Pakistan has for long been grappling with several fundamental problems without any visible signs of overcoming them. Its economic, social and political indicators are amongst the lowest in the world. In its conflicts with India, which it perceives as its sworn enemy, all its tactics have proven to be of insignificant success, as has its intrusive attempts to control Kabul so as to gain strategic depth in Afghanistan. The successive governments’ much vaunted Islamisation agenda seems to have back-fired. All nations
have their ups and downs, but Pakistan seems to have entered into a never ending downward spiral. As things stand, it would be difficult to deny that today, Pakistan is a fragmented nation at war with itself, with little or no hope of rising out of the quagmire, at least in the foreseeable future.

India can ill afford to ignore—or find shallow pleasure in, as some do—the plight of her next–door neighbour. Any event or occurrence of consequence that happens in that ever–troubled country has had and will continue to have its fallout on the rest of the subcontinent, majorly India. Throughout its history, disorder and political vacuum in this extreme north western region have proved to be an open invitation to the adversarial forces to cross the Khyber Pass, run across the larger South Asian region to kill, plunder and loot. Today, Pakistan itself is generating many of the forces of disorder that are keeping that country and the region in a state of instability. The point is, whatever damage Pakistan is causing to itself, the problem inevitably overflows into India and, eventually, the rest of the world.

Pakistan has mostly been studied as a Nation State with various studies looking at some of the institutions and groups that comprise Pakistan. This is quite natural in an international system which is, by default, a pro-state system.

However, the more recent studies that deal with its current predicament have shifted the discourse to a ‘failed state’ matrix, putting the blame for Pakistan’s current problems on the failure of emocratic institutions, the dominating role of its army in politics and the rise of religious radicalism. Accordingly, the solutions that are being mooted are cause specific: reform and strengthen the army so that it can deal with the terrorists; strengthen the democratic structures so that they are able to keep the army in leash and, speedily spread modern education so that it minimises the sectarian effect of the all too pervasive madrassahs (religious schools).

The thesis of this paper will revolve around the fact that, though Pakistan was created with a vision of becoming a modern nation state, to date, it has failed to achieve that status—both in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world. The core reason for this failure was the inability of the leaders of the new country to chart an identity, or rather their distorted sense of identity that sent them on a desperate search and manoeuvrings for various alternative identities that had no credence in a modern world. It is this that has brought about Pakistan’s current predicament wherein the socioeconomic and political development, the imperatives of any nation, have been sacrificed in the scramble to create a ‘strong’ nation—which itself was never realised.

Pakistan could well have aimed at becoming a modern Muslim nation or even just an ‘Islamic’ nation; either way, it would probably have emerged as a stable state. Unfortunately, it chose to try a bit of both–without even preparing a blueprint to see what such a nation would really be on the ground, or whether it would be viable and functional. Pakistan has to resolve this clash between retrogressive traditionalism and the modern way of life before it can find the path to stability and progress.

Historical developments in Pakistan have resulted in the normal political processes of the state being set aside to be replaced by a range of sub-state actors (or groups), such as the army, ethnic-provincial parties and the various religious, sectarian and Jihadi groups—all of whom alternating between negotiating or fighting amongst themselves. Of course, subnational groups and identities exist in all countries, but in a state where a positive, secular national ideal is missing, it leads to a situation where the lower identities begin to clash for control. Given the tepid nationalistic sentiments in Pakistan, perceived religious commonality was sought to be made the unifying factor. This led various sectarian groups with their own interpretations of the written word in the holy book to fight amongst themselves to take control of the right to interpret and define the religious tenets.

This paper will seek to understand some of the factors that have contributed to the gradual distortion of the idea of ‘National’ identity and its degeneration into ‘Religious’ , ‘Sectarian’ and ‘Jihadi’ identities. We will also look at how this unravelling of national identity ran parallel with the marginalisation of the state polity. These two trends have led to the emergence of Pakistan as a “non-nation non-state”. The imperative now is to understand and come to grips with these structural weaknesses so as to enable the people to re-invent the Pakistan its founding fathers (read Jinnah) envisioned.

• Neighbourhood
• National Politics
• Pakistan
• International affairs
• nationalism
• Neighbourhood
• Pakistan

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