Abstract
(In this paper the author traces and analysis the evolutionary journey of the ideology of Pakistan which is “a true work-in-progress.” – Editor)
Let us commence with definitions of the term “ ideology “. The plural is deliberately used. Like beauty, ideology often lies in the eye of the beholder. Or the formulator. Or its user. Or its adaptor. Or its practitioner. The multiplicity is inevitable. Which should not deter us from noting a few definitions that illustrate the range of approaches to the word.
Historian E. H. Erikson writes: “(Ideology)… is an unconscious tendency underlying religion and scientific as well as political thought: the tendency at a given time to make facts amenable to ideas, and ideas to facts, in order to create a world image convincing enough to support the collective and individual sense of identity.”1
Yugoslavian philosopher Mihailo Markovic explains: “Ideology is… the ensemble of ideas and theories with which a class expresses its interests, its aims and the norms of its activity.”2 After citing both of them, South Asian analyst, Asghar Ali Engineer, summarizes: “Whereas science establishes what is, ideology establishes what ought to be.”3 Scholar Dr. Fazlur Rahman in referring to religious orthodoxy as a prime source of Islamic ideology, writes: “Islamic orthodoxy…is characterized by an indistinguishable blend of reinvigorated fundamentalism and progressivism; it develops not by self-propulsion, so to say, but by watching, adjusting and absorbing within itself that which moves within it.”4
With specific reference to ideologies in the Middle East and Pakistan, as studied by them up to about 1987, Fred Halliday and Hamza Alavi observe : “…ideologies denote sets of beliefs concerning social and political issues… which purport to explain why the world is as it is, how it came to be so, and what the goals of political action should be”. They further state that, in developing societies, “… ideologies have an enhanced role as the articulators of uncertainty and of contesting demands, both internally and internationally, as well as serving to instil acceptance of new and apparently arbitrary political entities.”5
Two definitions of ideology in the Oxford English Dictionary are: “A system of ideas and ideals, specially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and practice.” And: “The ideas and manner of thinking of a group, social class, or individual.”6
From psychology to history, from theology to economics, from facts to myths – past, present, future – ideologies embrace them all. In turn, ideologies are changed by the embrace.
Every nation-state has an ideology. It may not be formally termed an “ideology” in every case. In the form of a Constitution, or by a declaration, or through laws, judicial verdicts, even unwritten yet accepted conventions, together or individually, a set of principles and parameters serve as the defining portrait of a country, its heritage and its hopes. In many cases, ideologies are partly or wholly derived from religions, as the major belief-systems of humanity. This is true even of states that stress their secular, non-religion-oriented character. Icons as well as ideas about faith are adapted or absorbed into texts, flags, ceremonies, phrases: in subliminal yet unmistakable ways, religion is a prime source for the charters of states. The cross has been widely used in modified form as the leitmotif for the flags of major western, ostensibly secular but pre-dominantly Christian countries. The crescent appears on the flags of several Muslim nations.
In recent decades, in some western countries, in sections of academia and public discourse, the concepts of ideology and nationalism have come to be regarded with scepticism, and often with outright hostility. As a fall-out from the causes and consequences of World War II and the Cold War, the destructive excesses of Fascism, National Socialism and Communism in the Soviet Union and China, and now in a post- Communist Russia, and the rise of an ugly populism, ideology and nationalism are seen as potentially sinister threats to individual liberty and democracy. We should guard against succumbing to this view, while remaining vigilant against chauvinistic forms of national assertion. Self-centred individual liberty and systemically flawed democracy, in turn, themselves threaten cohesion and stability of nation-states that are capable of using ideology to mobilize energy for constructive goals and to focus on human advancement.
Ideologies have categories
A categorization of ideologies is also relevant before we address the specific question of the ideology of Pakistan. In this writer’s view, there are five broad types. First: Theological ideologies, based on, and driven by religious beliefs. With such beliefs being interpreted or practiced in diverse ways by adherents and sects of the same faith. Zionism and Israel are examples. Second: Sociological ideologies, shaped by territory, ethnicity, cultural chemistry. Switzerland ‘s sense of Swiss singularity while containing treble internal diversity: German, French, Italian. And on the other hand, Bangladesh with dominant internal homogeneity. These are contrasting, yet illustrative in a shared category. Third: Economic ideologies: Socialist, Communist, Capitalist. Phases of Scandinavian eras, former USSR, China, USA are pertinent. Fourth: Liberationist ideologies. As in Algeria, Vietnam, South Africa. Fifth: Hybrid ideologies. Comprising one or more features from the other four. Pakistan is a prime example, shaped by parts – but not wholly – of the first category, and certainly by parts of the others. Other examples abound where there is overlap between the five niches.
