The title of Farzana Shaikh’s book strikes a chord. The past seven years have been a time of intense introspection for Pakistanis; while political scientists, historians and foreign policy experts the world over are debating events in this fractious yet resilient nation which seems to be at the center of a series of regional and international crises.

Is it possible to ‘make sense’ of a nation whose raison d’etre of existence is still being questioned, nationally as well as internationally, 62 years after its birth. Shaikh’s title sounds over-ambitious, yet the reader wants to believe that the book will unscramble the complexity of modern-day Pakistan.

For Shaikh, Pakistan’s tortured existence is the result of the country’s ‘problematic and contested’ relationship with Islam and the nation’s inability to agree on the role of religion in the state’s ethos which has frustrated attempts to forge a national identity.

This lack of consensus, in particular the lack of ability to embrace a pluralistic identity encompassing the many facets of religion practiced in the subcontinent, has, in her view, resulted in chronic socio-political instability. A diverse society has not held together precisely because its diversity has not been accepted as a strength.

The author postulates that Pakistan has not ‘exhausted all the resources needed to develop a more robust identity’, and is encouraged by signals that Pakistanis are increasingly willing to forge a new identity beyond the current one predicated on opposition to India. She sees civil society institutions leading a trend wherein Pakistan comes to be seen and accepted as an integral part of the South Asian subcontinent.

Nevertheless, Shaikh is not optimistic about the possibility of breaking a vicious cycle of authoritarian rule, which, she says, has exploited the uncertainty over the country’s national identity to consolidate the military’s grip on power, and by extension, control of resources.

She also points out that the international community remains fearful of political reform in Pakistan and is loath to see upheaval in such a pivotal state. However, she asserts that an ‘unreformed’ Pakistan could eventually pose
a greater threat to world peace than the alternative.

Shaikh’s scholarship is impressive in the way her work links the problems of present-day Pakistan with the cultural and historical forces that shaped the demand for the country. The first chapter of the book, which deals with history and ideology, makes for fascinating, if dense reading.

The author traces the often conflicting narratives which seek to define a Muslim community.

She argues that while historians may choose to distinguish the role of religion as faith, cultural difference or political ideology, it is not clear that these distinctions were meaningful for Indian Muslims in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Nevertheless, many-layered notions of what a Muslim community stood for continued to persist in pre-partition India, and the transition from a notion of community to the rhetoric of nationhood was not straightforward.
Jinnah’s volte-face post 1935, when the demand for constitutional safeguards for a Muslim minority grew into a ‘non-negotiable right to parity with the majority Hindu nation’ was, according to Shaikh, occasioned by his belief that Muslims would not be able to gain political power unless they styled themselves as a separate nation.

This concept of nationhood did not take into account the ethnic and linguistic as well as sectarian divisions of Indian Muslims — a fact that Jinnah recognised and sought to overcome by employing the rhetoric of Islamic universalism to secure the Pakistani nation’s allegiance to a higher power.

For Shaikh, doubts about the value of pluralism, which were embedded in the Pakistan movement, have led to uncertainty about Pakistan’s national identity, and in turn to the increased role of religious parties in politics.

In the latter half of the book, she discusses the regional implications of Pakistan’s struggles with forging an identity. She unpacks the military’s use of a state ideology based on religious identity and concludes that it has been used to legitimise the military’s role in politics, in the absence of any other sources of political legitimacy.

This militarisation of the state ethos has, in turn, driven Pakistan’s foreign policy, often with disastrous consequences.
Shaikh’s analysis is interesting and provocative, and will find many takers in the international academic community. Her single-minded focus on the role of religion in the public sphere as a determinant of Pakistan’s ongoing conflicts does not, however, plug all the holes.

Her contention that the ongoing arms race in the subcontinent stems from Pakistan’s ‘identity crisis’ and its implicit need to be seen to be at par with India seems like an oversimplification.

It dismisses what may be legitimate concerns on part of a small country that has been at war with a powerful neighbour three times in its short history.

She sees Pakistan’s regional policy, particularly its manipulation of events in Afghanistan, as evidence of the country’s desire to compete with India for regional domination — an observation that is likely to be disputed by even the most ardent supporters of Pakistan’s military.

Making Sense of Pakistan may not answer all the questions, and to some extent it even nourishes the widely held view of Pakistan as a dangerously wayward entity with suspect regional ambitions.

Nevertheless, it ends on a note of optimism with regard to Pakistan’s ability to eventually ‘project an identity founded on reconciling Islam’s universalist message with respect for the rich diversity of its peoples’. This is, no doubt, a positive ideal to strive for.

Making Sense of Pakistan

By Farzana Shaikh

Hurst and Company, London
ISBN 978-1-85065-965-5
288pp. Rs945