Pakistani nationalism

Founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, known in Pakistan as "Quaid-e-Azam" (The Great Leader), was the leader of the Pakistani nationalist movement that led to the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

Muhammad Iqbal is the national poet of Pakistan and laid the seeds of Pakistani nationalism by envisioning a separate homeland for Muslims in South Asia.

Pakistani nationalism refers to the political, cultural, linguistic, historical, [commonly] religious and geographical expression of patriotism by the people of Pakistan, of pride in the history, heritage and identity of Pakistan, and visions for its future.

Unlike the secular nationalism of most other countries, Pakistani nationalism is religious in nature being Islamic nationalism. Religion was the basis of Pakistani nationalist narrative. (see Secularism in Pakistan)^[1]

From a political point of view and in the years leading up to the independence of Pakistan, the particular political and ideological foundations for the actions of the Muslim League can be called a Pakistani nationalist ideology. It is a singular combination of philosophical, nationalistic, cultural and religious elements.

National consciousness in Pakistan

Muslim League separatist campaign in Colonial India

The roots of Pakistani nationalism lie in the separatist campaign of the Muslim League in British India, which sought to create a new state for Indian Muslims called Pakistan, on the basis of Islam.^[2] This concept of a separate state for India's Muslims traces its roots to Allama Iqbal, who has retroactively been dubbed the national poet of Pakistan.^[3] Iqbal was elected president of the Muslim League in 1930 at its session in Allahabad in the United Provinces, as well as for the session in Lahore in 1932. In his presidential address on 29 December 1930 he outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in north-western India:^[4]

I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated Northwest Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of Northwest India.^[4]

In colonial India, other Muslims saw themselves as Indian nationals along with Indians of other faiths.^[5]^[6] These Muslims regarded India as their permanent home, having lived there for centuries, and believed India to be a multireligious entity with a legacy of a joint history and coexistence.^[6] A large number of Islamic political parties, religious schools, and organizations opposed the partition of India and advocated a composite nationalism of all the people of the country in opposition to British rule in colonial India (especially the All India Azad Muslim Conference).^[5]^[7] The North West Frontier Province, a Muslim majority unit in British India, elected a government run by the Indian National Congress in both 1937 and 1946.^[8]

In 1941, a CID report states that thousands of Muslim weavers under the banner of Momin Conference and coming from Bihar and Eastern U.P. descended in Delhi demonstrating against the proposed two-nation theory. A gathering of more than fifty thousand people from an unorganized sector was not usual at that time, so its importance should be duly recognized. The non-ashraf Muslims constituting a majority of Indian Muslims were opposed to partition but sadly they were not heard. They were firm believers of Islam yet they were opposed to Pakistan.^[5]

Historians such as Shashi Tharoor maintain that Britain's divide-and-rule policy aimed at spreading communal discord between Hindus and Muslims after they united together to fight against British rule in India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.^[9] The demand for the creation of Pakistan as a homeland for Indian Muslims, according to many academics, was orchestrated mainly by the elite class of Muslims in colonial India primarily based in the United Provinces (U.P.) and Bihar who supported the All India Muslim League, rather the common Indian Muslim.^[10]^[11]^[12]^[6] In the colonial Indian province of Sind, the historian Ayesha Jalal describes the actions that Jinnah's pro-separatist Muslim League used in order to spread communal division and undermine the government of Allah Bakhsh Soomro, which stood for a united India:^[13]

Even before the 'Pakistan' demand was articulated, the dispute over the Sukkur Manzilgah had been fabricated by provincial Leaguers to unsettle Allah Bakhsh Soomro's ministry which was dependent on support from the Congress and Independent Party. Intended as a way station for Mughal troops on the move, the Manzilgah included a small mosque which had been subsequently abandoned. On a small island in the near distance was the temple of Saad Bela, sacred space for the large number of Hindus settled on the banks of the Indus at Sukkur. The symbolic convergence of the identity and sovereignty over a forgotten mosque provided ammunition for those seeking office at the provincial level. Making an issue out of a non-issue, the Sind Muslim League in early June 1939 formally reclaimed the mosque. Once its deadline of 1 October 1939 for the restoration of the mosque to Muslims had passed, the League started an agitation.^[13]

