Keywords: Pakistan; ethnic and religious radicalism; ‘state failure’; power constructs; systemic exclusions.

Introduction

Especially since late 1980s, Pakistan has been experiencing cyclical periods of violent expressions of ethnic and religious radicalism. This particular issue has long been discussed with reference to the erosion of the authority and power of the Pakistani state over different sections of the society. That is, the arguments have mostly centered on the point that the Pakistani state has become too weak to cope with the radical violence caused mainly by the extremist sectarian and ethnic groups. Then, such approaches have declared the Pakistani state as a ‘failed state’ being unable to maintain the order and security of its own society.

However, such approaches have two fundamental fallacies in explaining the structural problems in the contemporary Pakistani society.  The first one is that they regard the state and society as two autonomous entities located as opposed to one another. This point is flawed especially in the case of Pakistan because rather than being an autonomous entity representing impartiality; the Pakistani state has always been a site for wider power struggles among the different sections or groups of the society.  The second problematic point in the aforementioned arguments is that they reduce the historically constituted structural problems of Pakistan to just a problem of erosion of state authority.

Within this general critique, the present study examines the structural problems of exclusion or alienation of different groups of Pakistan on socio-economic, sectarian, ethnic, regional and political grounds.  Perceiving such problems as the reflections of an historical tradition of exclusion, the paper makes a critical analysis of firstly the foundational discourses of the Pakistani nation-state. Secondly, the institutionalization of the exclusion(s) is subjected to a critique from a sociological perspective. Thirdly, the paper examines the rhetoric of Islamization initiated by the state as an ideology to bond the society together within a critique that far from achieving such a goal, the ideologization of Islam gradually institutionalized the existing unequal power constructs especially on sectarian basis. In the final part, the paper deals with the particular cases of ethnic violence in 1990s and sectarian radicalism in 2000s as the symptoms of a more challenging question of systemic exclusion and depoliticization in Pakistani society while not forgetting the external factors such as the USA.

The Idea of Pakistani Nation State: Roots, Development and Realization

In his article entitled ‘State Building and Nation Building’, Linz discusses the notions of state building and nation building as two overlapping but conceptually different processes. Arguing that these two are historical processes, initially emerged in the Western Europe and then spread to the entire world, Linz makes it clear that the full overlap of these two have been largely exception. That is, the true nation states, i.e. those emerged out of the full success of the dual process of the state building and nation building, can be counted just on the fingers of the two hands. Then, Linz, contrary to what the nationalist thinkers believe in, underlines the ‘artificial character’ of not only the state building but also the nation building by arguing “State building and nation building … are both works of art, results of conscious efforts by leaders”.(emphasis added)[1] Considering the discussion of Linz, the Pakistani state and nation building processes provide an interesting example revealing how difficult it is to integrate various ethnic groups into a national community, which was substantially an elite-led project aiming to create a Pakistani nation-state. In this part, the historical roots of the Pakistani nation state will be analyzed to show the point that the nation emerged mainly as a result of the conscious efforts by the leaders.

In 1947, Pakistan was created as a separate state for Muslims of India. Historically speaking, the notion of a separate state for Muslims of India emerged not earlier than the late 19^th century mainly due to the gradual development of a feeling among the Muslim population of having a separate Muslim identity as opposed to Hindu identity because of the secondary position of the former in British India. In fact, such a binary construction of identity on religious grounds has been the basis of the establishment of Pakistani state on the famous motto of ‘Two-Nation Theory’.[2] The ‘Two-Nation Theory’, meaning that India’s Muslims and Hindus constituted two ‘nations’ each deserving their own state, was first formulated in late 19^th century by a Muslim modernist and reformer, Syed Ahmad Khan. Coming to early 20^th century, the idea behind the ‘Two-Nation Theory’ began to be politically advocated especially with the establishment of the All-India Muslim League in 1906. However, it was not until the 1930s with the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah did the Muslim nationalism emerge and turn into Pakistani movement demanding for the establishment of a separate state.[3]

