Identity Formation Through National Cale

NATIONS AND J O U R N A L O F T H E A S S O C I AT I O N AS
EN
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NATIONALISM
FOR THE STUDY OF ETHNICITY
A N D N AT I O N A L I S M
Nations and Nationalism •• (••), 2017, 1–22.

DOI: 10.1111/nana.12310
Identity formation through national

calendar: holidays and
commemorations in Pakistan1
ALI USMAN QASMI†
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lahore University of Management
Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
ABSTRACT. This article contributes to academic literature on the project of identity

formation in a postcolonial nation-state. The article argues that a nation-state
emphasising certain aspects of the past for commemorative or celebratory purposes,
while suppressing or ignoring the memories of some other event or historical figure,
are both parts of the same process. Both these processes, in different ways, seek to give
a certain direction to the narrative about the history of the nation and the nation-state.
These aspects of national memory and amnesia have been explained through the prism
of national/public holidays while foregrounding the case study of Pakistan. The article
argues that although this process of shaping a specific narrative (referred to as com-
memorative narrative in this article by using Yael Zerubavel’s work) is common to ev-
ery project of identity formation, its peculiarity is more pronounced in a postcolonial
state like Pakistan, which has certain cut-off dates and ruptures but is, simultaneously,
eager to emphasise continuities in its trajectory and antiquity in historical tradition. The
study of the process of developing a national calendar in case of Pakistan will show that
identity formation is a transient process in which various identarian values, political
considerations and social processes play an important part. In particular, it requires
an attempt on the part of the state to try impose a homogenising historical narrative
by envisaging a national calendar, i.e. by announcing a national or public holiday. This
helps accord prestige to persons credited as founding fathers or ideologues, ascribe
solemnity to days remembering wars and festivity to mark independence or religious
occasions. By discussing these themes in detail, this exploratory study of the history
of national calendar will lend an alternative lens through which to look into the
processes of identity formation in postcolonial nation-states in general.
KEYWORDS: national identity, nationalism, Pakistan, postcolonial history, public

holidays
Introduction
In March 2016, Dr Ramesh Vankwani – a Hindu member of Pakistan’s parlia-

ment belonging to the ruling party – presented a resolution in the National
© The author(s) 2017. Nations and Nationalism © ASEN/John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2017
2 Ali Usman Qasmi
Assembly of Pakistan urging the government to ‘take steps to declare Holi,

Dewali and Easter as holidays for minorities’ (Tunio 2016). This, he said,
would improve the image of Pakistan in the world as a more plural and
tolerant country. Despite objections from some ministers citing the excessive
number of holidays observed in Pakistan as compared with other countries
of the world, the resolution got passed. The resolution did not carry the legal
authority of instituting a public holiday; it only recommended the ministry
of interior to take appropriate steps in this direction. Still, this resolution was
widely appreciated across Pakistan. Even Huffington Post India commented
on it and described it as the first time in Pakistan’s history that public holidays
would be declared on Holi, Diwali and Easter (Bose 2016). A week later, the
provincial government of Sindh, where about ninety per cent of Pakistan’s to-
tal Hindu population live, took the initiative and declared a public holiday on
24 March on the occasion of Holi.
The resolution passed by the national assembly, the action taken by the
Sindh government and the public reaction following it are all part of a process,
which has to be explored in a historical context for its better understanding.
This is what this article seeks to do. Without this contextualization, the reading
of these recent acts can lead to even simple factual errors. For example,
Vankwani’s resolution – if the words attributed to him in the newspaper have
been accurately reproduced – called for a holiday for minorities without
realising that such a provision already exists for different minority groups in
Pakistan to take leave of absence on occasions of religious importance. The
Sindh government’s decision is an important development but certainly not
as new as suggested by Huffington Post India. In December 2015, a snapshot
from the page of a diary dating back to 1953 was widely circulated on social
media. The page carried the list of holidays to be observed in Pakistan during
that year. Included in the list were such festival as Holi, Dusehra, Diwali and
Easter. The image got so viral that even Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
– an extremist Hindu nationalist organisation – tweeted it from its official ac-
count (RSS 2015). The fact that public holidays were declared on non-Islamic
religious festivals in Pakistan until the 1950s was surprising for the RSS. But it
is also surprising to note that this simple historical fact from not a very distant
past was largely forgotten from the memory of so many Pakistanis. The ‘dis-
covery’ of this fact was nostalgically recalled on social media as an exemplar
of a more plural and tolerant Pakistan. The resolution passed by the National
Assembly in March 2016 is an attempt towards retrieving that past. Again,
what is overlooked in such simplistic invocations of examples of pluralism
and tolerance from the past is another simple fact that 1953 was the year when
a violent movement was launched in Pakistan against the Ahmadi minority
community. The movement demanded that Ahmadis be declared as non-
Muslims. The movement resulted in numerous casualties, and the situation de-
teriorated to such an extent that Martial Law had to be imposed in the city of
Lahore. In other words, it will be erroneous to establish a direct correlation
between the celebration of non-Muslim religious festivals and prevalence of
Identity formation through national calendar 3
tolerance in the society at large. Because Pakistan is beset with a much larger
spectre of extremist religious violence since the 2000s, it is not surprising that
calls for pluralism and religious tolerance have captured the imagination of
certain sections of Pakistani society and its liberal intelligentsia. The possibility
of a declaration of public holidays for Holi, Diwali and Easter has become a
symbolic representation of such cherished notions and an antidote to perni-
cious intolerance and violence prevalent in the society. What this paper aims
to do is to put the concept of public holidays in Pakistan in a broader theoret-
ical and historical context so as to give a more nuanced understanding of the
processes shaping the changes taking place with regard to declaration of public
holidays in Pakistan, rather than offering a simplistic understanding about the
inclusion or exclusion of certain festivals and events from the list of yearly hol-
idays and its impact on Pakistan’s polity and society.
From seasonal holidays to national holidays
The sociological approach proposed by Durkheim on the idea of holiday looks

