He did so recently when he had to backtrack on his decision to grant Pakistani citizenship to Afghan and Bengali refugees. And it considers civilians either unreliable or incapable of handling national security. These gains include the landmark 18th constitutional amendment that restored the constitution to its original intent of a federal system. East Asia Forum welcomes comments, both for adding depth to analysis and for bringing up important new issues.
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Where is foreign policy made in Pakistan’s democracy? | East Asia Forum
Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Pakistan intentionally keeps her policy-making process and players opaque to incidental onlookers from Oklahoma. Pakistan is not obligated to detail her decision-making process to any foreign residents in distant Ivory towers. His foreign policy is not going to be designed to please the western sensibilities but serve the working classes of Pakistan — the two may not be in complete congruence; just as in many other countries shifting to right-wing nationalism.
Islam as the supra-unifying ideology of Pakistani nationalism had failed to successfully suppress ethnic identifications. Rather than repressing ethnic identity, as Ayub Khan had done in his efforts to modernize Pakistan, Bhutto accommodated — even encouraged — ethnic loyalty, particularly in his native province of Sind, where Sindi nationalists challenged the Pakistani state.
As part of his policies, Bhutto made Sindi the official provincial language, forcing all Sindi students — including those of migrant background — to learn the local language. Muhajir students protested against this, arguing that they were citizens of Pakistan rather than inhabitants of the province of Sind. For them, ethnic affiliation and linguistic chauvinism of the new policy superseded religious solidarity on which Pakistan was 52 Oskar Verkaaik formed.
Muhajir dissent was rather voiced by Islamic parties like the Jamiat-i-Ulama-iPakistan JUP , which was a largely muhajir-dominated political party. Still, many Muhajirs saw the Muhajir Qaumi Movement as the party that managed to unite muhajirs politically. By turning to ethnic identity politics the MQM was not only breaking with the earlier muhajir ideology of religious solidarity, rendering it superfluous, it also was confronting the Islamization policy of Zia ul-Haq head on.
In return for the state support the first generation of muhajirs had largely identified themselves with the Pakistani state, but the younger generation presented the MQM as an anti-establishment movement. At the same time, the MQM portrayed itself as the party of the true Pakistanis who had made the supreme sacrifice of migration to live in Pakistan.
In order to understand this paradox of ethnic identity and religious nationalism, it is necessary to take a closer look at how ethnicity and Islam are intertwined in the Pakistani national discourse. The Ethnicization of Islam Many studies on Pakistani nation-building argue that Pakistani religious nationalism has failed because the various ethnic groups which form the Pakistani nation have not been able to put aside the primordial ethnic loyalty in favor of an overarching national identity Muhajir Politics 53 as fellow Muslims.
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Whereas Islam was supposed to bring all South Asian Muslims together, the nation has in fact been fragmented along ethnic and linguistic lines. Leaders of ethnic organizations have likewise argued that Pakistan is an artificial construct. I do not agree with this argument that Islam and ethnicity are opposite forms of political identification. Of course, Pakistani nationalism is an incomplete, never-ending project, as there will always be groups who challenge the unity of the nation, but that is true for virtually all nations with a heterogeneous population.
It is also true that within Pakistan there are many different opinions on what exactly constitutes a proper Islamic lifestyle: But to argue that Islam has therefore failed to bring all Pakistanis together is to deny the extent to which Islam informs the public discourse within Pakistan. Even separatist rebellions, such as those of Bengali and Sindi nationalists, have legitimized themselves by arguing that Bengal and Sind have historically shaped their own particular brand of Islam that differs from the Islam of other ethnic groups.
Sindi nationalists like G. Ethnicity in Pakistan, therefore, is not opposed to Islam, as is often argued by Pakistani and foreign scholars alike. I have called this process the ethnicization of Islam. In Sind and elsewhere, the ethnicization of Islam was initially directed against the authoritarian Islamic modernism of the s and s. Paradoxically, the s and s were both the high tide of reformist modernism as promoted by the Ayub Khan administration and the boom of shrine pilgrimage by young, urban students and intellectuals in search of their ethnic roots.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected prime minister of Pakistan, made use of this ethnicized mysticism during his political campaigns. His visits to the famous shrines of Sehwan Sharif and Bhitshah in the Sindi countryside added significantly to his charisma. It spoke of the spirit of self-sacrifice, hot passion, and unconditional commitment, as well as demonstrated their importance in terms of political mobilization as they gave political activities an adventurous and, at times, even an existential dimension.