The Muslim League, seeking to spread religious strife, "monetarily subsidized" mobs that engaged in communal violence against Hindus and Sikhs in the areas of Multan, Rawalpindi, Campbellpur, Jhelum and Sargodha, as well as in the Hazara District.^[14]^[15] Jinnah and the Muslim League's communalistic Direct Action Day in Calcutta resulted in 4,000 deaths and 100,000 residents left homeless in just 72 hours, sowing the seeds for riots in other provinces and the eventual partition of the country.^[16]^[17]

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at staunchly supported Jinnah's separatist demand for Pakistan.^[18] Chaudary Zafarullah Khan, an Ahmadi leader, drafted the Lahore Resolution that separatist leaders interpreted as calling for the creation of Pakistan.^[19] Chaudary Zafarullah Khan was asked by Jinnah to represent the Muslim League to the Radcliffe Commission, which was charged with drawing the line between an independent India and newly created Pakistan.^[19] Ahmadis argued to try to ensure that the city of Qadian, India would fall into the newly created state of Pakistan, though they were unsuccessful in doing so.^[20] Upon the creation of Pakistan, many Ahmadis held prominent posts in government positions;^[19] in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948, in which Pakistan tried to invade and capture the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at created the Furqan Force to fight Indian troops.^[21]

In the first decade after Pakistan gained independence after the partition of India, "Pakistan considered its history to be a part of larger India's, a common history, a joint history, and in fact Indian textbooks were in use in the syllabus in Pakistan."^[22] The government under Ayub Khan, however, wished to rewrite the history of Pakistan to exclude any reference India and tasked the historians within Pakistan to manufacture a nationalist narrative of a "separate" history that erased the country's Indian past.^[22] Elizabeth A. Cole of the George Mason University Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution noted that Pakistani textbooks eliminate the country's Hindu and Buddhist past, while referring to Muslims as a monolithic entity and focusing solely on the advent of Islam in the Indian subcontinent.^[23] During the rule of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq a "program of Islamization" of the country including the textbooks was started.^[24] General Zia's 1979 education policy stated that "[the] highest priority would be given to the revision of the curricula with a view to reorganizing the entire content around Islamic thought and giving education an ideological orientation so that Islamic ideology permeates the thinking of the younger generation and helps them with the necessary conviction and ability to refashion society according to Islamic tenets".^[25] According to Pakistan Studies curriculum, Muhammad bin Qasim is often referred to as the first Pakistani despite having been alive several centuries before its creation through the partition of India in 1947.^[26] Muhammad Ali Jinnah also acclaimed the Pakistan movement to have started when the first Muslim put a foot in the Gateway of Islam^[27] and that Bin Qasim is actually the founder of Pakistan.^[28]

Pakistan as inheritor state to Islamic political powers in medieval India

Some Pakistani nationalists state that Pakistan is the successor state of Islamic empires and kingdoms that ruled medieval India for almost a combined period of one millennium, the empires and kingdoms in order are the Abbasid Caliphate, Ghaznavid Empire, Ghorid Kingdom, Delhi Sultanate, Deccan sultanates and Mughal Empire. This history of Muslim rule in the subcontinent composes possibly the largest segment of Pakistani nationalism.^[29] To this end, many Pakistani nationalists claim monuments like the Taj Mahal, located in Agra, as being Pakistani and part of Pakistan's history.^[29]

Syed Ahmed Khan and the Indian Rebellion of 1857

Syed Ahmed Khan promoted Western-style education in Muslim society, seeking to uplift Muslims economically and politically in British India. He founded the Aligarh Muslim University, then called the Anglo-Oriental College.

In 1835 Lord Macaulay's minute recommending that Western rather than Oriental learning predominate in the East India Company's education policy had led to numerous changes. In place of Arabic and Persian, the Western languages, history and philosophy were taught at state-funded schools and universities whilst religious education was barred. English became not only the medium of instruction but also the official language in 1835 in place of Persian, disadvantaging those who had built their careers around the latter language. Traditional Islamic studies were no longer supported by the state, and some madrasahs lost their waqf or endowment. The Indian rebellion of 1857 is held by nationalists^[who?] to have ended in disaster for the Muslims, as Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal, was deposed. Power over the subcontinent was passed from the East India Company to the British Crown. The removal of the last symbol of continuity with the Mughal period spawned a negative attitude amongst some Muslims^[who?] towards everything modern and western, and a disinclination to make use of the opportunities available under the new regime.

