McGill Journal of Political Studies 2014 April, 2014 | Page 74

repression. This model is often used to
explain nationalist violence against a defence
mobilization against the state62.” The state
repressed the Bengalis economically, did
not significantly induct them into the
bureaucracy or military, and it actively
resisted their right to form a parliamentary
government in 1970. Another example
pertaining to the Pakistani case is the rise of
sectarian identity because of the imposition
of Sunni law over all Muslims, and the
enactment of the blasphemy laws that
repress members of other faiths in Pakistan.
Ethnic conflict has emerged as a defense
mechanism directed at a threat posed by the
state.
A focus is placed on the ‘spontaneous’
construction of ethnic identities as a
result of group interaction. “All forms of
interaction need norms and regulations,
and borders represent the core of such
regulations. Borders indicate a limit which
must not be trespassed. All processes of
identity construction are simultaneously
border-generating and border-deriving63.”
The Muslim identity in colonial India
generated a border; there arose a division
between the Muslims and the rest of India.
The formation of a religious Islamic identity
in the subcontinent created a border, which
separated Pakistan from India. In this case,
the theory effectively explains the formation
of Pakistan because of the creation of a
Muslim identity; identity was thus in fact,
border-generating. Ethnic nationalism
explains internal border generation