at it as a process enabling the coming together of a community around shared
beliefs and practices amidst chores of daily routine, which tend to weaken so-
cial bonds and increase centrifugal individualism. In order to overcome such
individualistic tendencies, societies need to ‘recreate’ themselves by rallying
around a set of shared beliefs and practices. The performance of various rituals
adds to cohesion through the celebration of these festivals (Etzioni 2004: 7). To
put in Weberian terms, says Etzioni, holidays help reaffirm shared values,
which people tend to abandon in the drudgery of everyday life and work
(Etzioni 2004: 8). In this way, both Durkheim and Weber agree on the func-
tional role performed by holidays. The focus of this article is the concept of
the national calendar and the holidays, declared by the state, which are part
of such a calendar. By that I mean holidays declared by the state on certain oc-
casions with the purpose of contributing to a particular understanding about
the historical background of the state or the kind of ideology, which the state
seeks to project about itself and, hence, shape the project of national identity
formation. This underscores the constructedness of the concept of
national/public holidays. They are arbitrary in nature as the state opts to in-
clude only those events that can fit into – what Zerubavel describes as a ‘com-
memorative master narrative’.
According to Zerubavel, ‘[T]he construction of the master commemorative
narrative exposes the dynamics of remembering and forgetting that underlies
the construction of any commemorative narrative: by focusing attention on cer-
tain aspects of the past, it necessarily covers up others that are deemed irrelevant
or disruptive to the flow of the narrative and ideological message’ (Zerubavel
1995: 8). This restructuring of the past enforced through a commemorative nar-
rative is created out of its own version of historical time whereby certain histor-
ical events are erased or emphasised or given wholly new meanings. The
4 Ali Usman Qasmi
constructed and transitory nature of this discursive process means that there is
always a possibility of an alternative commemorative narrative to the one that
the state tries to impose. The commemorative narrative is thus a contested field
where issues relating to the interpretation and appropriation of the past are
played out. A recent example of this can be found in the rise of Islamist parties
in Turkey. The Islamists became politically dominant from 1990s onwards
when they captured the mayorship of major Turkish cities. They challenged
the Kemalist amnesia of Ottomanism by celebrating the achievements of the
Ottoman empire through such spectacles as a public parade in Istanbul
commemorating the fall of Constantinople (Özyürek 2006:156). In a different
example, separatist movements celebrate the national days of the state they
are fighting against as black days and carry out such acts as burning of flags,
observing strike or even use of violence to reiterate a parallel collective memory
about the past.
This dominant commemorative narrative is encapsulated in the national
calendar. As Zerubavel points out, ‘the act of introducing a unique national
calendar is functionally analogous to acts such as introducing a national an-
them, flag, costume, or dish’ (Zerubavel 1981: 95). This calendar is an official
document as holidays are publicly announced and administratively registered
in the government gazette. A list of annual holidays is usually issued at the
start of every year.
The selection criteria for holidays vary on the basis of a variety of reasons.
As David Cressy points out, in this respect, the premodern, modern and post-
colonial states act alike. In the case of Western Europe, Cressy points out the
impact of sectarian divisions following the Reformation and subsequently a
gradual shift from a Christian-centric to a national identity in the age of na-
tionalism as impacting the selection process of particular feasts and saints for
commemorative purposes. Also, the selection depends on the concepts of per-
ceived continuity in national history or rupture with the past. In the case of En-
gland, for example, there is a perceived continuity with the past as the decline
of monarchical power and strengthening of the parliament took place gradu-
ally. The Cromwellian intervention was brief and exceptional and is generally
believed to have affected the pace of the reform rather than change its evolu-
tionary character into a revolutionary one. Still, in the construction of English
national identity, an arbitrary selection of events was made. Hence, such
events as the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the victory over the Spanish
Armada were chosen for commemorative purposes (Cressy 1994: 62). This is
in contrast to France and the United States of America where a degree of
abruptness in the national past has given a different trajectory to national cal-
endar. This explains the commemorative significance of 14 July for France and
4 July for USA as revolutionary or founding moments, while the British have
not produced an official holiday of a kind that can be described as laying down
the basis for the ‘British nation’.
In the case of postcolonial nation-states, the arbitrariness of shaping a com-
memorative master narrative through a national calendar is more pronounced
as both rupture and continuity figure simultaneously. As Pierre Nora has