Seeing this atmosphere of despair and despondency, Syed launched his attempts to revive the spirit of progress within the Muslim community of India. He was convinced that the Muslims, in their attempt to regenerate themselves, had failed to realise that mankind had entered a very important phase of its existence, i.e., an era of science and learning. He knew that the realisation of that was the source of progress and prosperity for the British. Therefore, modern education became the pivot of his movement for regeneration of the Indian Muslims. He tried to transform the Muslim outlook from a mediaeval one to a modern one.

Syed's first and foremost objective was to acquaint the British with the Indian mind; his next goal was to open the minds of his countrymen to European literature, science and technology.

Therefore, in order to attain these goals, Syed launched the Aligarh Movement, of which Aligarh was the center. He had two immediate objectives in mind: to remove the state of misunderstanding and tension between the Muslims and the new British government, and to induce them to go after the opportunities available under the new regime without deviating in any way from the fundamentals of their faith.^{[citation needed]}

Independence of Pakistan

In the Indian rebellion of 1857, both Hindu and Muslims fought the forces allied with the British Empire in different parts of British India.^[9] The war's spark arose because the British attacked the "Beastly customs of Indians" by forcing colonial Indian soldiers to handle Enfield P-53 gun cartridges greased with lard taken from slaughtered pigs and tallow taken from slaughtered cows. The cartridges had to bitten open to use the gunpowder, effectively meaning that sepoys would have to bite the lard and tallow. This was a manifestation of the disregard that the British exhibited to Muslim and Hindu religious traditions, such as the rejection of pork consumption in Islam and the rejection of slaughter of cow in Hinduism. There were also some kingdoms and peoples who supported the British. This event laid the foundation not only for a nationwide expression, but also future nationalism and conflict on religious and ethnic terms.

The desire among some for a new state for the Indian Muslims, or Azadi was born with Kernal Sher Khan, who looked to Muslim history and heritage, and condemned the fact Muslims were ruled by the British Empire and not by Muslim leaders. The idea of complete independence did not catch on until after World War I, when the British reduced civil liberties with the Rowlatt Acts of 1919. When the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in Amritsar, Punjab (India) of hundreds of unarmed civilians by British forces took place in the same year, the Muslim public was outraged and most of the Muslim political leaders turned against the British. Pakistan was finally actualized through the partition of India in 1947 on the basis of Two Nation Theory. Today, Pakistan is divided into 4 provinces. The last census recorded the 1981 population at 84.3 million, nearly double the 1961 figure of 42.9 million. By 1983, the population had tripled to nearly 93 million, making Pakistan the world's 9th most populous country, although in area it ranked 34th.^[30]

Pakistani nationalist symbols

Because of the country's identity with Islam, mosques like Badshahi Mosque and Faisal Mosque are also used as national symbols either to represent "glorious past" or modernistic future. Pakistan has many shrines, sights, sounds and symbols that have significance to Pakistani nationalists. These include the Shrines of Political leaders of pre-independence and post-independence Pakistan, Shrines of Religious leaders and Saints, The Shrines of Imperial leaders of various Islamic Empires and Dynasties, as well as national symbols of Pakistan. Some of these shrines, sights and symbols have become a places of Pilgrimage for Pakistani ultra-nationalism and militarism, as well as for obviously religious purposes.