In its early years, the MQM did not only turn to ethnicity by proclaiming that muhajirs constituted a qaum or ethnic group, it also adopted various practices associated with ethnicized Islamic rebellion.
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It did so even more skillfully, spectacularly, and successfully than other ethnic organizations had done before. During the early years between and , but also later on, the MQM was considered a major tamasha spectacle by its followers. Public appearances were colorful diversions from daily routine; speeches and songs depicted their migration to Pakistan as a heroic act of sacrifice and will power; the young charismatic leader Altaf Hussain proved to be an entertaining orator, funny and uncompromising at the same time.
The image of the urban muhajir as a modernist Muslim was shed by the party. Rather, MQM leaders also evoked Sufi traditions, like Sindi parties had done before, for instance, in the practice of nicknaming Altaf Hussain Pir Sahib — a reverential title usually reserved for Sufi leaders.
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In speeches, the MQM also referred to Shia religious practices, such as the commemoration of martyrdom during the month of Muharram — a somewhat provocative practice in predominantly Sunni Pakistan. But this element of provocation was precisely what made the MQM so attractive to young muhajirs in Karachi and Hyderabad. In these times firearms also became easily available as a result of the war in Afghanistan, supplies for which arrived at the port of Karachi.
Criminal and political violence often merged with each other in the second half of the s, resulting in large-scale ethnic violence throughout the country. It is against this background of rapidly increasing violence that the tremendous success of the MQM also needs to be explained. Most of them were students in the pharmacy department of Karachi University. Student politics had rapidly increased in the s and student organizations emerged as important instruments of power in student life. Conflicts between various student organizations were often fought out violently in the s, and the way the new APMSO was treated by the powerful IJT was no different.
That proved to be a deciding move for the APMSO members who now began to mobilize the muhajir youth outside the educational institutions, gradually turning the initiative into a popular movement with a strong base in muhajir neighborhoods. When the MQM was founded in March , its support already exceeded the student population of Karachi. The MQM began to make its name, however, with the largescale ethnic violence that broke out in the mids.
The first in a series of ethnic riots occurred in when a Pakhtun bus driver 56 Oskar Verkaaik killed a muhajir student named Bushra Zaidi in a traffic accident. The Pakhtuns retaliated swiftly by killing Bihari muhajirs in the Orangi Township slum the next day.
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The violence escalated when competing Pakhtun and muhajir criminal gangs, both involved in drug trafficking, also got involved. The mayhem lasted for several days, but ethnic violence repeated itself in the fall of , in September , and — most brutally — in May In all cases, the muhajir youth was involved, fighting recent Pakhtun settlers in and , and confronting Sindis in and The MQM youth skillfully made use of the violence by presenting itself as the only party that was capable of offering muhajir victims protection, rehabilitation, and revenge. The military government did very little in terms of protection or aid, leaving it to non-governmental organizations to run refugee camps and provide shelter and medical care.
More importantly, the Jamiat-i-Islami and its student organization IJT faced a dilemma when muhajirs and Pakhtun were fighting each other in the streets. Although traditionally a muhajirdominated party, the Jamiat-i-Islami had played a crucial role in mobilizing support for the Afghan mujahideen since It had an increasing number of supporters in the North-West Frontier as well as among Pakhtun migrants in Karachi. At the same time, the party did not want to lose its muhajir voters. Reluctant to take sides, the Jamiat-i-Islami was ferociously attacked by the MQM for betraying its muhajir supporters.
We left our homes and hearths for Pakistan, our entire cities were destroyed, but we are being killed for it. Muhajir Politics 57 The campaign proved extremely powerful. The MQM defeated the established parties during the municipal elections of In the campaign leading up to the national elections in , the MQM continued to attack the alliance of parties that had supported the Zia ul-Haq government, including the Jamiat-i-Islami, arguing instead for an agreement with the Sindi parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party.