Within this general historical framework, regarding the very foundation of the Pakistani nation-state, there are two main points to be strongly underlined as they have been considerably influential on the post-independence Pakistani social and political life. First of all, Pakistani nationalism did not emerge as a ‘from below’ political movement struggling for the right to have a separate state. Regarding the issue, Imran Ali makes an analytical comparison between the major nationalist organizations of India and Pakistan; namely Indian National Congress and All-India Muslim League respectively.[4] She argues that, unlike the Congress which developed itself in a large and well-knit political organization, the Muslim League “…remained largely a coalition of individuals, factions and segmented political interests belonging mostly to the landlord stratum.”[5] Therefore, the Pakistani nationalism initiated by the Muslim League was mainly based on the ideas of a small number of Western-educated and secular elites. These elites were mostly from administrative, trading and intellectual professions living in the central provinces of India like Uttar Pradesh and Bombay whereas the majority of the Muslim population lived in such areas as Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and Bengal. That is why the majority of Muslim population, Hippler discusses, was less enthusiastic and “… joined the cause of the ‘Pakistani Movement’ only during the last one or two years before the foundation of Pakistan.”[6]

Secondly, and directly as a result of the above mentioned factor, the elite-led project of nationalism in 1930s and 1940s faced the challenge of creating Pakistani national identity which would function as a unifying force as opposed to the existence of various ethnic, sectarian, socio-economic and regional diversities – Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis, Pathans, Bengalis, each of which had a variety of subgroups based on ethno-linguistic, occupational and caste divisions. The unifying force in the minds of the Western-educated elites was the common Muslim identity that could be the basis of a supra-provincial and supra-sectarian Pakistani nationalism. Therefore, relying on the ‘Two-Nation Theory’, which had already been formulated, the notion of the separate nationhood for Pakistan was designed to be based on a common religious identity. Especially at this point, it is crucial to strongly underline the point that the Western-educated elites of the time did not think of the creation of a theocratic state. In other words, the notion of common Muslim identity in the minds of the elites would be the basis of a modern Pakistani nation state, not that of a theocratic one.

In his speech on August 11, 1947, Jinnah, in a way, was identifying the main characteristic of the Pakistani nation-state by stating:

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State . . . you will find that in course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.”[7]

Regarding the issue, Adnan rightly observes that Jinnah with his speech was mentioning about the principle of ‘equal treatment of all citizens of the state’ as the basis of the Pakistani nation state by declaring the religion as basically an individual affair.[8] In other words, as Verkaaik points out, Pakistani state was made in the name of Islam and belonged to the whole of the Pakistani nation.[9] All in all, the elite-led project of Pakistani nation building was to create a modern nation-state which would be based on a combination of modern civilization and Islamic values.

Returning the initial discussion of Linz, one can state that after the establishment of Pakistani state, the nation building process was not finalized; but instead entered into a new period to generate the national identity and nation-state in a country like Pakistan which was quite diverse in ethnic, religious, socio-economic and regional terms. In fact, as many scholars argue, the post-1947 history of Pakistan has been the history of the struggle for making Pakistan into a nation-state without over-using the only bond they had in common: religion.[10] Especially in this period, structural problems came out as the fundamental obstacles before both the consolidation of the political system and empowerment of the national identity. As discussed below, the gradual institutionalization of exclusion on political, socio-economic, ethnic and later religious terms caused a crisis period in Pakistan especially in 1990s and 2000s opening the way for radical violence as the means to solve the structural problems.

Institutionalization of Exclusion(s) in the Quests for Political Consolidation and Economic Modernization

Immediately after the independence, there emerged a very fragile period for Pakistan regarding the consolidation of political system and realization of economic modernization through the continuing process of nation-state building. In that process, the state elites repeatedly referred to two discourses to strengthen the unity of the Pakistani nation. The first one was the existence of an external threat, i.e. India, against which the nation had to stand united. The other discourse utilized by the state elites was the religion as the common identity functioning as a unifying force for the national integrity.

However, arguably discursive constitution of these two references for national unity seemed insufficient especially with regard to the consolidation of political system and realization of a balanced economic modernization. This is because of the very fact that the new nation-state was built without any social, political and economic elements necessary for the functioning of a state in its modern sense of the word. That is to say, with the establishment of the new nation state, the tasks of creating modern institutions such as centralized and efficient bureaucracy and achieving balanced socio-economic development were awaiting as the crucial problems to tackle with. Within this general picture, a closer examination of the structural problems of Pakistan in 1950s and 1960s would reveal how the institutionalization of those problems led to the disastrous disintegration of Pakistan in 1971, constituting the roots of the future problems for the country.

