Beyond Crisis: Re-evaluating Pakistan

by Naveeda Khan (Editor)

Through the essays in this volume, we see how the failure of the state becomes a moment to ruminate on the artificiality of this most modern construct, the failure of nationalism, an opportunity to dream of alternative modes of association, and the failure of sovereignty to consider the threats and possibilities of the realm of foreignness within the nation-state as within the self. The ambition of this volume is not only to complicate standing representations of Pakistan. It is take Pakistan out of the status of exceptionalism that its multiple crises have endowed upon it. By now, many scholars have written of how exile, migrancy, refugeedom, and other modes of displacement constitute modern subjectivities. The arguments made in the book say that Pakistan is no stranger to this condition of human immigrancy and therefore, can be pressed into service in helping us to understand our present condition.

604 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2009

Reviews

[Tariq Mahmood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pakistan was created on the basis of the counterbalance plan, a minority Muslims trying to act as a majority in a new country by keeping their majority Hindu tormentors as hostages in Pakistan so that the minority Muslims left in India could be treated in kind. The whole plan was based on Bengal and Punjab not getting partitioned. But with the partition of the two Hindu minority provinces, there was little hope of any secularist ambitions when all the Hindu minority migrated to India. The only option left was the Islamic identity which was and has been grudgingly accepted by the new Muslim majority. They never wanted an Islamic state based on Sharia but there were no other options, especially after the breakup of East Pakistan when the Pakistanis, even more, closer to their Islamic identity. But there are serious issues with implementing this plan if the persecution of the Ahmadiyya is anything to go by. The Ahmadis refuse to give up, refuse to accept their non-Muslim status goading and challenging the majority by continuing to act as Muslims. So if the Pakistanis are serious about implementing their identity they need to deal successfully with the Ahmadiyya otherwise even this dream is as farcical as the counterbalance plan.