TWO issues we lament very frequently are the dumbing down of public discourse and institutions overstepping their mandate. Interestingly, most of us are equally culpable of routinely asking a poet to recite an ‘easy-to-understand’ couplet and calling on state institutions to arbitrate on issues clearly outside their ambit and competence, such as asking the higher judiciary to fix prices for anything from sugar to natural gas.

Since much has already been written about the dragging of the judiciary into matters outside its remit, I intended to limit the focus of this piece to the ‘dumb’ bit, but despite or because of it, the higher judiciary gets mentioned.

Even those of us whose knowledge of the subcontinent’s history is limited to Pakistan Studies know that the founder of the nation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had a special place in his heart for the Raja Sahibs of Mahmudabad. This was caused as much by his long association with the family as by their fondness for literature and erudition, which seem to pass through the scions of Mahmudabad like their title.

When the current Mahmudabad brothers, Ali and Amir Khan’s great-grandfather, Sir Muhammad Amir Ali Khan, passed in 1931, the family’s association with the Muslim League was........

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