Generally speaking, the first years of the newly emerged nation-state passed with the continuous struggles for the consolidation of the political system. Such struggles centered on the most important question of the post-independence period: “Was Pakistan to be a state for Muslims, or an Islamic state?”[11] The struggles turning around this question were mainly between the Western-educated state elites on the one hand and influential religious leaders on the other. The former aimed to establish a Western style liberal democracy based on representative institutions by referring to the founder of Pakistan who had earlier stated that the religion, cast or creed would have ‘nothing to do with the business of the state’. Such a view was reinforced with the 1949 Objectives Resolution which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly to define the nature of the future constitution. According to that document, the authority and power in the state of Pakistan would be exercised through the chosen representatives of the people. On the other hand, the religious leaders, or the ulama, fought against such ideas and insisted on the establishment of an Islamic state in which the sovereignty rested with the God and which was governed through the Shariat. Therefore, in the initial years of Pakistan, the politics was dominated by the ideological polarization between secular and orthodox factions, which resulted in 9-year period of constitution-making.

As a result of this period, in 1956, the first constitution of Pakistan was approved with almost a consensus among those elites. Under the constitution, Pakistan became an ‘Islamic Republic’ with a federal and parliamentary form of government. Furthermore, Pakistan was expected to be a welfare state following a middle path between socialism and capitalism in the Cold War years.[12] However, utilizing the chaotic situation in the central government after the period of constitution-making, the British-trained civil and military administrators overthrew the government with a coup d’état and abolished the constitution with the declaration of the martial law.[13] With this coup headed by Muhammad Ayub Khan, ‘the culture of military intervention’ was introduced into the Pakistani politics. As a result, a new tradition began for the military who has continuously presented itself; (a) as the guardian of Pakistan against external threats; (b) as the final arbitration point to solve the internal problems; (c) and as, ironically enough, a last resort to consolidate the political system and to establish the democracy in the country. Regarding these issues, Ayub Khan summarized the rationale behind the military intervention by stating “there was no alternative except disintegration and complete ruination of the country by the corrupt and self-serving politicians”.[14]

However, instead of empowering the integration of the Pakistani nation and consolidation of the political system, the role played by the military represented further institutionalization of the exclusion of the masses on sectarian, ethnic, socio-economic and regional grounds. This significant point finds its substantial meaning especially with regard to the efforts spent for the economic modernization of the country in 1950s and 60s.

1950s and 60s were the period of relatively successful economic development for Pakistan. As Monshipouri and Samuel point out, the Ayub regime was a period of rapid economic growth, averaging around 5.5% annually. In the same period, the per-capita incomes increased at the rate of 3.5% and large-scale manufacturing grew at almost 17% annually.[15] However, this did not mean that the industrial modernization brought a balanced distribution of wealth and income to different sections of the society. Regarding this general picture of uneven development, Richter states: “During the first two decades, Pakistan’s economy was indeed oligopolistic in structure and capitalistic in ideology”.[16] With such an analogy, he implies the domination of rural economy by landlords or tribal leaders, and the control of urban sector by the industrialists. Regarding this highly unequal socio-economic system, Noman informs that at the time “… 22 families owned 66% of the industry, 97% of the insurance sector, and 80% of the banking. Only 0.1% of the landlords owned 500 or more acres, yet they owned 15% of the country’s total land.”[17]

In addition to the consolidation of the hegemony of the landowning and industrial elites on the whole economy of the country, the bureaucratic apparatus of the Pakistani state was / has been mainly controlled by one ethnic group: Punjabis. While explaining the Punjabi domination of the Pakistani state, many scholars argue that it is mainly because of the continuation of pre-independence colonial legacy which has gradually been perpetuated the politico-economic privileges of one ethnic group in the country. In the era of colonial rule, Hussain discusses, the British purposely followed the policy of ‘divide and rule’ “… by creating diverse administrative forms, varying from governor and chief commissioner provinces to tribal territories and princely states...”[18] Furthermore, with the aim of preventing Muslim revivalism, the British encouraged the rise of ethnic identities; which eventually led to inter-ethnic alienation. In the conduct of such policies towards hindering the development of any potential movements for Muslim integration, Hussain further argues that the British mainly patronized the Punjabis who directly or indirectly supported the colonial rule. That is, Hussain quotes from Gardezi, the Punjabi landlords “…were more interested in serving in the interests of the colonialists than their own compatriots.”[19] Rooted it this colonial history, the Punjabis dominated most of the state institutions in the post-1947 era; which unavoidably led to the exclusion of the other ethnic groups from the political and socio-economic decision-making.

