the end of July it was by far the most emailed of the month.

The controversy spread when, following an exchange on Twitter between Pakistani journalist, Ejaz Haider and Indian Member of Parliament and former Indian Union Minister and Under-secretary at the UN, Shashi Tharoor. Haider wrote a column in The Express Tribune titled "Aatish’s Personal Fire", Haider stated that Taseer himself seemed to suffer from an identity crisis[17] accusing Taseer of employing "everything except the kitchen sink in order to construct a supposedly linear reality". His central argument was that India – with its massive army arrayed along its border with Pakistan – left Pakistan with no choice but to be deeply concerned with its every move. Tharoor rose to Aatish Taseer's defense; writing in the Deccan Chronicle, in a piece titled "Delusional liberals",[18] he quoted Taseer's original piece extensively and said in general he "admired the young man’s writing", and felt he had made "his point in language that was both sharp [...] heartfelt and accurate". He said that in their vitriolic response to Taseer's piece Pakistan's liberals had exposed themselves and took on Haider point-for-point, saying "that there is not and cannot be an "Indian threat" to Pakistan, simply because there is absolutely nothing Pakistan possesses that India wants." Ejaz Haider subsequently responded strongly stating "Like every other state in the world, Pakistan is also a self-interested state and the rest of the world must live with this fact; three, we have no intention of defenestrating our military, even as we would continue to kick them to extract obedience; four, we don’t need advice from across the border, especially because the Indian pundits crawled on their bellies when Mrs Indira Gandhi slapped her two-year emergency rule. We have seen worse without giving up or giving in. Thank you!"[19]

Personal life

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Taseer divides his time between London and New York.[20] In 2016, he married lawyer[21] Ryan Davis in New York.[22] Previously, he was in a relationship with Lady Gabriella Windsor, daughter of the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent,[23] whom he had met when she was an undergraduate at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and he at Amherst College in Massachusetts.[24] Although his father was Muslim and his mother a Sikh, Taseer considers himself culturally and historically Hindu. He worships Shiva.[25]

Citizenship

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On 8 November 2019, Taseer's Overseas Citizenship of India was revoked by the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs claiming he attempted to "conceal information that his father was of Pakistani origin".[1] Taseer has said this is untrue, he never concealed the identity of his father with whom he had no contact and his mother was always the only legal guardian as a minor.[26]

Taseer alleged that the ministry didn't give him enough time and that it was an act of reprisal.[27][28] In his May 2019 cover article for Time magazine, published during the Indian election entitled "India’s divider in chief" he was highly critical of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.[29]

He claimed to The Guardian that his citizenship issue had not caused him any problems before the Time article was published.[26] The Home ministry had rejected the claim that the Time article had any connection to the rejection of Taseer's citizenship.[30]

Taseer became a US citizen on 27 July 2020.[31]

Works

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Taseer's first book Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands (2009), His part memoir-part travelogue, has been translated into more than 14 languages and hailed as a "must-read" for anyone attempting to understand the Muslim world.[32][33] Taseer's well received translation of Saadat Hasan Manto's short stories from the original Urdu, Manto: Selected Stories, was published in 2008.[34]

Bibliography

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  • Manto Selected Stories. Random House. ISBN 81-8400-049-9.
  • Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands, McClelland & Stewart. 2009. ISBN 0-7710-8425-0.
  • Translated from the English: Terra Islamica. Auf der Suche nach der Welt meines Vaters, translated by Rita Seuß, Verlag C.H. Beck, München 2009
  • The Temple-Goers, Viking. 2010. ISBN 978-0-670-91850-8.
  • Noon, Faber & Faber in the US; by Picador in India and the UK. 2011. ISBN 978-0-86547-858-9.
  • The Way Things Were, Pan Macmillan in UK and India 2014, ISBN 9789382616337.
  • The Twice-Born: Life and Death on the Ganges (2019)

