COMMENT:Our ‘Pakistani Muslim exceptionalism’—Fahd Ali

Our Muslim exceptionalism has not been enough to bridge our regional differences. Instead, the use of Islam in national politics and discourse has been a cause of further divisions in our national polity

That national identity remains evasive for most of us is a foregone conclusion. The Pakistani national identity, so carefully constructed over the years by the state, has largely failed to find any large scale acceptance to bridge our regional differences and shape us into one nation. It is hardly news to anybody that the people of Balochistan and interior Sindh feel alienated from the idea we call Pakistan. What is that idea of Pakistan? In this article I focus only on how I think this national identity has been relatively accepted. How have we, as individuals, internalised this articulation? My aim here is not to contest or corroborate the articulation of national identity based on religion in any way. Neither am I going to attempt to explain why this national identity articulated from above (read: the state) has been relatively more accepted in some parts of Pakistan and not in others. What I am interested in is how we imagine ourselves on the basis of that national identity.

Our imagination of ourselves revolves around what I have come to call ‘Pakistani Muslim exceptionalism’. An overwhelming majority of us are Muslims in official records. But that is an identity that we share with only a billion other Muslims all over the world. There is nothing exceptional about that. So, we have constructed a whole new set of characteristics about us that seem to set us apart from other Muslims in the world. This exceptionalism, particularly, consists of us imagining Pakistan as a fort of Islam and the Muslims in it charged with the distinct aim and objective of securing Islam from all internal and external threats. The creation of Pakistan is almost articulated as a divine intervention or at least something that had divine patronage. As per this theory, Pakistani Muslims must then prepare themselves to fight against a host of conspirators who are there to harm them. These conspirators usually appear in the form of American Imperialism and Hindu Zionism (sic) that are eagerly helped by the ‘real’ Zionist, aka the Israeli state. All three forces are conspiring against not just a Muslim nation but also against a nation-state that was founded as the last bastion of Islam. Nobody can and has been able to forward any proof for it, a fact that has largely been ignored. But then the requirement of some verifiable evidence is largely redundant. What is important is that people imagine themselves as the argument directs, since this achieves two objectives. First, it keeps the narrative of ‘Islam under threat’ alive and, second, in our context it allows us to imagine our exceptionalism because it lets us think of ourselves as different from the other one billion Muslims against whom these three forces do not seem to be conspiring with as much gusto. Many can rightly ask: so what?

The institutions vested in keeping this myth of our exceptionalism alive achieve two purposes. First, to defend Pakistan’s nationalism one does not have to construct a secular argument. Once the narrative of ‘Islam under threat’ gains currency, it becomes easier for people to internalise and connect Islam with Pakistan and hence nationalism with Islam. Second, it allows all such institutions, namely the Pakistan Army, to justify their continued presence in the national polity at different levels.

Let’s look at it this way.

The army has historically, particularly during the post-1977 period, exercised control over domestic affairs through its dictates over the country’s foreign policy. With its institutional discipline and complete monopoly over the use of violence, it presented itself not only as the sole guardian of the country’s honour but also of its internal and external ideological frontiers. It has, as a saviour of Islam in Pakistan, turned a simple priest (maulvi) into a warrior-priest with the priest’s students as his foot soldiers. In retrospect, the choice of allies seems quite apt; people who are indoctrinated to see the higher purpose of life in saving the honour of religion can easily be convinced that glory lies in defeating “Satan” and embracing martyrdom. Hence, non-state actors were armed to the teeth and used in the Afghan war during General Zia’s dictatorship and later to keep the enemy engaged in Kashmir and ensure strategic depth in Afghanistan. All this in the name of safeguarding religion and, hence, the honour of the country — or so goes the official history. However, our great military strategists either conveniently chose to ignore or forgot about the fact that these jihadists-cum-militants were ideologically motivated. Their ideology transcended the idea of the nation-state whose honour they were trying to protect. Perhaps, as a sad tragedy of history, this causality revealed itself to the jihadist but only in reverse! To them it is not the nation-state Pakistan that defines Islam for itself; it is Islam that must define the nation-state that Pakistan ought to be. Also, it is their version of Islam that is of more importance here. Therefore, there is a problem when the jihadi mindset does not see the government of the day implementing its interpretation of religion in the country. In a well-functioning state and a democracy one would expect such ideological differences to be sorted out during elections. However, that is not the case in our Islamic Republic. Remember we armed them to fight a war and then forgot to take the weapons back. It is precisely because of their military strength that they have come to challenge what at least Hobbes would argue belongs solely to the modern nation-state — its monopoly over violence or use of force. The point being made here is that our Muslim exceptionalism has not been enough to bridge our regional differences. Instead, the use of Islam in national politics and discourse has been a cause of further divisions in our national polity.

This is not the only narrative of history. But I strongly believe that it is one of the many plausible narratives of our history and nationalism. What is sad is that after 63 years we have so many reasons to believe that there is nothing exceptional about our exceptionalism. That, fortunately or unfortunately, we are rather ordinary people — much like people living everywhere else. That in the name of progress our nation and its state-sponsored nationalism only has to show several “indigenously” made missiles and atomic bombs, a fighter aircraft, a tank and a military that prides itself in being a real estate developer. Also, a large part of Pakistan refuses to buy our Pakistani Muslim exceptionalism by simply refusing to equate Islam with Pakistan. Is it not time that the state and the army are made to relinquish their power to define our nationhood? Let people of several different nationalities living within the geographical territory called Pakistan define it for themselves. Whether religion should play a role in it should be secondary. However, as our history shows, this is easier said than done.