As a result of all the aforementioned structural problems, coming to 1970s, the Pakistani state became to be controlled by aristocratic, industrial, bureaucratic and military elites. As can be inferred from this fragile picture, the exclusion of the masses further deepened on socio-economic, ethnic and political basis. The unavoidable consequence of such structural exclusion of the masses and domination of elites in Pakistani society was the ethnic and class frictions that began to emerge especially from early 1970s. The foremost example of such consequences was the 1971 Bengali separation from the Pakistani state after a bloody civil war, which emerged mainly as a result of the uneven socio-economic development for and underrepresentation of the Bengali population. Regarding the problem, Hippler argues that the official ‘Two-Nation Theory’ was disclosed as a wishful thinking mainly as a result of the (a) exclusion of Bengalis from the power structure; (b) economic exploitation of the East Pakistan by the Western wing/Central government; and (c) the numerical strength and geographic remoteness of the East Pakistan (separated from the Western wing by about 1600 kilometers of Indian territory).[20] Therefore, the case of East Pakistan, which ultimately became a separate state of Bangladesh, demonstrates how the problem of ethnicity and provincial autonomy was dealt with in Pakistan. That is to say, while the powerful elites in the centre were trying to protect their own interests, mostly by utilizing the discourse of Pakistani national unity on the basis of ‘Two-Nation Theory’, the monopolization of the politico-economic power and exclusion of the masses ultimately resulted in the frustration of the Bengali desire for independence. Therefore, in the face of such structural problems, the emphasis on Islam as an integrative determinant of the national identity remained fundamentally insufficient.

Paradoxically enough, beginning from early 1970s, the Pakistani society entered into a period of so called ‘identity crisis’ out of which the notion of common Muslim identity began to be questioned. The state response to such crisis, deepened with the imbalanced nature of socio-economic and political power-sharing, was the initiation of ‘Islamization’ as a state ideology to bond the society together. However, as critically analyzed in the next part, far from strengthening the national unity, the state-imposed policy of Islamization gradually constructed the roots of sectarian violence that would emerge in 1990s and 2000s.

A Paradoxical Solution: The Islamization as a State Ideology and Beyond

Because of the consolidation of economically unjust, politically unpopular and socially segmented order, Pakistani society began to question the very roots of the national unity especially beginning from early 1970s. The foremost reason for such a search for national identity was the disastrous 1971 civil war and reluctant loss of East Pakistan which brought the questions of, Richter quotes from Zaman, “What are the links that bind the people of Pakistan? What is the soul and personality of Pakistan? What is our national identity and our peculiar oneness which makes us a nation apart from other nations?”[21]

The second and even more important reason for such a questioning of the basis of the Pakistani national identity was ‘the disillusionment with the Pakistani capitalism and socialism’.[22] With this conception, Richter refers to the failures of creating a balanced socio-economic development both in 1960s and 1970s. In fact, mainly as a result of the frustration of the masses with the ever-increasing socio-economic and regional disparities, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto came to power following the 1970 elections[23] with the promises of consolidating the political system and eradicating the socio-economic inequality and feudal structure utilizing the slogan of ‘Islamic Socialism’. The underlying principles of the notion of Islamic Socialism were “Islam is our faith; democracy is our politics; socialism is our economy; all power to the people”.[24] In his initial years in power, Bhutto relied on grass-root support and tried to realize some principles based on a special form of socialism that could be compatible with Islamic values. However, his policies such as nationalization of industrial firms, measures to curb the power of bureaucracy and the like caused great discontent among the major elite groups in the country.[25] Therefore, especially towards the end of his term, as Monshipouri and Samuel points out, Bhutto began to follow right-wing policies moving away from the populist and socialist ideology.[26] Thus, the reliance of Bhutto on the elite groups rather than the masses not only brought his downfall, but also further strengthened the privileged positions of the elites in Pakistan. This is interpreted as the failure of the Pakistani socialism in the 1970s which deepened the search for identity in the country.