This coalition, however, did not last long. The old muhajir—Sindi animosity was soon revived, not so much in Karachi itself where Sindis form a tiny minority as in other cities in Sind, notably Hyderabad, the center of Sindi nationalism. Martyrdom and Terrorism The distrust between muhajirs and Sindis dates back to the language crisis of the early s when it was made compulsory for all students in Sind, including muhajirs, to learn the Sindi language.
Muhajirs and Sindi students of Sind University in Hyderabad clashed violently over the issue. The Muhajir Ittehad Tehreek MIT , for instance, argued for the partition of Sind, dividing the province into Sindi and muhajir parts, the latter consisting of both Karachi and Hyderabad, an urban muhajir enclave for which the name Jinnahpur was invented. For Sindi nationalists, this was of course an outrageous affront. Hyderabad was also the base of some militant Sindi nationalist organizations, including the Sindi Taraqqi Pasand Party Sindi Progressive Party , which was willing to fight the threat of a divided Sind with all means.
In a show of strength, Sindi militants attacked muhajir neighborhoods in September , killing dozens of muhajir inhabitants of Hyderabad. In MQM-dominated neighborhoods, the MQM local leadership attempted to win support by charity, such as free education or medical care for the poor or employment projects for the jobless youth, simultaneously exercising tight social control by armed bands of young party members, trained in martial arts and weapons in many new gyms.
When the party broke with the PPP, its activists were soon persecuted and put on trial for various criminal and political offenses. In response, the party took to various traditional practices of Islamic martyrdom and appeals to ethical politics to protest state persecution. Whereas women read the Quran in front of his house, others beat their chest as a sign of penance and protest, like it is done during the Ashura festival commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussain near Karbala.
Evoking a language of oppression zulm and Islamic righteousness, he asked his followers to be ready to sacrifice their personal interest for the cause of the muhajirs. Meanwhile, the party split into two fractions: As a result of this split and the continuing presence of the military in Karachi, violence and intimidation became a daily routine in muhajirdominated neighborhoods. Between and , hundreds of MQM members were killed annually in armed conflicts by both the military forces and the MQM-Haqiqi fraction.
These years of violence and persecution seriously weakened the MQM. The MQM has nevertheless managed to continue winning elections in muhajir-dominated districts in various elections. The party, however, has lost its revolutionary appeal and is no longer capable of bringing large crowds out into the streets, as it had done in the s and early s. By renaming itself from Muhajir Qaumi Movement into Muttehida Qaumi Movement United Qaumi Movement , it has tried to transform itself from a muhajir organization to a party representing the urban lower-middle class.
There is no doubt that other aspects of the MQM career — the turn to ethnic politics, its evocations of Islamic martyrdom and sacrifice, its contributions to ever-increasing political violence in Pakistani politics — have been most remarkable. At the same time, however, the MQM has also been an early expression of a changing political culture that is less elitist and increasingly populist.
For it may easily be forgotten that the MQM was the first major political party in Pakistan with a non-elitist leadership and a nonelitist following. Populism and Democratization Apart from the language of ethnicity and religious sacrifice, the MQM has consistently portrayed itself as a revolutionary party 60 Oskar Verkaaik fighting for the underprivileged segments of the urban population. Moreover, the party portrayed itself as a party of the humble lower-middle class. Ironically, this rhetoric was primarily meant to discredit the Pakistan Peoples Party, which, despite its once revolutionary language, was seen by muhajirs as primarily a party dominated by Sindi rural landlords.
Party leaders encouraged their young muhajir followers to create their own employment instead of trying to get a job in the civil service. Such jobs are in high demand, but because of nepotism and bribe, difficult to access. Party leaders, including Altaf Hussain himself, also regularly criticized the old muhajir elite, living in well-appointed homes in upscale areas of Clifton and Defense Colony, for their lack of solidarity with the poorer muhajirs living elsewhere in the city.