pointed out, modern nations celebrate ‘birth’ rather than ‘origins’ to project
a sense of historical discontinuity. According to Zerubavel, ‘birth symbolizes
at one and the same time a point of separation from another group and the be-
ginning of a new life as a collective entity with a future of its own’ (Zerubavel
1995:7). But at the same time, modern nations – as Anthony D. Smith has
pointed out in a number of his writings – emphasise the historical antiquity
of the nation and a golden age in the past. These concepts of ‘birth of a nation’
and ‘golden age’ will be used as an explanatory model for a discussion of a na-
tional calendar in the postcolonial context with a focus on Pakistan.
The holidays marked as national usually hold a certain performative aspect as
well. Although the performative aspects of such commemorations can be found
in such states as France as well, the postcolonial state in particular, to use Laura
Adams’s term, is a spectacular state. This is because such events are accompanied
by the display of state power through military parades, the show of patriotic fer-
vour through national flags and anthems and so on. Such techniques serve as a
means of communication with the citizenry and sensitise them with the immedi-
acy and the authority of the state (Adams 2010: 10). For such performative as-
pects of national holidays, Charles Turner has used the term commemoration.
He describes it as ‘all those devices through which a nation recalls, marks, em-
bodies, discusses or argues about its past, and to all those devices which are
intended to create or sustain a sense of belonging or ‘we feeling’ in the individuals
who belong to it, a sense of belonging which may or may not provide for a means
of addressing future tasks and possibilities’ (Turner 2006: 6).
Commemorations, hence, are an important part of identity formation as the
project requires frequent reiteration of statist symbols of authority and an as-
sociational linkage with a constructed past to be inscribed on the members of
the political community organised under a state. According to Srirupa Roy,
rituals of national commemoration perform two different but related func-
tions: first, they project seamless, linear and teleological narratives of national
time, which has a homogenising effect; insofar, these rituals are performed ev-
ery year and showcased as uniformly significant to all the members of the na-
tion; second, it helps give shape to a nationalist communal solidarity across
time and space (Roy 2007: 66). ‘It is through repeatedly encountering rather
than believing in the official imagination of nationhood’, says Roy, ‘through
recognizing the sights and sounds of the state rather than “buying into” its my-
thologies, that the nation-state is formed and reproduced’ (Roy 2007: 15).
In order to develop the concept of a commemorative narrative and national
calendar and apply it in the context of Pakistan, it will be necessary to offer a
brief historical view of Pakistan since 1947 and the various strategies and
processes of identity formation that have been pursued. This will be followed
with a detailed focus on the developments relating to the shaping of a historical
narrative through the national calendar with the help of recently declassified
archival material of the cabinet division of the government of Pakistan avail-
able at the National Documentation Centre (henceforth NDC).
6 Ali Usman Qasmi
Pakistan in 1947
On the midnight of 14–15 August 1947, British India dissolved to form two do-
minions of Pakistan and India. At the time of its creation, Pakistan was consid-
erably disadvantaged vis-a-vis India. Although India was also a successor state
carved out of British colonial possessions in South Asia, it had inherited a
name that was familiar to the world for centuries and famed for its rich civili-
zation. This is not to suggest that the construction of an Indian identity was by
any measure easier than in Pakistan. The project of identity formation con-
tinues to unfold in contemporary India and is impeded by a host of such fac-
tors as ethnic diversity, economic disparity, communal violence, linguistic
variety and caste differentiations.
The Pakistani state, on the other hand, was beset with a host of problems,
which made it anxious about the sustainability and integrity of its sovereignty
from the very beginning. One of the major problems was the unforeseen influx
of millions of refugees from India pouring into Pakistan to escape communal
violence and to look for a better economic future in Pakistan. Comprised of
an area, which was considerably smaller than the size of newly independent
India, Pakistan was also disadvantaged in terms of the economic resource base
inherited by it. East Pakistan was largely a rural hinterland, which had been
deprived even further because of the loss of its connection with the commercial
hub and metropolis of Calcutta. In case of West Pakistan, Punjab alone had
some industrial units that lay in abysmal conditions because most of these
units were owned by Hindu entrepreneurs who had fled in the face of growing
violence. It was largely the agricultural productivity of Punjab, which could
have sustained Pakistan’s economy for a while but that too was threatened
as India blocked the flow of canal waters to Pakistan temporarily.
In addition, Pakistan had to develop various institutions and ministries
from scratch. The entire central secretariat of the British raj was concentrated
in Delhi and the summer capital of Simla. Moreover, the British presence in
Calcutta, Madras and Bombay had transformed these cities into major cosmo-
politan hubs of trade and regional centres of considerable importance. There-
fore, all the major government departments and private companies had kept
their offices in areas that became part of India. In the case of Pakistan, Karachi
was the only viable port city of any considerable commercial significance. The
areas of Balochistan and North West Frontier Province had largely served
strategic purposes. Lahore was the only main city with infrastructure for an
administrative centre because it had been a provincial capital throughout the
British period and the Sikh rule preceding it. But its proximity with the Indian
border made it strategically vulnerable and hence unfit for a capital city.
Like other postcolonial nation-states, Pakistan had certain ruptures in its
history but, at the same time, was eager to project continuity in its historical
tradition. 1947 was one such cut-off date. But it would have implied that
Pakistan had a history that could only date back to 14–15 August 1947. So
the project of an Islam-centric national identity required tracing the idea of
Pakistan through the evolutionary schemata of Muslim nationalism in India