Within this general picture, the religion increasingly became a new political currency. That is, the loss of East Pakistan and the disillusionment with the Pakistani ways of capitalism and socialism, Richter states, resulted in “… a renewed search for fundamental values and institutions that might coincide with those values and solve the very material problems facing the country.”[27] Therefore, especially with the military rule of Ziaul Haq, who overthrew Bhutto in 1977 coup, the notion of Islamization was put into practice as a state ideology to strengthen the unity of the nation.[28] In a speech, Ziaul Haq justified the state policy of Islamization by stating:

The basis of Pakistan was Islam. The basis of Pakistan was that the Muslims of the subcontinent are a separate culture. It was on the two-nation theory that this part was carved out of the subcontinent as Pakistan. And in the last thirty years in general… there has been a complete erosion of the moral values of this society… These are the Islamic values and we are trying to bring these values back.[29]

As can be inferred from the above stated sentence, the aim was to establish a ‘true Islamic society’ in Pakistan. To that aim, the notion of ‘Nizam-i-Mustafa’ was highly presented as a way to solve the existing problems in the country. In the period of Islamization, even though the rhetoric seemed to be based on a ‘universal Islamic vision’, the state promoted a very specific Sunni school of thought.  With such an ideological outlook, Ziaul Haq implemented a harsh policy of Islamization especially in the 1980s.[30]

Regarding the state policy of Islamization, the conventional argument is that the military gave Islam an instrumental role to maintain the order and create legitimacy in the society. However, Riaz Hassan finds such an argument insufficient in explaining the roles of the social and political forces outside the military which were in fact decisive in establishing Islamization as a state ideology in Pakistan. By this critique, he argues that rather than being a determining actor, the military became instrumental for those social and political forces.[31] In that sense, Aslam develops a similar critique by arguing that the religion, i.e. Islam, in Pakistan has been repeatedly utilized by those social and political forces or elites, “...to maintain the privilege of the privileged; bolster a patently unjust socio-economic order and to denounce and proscribe any attempts at social change and threat to the rule by branding it un-Islamic.”(emphasis added)[32] Therefore, Aslam continues, one should locate the discourse of common identity, i.e. Islam, within the ‘power construct’ of Pakistan in order to reveal how this discourse has been effectively utilized as a tool to maintain the existing power structures and to suppress the people in the society. In the light of these critiques, one should approach the eleven years of military rule by Ziaul Haq (1977-1988) as an extremely negative period for the prospects of developing political equality in Pakistan.  This period resulted in further consolidation of the socio-economic imbalances especially between the sectarian and ethnic groups.

As a result of the long period of Islamization, the already existing problem of systemic exclusion of the masses was brought to a level of alienation on sectarian grounds. Then, especially beginning from 1980s, the sectarian differences developed into violent clashes. Regarding this whole picture, Kleiner quite successfully states that since the first years of the emergence of the ‘Two-Nation Theory’, “Pakistan was thought to be a country for Muslims, but became instead a country of Muslim sects” especially in the 1990s and 2000s.[33]

With regard to this general picture, the present paper holds the view that the problems Pakistan has been violently facing since 1980s have had a more complicated and structural roots; dating back to the colonial era but have been strengthened in the post-independence period.

‘State Failure’ or Power Struggles?

In 1990s and 2000s, Pakistani society has increasingly become polarized on ethnic, sectarian, regional and political grounds mainly because of the structural problems that have tried to be analyzed. Within such a chaotic socio-political environment, it has been a common perception that the recent rise of political violence and social unrest in Pakistan has been the result of the erosion or collapse of state power over the society. Such perceptions have relied on the nowadays popular notion of failed state by implying that the state has become unable to maintain the monopoly over the internal means of violence.[34] Such perceptions have come to a point to explain the socio-political environment in the country with reference to the Hobessian state of nature in which “…continual fear and danger of violent death rendered life ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short…”[35]

However, as Verkaaik argues, there are many fundamental fallacies with reference to such perceptions about the notion of failed state in general and about Pakistan in particular. [36] One such fallacy arises as a result of the common perception that the state is an autonomous entity separate from the society. Such a perception results in the assumption that the state is impartial in nature with regard to the all sections of the society. However, as already been discussed, rather than being impartial, the Pakistani state and its institutions have always been a kind of site for the wider struggles over resources, ideological missions and so on. That is, the Pakistani state has always been a tool in the hands of elites – industrial, rural, bureaucratic and military – to realize their particularistic interests and to alienate the others. In that sense, the argument that the state is impartially constituted over the society seems ineffective in explaining the particular case of not only Pakistan but also the other post-colonial third world countries. As another fallacy with regard to the failed state discourse, there exists a fundamental reductionism of treating the structural crisis in a country like Pakistan as a crisis of state, which could eventually be resolved with the strengthening the internal problems of the state itself. However, this argument is quite weak especially with regard to the problems of exclusion in Pakistan because of the historically deepened socio-economic and –political power constructs not only in the state but also in the wider society.

