Islam, Muslim Nationalism and Nation-Building in Pakistan: Issues of Identity

Abstract

Historiography on Pakistan, inclusive of themes such as the debate on Muslim identity, the struggle for independence, the relationship between the centre and the provinces, the uneven interface between state and civil society or the country’s external relationships, especially with India, has tended to be Islam-centric. Pakistani and other observers, in their own separate ways, have tried to disentangle the problematic of Islam both in the achievement and the subsequent nation-building project. Such a recurrent theme is understandable and still posits a formidable challenge. Pakistan’s inception from an evolutionary communitarian ethos owed its rationale, amongst several other factors, to a growing recognition of cultural mutuality that eventually became a demand for political sovereignty based on territorial nationalism. Despite the apparent reluctance and rather rejectionist attitude on the part of the South Asian Muslim religious elite, the political creed itself sought justification (separatism) in religious, regional, economic and such other cultural collectivities. It is a different matter that the espousal of Islamic symbolism by the All-India Muslim League (AIML), despite a cathartic ambivalence, was not geared towards establishing a theocratic polity and rather underwrote an incipient trans-regional identity.