In return, the muhajir elite generally was suspicious of the MQM, and remains suspicious today. She complained, however, that her neighbors and the elite muhajir friends who no longer accepted her as one of them did not appreciate her political career at all. Because of its broad popular support as well as the populist language of its leadership, the MQM significantly transformed the Muhajir Politics 61 reputation of muhajirs within the larger context of the Pakistani ethnoscape.
Lacking a popular movement of its own, the underprivileged muhajir population had supported various parties, including the Jamiat-i-Islami, the Jamiat-i-Ulama-i-Pakistan, and the Pakistan Peoples Party. The muhajir elite tended to identify strongly with a state-supported discourse of the nation, Islamic reform, and modernization.
Although the MQM never distanced itself from the muhajir elite values, the party significantly modified and popularized the notion of an urban muhajir culture. Whereas the muhajir elite had always stressed the importance of education, the eloquence of speech — in particular the Urdu language — and the Iqbalian notion of ijtehad the rational interpretation of the Islamic texts , the lowermiddle-class culture fostered by the MQM became associated with key values like masculinity, physicality, and religious passion. Part of the attraction of the MQM lay precisely in its irreverence for the ashraf noble lifestyle held in such high esteem by the old muhajir elite.
There is, therefore, some truth in the MQM claim that the party stood for a political transformation that went beyond the interests of the urban muhajir population alone. The MQM also represented an effort to more fundamentally transform and, indeed, democratize Pakistani politics. However, when democratization is defined as a transformation of politics in which political elite is gradually losing its paramount position in favor of a more popular discourse to which larger segments of the underprivileged population can relate, then the MQM can indeed be seen as an expression of this trend.
Defined as such, democratization is not opposed to political violence. It is rather a heightened state of conflict between old postcolonial elites organized in established political parties on the one hand, and an increasingly impoverished urban population rallying around charismatic leaders of new parties promising to put an end to the corruption and insincerity of the old political elite on the other. A brief comparison with neighboring India would be in place here. But whereas the rise of the BJP and other Hindu nationalist parties has significantly altered the political spectrum in India, such major transformation has not occurred in Pakistan.
With the help of the military, established political parties in Pakistan have managed to prevent the MQM from becoming even more powerful. This has not, however, put an end to the widespread social dissatisfaction and disillusion with the main political parties. On the contrary, the faith in politics as such has seriously eroded because of continuing accusations of corruption, inefficiency, and popular betrayal by established political parties. It led to yet another period of military rule under General Parvez Musharraf, lasting almost ten years, disrupting the conflictual process of democratization once again.
Fundamental critique of the Pakistani political culture now no longer comes from ethnic parties like the Muhajir Qaumi Movement, but from so-called Islamist parties and their militant organizations. Like ethnically organized parties, these Islamist parties are partly the products of Pakistani political discourse, which has always revolved around the dynamics of ethnicity, Islam, and nationalism. They also, however, claim to be popular movements, channeling popular complaints and displaying basic lack of trust in Pakistani politics. The root of the conflict continues to be the staggering inequality in political representation and power between political elites and the larger population, both urban and rural.
As the gap between the political elite and the common people becomes wider, the call for social justice will assume a more radical, violent, and intolerant character. In that sense, the violence with which the MQM has been associated since its earliest days reflects the political inequality of its times. By the s Indo-Pak border crossing had hardened as both countries introduced passports. University of Columbia Press, Muhajir Politics 63 2.
Syed, Religion and Reality Karachi: See, for instance, Christophe Jaffrelot, Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation? See Oskar Verkaaik, Migrants and Militants: Visions for the Future Karachi: The Jamiat-i Islami of Pakistan London: Dawn, Karachi, June 11, Frontier Post, Peshawar, April 27, This is a widespread trope in Pakistani political discourse, the origin of which is not known to me. Its gridiron layout, its smooth, wide streets and their green, well tended verges, and its ordered traffic and tidy markets all set the city apart from the rest of the nation.
I argue in this essay that a double narrative runs through the conception, design, and materialization of Islamabad over time. The first narrative is of an authoritarian, exclusive city, conceived, designed, and built as a space separate from and above the rest of the nation, a space for the privileged and the powerful.
The second narrative is of an ideal Pakistani city, a city representing all Pakistanis, a space both to lead and unite the nation. Most Pakistanis deeply desire a strong, unified nation of which they can be proud, and indeed public discourse often presents the nation as such.