and a historical trajectory spanning over a millennia.
Handler has talked about nations bounded in time and space. Maps help
represent nations bounded in space while a nation bound in time helps ascribe
to it definite historical origins or historical roots traceable to an indefinite past.
In 1947, Pakistan lacked both these qualities of nationhood. Pakistan not only
lacked a continuous historical timeline, the geographical space occupied by the
nascent state was also indeterminate. A cursory glance at the map of Pakistan
of August 1947 reveals that the areas under direct administrative control of the
government of Pakistan were significantly less than what it is today (Bangash
2015). The present day province of Balochistan was, in 1947, largely comprised
of Qalat state and its subsidiary states with only a small area of British Balo-
chistan becoming part of Pakistan’s territory. This, too, had been leased to
the British government during the late nineteenth century, and its ownership
by Pakistan as a successor state of British India was disputed by Baloch na-
tionalists. A large part of Sindh comprised of the princely state of Khairpur.
Similarly, in Punjab, the princely state of Bahawalpur comprised of a few
districts in the southern part of the province. In the North, there were many
princely states such as Dir, Chitral and Swat in addition to Gilgit agency
whose legal status and constitutional affiliation with Pakistan still requires
clarity. While all the princely states were gradually absorbed in Pakistan –
especially after the promulgation of One Unit Scheme in 1955 – it was not
so in 1947. This lack of fixity of borders suggests the transitory nature of the
project of state formation from which stems the anxiety of the state to ascribe
uniformity and project the image of nation bound in time, internally consistent
in terms of sharing the same group memory and inhabiting the same space
over an indefinite period. Thus, in order to establish Pakistan as a nation-state
bound in time and space, it was necessary not only to define the contours of
Pakistan’s geographical boundaries but also to shape a narrative about its
past. This was partly done through the national calendar that took shape in
Pakistan immediately after its creation in 1947.
Closed holidays and optional holidays: national calendar in Pakistan
At the time of its creation in 1947, Pakistan largely continued with the prece-
dence established during the British rule in policy dealing with holidays. The
legal provision for declaring a particular holiday was section 25 of the Nego-
tiable Instruments Act of 1881, which dealt with the regulation of financial
transactions rather than laying down any general rules for the grant of holi-
days on special occasions. This was understandable because Indians under
British rule were subjects of the Crown rather than citizens of a state. There
was, hence, no attempt on the part of British to project a sense of nationhood
or national identity through a national calendar. But it was important for them
to create a communal balance in the grant of holidays. For this purpose,
8 Ali Usman Qasmi
numerous regional variations had to be taken into consideration as well. In

case of British Punjab, for example, the Sikh festivals had to be accommodated
as well in the annual list of holidays in addition to those of Muslims, Hindus
and local Christians. Generally, it was ensured that the total number of holi-
days for a particular dominant religious community in a region was the same
as those granted to other communities of substantial strength. In addition,
the colonial regime had to take into consideration the cultural and religious pe-
culiarities of the British and European servicemen and their families in India
by granting holidays for such occasions as New Year. Also, in order to sym-
bolically assert the authority of the Crown over India, the King or Queen’s
birthday was declared a holiday as well.
After 1947, the government of Pakistan recognised two kinds of holidays:
‘closed holiday’ and ‘optional holiday’. This terminology of the closed holi-
day was a continuation of the British legacy where a holiday was mainly
about regulating financial transactions. A similar term was the ‘gazetted hol-
iday’, which referred to a holiday that had been notified in the official gazette.
From 1950s onwards, the term closed holiday was largely replaced by na-
tional or public holiday. The term gazetted holidays, however, continues to
have relevance to this date as any holiday has to be officially notified in the
government gazette. Optional holidays, on the other hand, were reserved
for the members of a particular community only and not granted to every
employee of the central government nor celebrated throughout the country.
The power to extend this optional holiday to an employee of a particular
background rested with the head of the concerned department or office. No
one was to be granted more than four optional holidays during a year
(NDC 1948b: 24).
A closed holiday could only be declared by the central/federal government,
and it covered the entire country. Even in the immediate period following in-
dependence, it was akin to the concept of public or national holiday as it im-
plied that a certain event, festival or personality – religious or non-religious –
was of significance because of its relevance to the construction of a historical
tradition surrounding Pakistan, its establishment and the concept of Muslim
nationalism or because of its sensitivity to the religious community celebrating
it. Petitioning to the government to acquire certain religious festivals
recognised as a closed holiday was, hence, an important exercise carried out
by different communities immediately after the creation of Pakistan. This is
because an official declaration of a closed holiday would equate a particular
event or festival relevant to a particular community as significant to the whole
nation and, therefore, create a sense of ownership through such inclusion and
recognition. Those groups or communities petitioning the government would
interchangeably use the terms national holiday (qaumi ta‘til) or public holiday
(‘aam ta‘til) in their demands for grant of holidays on specific occasions or in
honour of some revered personalities. While both the terms carry a similar
meaning, a slight difference can also be discerned. In the case of Pakistan,
the nature of the personality or event in whose name or memory the holiday
is being demanded determines the manner in which it will be observed in the