The older ten rupee notes of the Pakistani rupee included background images of the remains of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. In the 1960s, the imagery of Gandharan and Greco-Buddhist artefacts were unearthed in Pakistan, and some Pakistani nationalists "creatively imagined" an ancient civilisation which differentiated the provinces now lying in Pakistan from the rest of the Indian subcontinent, which is not accepted by mainstream historians; they tried to emphasize its contacts with the West and framed Gandharan Buddhism as antithetical to 'Brahmin' (Hindu) influence.^[31]

Nationalism and politics

The political identity of the Pakistani Armed Forces, Pakistan's largest institution and one which controlled the government for over half the history of modern-day Pakistan and still does, is reliant on the connection to Pakistan's Imperial past. The Pakistan Muslim League's fortunes up till the 1970s were propelled by its legacy as the flagship of Pakistan's Independence Movement, and the core platform of the party today evokes that past, considering itself to be the guardian of Pakistan's freedom, democracy and unity as well as religion. Other parties have arisen, such as Pakistan Peoples Party, once advocating a leftist program and now more centrist. Nationally, the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is weak.^[32] In contrast, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal employs a more aggressively theocratic nationalistic expression. The MMA seeks to defend the culture and heritage of Pakistan and the majority of its people, the Muslim population. It ties theocratic nationalism with the aggressive defence of Pakistan's borders and interests against archrival India, with the defence of the majority's right to be a majority.

Ethnic nationalist parties include the Awami National Party, which is closely identified with the creation of a Pashtun-majority state in North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas includes many Pashtun leaders in its organization. However, the Awami National Party, At the last legislative elections, 20 October 2002, won a meagre 1.0% of the popular vote and no seats in the lower house of Parliament. In Balochistan, the Balochistan National Party uses the legacy of the independent Balochistan to stir up support, However at the legislative elections, 20 October 2002, the party won only 0.2% of the popular vote and 1 out of 272 elected members.

Almost every Pakistani state has a regional party devoted solely to the culture of the native people. Unlike the Awami National party and the Balochistan national party, these mostly cannot be called nationalist, as they use regionalism as a strategy to garner votes, building on the frustration of common people with official status and the centralization of government institutions in Pakistan. However, the recent elections as well as history have shown that such ethnic nationalist parties rarely win more than 1% of the popular vote, with the overwhelming majority of votes going to large and established political parties that pursue a national agenda as opposed to regionalism.

Nuclear power

The intense guerrilla war in far Eastern Pakistan, followed by India's successful intervention led to the secession of Eastern contingent as Bangladesh. The outcomes of the war played a crucial role in the civil society. In January 1972, a clandestine crash programme and a spin-off to literary and the scientific revolution as response to that crash programme led Pakistan becoming the nuclear power.

First public tests were experimented out in 1998 (code names:Chagai-I and Chagai-II) in a direct response to India's nuclear explosions in the same year; thus Pakistan became the 7th nation in the world to have successfully developed the programme. It is postulated that Pakistan's crash programme arose in 1970 and mass acceleration took place following the India's nuclear test in 1974. It also resulted in Pakistan pursuing similar ambitions, resulting in the May 1998 testings of five nuclear devices by India and six as a response by Pakistan, opening a new era in their rivalry. Pakistan, along with Israel and India, is three of the original states that have restrained itself from being party of the NPT and CTBT which it considers an encroachment on its right to defend itself. To date, Pakistan is the only Muslim nuclear state.

Pakistani nationalist songs

Pakistani singers such as Masood Rana, Mehdi Hassan, Asad Amanat Ali Khan, Alamgir, Benjamin Sisters and Pakistani bands such as Vital Signs and Junoon popularized Pakistani nationalism with songs such as Millat Ka Paasbaan (Masood Rana), Ye Watan Tumhara Hai (Mehdi Hassan), Ai Watan Pyare Watan (Asad Amanat Ali Khan), Khayal Rakhna (Alamgir and Benjamin Sisters), Dil Dil Pakistan (Vital Signs) and Jazba-e-Junoon (Junoon).

