Abstract
In this article, we consider the idea of the nation as a collective fantasy, an illusion of wholeness that seeks congruence between the nation as a people and the state. In Pakistan, the vision of the nation is based not on ethnic ties but on the idea of Islamic belonging, some visions of which exclude and abject Shi‘i, Dalit Christians, and Ahmadis. We examine the shrine of Mumtaz Qadri, who assassinated a state official to protect the state’s blasphemy laws, as a site of national imagining where the margins of belonging have been contested.
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Notes
In response to Benedict Anderson’s idea of the nation as an “imagined community” formed through media, Partha Chatterjee argued that anti-colonial nationalisms were posited on a difference from Western nationalisms: a national imaginary based on an inner, spiritual dimension that was untouched by the material domain controlled by the colonizers (Chatterjee, 1991, p. 522)
At the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan, the British government assigned Muslim-majority provinces to Pakistan. In the process, they drew the borders between India and Pakistan by splitting Bengal in the east and the Punjab in the west. West Pakistan also included the linguistically distinct provinces of Sindh, Baluchistan, and the North-West Frontier, regions that had historically and linguistically close ties with Afghanistan and the Persianate world. In 1971, following a war of independence, Pakistan’s eastern wing split off and formed the independent nation of Bangladesh, a national trauma that profoundly challenged the basis of Pakistani national identity
In their research, the authors have focused on contestation over Sufi shrines and its political significance. Ewing’s 1997 book Arguing Sainthood: Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam was based on ethnographic fieldwork among Sufi pirs (spiritual guides) and their followers in Lahore, Pakistan; see also Ewing and Corbett (2020) on the politics of Sufism in South Asia. Clark’s 2021 doctoral dissertation, “Dīn and Duniyā: Debating Sufism, Saint Shrines, and Money in the Lucknow Area,” is based on fieldwork in Lucknow, India. The authors would also like to give special thanks to Ramsha Siddiqui for her assistance with translating and analyzing materials related to Qadri’s legacy.
The name of Qadri’s shrine is telling. “Ghazi” literally means “warrior” but can carry connotations of honor and righteousness. “Shaheed” means “martyr,” which not only implies the unjust killing of someone who was striving in the path of God but also includes the theological concept of a martyr’s body remaining preserved until end times. Finally, “Sharif” describes an individual who is respected or dignified one but is an especially common honorific for Sufi shrines, such as in the case of Ajmer Sharif in India.
Translated by Ramsha Siddiqui directly from the audio on the BBC Newsnight film. The subtitles on the film very heavily paraphrase the contributions of the interviewees.
Translated by Ramsha Siddiqui from the video embedded in @ImranRazalmran3’s tweet.
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Ewing, K.P., Clark, Q.A. The dream of Pakistan and the unIslamic other. Psychoanal Cult Soc (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-022-00330-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-022-00330-z