Therefore, the attempt to understand the problems of Pakistan within the framework of failed state seems insufficient to explain the wider picture of Pakistan especially concerning the political crises of 1990s and 2000s. Then, there needs to be a more sociological perspective to be constructed to understand the real nature of the crisis. Rather than labeling Pakistan as a ‘failed state’ and reducing the problems to a point of the erosion of state authority, as Freitag argues, the present day social unrest and political violence should be seen as symptoms of “a much larger and challenging process under way: the redefinition of the Pakistani civil space and who will be allowed to participate publically inside that discursive space.”[37] Therefore, the issue has inevitably with the question of structural exclusion of masses and/or groups from the whole system on socio-political, socio-economic, regional and sectarian/ethnic grounds.

Regarding the above constructed argument, there are provided two case studies in the coming sections. The first one is the ethnic violence emerged in Karachi in 1994-95 showing the fact that the problem was not to do with the erosion of the state’s authoritative power, as it highly relied on the coercive means to stop the violence especially under the second Bhutto administration; but it was fundamentally related with the historically deepened exclusion of an ethnic group from the socio-political system of the country. The second case study will be on the rising sectarian violence under Musharraf period to reveal the point that increased authoritarianism and depoliticization of whole society led to the political space be filled by the radical voices. Furthermore, an external factor, the anti-Americanism increased especially after the 9/11, has contributed to the rise of religious violence.

The Karachi Crisis: A Violent Result of Alienation and Ethnic Polarization

In the first half of the 1990s, Karachi, an urban center in Pakistan’s Sindh Province, became a ‘bleeding wound of Pakistan’ due to the ethnic violence between the Sindhs and Mohajirs, which was later turned out to be a guerilla war situation with the use of army, paramilitary and police forces by the state. Especially in 1994 and 1995, the highest number of killings was recorded as 1.113 and 2.095 respectively.[38]

Historically speaking, the ethnic violence in 1990s was quite shocking because the Mohajirs had played a major role in the Pakistani movement in the 1940s and had always been the supporters of the ‘Two-Nation Theory’ as the common basis of the Pakistani national identity. However, the ethnic violence of 1990s was rooted in an historical account of Mohajir sense of alienation and ethnic polarization.

The gradual destruction of the ‘unquestioned loyalty of Mohajirs to the country’ has been mainly caused by the loss of Mohajir influence in the affairs of the country both on political and socio-economic terms. Regarding the issue, Ahmar argues that for the initial years after the formation of the Pakistani state, Mohajirs had an upper status in the governance of the country.[39] However, with the decision of Ayub Khan in 1960s to move the national capital from Karachi to Rawalpindi and then to Islamabad, Mohajirs encountered with a fundamental loss of political influence in the affairs of the country. Such process for Mohajirs continued with the policies of father Bhutto in 1970s especially as a result of the “…nationalization of banks and heavy industries, introduction of a language bill, the rural urban quotas for employment in Sindh, discrimination against the Mohajir youth in Sindh educational institutions…”.[40] As a result of such policies, the Mahojir fears of losing their socio-economic status increased substantially. Then, the politico-economic sense of deprivation under the dictatorship of Ziaul Haq reached its peak for the Mohajirs. As a result of this historically continuing sense of ‘alienation’, in 1984, the Mohajir Quami Movement-National Mohajir Movement- (MQM) was established as a political party advocating Mohajir nationalism.[41]  

Especially after the establishment of the MQM, the Sindh province of Pakistan increasingly became a place for ethnic clashes mainly between Sindhs, supporters of the status quo,  and Mohajirs, opponents of the existing power construct in the province. In the face of the ethnic clashes and the danger of MQM becoming ‘state within the state’, the Pakistani army launched ‘Operation Clean-up’ to solve these problems. However, the excessive reaction of the state by coercive means was criticized by the international community and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, and the Pakistani state was accused of carrying out genocide against the Mohajir community.