At the same time, they are keenly aware, and anxious about the fact, that theirs is a fragmented nation lacking an effective or coherent national identity. Islamabad and the Promise of Pakistan 65 Conception and Location The decision to build Islamabad was made early in by the military ruler, Field Marshall Ayub Khan, who had taken over the government in a coup the previous year. He was also keen to emulate the building of Chandigarh, the capital of Indian Punjab over the border, to prove that Pakistanis too were capable of such a feat. Ayub Khan had other ideas. His taking over the government marked a shift in power from politicians and business people, mainly muhajirs refugees from India who considered Karachi their base, to the Punjabi-dominated army and bureaucracy.
Ayub Khan himself was a Hindko speaker, a dialect of Punjabi, from the town of Haripur, close to the city of Rawalpindi, headquarters of the military. The committees produced detailed reports comparing two possibilities, the first just outside Karachi, as had been discussed before, and the second on the Potohar plateau, more than 1, km north of Karachi, close to Rawalpindi.
In June he publicly announced that the new city would be built at the second location, likely making the public announcement in order to preempt any discussion on the matter. He wanted to run his government as far as possible from the influence of the politically powerful muhajirs, many of whom were also powerful businessmen, who considered Karachi their base, and a location close to the existing military headquarters was an obvious choice for a military leader.
He was also concerned to limit the influence of the East Pakistanis. From the East Pakistani perspective, if Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, was not to be made the federal capital, then Karachi was the only acceptable alternative, dominated as it was by migrants, geographically peripheral to West Pakistan, and easily accessible by sea.
Ayub Khan chose a Greek architect-urban planner, Constantine Doxiadis, to prepare the masterplan for Islamabad. Doxiadis had in fact been involved in the emerging capital city project for some time, pushing both the Pakistani government and possible donors to go ahead with the plan. Over time Doxiadis had realized that such a project was unlikely to materialize, given the resistance of his Harvard colleagues, the Pakistani government, and potential donors to such an ambitious and expensive endeavor, in addition to the lack of coordination between various government departments that would have to cooperate on Islamabad and the Promise of Pakistan 67 such a plan.
Up until Ayub Khan took over the government, Doxiadis had had little more success with his efforts to make this project happen, but things changed after the military coup. The project was completed by August , in record time, a success that Ayub made much of even though the settlement was, within only a few years, seen as a failure , and Doxiadis was then offered the new capital city project.
Building a capital city was modest by the standards of his larger vision, which entailed working at a national even a global scale, but it was a start. As things turned out, within just a couple of years, the Americans had embraced Ayub Khan as a key ally, despite his lack of democratic credentials, given their need for a solid ally in the region against the communist Soviet Union and China, and increasingly socialist India.
Although the new capital project continued after this time, Doxiadis himself became less relevant to Ayub Khan, and his hopes to build on his success with Islamabad in the form of a national-level plan were not supported by the leadership, and never came to fruition. At the same time, it reflected the chaotic political situation of the new nation during the s; the frequent changes of government, the failure of different political factions to cooperate on national strategy, the dependence on foreign aid, the strategic interests of those foreign donors, and the resulting ability of an individual like Doxiadis to play the situation as 68 Annie Harper part of his effort to achieve his personal professional dreams.
This alternative narrative marks Islamabad as an ideal Pakistani space, one that can overcome the inherent contradictions of the new nation, and that can be a space of national unity. Pakistan has, since its inception, struggled to define an effective national identity. The idea of Pakistan as a proud, unified, Muslim nation, distinct from India, has been unable to contain the reality of the enormously diverse nation, still entangled in so many ways with the India left behind. While the vast majority of Pakistanis are indeed Muslim, their regional, ethnic, and linguistic differences, and indeed the variations in religious belief as it is practiced, make it a rather unwieldy national whole.
This is complicated by the fact that Islam as it is practiced in Pakistan, the general cultural practices of its people, and their historical connections and memories are difficult to distinguish from the same in India. The existence of the large and politically and culturally significant population of muhajirs who came from India adds to those complex and continued interconnections.