country. In case a person or event relevant to the freedom of Pakistan is con-
cerned, a qaumi ta‘til will imply a different statist ritualism involving the firing
of gun salutes, the change of guards at the mausoleums of the founding fathers
and observing of specific flag rules. ‘Aam ta‘til, on the other hand, is more
appropriate for such occasions as Eid, which require a different set of statist
paraphernalia, such as offering of prayers by the President or the Prime
Minister at historic mosques and greeting ‘common’ people at their official
residences. The ends of both kinds of holidays are the same as they are
observed throughout the country and serve to shape the commemorative
narrative in a specific manner.
As administrative restructuring of the new state was gradually carried out
and the executive authority of the provincial or constitutive units (depending
on the specific legal/constitutional provisions of a period) became clearer,
the respective governments could exercise powers to grant local holidays as
well which were applicable to the employees of the provincial government in
a particular city or the entire province. This power has increasingly been used
in Pakistan for such events as urs (celebrations relating to a Sufi) or for a purely
administrative purpose of holding by-elections in a constituency.
During the year 1947–1948, Pakistan largely continued with the official cal-
endar, which had been followed in British India with minor adjustments. Be-
cause legally Pakistan was still a dominion under the British crown and not
a republic, it continued to observe King’s birthday as a public holiday. In order
to emphasise the ideological tilt of the state towards Islam, it was decided to
declare Friday as half working day from 22 August 1947 onwards so that peo-
ple could conveniently attend congregational prayers (Anjum 2005: 171). Two
major changes in the list of holidays for the year were brought about during
the lifetime of Jinnah and his tenure as the governor general of Pakistan. On
12 December 1947, the prime minister of Pakistan, Liaqat Ali Khan, suggested
that the birthday of the founding figure of Pakistan – Muhammad Ali Jinnah –
should be celebrated as a national holiday. Because Jinnah was born on 25
December – which was already a closed holiday because of Christmas – it
was suggested to celebrate Jinnah’s birthday on December 26. This suggestion
was then approved by Jinnah himself (NDC 1947: 3). Resultantly, 26 December
was declared as a closed holiday and various ceremonies, such as flag hoisting
and parade, were performed on that day. For subsequent years, however,
Jinnah’s birthday was celebrated on 25 December, and no separate holiday
was announced for 26 December.
The second major decision during Jinnah’s lifetime and tenure as gover-
nor general, which shaped the arbitrary construction of a commemorative
narrative, was about the celebrations for Independence Day. Liaqat Ali
Khan wrote to Jinnah recommending the celebration of Pakistan’s Indepen-
dence Day on 14 August instead of 15 August. Jinnah agreed to this sugges-
tion. As clearly stated in the official correspondence, this was not going to
be particular to the year 1948 only, rather Pakistan’s Independence Day
10 Ali Usman Qasmi
was going to be celebrated on 14 August every year (NDC 1948a: 2). The
decision to opt for 14 August was highly arbitrary and did not conform
to a strict chronological rationale. The British lapse of paramountcy took
place on the midnight of 14–15 August. India and Pakistan had not become
independent till the clock stuck 12 at midnight. But the arbitrary decision to
opt for 14 August as the Independence Day was meant to establish the
distinctness of Pakistan and the ‘birth of the nation’ by its separation from
India.
The first recorded instance of official deliberations on the list of holidays
was held in November 1948. This provides a glimpse into the discussions,
which ultimately shaped the emergence of a national calendar in Pakistan
(Figure 1). During the cabinet meeting, demands for new closed holidays
came up for discussion. The Parsi community demanded the inclusion of
their festivals in the list of closed holidays. This demand was set aside
on the pretext that they did not have a significant population. But because
of their importance in the financial sector, it was decided to grant an
optional holiday in Lahore and Karachi for Nauroz and Khorded Sal
(Figure 2).
Other than the events of national significance, which were approved as
closed holidays as a result of these deliberations – such as Jinnah’s birthday
(25 December), Jinnah’s death anniversary (11 September) and Pakistan’s in-
dependence (14 August) – there were religious holidays to be observed as well.
Pakistan continued to have closed holidays for Diwali, Dusehra and
Janmashtami. This does not necessarily mean that these religious/cultural
festivals were ‘celebrated’ at a ‘national level’ but only that a closed holiday
was announced for it by the central government, which covered the entire
country. But it does suggest that despite the Pakistani state’s emphasis on
its distinctiveness as a separate nation on a religious basis, it still had to ac-
commodate its sizeable Hindu minority living predominantly in East
Pakistan. Similarly, closed holidays were announced for Christmas and Good
Friday. In addition to the list of optional holidays for the employees of cen-
tral government, a separate list of optional holidays existed for the employees
of provincial governments. This list was more extensive in the case of East
Pakistan and included many Hindu festivals such as Doljatra, Chairra
Sankranti, Janmashtami, Mahalaye, Lakshmi Puja, Kali Puja and Jagadharti
Puja (NDC 1948b: 11). Some of these holidays were given to Hindu em-
ployees only, but the provincial government did have the authority to declare
a holiday in the entire province of East Pakistan on the account of these fes-
tivals. In 1948, at least, a holiday was declared for all these festivals by the
government of East Pakistan (NDC 1948b: 11). This created a problem for
the central government concerned about the productivity of labour force
and maintaining a predominantly Islamic tenor of national identity. An at-
tempt to influence the government of East Pakistan to change the schedule
of optional holidays was intensified during the 1960s but without much
success.
In 1950, a cabinet meeting was held to discuss the legality of declaring a