As a result of the pressures, the army withdrew from the region in 1994; however, there were instead placed paramilitary troops and police, which basically caused the causalities mentioned above. In fact, such widespread killings emerged under the second Bhutto government and Benazir Bhutto was repeatedly accused of conducting extra-judicial killings of the MQM members.  

Regarding the above mentioned ethnic violence, many have argued that the erosion of state authority in the province of Sindh was a fundamental cause of the acceleration of the problem. However, even though there is a fact that the demands for more autonomy of the Mohajirs came to a point of violently establishing ‘a state within a state’, this does not prove that the Pakistani state became a ‘weak’ state in the 1990s mainly because of the fact that as Verkaaik points out, “A large number of heavily armed military, paramilitary, and police forces have been brought into the streets of Karachi and Hyderabad since late 1980s.”[42] Therefore, the crisis of Karachi demonstrates the point that it was not due to the ‘failure of the Pakistani state’ in terms of controlling its constituent parts. Instead, the crisis was fundamentally caused by the struggle among the different forces to participate in the ‘civil social space’ of the country that has tried to be redefined.

The Sectarian Violence: Authoritarianism, Depoliticization and Rise of Radical Voices under Musharraf

On October 12, 1999, Pervez Musharraf came to power following a bloodless military coup legitimized on the grounds of civilian governments’ political and economic mismanagement and the growing alienation of the smaller provinces. In the initial stages of the military rule, Musharraf set out seven priorities to be achieved by the military rule as a condition for the transfer of the governmental authority to the civilians. These priorities included: (a) rebuilding of national confidence and morale; (b) reinforcement of the federal system and national cohesion and removal of interprovincial disharmony; (c) revival of economy and restoration of investor sector; (d) maintenance of law and order and dispensation of speedy justice; (e) depoliticization of state institutions and an emphasis on merit in government institutions; (f) devolution of power to the grassroots level; (g) swift and across-the border accountability of present and former holders of public office and civil servants.[43] As previously discussed, such points indicated how the military has continuously presented and thus legitimized itself as the custodian of Pakistani national interests and the final arbitrator for the internal problems of the country.

However, far from achieving such goals, the military rule under the leadership of Musharraf soon initiated a process of ‘constitutional engineering’ which aimed at the elimination of the civilian opposition in the country and resulted in the depoliticization of the whole society. As a result of the whole term of military rule since 1999, the political gap in Pakistan has been increasingly filled by the radical voices, among which the sectarian and ethnic groups have been dominant. Therefore, a closer examination of the policies of the military rule would reveal that the whole process of authoritarianism have fundamentally caused the rise of sectarian violence, which has been particularly fed by the US policies in the post 9/11 era.

The first point to mention about the post-1999 Pakistani politics is obviously the increased authoritarianism in the country. Musharraf, through a process of constitutional engineering, has concentrated all the powers in his hands. One of the most important examples to be given in this context was the 2002 Legal Framework Order through which 29 constitutional amendments were adopted. With those amendments, a body called National Security Council was established to institutionalize the military’s role in politics; the President was given the authority to dismiss an elected government and to dissolve the parliament and so on. In addition to the constitutional engineering, Musharraf followed the policy of elimination of all opposition forces from the political scene. To that aim, the country’s two major party’s leaders- Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League (PML)- were sent to exile.  Instead of those parties, Musharraf established the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-Q) as a pro-Musharraf faction of PML to create popular legitimacy for himself in the 2002 elections.

As a result of all these political maneuvers, the authoritarian rule of Musharraf was strengthened. In addition to the internal dynamics, the 9/11 events and the US invasion of Afghanistan provided a very fertile environment for Musharraf to further strengthen his position in the country mainly because Pakistan was ‘rediscovered as a frontline state’ bordering to the ‘root causes of terrorism’, i.e. Afghanistan. Therefore, Musharraf became one of the most important US-ally in the so called ‘war on terrorism’.[44]

In the face of all these internal and external developments, the authoritarian rule of Musharraf was consolidated. However, there emerged a fundamental vacuum in Pakistani politics, which has gradually become to be filled by radical or extreme voices in the country. The first important expression of such a political phenomenon was the 2002 elections, as a result of which the Islamic parties for the first time in Pakistani history gained enough votes to enter into the parliament.[45]