While Ayub Khan was certainly concerned about legitimizing and consolidating his own power, he was also an idealist, and a nationalist, deeply concerned to unite Pakistan, and to shape the nation, and its people, according to his ideal vision of the future one in which East Pakistan clearly did not play a central role. Building a new capital city fit with this wider professed aim of building a stronger and more unified nation.
Why were people not attending to their work with some honesty of purpose and why could they not evolve some team spirit? Why all these factions, dissensions and disputes? And why all this malice and distrust? They were all busy destroying each other. It used to take me three or four days to recover from a Karachi visit. He could not in practice look beyond bureaucrats and the military as the personification of that ideal, and his imagined ideal city paralleled in numerous ways the colonial cantonments of the British Raj. Although it took many years for Islamabad to establish itself in the national imagination, today many Pakistanis, and certainly most residents of Islamabad, imagine their city as an ideal Pakistani space, not simply as a product of political machinations and struggles for power.
The low buildings, open spaces, broad streets, and segregation of different aspects of everyday life, both limit the potential for organization at the level of ordinary people, and enable rapid and effective clamp-downs on any rebellious activity should it take place.
Map of Islamabad reproduced in the city park showing the gridiron layout of the city Source: This was nowhere clearer than in the contrast and separation between Islamabad and the existing city of Rawalpindi, a separation echoing that in colonial urban settlements. Their symbolic roles remained distinct, with Islamabad maintaining exclusive status as the capital of the nation. The Original Masterplan Source: Doxiadis had been obliged over the years, while struggling to find himself the type of large-scale project in Pakistan that would establish his career, to compromise with the various other players involved.
These included not only Ayub Khan and the Pakistani governing body more generally, but also the Ford Foundation, with their particular agenda of promoting a Western industrialized paradigm of development set squarely against a communist alternative. He imagined a future in which cities would grow until they eventually fused together in a sort of global, never ending city, an ecumenopolis. Given the inevitability of such growth, he argued that architects and urban planners should not try to resist the process, but should rather put frameworks in place that would shape future growth, providing space for community and nature alongside the inevitable high speed transport networks that would be required.
On the one hand, Doxiadis clearly imagined that Islamabad would impress the authority of the state on residents and visitors. After a sociological study, the principle adopted was that gradual integration should be sought, both to help the lower income people to mature, and to assure the comfort of the higher income classes. They imagined a socially just space free of traditional hierarchies and injustices, which the Pakistanis associated disparagingly with the Hindu caste system.
While the original plan for allocating house plot sizes had been based in part on bureaucratic salary scales, Doxiadis had intended that the difference between plot sizes should not be too extreme, with the largest plot approximately thirteen times the size of the smallest one.
Ultimately the new city administration, the Capital Development Authority CDA , decided that the largest plot should be approximately twenty-two times that of the smallest. Islamabad and the Promise of Pakistan 75 Islamabad Today As Islamabad has grown, it has in many ways grown further away from the ideals that Doxiadis intended it embody, in part because of the relative flexibility of his plan, and also because of his limited involvement in the project. He and his team did not have a smooth relationship with their Pakistani patrons. By this I do not mean that Islamabad has become more like the rest of the nation.
To the contrary, it has become increasingly separated from the rest of the nation, that separation reflecting the elusiveness of an effective Pakistani national identity, the persistent gap between the idea of Pakistan as a proud, unified nation, and the reality of its diversity and its history.
While the capital city is imagined as an ideal national space, in practice it persistently excludes most things associated with the wider nation. I do not mean that in so doing it is has become an enclave emulating the West. There are elements of Western, Middle Eastern and Mughal influences in its architecture, but the overall impression is not even of bricolage, but rather of an emptied out space. For the first two decades after building started, Islamabad grew more slowly than planned, with many Pakistanis unconvinced of its necessity.
In the population was only 75,, compared to the , that had been estimated for that date. During the s, there was increasing private sector investment in the city, but it was only in the s that it finally began to grow more quickly, largely in response to external forces. Many moved to Islamabad from the increasing violence in Karachi and there was also a surge of wealth from the oil boom in the Arabian Gulf, the burgeoning arms and drugs trade fuelled by the war in 76 Annie Harper Afghanistan, and in the related, and also increasingly lucrative aid business, dominated by USAID but also including a range of other donors.