References

^ Ahmed, Ishtiaq (27 May 2016). "The dissenters". The Friday Times.
^ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Contesting_History/AiZtAgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Pakistani+nationalism+separatist&pg=PA108&printsec=frontcover
^ https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Study_Guide_for_Anita_Desai_s_Clear_Li/-KhwCgAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=allama+iqbal+Pakistani+nationalism+separatism&pg=PT25&printsec=frontcover
^ ^a ^b 1 in author list, Iqbal Academy (26 May 2006). "Allama Iqbal – Biography" (PHP). Retrieved 7 January 2011. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ ^a ^b ^c Fazal, Tanweer (2014). Nation-state and Minority Rights in India: Comparative Perspectives on Muslim and Sikh Identities. Routledge. p. 162. ISBN 978-1-317-75179-3.
^ ^a ^b ^c Rabasa, Angel; Waxman, Matthew; Larson, Eric V.; Marcum, Cheryl Y. (2004). The Muslim World After 9/11. Rand Corporation. ISBN 978-0-8330-3755-8. However, many Indian Muslims regarded India as their permanent home and supported the concept of a secular, unified state that would include both Hindus and Muslims. After centuries of joint history and coexistence, these Muslims firmly believed that India was fundamentally a multireligious entity and that Muslims were an integral part of the state. Furthermore, cleaving India into independent Muslim and Hindu states would be geographically inconvenient for millions of Muslims. Those living in the middle and southern regions of India could not conveniently move to the new Muslim state because it required travel over long distances and considerable financial resources. In particular, many lower-class Muslims opposed partition because they felt that a Muslim state would benefit only upper-class Muslims. At independence, the division of India into the Muslim state of Pakistan and the secular state of India caused a massive migration of millions of Muslims into Pakistan and Hindus into India, along with the death of over one million people in the consequent riots and chaos. The millions of Muslims who remained in India by choice or providence became a smaller and more interspersed minority in a secular and democratic state.
^ Kukreja, Veena; Singh, M. P. (2005). Pakistan: Democracy, Development and Security Issues. SAGE Publishing. ISBN 978-93-5280-332-3. The latter two organisations were offshoots of the pre-independence Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Hind and were comprised mainly of Deobandi Muslims (Deoband was the site for the Indian Academy of Theology and Islamic Jurisprudence). The Deobandis had supported the Congress Party prior to partition in the effort to terminate British rule in India. Deobandis also were prominent in the Khilafat movement of the 1920s, a movement Jinnah had publicly opposed. The Muslim League, therefore, had difficulty in recruiting ulema in the cause of Pakistan, and Jinnah and other League politicians were largely inclined to leave the religious teachers to their tasks in administering to the spiritual life of Indian Muslims. If the League touched any of the ulema it was the Barelvis, but they too never supported the Muslim League, let alone the latter's call to represent all Indian Muslims.
^ Phadnis, Aditi (2 November 2017). "Britain created Pakistan". Rediff. Retrieved 2 June 2020. The problem for Britain was that the NWFP had elected Congress governments in both 1937 and 1946, and the NWFP delegation had entered the Constituent Assembly of India in December 1946 (defying the Muslim League's call to boycott it).
^ ^a ^b Tharoor, Shashi (August 10, 2017). "The Partition: The British game of 'divide and rule'". Al Jazeera.
^ Ranjan, Amit (2018). Partition of India: Postcolonial Legacies. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-429-75052-6.
^ Krishan, Yuvraj (2002). Understanding Partition: India Sundered, Muslims Fragmented. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. p. vii. ISBN 978-81-7276-277-3. He contends that it were the educated Muslim elite classes of the U.P. and Bihar who supported Pakistan out of fear of losing their priviledges in these feudal States, there was no universal franchise at that time; only 10% of the population had franchise and not more than 5% voted in the crucial election of 1945. Out of these only 3.5% supported the Muslim League.
^ Komireddi, Kapil (17 April 2015). "The long, troubling consequences of India's partition that created Pakistan". The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 May 2020. The idea of Pakistan emerged from the anxieties and prejudices of a decaying class of India's Muslim elites, who claimed that Islam's purity would be contaminated in a pluralistic society.