On the other hand, there has emerged even more serious problem in Pakistan especially under the rule of Musharraf: the sectarian violence. Regarding the issue, Hoodbhoy argues that historically deepened state policy of Islamization has caused the intensification of radical religious feelings in the contemporary Pakistani society. Such feelings have even more seriously deepened with the post-9/11 US policies especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. And lastly, the depoliticization and demobilization that have emerged as a result of the Musharraf’s policies have all contributed to the religious extremism and even ‘Talibanization’ of especially the tribal areas. That is, the destruction of major political non-religious institutions such as trade unions and student organizations have fundamentally caused to the rise of radicalism in the country.[46] Regarding this general problem of sectarianism, Grare refers to the already explained structural problems and argues: “Sectarian militancy has deeper historical roots and needs to be understood as a reaction to a growing sense of insecurity and hopelessness resulting from the uneven distribution of resources, and as a revolt of the uprooted and marginalized periphery deprived of access to the political arena.”[47]

All in all, the historically rooted problems on socio-economic, socio-political, sectarian and ethnic grounds have gradually brought the Pakistani society to a chaotic socio-political environment. In fact, the below drawn table clearly shows how seriously the problem has evolved in time. In these chaotic conditions, the violence on either ground has become to occupy the socio-political sphere which has been consciously emptied by the policies of the Musharraf government. In other words, in a country like Pakistan, the politics has been replaced by extremism as the means to ‘react’ or ‘solve’ the existing problems. However, other than the former which has a substantial aim of producing solutions to even the worst situations, the latter may (or indeed did) become the end in itself. Therefore, as Bruce argues, the violence on sectarian grounds has been routinised and ritualized in the Pakistani society within the two decades.[48]

Sectarian Violence in Pakistan

Year	Incidents	Killed	Injured
1989	67	18	102
1990	274	32	328
1991	180	47	263
1992	135	58	261
1993	90	39	247
1994	162	73	326
1995	88	59	189
1996	80	86	168
1997	103	193	219
1998	188	157	231
1999	103	86	189
2000	109	149	NA
2001	154	261	495
2002	63	121	257
2003	22	102	103
2004	19	187	619
2005	62	160	354
2006	38	201	349
2007	341	441	630
Total	2278	2470	5330

Source: South Asia Intelligence Review, ‘Sectarian Violence in Pakistan’ (online version) [www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/database/sect-killing.htm]

Considering such serious and destructive socio-political expressions of extremism, it is quite weak to argue that the failure of Pakistani state authority lies at the heart of them. Of course, it can be rightly debated that the Pakistani state authority has been gradually declining over the extremist groups of the society. Nevertheless, as Cohen states: “The case of Pakistan … raises very different and more difficult questions than those generated by a study of mere state failure.”[49] Therefore, the structural causes of the socio-political instability in the country go well beyond the failings of the authoritative power of the state.

Conclusion

The above discussion has been mainly on the question of the evolutionary construction and consolidation of power structures in Pakistani society which eventually led to the alienation of masses on various grounds. The first outcome of such structural exclusion was the bloody Bengali separation in 1971. The most recent examples have proven to be articulated into wider global problems such as ‘war on terrorism’ and ‘anti-Americanism’. Nevertheless, whatever the articulation point has been, it is quite obvious that the violent expression of ethnic and sectarian radicalism has been fundamentally related with the historically constituted socio-political power constructs that repeatedly generate more and more inequality and injustices.

Therefore, in the light of such systemic problems, it seems quite insufficient to hold the view that those problems have been mainly caused by the collapse of the state authority in the country. Even though one can argue that the Pakistani state authority has really eroded especially in the rural parts of the society, this does not mean that the structural problems are the results of such erosion. Instead, the argument in the present paper is that the violently expressed radical demands have had more structural and socio-political roots dating back to the early independence years. Reading the current problems from this wider historical framework would reveal that the state in fact has been one of the sites of power struggles for different groups in Pakistan, rather than playing an impartial role over the society. As a result, without any fundamental dealing with the existing unequal power constructs, a kind of reform at the level of the state means nothing but just transforming the problem itself. The most crucial problem in such a reductionist solution, then, is the ‘reproduction of violence as the end in itself’.