The influence from the Gulf was compounded by the increasing involvement of the Saudi government in the region, which, along with the U. Islamabad and the Promise of Pakistan 77 Low-income housing was built in the first sectors that were developed, but sectors built more recently have less or no low-income housing, and that which exists does not cater to the poorest groups, who provide some of the most essential services.
Doxiadis had intended that these nullahs should be left as spaces of nature, a natural grid softening the formal grid of 2 km by 2 km sectors. Although the existence of the katchiabadis offends the sensibilities of many wealthier residents of Islamabad, the services their inhabitants provide mean that they are tolerated, as long as they remain contained and relatively invisible, hidden in the nullah areas or behind high walls built for the purpose.
Pakistan: from the rhetoric of democracy to the rise of : militancy
The dominance of the military and the bureaucracy in the wider political set-up has also further manifested itself in the city over time, beginning with the revision which allocated four key sectors to the military as a restricted area cantonment. Residents of Islamabad have no local political representation: The most powerful institution other than the army, the bureaucracy, is enormously corrupt, and the original design for the city has been undermined, as different groups have exercised their political power to their own ends.
Islamabad today is in many ways similar to gated communities that have proliferated worldwide, and is also strongly reminiscent of colonial urban spaces from days past. There is, however, an important difference between Islamabad and these other two forms of exclusive urban space.
While the privileged residents of Islamabad enjoy the orderliness and exclusivity of their city, they imagine it, ideally, as an inclusive city, one for all Pakistanis. They thank God that they live in Islamabad, far from the chaos of the wider nation, but at the same time they want their city to represent that wider nation, to be a truly Pakistani city. They want to be proud to be Pakistani. Residents of Islamabad often told me that theirs is the only city in Pakistan where ethnicity does not matter.
While this is not entirely true, ethnicity is certainly less relevant than in other cities. The ethnic diversity of the city, however, does not detract from its lack of economic diversity, from its lack indeed of much that looks like Pakistan at all. The separation from the nation, the reality of the exclusive urban space belies their desired narrative of Islamabad as an ideal, unifying Pakistani space. The exclusivity and elitism of the city, the deep social hierarchies upon which the lives of the privileged depend, contradict the democratic ideals that many of them hold dear, in theory at least.
While the narrative of the city as a unifying Pakistani space did not, under Ayub Khan, contradict his authoritarian style — in fact he believed that such unity could only come about through authoritarian rule — many residents of the city today are, by and large, firmly Islamabad and the Promise of Pakistan 79 on the side of democracy, even in many cases those who hold fairly senior positions in the bureaucracy and the military.
They argue that in taking over public spaces, particularly with the compliance of the state, commercial developers are not only trampling the ideals of democracy, but also rejecting authentic Pakistani-ness. In one case, in an attempt by an entertainment mogul to set up a mini golf course in a public park, the public space being taken over was a playground for the residents of a nearby katchiabadi, people who, for some wealthy residents of Islamabad, represent an authenticity and connection with the wider nation that the city otherwise lacks.
In another case, the building of a seven-star hotel, restaurant, shopping mall, and residential complex; the commercial development is criticized not only for being blatantly out of reach of the vast majority of Pakistanis, but also for emulating a global style rather than anything identifiably Pakistani. As such it is seen as abandoning authentic Pakistaniness for crass and tasteless imitations of the West and of the Arabian Gulf. The failure of Pakistan to achieve a lasting democracy, as well as the continued fragility of its unity as a nation, makes the desire for inclusivity and unity particularly intense.
While the protestors that I write of are playing an important role in moving not only the city of Islamabad, but also the discourse of the nation, towards a more democratic norm, their idealized vision of democracy tends to be based on a particular romanticized view of 80 Annie Harper authenticity.
