McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014 April, 2014 | Page 72

necessarily predicated upon socio-economic
or cultural factors and could simply be
“imagined into existence49.” Following
this thought, we can see that the Pakistan
Movement represents a gradual process
of ‘imagining’ the nation into existence.
Elements in the subcontinent’s Muslim
population (who formed the Muslim League)
began to visualise their community living
separately from the Hindu majority who
they feared would marginalise them after the
British left. The second definition refers to a
nation as “a historically constituted, stable
community of people, formed on the basis
of a common language, territory, economic
life, and psychological make-up manifested
in a common culture50.” When we look at
Pakistan’s current situation through the lens
of its history, it becomes apparent that it was
lacking all the prerequisites listed in Stalin’s
definition of a nation as it emerged into
independent existence.
Pertaining to the discussion of ethnicity, “a
common history does not distinguish ethnic
groups but is a product of some process by
which ethnic groups are mobilized51.” The
ethnic groups in question, the Pashtuns, the
Balochis, the Sindhis and the Punjabis were
mobilized toward a formation of a separate
Pakistan given a shared common existence
as a Muslim minority in British India. So
strong was this shared common history,
that “Pakistan, amalgam in a single name of
several ethnic provinces, nevertheless drew
its mobilising power from the collective
sentiments of the Muslim masses in India52.”
This would not have been possible without
historical memories of the Mughal Empire,
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities,
(London: Verso, 1982), 15-16.
50
Joseph Stalin, “Marxism and the National
Question,” First published in 1913, Accessed at
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/
works/1913/03.htm.
51
Kanchan Chandra, “What is Ethnic Identity and
Does it Matter?” Annual Review of Political Science, vol.
9 ( June, 2006): 420.
52
Anthony Smith, “The Nation: Invented, Imagined,
Reconstructed?” Millennium- Journal of International
Studies, vol. 20, no. 3 (March, 1991): 357.
49

72 | McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014

or without ethno-religious ties with other
Muslim populations.
Next, ethnic violence is motivated
by emotions such as fear, hatred, or
resentment53. Ethnic-conflict in Pakistan
can be explained by this phenomenon. All
the ethnic nationalist movements have
arisen out of a fear of being marginalised
or discriminated against. The Bengals
movement resented the fact that they were
not included in the structures of bureaucracy
or military, the idea that they were suffering
economically, and that the Bengali language
was not an official language. This fostered
animosity toward the West Pakistanis, and
resentment increased until they finally mass
mobilized and led a successful secessionist
movement after the 1970 elections. The
other ethnicities were fearful of the majority
Punjabi group and that their cultures and
traditions would come under threat under
Punjabi rule.
An instrumentalist views nation building
as a tactic used by elites for the manipulation
of identity towards their own interests. We
see this in both pre- and post-independence
times in Pakistan. Pre-independence, the use
of religious symbols and the call to Islam by
the elite groups was a basis for support and
mobilization for the Pakistan movement.
In post-independence times, religious
nationalism was promoted to quell ethnic
tensions in the country. Punjabi domination
was also possible due to the pitting of some
ethnic group