Some changes are inevitable
All ideologies change with time and with the experience of conditions created by forces beyond the control of a particular ideology’s proponents. They also change due to conditions resulting from the ideologists’ own actions while implementing a particular perspective. The French Revolution’ s ideology changed in less than two decades. It began by dethroning a monarchy and then saw the people applaud Napoleon as he crowned himself emperor. It then took another 150 years for that revolutionary ideology’s theme of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” to be applied to women. Only as recently as 1944 were French women given the right to vote. Chinese Communism is another example of ideological re-modelling. The political dimension in 2020 retains a single party’s dominant control of the state for over the past 70 years even as the economic dimension over the past 40 years began to use strands of capitalism to redress the damaging impact of earlier applications of Communist economic doctrine.
Pakistan – a work-in-progress
Perhaps more than others, the ideology of Pakistan is a true work-in- progress – from ancient times to the contemporary era. The work began even before the invention of the word in 1933 for the country’s name and before the formal locationing of the new state took place. At least four principal factors shape its evolution: history, territory, deterrence, and co-existence. Part of the process possibly began a millennium ago and has continued into the next, even passing the creation of Pakistan in 1947 as a major marker. But seeing that too as only one milestone on the path of a long journey.
To spot the start of the pre-1947 phase, one has to first decide which lens to choose. Depending on whether one picks a telescope or a microscope, the origins can be traced all the way back to over 1200 years ago when the first Muslim – most likely an Arab – stepped onto the soil of South Asia. Germinating and growing into a Muslim minority that ruled over a non-Muslim majority for about 600 years, that phase also saw clear separations within the broad brush of being Muslim. The large stream of persons shifting from Central Asia, Persia, Turkey and Arab regions into pivotal sectors of Court governance in South Asia maintained a deliberately separate, even arrogantly superior sense of themselves from those who became local Muslims after conversion to Islam.7 Though the latter category remained in a minority in the very areas where the immigrant Muslims helped Muslim rulers reign over the Hindu majority. Whereas the areas that eventually became parts of Pakistan saw conversions from Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism in much larger numbers and in which the influx from elsewhere of foreign Muslims was far less. Despite differing origins and attitudes, the two streams came to share a broad affinity. The emancipatory nature of Islam that transcended castes and the peaceful, pluralist values of Sufism enabled two phenomena. One: steady, stable spread of the faith in South Asia. Two: acceptance of Muslim rulers by a majority of non-Muslims.
The territorial dimension
In the context of the second factor, that of territory, the telescope reaches far beyond one or two Millenia of the Muslim advent into South Asia. A study of about 4473 years by scholar Ahmed Abdulla, commences from 2500 B.C to reach about the mid-1970s.8 It reveals interesting details. For as many as 3700 years there existed a striking autonomy and separateness of the whole area that presently constitutes Pakistan from the South Asian region ruled from Delhi or Agra or elsewhere. Though the Indus Valley civilization is generally construed to be part of what lay to its east, archaeological records show that the civilization interacted with centres of trade far to the west such as Ur in Iraq. From early Aryan times, Brahmins to the east of what is now Pakistan viewed the region west of the Sutlej River as “maleech” (impure) and shunned it. For only about 700 years did Delhi/Calcutta/Agra-based rule completely control all parts of the land that is today’s Pakistan. About 100 years of the Mauryan (Buddhist) period (300-200 B.C), about 512 years of the Muslim slave dynasties and the Mughal period (1227-1739 AD), about 90 years of British rule (1857-1947).