While they welcome poor people who behave in particular ways and also, crucially, whose presence is limited to particular spaces, they do not want Islamabad to become like other Pakistani cities. As much as these middle and upper middle class residents of Islamabad desire democracy as an ideal, they fear its actual materialization. As an expression of the will of the masses, real democracy would threaten the orderly spaces of Islamabad that the residents appreciate so much. Conclusion I have argued that while on the one hand Islamabad was brought into being through the whims of a military dictator, in collaboration with an authoritarian urban planner, on the other hand it can be understood as an effort to renew the promise of Pakistan.
It was to be a space that was truly Pakistani, that could embrace and represent all Pakistanis. In practice, the urban space that has emerged sits uncomfortably in Pakistan, its orderly framework contrasting sharply with the more chaotic Pakistani spaces around it, or, in the case of the katchiabadis, inside it. Ultimately Islamabad does reflect and represent the Pakistani nation, but just as the nation still struggles with disunity, enormous wealth inequalities, an over-powerful military, a corrupt and ineffective administrative system, and persistent anxieties about national identity, so too Islamabad and the Promise of Pakistan 81 does Islamabad.
No equivalent strategy existed in Pakistan. CDA library, , p. Ernst, eds, Pakistan at the Millennium Karachi: Ayub Khan, Friends Not Masters: Ultimately Doxiadis left the Islamabad project, and Pakistan, in , two years earlier than planned. The Spirit of Islamabad Islamabad, Pakistan: CDA Library, , p. Like many of his contemporaries in the Pakistani army and political establishment of the time, Ayub Khan was not an overtly religious man, but his modernist ideals encompassed a rational and scientific interpretation of Islam.
It is also true, however, that as Islam remained one of the only unifying categories in the new nation, its use as such can be seen as political strategy rather than religious commitment. Rawalpindi, as a British military town, had a cantonment area that was originally laid out in a gridiron pattern, similar to that of Islamabad. Over the years, however, the cantonment had taken on more and more characteristics of a more typically Pakistani urban space, such that it had merged in many ways with the older, more organic part of the city.
Yale University Press, , p. Islamabad and the Promise of Pakistan 83 James Holston, The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, , p. Planning Directorate Capital Development Authority, , p. Oskar Verkaaik, Migrants and Militants: Fun and Urban Violence in Pakistan Princeton: Princeton University Press, ; L. A revitalized Kashmir insurgency intensifies India-Pakistan tensions. India still lacks sufficient deterrence or defense options, and third parties are less able or inclined to mediate a crisis. Despite international condemnation and pressure , Pakistan continues to at least tolerate and harbor internationally recognized terrorist organizations like LeT.
These groups periodically perpetrate attacks on Indian targets, some of which have triggered major crises between India and Pakistan. Part of the logic, however, is undoubtedly strategic. State sponsorship of proxy groups is a common phenomenon, because it confers cost savings, military advantages, and bargaining leverage.
At the same time, the intensification of insurgency within the Kashmir Valley fuels instability between India and Pakistan, creating the conditions for another crisis and a flashpoint for conflict. The Indian and Pakistani militaries have fought four wars over the disputed Kashmir region, and they routinely exchange fire across the border. The re-escalation of the Kashmir insurgency fuels India-Pakistan tensions for several reasons. So long as India fails to consolidate control over the region, Pakistan feels compelled to offer rhetorical, and some material support for the insurgency, even if it is no longer the primary driver, after overselling the Kashmiri separatist cause to its public for decades.
The restive environment both motivates Pakistani meddling and provides a genuine indigenous separatist movement that acts as cover. Organization competition also motivates Pakistan-based militant groups such as LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed to outbid each other with attacks on Indian targets in the Kashmir Valley and elsewhere to vie for legitimacy and dominance over the anti-India movement. India also finds it convenient to blame Pakistan for the failings of a repressive approach that generates widespread resentment. Rising Hindu nationalism throughout India also channels the mounting frustrations over the Kashmir Valley into added animus toward Pakistan, inhibiting diplomatic efforts at conflict resolution.
India has also failed to build a credible deterrent against Pakistan-backed attacks. India lacks effective kinetic options to deter terrorist attacks by Pakistani militants or to punish Pakistan after a cross-border attack. Some reports suggest that the surgical strikes had a limited or even negative effect on terrorist activity in the region, but they might increase the risk of intentional or inadvertent escalation in the future.