e Introduction ‘Towards the end of a rather long day of research in the India Office Collections at the British Library in London, I stumbled upon a rather unexpected document. It swam into view in the middle of one of the many microfilms containing the private papers of Qaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The handwritten document, with its ink fading, was the record of a special séance with the spirit of the Qaid-i-Azam (Great Leader) held at 6 pm on 13 March 1955, nearly seven years after his death and eight years after the birth of Pakistan.’ The séance was conducted by a spiritualist hired by a government officer, a certain Mr Ibrahim, who was present on the occasion to direct the questions. The spiritualist began the proceedings by politely offering a seat to his esteemed guest. The spirit tartly responded that it was already seated, also reminding him that they had previously met there for another such session. ‘The spiritualist solicitously enquired about the Qaid’s well-being since on that occasion the spirit had complained about being ‘in a dark and cold place’, which it did not like very much. It replied that it was much happier now for it was‘in a very good place’ that was ‘brilliantly lighted and had enough flowers’. Asa final courtesy before the proceedings started in right earnest, the spirit was asked if it wanted to smoke a cigarette since the Qaid-i-Azam in life had been a heavy smoker. On the basis of an affirmative answer, a cigarette was lit and fixed on a wire stand for the spirit to smoke while it answered questions. Mr Ibrahim began, ‘Sir, as a creator and father of Pakistan, won't you guide the destiny of the nation now?’ The Qaids spirit reacted testily, stating that it was not for it to guide Pakistan's destiny any more, even though, it ominously added, it often saw ‘flashes of evil pictures about Pakistan’. A worried Mr Ibrahim enquired, ‘Dont you think there is a prosperous future for Pakistan”. The spirit responded icy, I dont think so. Prosperity of a country depends on the selflesness of people who control its Destiny. None at all is eager to be selfless there,’ Mr Ibrahim pressed further. What advice would you give to the present rulers of Pakistan>” Prompt came the response —‘Selflessness, selflessness. That is the only advice I can give them now.’ The spirit then made a telling remark. ‘It is oT e081, File 1¢ . i 1 Qaid-i-Azam Papers, Neg10811, File 1067, Oriental and India Office Collections (henceforth OIC), British Library, London. aioe2 CREATING A NEW MEDINA easier to acquire a country, but itis extremely difficult to retain it. That, nutshell the present position of Pakistan to gain which rivers of blood fly, a The story of how the transcript of the séance found its way into the archigg would no doubt be fascinating and also raise interesting questions ahy.y procedures involved in the constitution of the archive. But what is strikin about the document, as also of the spiritual testimony contained therein ig sense of crisis it communicates about Pakistan not long after its birth. Jinnakj, death a little over a year after the Partition on 11 September 1948, war wigs India over Kashmir, Liaquat Ali Khan’ assassination in 1951, inconclusive deliberations between ‘secularists’, wama, Islamists, and regional groups over Pakistan's Constitution, political instability in East Pakistan, musical charg over government formation at the centre ~ all these finally culminated in the first declaration of martial law in 1958. Pakistan's martial law administrators justified the short shrift given to its sputtering democratic experiment in the name of preserving the nation’s unity and integrity threatened by venal and ‘rascally’ civilian political elites.? Successive martial law administrators have the abrogation of democracy trotted out some of the same reasons to justify or violently quell threats to national integrity over much of Pakistan's history. Yet, such decisive military interventions have not resolved, and indeed worsened, Pakistan's post-colonial crisis marked not just by fragility of democratic institutions, but a vexed relationship between Islam and State, secessionist and insurgency movements, internecine sectarian conflicts, not to mention violent death, assassination or forced exile of four former or serving heads of state. Security analysts, journalists as well as a burgeoning body of scholars have sought to make sense of Pakistan's troubled post-colonial condition.’ Itis a trend that has intensified over the past decade as the country’s internal security environment has deteriorated significantly in the context of a complex evolving relationship between its regime and Islamic militants, leading to exaggerated fears that this nuclear armed nation might become the first failed state of the twenty-first century. K. J. Newman, ‘Pakistan's Preventative Autocracy and its Causes’, Pacific Affi" Vol. 32, No. 1 (March 1959), 18-33; Wayne Ayres Wilke, The Pakistan ha i of 1958, Pacific Affairs Vol. 38, No. 2 (Summer 1965), 142.63 Ses among others, Anatole Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country (New York, 2011); Farean ote, Mating ce of Petisten (New York, 2009); Shuja Nawaz, Croswed Sword rin angen fe es Within (Oxford, 2008); Stephen Cohen, The Idea prmarrdrtpedeser tect Pakistan: Between Mosque and Militar *Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eve of the Storm (New Haven, 2002) Husain HaggaeEeEeiaiaaGQYr""SS—‘=F;P;’”]’]”] | 3 INTRODUCTION seta ious Much of this scholarship invariably locates the roots of Pakistan's Pra ne state's ‘raumati condition in the circumstances surrounding this nation” wan birth in the bloody Partition of British India in Augst 11947. It is broadly irjerstood that this nation-state emerged accidentally im thi sharp disjuncture between inchoate aspirations of Indian Mus! secret politics of their pragmatic and ambivalent pol li necessarily have even wanted Pakistan. As Pakistan came int® backdrop of the breakdown of negotiations between the Britis! Indian National Congress and Muslim League (ML) over transfer of POW it has been assumed that it remained an exceedingly vague idea in both ae and popular consciousness. Scholars enquiring into the roots of Pokista post-colonial instability have, therefore, grounded their explanation’ in the recufficiency’of its nationalist imagination especially after Benedict Anderson when emphasis on nationalism’ seeming artificiality or illegitimacy has been replaced by enquiry into its fecund imaginative dimension.“ In this regard, it has been pointed out that while the ideology of Pakistani nationalism ~ t)& dent two nation theory — was spectacularly successful in rallying together ‘he Indian Muslims, it was inadequate in as much as it lacked any programme und which the nation could coalesce subsequent to its realization. It has also noted that while ML rallies resounded with the popular but vague slogans mstistam ka Matlab Kya, La Tiaha 1! Alla (What is the meaning of Pakistan? Phere is no god but God), Pakistan was not articulated any further beyond “motional slogan. An inchoate anti-Indianism, itis presumed, became ve default mode for this new nation-state after its creation in the absence of any substantial content or futuristic vision in its national imagination that particularly solidified following the ‘violence accompanying the Partition. It icin this vein that the political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot conceptualized Pakistan as a ‘nationalism without a nation since it does not possess a ‘positive’ national identity but only a ‘negative’ identity in opposition to India.” More recently, the political scientist Farzana Shaikh has extended this argument by arguing that this lack of positive content or consensus in its nationalist ideology is indeed the primary reason behind Pakistan's nearly continuous post-colonial travails.¢ oe 1 Phe phrase chat Pakistan was an ‘insufficiently imagined’ nation-state has been coined by the writer Salman Rushdie. 5 Christophe Jaffelt, Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (New York, 2002). & Farzana Shaikh, Making Sense of Pakistan (New York, 2009).