For all the other parts of the Millenia, either local sovereigns, or systems of power based to the northwest or west of Pakistan governed the area. After the Indus Valley eras, the advent of the Aryans, the later incursion of Alexander, there came the ages of the Graeco-Bactrian, Saka-Parthian, Kushan and the White Huns. With the first of the Muslim invasions of the Ghaznavids, the Ghorid and Qubacha periods, the Nadir Shah and Abdali phases and the Sikh period continued to mark the land that is now Pakistan from north- and-east-centred control. Thus, the territorial dimension of the ideology of Pakistan spans much of a contiguous time-span of about 5000 years.9
Last-minute pivotal moment
If, however, we prefer a microscope, then, notwithstanding the long, historic movement towards maintaining Muslim distinctness, and even by-passing post-1857, we can sharply narrow our focus to that relatively brief yet tantalizing flash – the Cabinet Mission Plan – which sparked, and sputtered and was then suffocated by the Congress and Nehru in 1946-1947.10 That was the dramatic phase in the evolutionary movement of the ideology of Pakistan when its proponents were willing to share space with a Congress ideology that claimed secularism but was subtly, and sometimes visibly, parochially Hindu and exclusive. The Muslim League and Mr. Jinnah were ready to attempt a confederal structure that would encompass Muslim-majority areas and introduce a novel 3-zone system of component units that enabled both continuity of identity and co-existence with diversity. In a perverse way, rejection by the Congress Party of this inclusive concept vindicated the rationale and authenticity of the ideology of Pakistan.11
Identity affirmation
This leads directly to the third factor, that of deterrence. The persistent tendency of the vastly larger Hindu majority to refuse acknowledging the reality of Muslim apprehensions obliged the development of a protectionist, pre-emptive conceptual framework. This became unavoidable when the Congress and its allies – as well as adversaries on the extreme Hindu fringe – refused to accept that Muslims represented more than the sum of their parts. They were not simply a conventional religious minority. Muslims clearly displayed the characteristics of being a distinct nation. A nation that was also numerically substantive. Though speaking multiple languages and, in some respects, practising contrasting lifestyles, the Muslims of South Asia possessed several fundamental commonalities – of faith, diet, customs, festivals, memories, aspirations. These set them apart from Hindus.12 Not as antagonists – but irreducibly separate and different. This facet was either willfully or inadvertently described as being “communal”. It was misrepresented by the Hindu-dominated Congress leadership and by the section of media that supported it as being schismatic at the ulterior behest of the British.13
The authenticity of Muslim anxiety to secure their social and economic rights received ironic endorsement from an unlikely source. The Communist Party of India and other Left factions volubly supported the demand for Pakistan. This fact alone invalidates the thesis advanced by some analysts to the effect that the Pakistan Movement was mainly driven by a Muslim feudal class and an urban Muslim “salariat” (professional-skilled) class that sought new opportunities free of Hindu domination for their own material benefits.
Awkwardly for the Muslim League, most of the established Muslim religious leadership vociferously opposed the concept of a separate Pakistan and its emerging ideology. But then they conducted a U-turn after August 1947 and postured as the custodians of the new country’s ideology. It is a testament to the extraordinary capacity of M.A Jinnah that he was able to successfully steer the movement by which about 70 million Muslims achieved a state of their own – in the face of deep, dual hostility from the Hindu-dominated Congress, and from many followers of the Muslim ulema.
An accurate indicator of the formidable variety of opinions which tried to impede the progress of the ideology of Pakistan or endorsed it, is the enumeration made by Hamza Alavi in his essay: “Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology”. He identified the following eight ideological-political positions amongst Indian Muslims in the period prior to and in 1947. Five of these eight came under the specific head of “Muslim” positions in India, four of them titled with the prefix of “Islamic”. They were: 1. Islamic Traditionalism by the Deobandi ulema; and separately 2. Islamic Traditionalism by the Barelvi ulema and Pirs; 3. Islamic Fundamentalism by the Jamaat-i-Islami and Maulana Maududi; 4. Islamic Modernism as articulated by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Allama Iqbal; 5. Secular Muslim Nationalism exemplified by M.A. Jinnah. Under the head of “Non-communal positions of Muslims in Muslim majority provinces”. Three others were present: 6. Secular provincial non-communal transactional politics – Landlord-dominated right-wing Punjab Unionist Party and various political groups in Sind, being the ruling groups and parties; 7. Secular provincial non- communal radical politics – by the Krishak Proja Party of Bengal led by A.K. Fazlul Haq, the ruling party in Bengal; and lastly, 8. Secular non- communal “Nationalist Muslims” as in the ruling (Congress) Party in Sarhad. The supreme triumph of the ideology of Pakistan as its catalytic phase crystallized in 1947 and soon thereafter was that it brought together seven out of the above eight strands, with M.A. Jinnah’s own version leading this medley. For obvious reasons, the eighth strand, that of Congress Muslims, was not part of this assortment which supported the creation of Pakistan, early or later.14