public holiday. It was unclear if the prerogative for declaring a public holi-
day, under the Negotiable Instruments Act of 1881, lay with finance depart-
ment or home department. The issue came up because the explanatory
section of the Act had made New Year Day, Good Friday and Christmas
Figure 1. The list of closed holidays for the year 1948.
12 Ali Usman Qasmi
as statutory public holidays, which were considered to be ‘not in accordance

with the spirit of the Govt. of Pakistan’ and replace them with holidays for
Milad-un-Nabi, Pakistan Day and death anniversary of Jinnah. It was ulti-
mately agreed to give the home department responsibility for these matters.
Any further change in the Act, it was decided, would require processing
through the ministry of interior (NDC 1950a).
Figure 2. The list of optional holidays for the year 1948.
A major discussion about public holidays was discussed in November

1951. This allowed for a review of various existing holidays and the possibil-
ity of new national holidays to be added to the list. One interesting case was
the demand for a holiday in the name of Muhammad Iqbal. Iqbal is now
widely recognised in Pakistan as a poet-philosopher credited with envisioning
the idea of Pakistan or Muslim nationalism in his poetry and scholastic writ-
ings in prose. But from 1947 until the late 1970s, Iqbal’s birthday or death
anniversary was not observed at the national level. It was in November
1951 that a proposal was first made to commemorate Iqbal’s death anniver-
sary on 21 April as a national holiday. This demand came from the represen-
tatives of Punjab. It was argued that ‘Iqbal’s message is not only for
Pakistan but for the entire Muslim world and if Pakistan wishes to regain
the intellectual and spiritual leadership of the Muslim countries, one way
was to treat Iqbal as the national poet and philosopher of Pakistan’ (NDC
1951). The role of Iqbal in the creation of Pakistan has been a subject of ac-
ademic speculation for many years. There are many reasons to argue that
Iqbal was not a clear proponent of the demand for a separate Muslim state.
He died two years before the Muslim League itself took up the demand for
separate Muslim states. His most relevant public statement in favour of such
an idea is the famous Allahabad address of 1930 at the annual session of All
India Muslim League where he proposed a state for the Muslims of the
North West within British India. Later, when Chaudhry Rehmat Ali – a
Cambridge-based student and activist – coined the term Pakistan and pro-
posed an ambitious scheme of several Muslim states in India, Iqbal publicly
distanced himself from such a suggestion (Ahmad 1979). But, at the same
time, there is no denying the fact that Iqbal’s poetry became a powerful force
and left a deep imprint on those campaigning for Pakistan during the 1940s.
Also, his confidential correspondence with Jinnah also suggests a departure
from his earlier position regarding the demand for a separate state for Indian
Muslims (Iqbal-Jinnah 1963). But regardless of Iqbal’s actual contribution or
role in the creation of Pakistan, it was Punjab’s eagerness to appropriate
Iqbal as an ideologue for the new state, which became important after
1947. The government of Punjab took the lead in setting up an organisation,
Bazm-i-Iqbal, which was given the task of promoting the writings of Iqbal
and publishing various scholarly works on his life and ideals. A demand
for a national holiday in Iqbal’s honour was part of the same effort of pro-
moting Iqbal to the ranks of a national poet. But this move was unsuccess-
ful in 1951 as other cabinet members apprehended counter demands for
national holidays honouring Sayyid Ahmad Khan – the Muslim modernist
scholar of late 19th century and founder of Aligarh College – and Nazrul
Islam – the famous Bengali poet (NDC 1951). Iqbal Day, it was suggested,
could still be officially celebrated without a national holiday. Instead, it was
decided to restore the public holiday for Good Friday, which had been
converted into an optional holiday during last year’s deliberations. It was
performed after Christians complained about the lack of an exclusive holiday
14 Ali Usman Qasmi
for Christians. Christmas, they argued, was a public holiday because it coin-
cided with Jinnah’s birthday and not because it was a Christian festival
(NDC 1951).
While the demand for a national holiday for Iqbal’s death anniversary was
set aside on the pretext that it might lead to similar demands being made in the
name of other prominent personalities as well, and a policy laid out
emphasising official commemorations without a national holiday, it was not
necessarily followed as a uniform policy. After Liaqat Ali Khan – Pakistan’s
first prime minister and a prominent leader of the Muslim League – was
assassinated, the matter of declaring a national holiday on his first death
anniversary came up for discussion in 1952. In the cabinet meeting, it was
reiterated that despite public pressure there should not be a national holiday,
although his death anniversary was to be officially commemorated (NDC
1952a). But according to Jafri, a national holiday was announced on Liaqat
Ali Khan’s first death anniversary (Jafri 2010: 87). Similarly, a deviation from
the established rule was made as the death of George VI was mourned in
Pakistan with a holiday on 6 February 1952.
Until 1958, before a major policy revision relating to holidays took place,
the government of Pakistan continued to accommodate the religious festivals
of non-Muslims in the national calendar. In the cabinet discussion on holidays
in November 1952, it was decided not to convert the optional holiday of shab-
i-bar’at into a closed public holiday as it would have required denying some
holidays to the minorities (NDC 1952b). After the imposition of martial law
in October 1958, General Ayub Khan assumed for himself the task of
‘streamlining’ the governmental apparatus at every level. His favoured terms
of reference were ‘national’ and ‘modern’ as can be seen from various reforms
undertaken by him and policy initiatives introduced. Contrary to the popular
image of Ayub Khan as ‘secular’, his various policy initatives clearly show
him as a Muslim modernist who was keen on using Islam – understood by
him to be egalitarian and progressive – for the purposes of state and nation
building (Qasmi 2010).
Following a rhetoric of reform and in the name of ‘rationalising’ the num-
ber of public holidays and increased productivity required for national growth,
Khan introduced a major overhaul of policy relating to holidays in December
1958. The summary of this cabinet meeting said:
1. ‘The number of holidays for which the tax-payer has to pay should be re-
duced to the minimum compatible with the religious and national require-
ments of the people of Pakistan; and
2. religious holidays, which are of significance only to minority groups,
should continue to be enjoyed by such minorities without their becoming
an occasion for a general holiday’ (NDC 1965).
The summary of these deliberations set the tone for a majoritarian discourse
centred around Islam as the marker of national identity to the exclusion of
non-Muslims. It marked a transformation from all-inclusivity to exclusivity as

