There is no dearth of books about Pakistan. And there are all kinds of explanations for its raison d’etre—its contentious birth, the authoritarian roots, and the ongoing persistence of ethnic and religious violence.[1] In her book Making Sense of Pakistan, Farzana Shaikh traces the condition of today’s Pakistan to the conflicting visions of the role of Islam in public life.[2]
Over the years, scholars have debated significantly about the conflicting visions about what it means to be a Pakistani and what Pakistan stands for. In some of the early explanations about Pakistan, Hamza Alavi discussed Pakistan as an “overdeveloped state” with a powerful military-bureaucratic state apparatus that continually works to subordinate the native social classes.[3]
A few years later, Ayesha Jalal, in her Sole Spokesman, suggested that Mohammad Ali Jinnah used the demand for Pakistan as a political tactic—a “bargaining chip”—to secure the interests of India’s Muslims and ensure that they were well represented.[4] And therefore, Jalal contends that Jinnah referred to the post-partition Pakistan as “moth-eaten”.[5] Others, like Venkat Dhulipala in his Creating a New Medina, have argued that Pakistan was created to be an Islamic state that enforced Sharia as the law of the land.[6]
Building on and moving beyond these singular explanations, Farzana Sheikh’s refreshing take on Pakistan looks at the interpretations of Islam in the mobilization and unification project of the Pakistani state. Shaikh writes: “With no visible consensus over the term ‘Islam’—whether as faith, culture, or ideology—the resolution of Pakistan’s identity and its putative relation to Islam remains elusive”.[7]
In the Chapter titled ‘Why Pakistan?’, Shaikh traces the historical and ideological roots around the idea of a Muslim community. There were two broad meanings to what the Muslim community meant.
The first meaning is drawn on the universalist dimensions of the Muslim community, which had defined the community as a strictly faith-based religious community. Shah Waliullah of Delhi and Sayyid Ahmed of Bareilly better represented this strand, which sought to clearly demarcate what the Muslim community meant and insist on what correct religious practice was.
The second meaning, exclusive in character, had defined the community as a “sum total of Muslims in India”.[8] Muhammad Iqbal, for instance, thought of a Muslim state “within the British empire or without the British empire”.[9] The ideas of Muslims as a separate national community began to spread rapidly after 1857, using concepts such as quam, mulk, watan, and millat to represent a national community. Iqbal and Maulana Mawdudi had already started talking about the idea of a separate Muslim state as a safe space for Indian Muslims, who, until the British, were the ruling class, the salariat.
However, since the mid-1930s, Jinnah pushed forth and led the movement for a separate Muslim homeland. Shaikh writes: “By defining Muslims as a nation, Jinnah was able both to encompass their entitlement to political power and to establish their parity with a putative Indian nation, thereby at a stroke of affirming their potentially sovereign status.”[10]
This uncertain national identity and the lack of consensus over the role of Islam have affected both Pakistan’s constitutional and political development as well as the coherent construction of its people’s economic and social vision.
At the outset, it might seem like Pakistan is a homogenous Muslim society, making up about 97 per cent of its population. However, the sectarian divide within and between Shia and Sunni communities tells a different story. Among Shias are Mohajirs and Hazaras. Among Sunnis, there are Barelvis, Deobandis, and Salafis. And then there are Ahmadis, who were stripped of their status as Muslims through a constitutional amendment in 1974.
Importantly, in the chapter “Who is a Pakistani”, Shaikh discusses the lack of consensus over the meaning of Pakistan. Despite being born a Muslim state, there is no common consensus of what Muslim really refers to. The persistent quest to qualify who makes for “real Pakistanis” has resulted in contestations between different sectarian groups within Islam.
Very soon after adopting Urdu as a state language, the people in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) began to display their resentment for state policy and for perpetuating a sense of inferiority—and the subsequent result was the creation of a new state in South Asia. Bhutto’s policy towards an “ethnic territorial nationality” (quam) further posed a threat to Mohajirs, who had migrated from Indian territories and settled in parts of Pakistan. Zia ul Haq’s policy in the late 1970s towards the Islamization of the Pakistani state further helped consolidate religious roots in nation-building. These new, sharia-based policies introduced draconian punishments to “curb adultery, false witness theft, and consumption of alcohol”.[11]
Farzana Shaikh notes: “It is precisely the state’s ambiguity and the lack of ideological certainty over the place of Islam in the public sphere that has left it vulnerable to the charge by Ulama and Islamist groups that its incompetence in delivering basic services to its citizens constitutes a moral rather than a political failing symptomatic of a lack of commitment to Islam”.[12]
More strikingly, Shaikh points out, like Christophe Jaffrelot, that since Pakistan was born as an opposition to the Indian state, its over-dependence on the Indian state for its identity claims has caused all the problems it faces today. In essence, Pakistan contains a ‘negative’ identity that depends wholly on the Indian identity to sustain itself. Even though the Indian identity is not dependent on Pakistan’s, Pakistan’s identity is wholly dependent on India’s.
Shaikh writes that Pakistan’s foreign policy is not defined by national interest but rather by ambiguous national identity—the negative imagery based on India’s identity. Therefore, for Pakistan, “overcoming the legacy of this ‘negative identity has been the defining feature of Pakistan’s policy towards India”.[13] Its alliances—including those historically forged with the United States and, more recently, with China—have all been forged with India in mind. There is a deep sense of anxiety and distrust towards India for its involvement in the disintegration of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.
Farzana Shaikh’s thesis about Pakistan’s continued search for national identity is both refreshing and timely. Shaikh’s book is not a historical text but rather a “work of interpretation” that seeks to address the political, economic, and strategic implications of Pakistan’s uncertain identity.[14] Shaikh’s thesis is a compelling account of contemporary Pakistan. Therefore, it is an important book for those studying South Asia.
[1] Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan, 1st ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1985); Maya Tudor, The Promise of Power: The Origins of Democracy in India and Autocracy in Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Irm Haleem, “Ethnic and Sectarian Violence and the Propensity Towards Praetorianism in Pakistan,” Third World Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2003): 463–77.
[2] Farzana Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 2nd edition (Chennai: Context, Westland, 2018).
[3] Adarsh Badri, “Notes: Hamza Alavi’s Influential Essay on Overdeveloped Postcolonial State – Adarsh Badri,” December 30, 2023, https://adarshbadri.me/notes/hamza-alavi-overdeveloped-postcolonial-state/.
[4] Jalal, The Sole Spokesman.
[5] Ayesha Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014).
[6] Venkat Dhulipala, Creating a New Medina: State Power, Islam, and the Quest for Pakistan in Late Colonial North India (Daryaganj, Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
[7] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, xiii.
[8] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 18–19.
[9] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 26.
[10] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 40.
[11] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 101.
[12] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 146.
[13] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 180.
[14] Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan, 1.