^ ^a ^b Jalal, Ayesha (2002). Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam Since 1850. Routledge. p. 415. ISBN 9781134599370.
^ Abid, Abdul Majeed (29 December 2014). "The forgotten massacre". The Nation. On the same dates, Muslim League-led mobs fell with determination and full preparations on the helpless Hindus and Sikhs scattered in the villages of Multan, Rawalpindi, Campbellpur, Jhelum and Sargodha. The murderous mobs were well supplied with arms, such as daggers, swords, spears and fire-arms. (A former civil servant mentioned in his autobiography that weapon supplies had been sent from NWFP and money was supplied by Delhi-based politicians.) They had bands of stabbers and their auxiliaries, who covered the assailant, ambushed the victim and if necessary disposed of his body. These bands were subsidized monetarily by the Muslim League, and cash payments were made to individual assassins based on the numbers of Hindus and Sikhs killed. There were also regular patrolling parties in jeeps which went about sniping and picking off any stray Hindu or Sikh. ... Thousands of non-combatants including women and children were killed or injured by mobs, supported by the All India Muslim League.
^ Chitkara, M. G. (1996). Mohajir's Pakistan. APH Publishing. ISBN 9788170247463. When the idea of Pakistan was not accepted in the Northern States of India, the Muslim League sent out its goons to drive the Hindus out of Lahore, Multan and Rawalpindi and appropriate their property.
^ Burrows, Frederick (1946). Report to Viceroy Lord Wavell. The British Library IOR: L/P&J/8/655 f.f. 95, 96–107.
^ Das, Suranjan (May 2000). "The 1992 Calcutta Riot in Historical Continuum: A Relapse into 'Communal Fury'?". Modern Asian Studies. 34 (2): 281–306. doi:10.1017/S0026749X0000336X. JSTOR 313064.
^ "Minority Interest". The Herald. 22 (1–3). Pakistan Herald Publications: 15. 1991. When the Quaid-e-Azam was fighting his battle for Pakistan, only the Ahmadiya community, out of all religious groups, supported him.
^ ^a ^b ^c Khalid, Haroon (May 6, 2017). "Pakistan paradox: Ahmadis are anti-national but those who opposed the country's creation are not". Scroll.in.
^ Balzani, Marzia (2020). Ahmadiyya Islam and the Muslim Diaspora: Living at the End of Days. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-76953-2.
^ Valentine, Simon Ross (2008). Islam and the Ahmadiyya Jamaʻat: History, Belief, Practice. Columbia University Press. p. 204. ISBN 978-0-231-70094-8. In 1948, after the creation of Pakistan, when the Dogra Regime and the Indian forces were invading Kashmir, the Ahmadi community raised a volunteer force, the Furqan Force which actively fought against Indian troops.
^ ^a ^b Sridharan, E. (2014). International Relations Theory and South Asia (OIP): Volume II: Security, Political Economy, Domestic Politics, Identities, and Images. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-908940-6.
^ Cole, Elizabeth A. (2007). Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 296. ISBN 978-1-4616-4397-5.
^ Haqqani, Hussain (10 March 2010). Pakistan:between mosque and the military. ISBN 9780870032851. Retrieved 9 April 2011. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^ Jamil, Baela Raza. "Curriculum Reforms in Pakistan – A Glass Half Full or Half Empty?" (PDF). Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi. Retrieved 10 April 2011.
^ "History books contain major distortions". Daily Times.
^ "Pakistan Movement". cybercity-online.net. Archived from the original on 2016-02-01. Retrieved 2012-04-16.
^ Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Pakistan, Hurmat Publications (1989), p. 1
^ ^a ^b Zaidi, S. Akbar (1 March 2014). "Is the Taj Mahal Pakistani?". DAWN.COM.
^ Newcomb, L (1986). "The Islamic Republic of Pakistan: Country profile". International Demographics. 5 (7): 1–8. PMID 12314371.
^ July 22nd; 2019|Featured; homel, Religion|Comments Off on Long Read: A. Pakistani; art, for Buddhism: Buddhist; nationalism, Muslim; History, Global Public (2019-07-22). "Long Read: A Pakistani homeland for Buddhism: Buddhist art, Muslim nationalism and global public history". South Asia @ LSE. Retrieved 2019-08-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) Quote: "In turn, some Pakistani historians creatively imagined Buddhist remains as evidence of Pakistan’s opposition to ancient ‘Brahmin’ [i.e. Hindu] influence long before the arrival of Islam. Although these debates over ancient Buddhism might appear disconnected from the economic and political challenges in early Pakistan, they reflected broader disagreements over the cultural orientation of the new Muslim homeland."
^ "The N is nigh". April 27, 2013 – via The Economist.