‘national’ was equated with the religion of the majority.
The summary also pointed out the differences in number of holidays and
the events for which they were designated in West and East Pakistan. In both
wings, in addition to the holidays mentioned in the annual list, additional
holidays were also granted to officers of the central government or to the en-
tire province for various events of regional significance. These were, hence,
not optional holidays but additional holidays for the employees of the central
government working for the two units. In West Pakistan, there were three ad-
ditional holidays: Iqbal Day (21 April), 9 Muharram and Hajj Day. The East
Pakistan government had one additional holiday for Eid-ul-Fitr, one each for
9 Muharram and shab-i-bar’at and two for Durga Puja (NDC 1965). In addi-
tion, there were several holidays – especially in East Pakistan for local and
cultural festivals – many of which were considered to be of ‘Hindu’ origins
for which holiday was extended to the employees of the provincial govern-
ment and not always to those of the central government. The difference in em-
phasis on the nature of events in the two wings was clear as West Pakistan
chose to give importance to Iqbal, and East Pakistan spared two holidays
for a celebration, which was culturally rooted in the religious ethos of the re-
gion. The attempt of the central government to bridge this gap failed as the
government of East Pakistan raised objections. The central government
insisted on reducing the number of holidays from a figure of about thirty
(which inclused closed holidays declared by the central government and the
ones declared by the government of East Pakistan) down to around twelve
to fifteen. For this, the central government suggested cutting down on such
holidays as shab-i-bar’at and Bengali new year. This was flatly refused by
the government of East Pakistan citing cultural reasons (NDC 1965: 14–5)
and which continued with much of its own ‘provincial’ calendar for holidays
as well.
The list of holidays for 1965 shows the completion of the process of estab-
lishing a national calendar along majoritarian lines, which had started after
1958. All holidays associated with minority communities were excluded from
the list. Hence, no holiday was reserved for Dussehra and Good Friday. The
exclusion of these holidays from the national calendar meant that the list of
optional holidays continued to increase. In this way, the locally rooted cultural
festivals and religious festivals of minority communities fell in the same list.
There was still no national holiday for Iqbal Day except in West Pakistan.
But there was a national holiday on 23 March – the day comemmorating the
Lahore Resolution (popularly known as Pakistan Resolution) passed in 1940
at the annual session of All India Muslim League demanding the establish-
ment of separate states in the Muslim majority areas of British India. This date
had become important not just because of the Pakistan resolution but because
Pakistan’s first constitution was promulgated on the same date in 1956
transforming the country into a Republic. The choice of date for the promul-
gation was planned to invest the constitution with a certain degree of sanctity
16 Ali Usman Qasmi
as it signified fulfilling Pakistan’s aspiration to formally leave even the nominal