Awards

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Aatish Taseer Twitter". Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  2. ^ a b Taseer, Aatish (28 July 2020). "Aatish Taseer becomes US citizen, months after Modi govt revoked his OCI card". The Print. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  3. ^ A Correspondent Date: 6 January 2011 Place: Mumbai (6 January 2011). "A son in search of his father". Mid-day.com. Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Lunch with BS: Aatish Taseer: Passage through Islam Kishore Singh/ New Delhi, Business Standard, 14 April 2009.
  5. ^ Taseer, Aatish (1 July 2016). "The Day I Got My Green Card". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 12 July 2016. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  6. ^ Dinesh, Chethana (25 November 2018). "Quick Take: Aatish Taseer". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
  7. ^ "Say 'Cheese'!" by Aatish Taseer Sunday, Time, 11 January 2004.
  8. ^ Aatish Taseer article Prospect, July 2005.
  9. ^ "Aatish Taseer". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 14 May 2019.[permanent dead link]
  10. ^ "Travels with the mango king". Prospect. 26 April 2009. Archived from the original on 9 September 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  11. ^ David Goodhart (23 November 2010). "Prospect's 10 most influential articles". Prospect. Archived from the original on 8 September 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  12. ^ "Tolerance test for New York". Prospect. 20 October 2010. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  13. ^ Taseer, Aatish (8 January 2011). "The killer of my father, Salman Taseer, was showered with rose petals by fanatics. How could they do this?". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  14. ^ "Pakistan's rogue army runs a shattered state". Financial Times. 5 May 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  15. ^ Taseer, Aatish (16 July 2011). "Why My Father Hated India". The Wall Street Journal.
  16. ^ "Wall Street Journal home page (search required)". The Wall Street Journal.
  17. ^ Haider, Ejaz (18 July 2011). Aatish’s personal fire. The Express Tribune. Retrieved 18 August 2013
  18. ^ "Deccan Chronicle". Archived from the original on 16 October 2011.
  19. ^ Haider, Ejaz (16 July 2011). It’s not just Mr Tharoor!. The Express Tribune. Retrieved 18 August 2013
  20. ^ "The Twice-Born". Hurst. Retrieved 21 August 2019. A contributor to The International New York Times, he lives in New Delhi and New York.
  21. ^ Roy, Amit. "Royal who dumped Taseer to wed long-time love". telegraphindia.com. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  22. ^ Taseer, Aatish (9 October 2016). "A Country Road Trip, From Nashville to Asheville". Travel + Leisure. Retrieved 21 August 2019. ...Ryan—the tall white man from Tennessee I had married a few weeks earlier in New York...
  23. ^ Aatish Taseer, Lady Windsor part ways: Report DNA India – 29 October 2006
  24. ^ "People with Michelle Henery". The Times. 8 December 2004. Retrieved 21 August 2019.(subscription required)
  25. ^ "In conversation with Aatish Taseer".
  26. ^ a b Ellis-Petersen, Hannah (8 November 2019). "India strips overseas citizenship from journalist who criticised Modi regime". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  27. ^ "आतिश तासीर ने OCI कार्ड रद्द होने पर क्या कहा?". 8 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  28. ^ "I am Indian, but my govt has exiled me: Aatish Taseer responds to revocation of OIC by Centre". India Today. Ist. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  29. ^ "Can the World's Largest Democracy Endure Another Five Years of a Modi Government?". Time.
  30. ^ "Writer Aatish Taseer conceals father's Pakistani origin, to lose OCI card". Business Standard India. Press Trust of India. 7 November 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  31. ^ "Aatish Taseer becomes US citizen, months after Modi govt revoked his OCI card". Twitter. 28 July 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  32. ^ Book Review The Guardian, Saturday, 14 March 2009.
  33. ^ Book Review The Independent, Friday, 17 April 2009.
  34. ^ Kumar, Divya (31 March 2010). "A question of identity". The Hindu. Retrieved 14 May 2019.
  35. ^ Costa Book Awards Archived 3 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  36. ^ Brown, Mark (16 November 2010). "Costa prize shortlist falls short on biographies". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
  37. ^ Akbar, Arifa (17 November 2010). "Costa judge laments a weak year for fiction". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 19 November 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  38. ^ "Two books on India in UK literary award shortlist". The Times of India. 18 November 2010. Archived from the original on 4 November 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
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