yoke of the British monarchy nine long years after independence. For this rea-
son, 23 March was celebrated as a Republic Day till 1958. But after Ayub
Khan abrogated Pakistan’s first constitution in 1958, the national holiday
granted on 23 March was renamed as Pakistan Day (NDC 1958: 9) to
emphasise the historical significance of this date to the Pakistan movement
rather than to recall it as the date when Pakistan officially became a Republic.
14 August, the same notification said, was to be called Independence Day
rather than Pakistan Day.
After having removed non-Islamic holidays from the list of closed holidays,
it became possible to add two more holidays of ‘national’ importance: the first
was 27 October to mark the ‘Revolution Day’, i.e. the proclamation of Martial
Law of 1958; the second was 6 September to be commemorated as Defence
Day in remembrance of the India–Pakistan war of 1965 and the defence put
up by Pakistan’s military (Jafri 2010: 261). Revolution Day died down with
the exit of Ayub Khan from power. The Defence Day commemorations con-
tinue to take place to this date. It is accompanied with such performative acts
as special TV transmissions, laying of wreaths at the graves of soldiers who
died in the battle or who received highest military order of nishan-i-haider
and so on.
While variations at the provincial level in the grant of holidays continued to
take place, the fixity of a calendar at the ‘national’ level was transient as well.
The changes brought about in Pakistan after 1971 were reflected in the na-
tional calendar. The loss of East Pakistan meant a loss of a sizeable portion
of Pakistan’s Hindu and Buddhist community. The remaining Pakistan had
a Muslim population close to ninety-eight per cent. The post-1971 period of
Pakistani history witnessed the political ascendancy of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
who had secured a majority in West Pakistan in the 1970 elections
championing a socialist rhetoric mixed with the slogan of Islam. The term
‘Islamic Socialism’ gained popularity and came to be identified with Bhutto’s
regime. In order to satisfy his voters and party cadres – comprising mainly
of trade unionists, labourers and landless peasants – the government of
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto declared 1 May as a public holiday in 1972 calling it
a ‘symbol for the Working Classes all over the world’ (NDC 1972:2). It
was the first time that Labour Day was celebrated in Pakistan as a public
holiday.
Again, it was during Bhutto’s regime that Iqbal Day was celebrated for the
first time as a national holiday in 1975 (Jafri 2010: 416). This, again, was reflec-
tive of the reconstituted identarian basis for Pakistan in which the figure of
Iqbal gained prominence. In united Pakistan, there could not be a national hol-
iday on Iqbal’s death or birth anniversary because East Pakistan insisted on
extending a similar recognition to Nazrul Islam. The result was that Iqbal
day was declared a holiday in West Pakistan only and that too under the pres-
sure of members from the Punjab. After 1971, however, the public holiday re-
served for Iqbal day became a national holiday as West Pakistan was now
what was left of ‘original’, united Pakistan. Most recently, however, the gov-
ernment decided to take Iqbal Day off the list of national holidays in order
to reduce the number of holidays. There was some reaction in the Urdu press
against this decision. A popular rightwing Urdu columnist lamented that while
the resolution was being passed in the Assembly to declare a national holiday
for Holi, Iqbal Day had been expunged from the list (Abbasi 2016). It remains
to be seen if this policy of excluding Iqbal from the national calendar will con-
tinue in later years or not.
But overall, since the 1960s, the basic template of the national calendar has
remained the same. There is no festival of non-Muslims included in the list.
The only exception is Christmas, which coincides with Jinnah’s birthday on
25 December. The official gazette notification, at times, mentions both the
events or just Jinnah’s birthday as the rationale for this holiday. The number
of ‘Islamic’ holidays in the list has continued to vary as well. There is no con-
sistency in policy with regard to public holiday for such occasions as mairaj
and shab-i-bar’at. Since the 1990s, a sectarian dimension has been added to
the debate on holidays. The 1980s witnessed the emergence and consolidation
of Sunni militant movements in Pakistan. One such group, Sipah-i-Sahaba
(The Army of the Companions of the Prophet), with a rabidly anti-Shiite
agenda, was able to secure a few seats in the national and Punjab assemblies.
During a period of unstable political governments during the 1990s, various
political parties were forced to accommodate groups with even minor repre-
sentation and put up with their demands. In the case of Sipah-i-Sahaba, their
limited representation in the Assembly was over compensated by their dispro-
portionate influence at the public level through their ability to play upon peo-
ple’s emotion with rhetoric against the Shiite minority. Sipah-i-Sahaba
maintained that ‘Shiite holidays’ of Muharram were being given undue impor-
tance in the overwhelmingly Sunni majority state of Pakistan. They, therefore,
demanded that just like 9–10 Muharram, national holidays should be granted
on the occasion of the death anniversary of the righteous Caliphs held in high
reverence by Sunni Muslims. There have been limited occasions on which this
demand was accepted, and a national holiday was announced on the first day
of Muharram to commemorate the martyrdom of Caliph Umar. Some Shiite
groups, on the other hand, have increasingly demanded that public holidays
be declared for occasions such as the martyrdom of Imam Ali on 21 Ramzan
and Chehlum of Imam Husain on 20 Safar. These developments show how the
attempt to shape commemorative narratives along religious lines has led to
sectarian contestations. The project of identity formation and an attempt to
forge an Islam-based identity has, in other words, boomeranged and led in-
stead to fragmentations along sectarian lines.
Another recent addition to the national calendar is the Kashmir Day on 5
February. It was first celebrated in Punjab in the late 1980s. The purpose of
Kashmir Day was to express solidarity with the people of the Indian part of
Kashmir where a guerrilla fight had intensified in the 1980s. This increasing tur-
moil in Kashmir brought the region back into the limelight and gave Pakistan
18 Ali Usman Qasmi
an opportunity to plead its case internationally. The observance of Kashmir

Day was also part of local power dynamics. The then chief minister of Punjab,
Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, was eager to undermine his political rival, Benazir
Bhutto, who was the prime minister of Pakistan at that time. Sharif took the ini-
tiative of announcing support for Kashmiri fighters by announcing a public
holiday in Punjab on 5 February (Jafri 2010: 665). Since 1990, therefore,
Kashmir Day has become part of the national calendar of Pakistan. Later as
the prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, was able to declare 28 May as
a national holiday as well in 1999. This date marked the first anniversary of
Pakistan’s successful nuclear tests. This, however, could not be sustained on a
regular basis, but it showed an increasing number of holidays (such as 6
September, 5 February and 28 May) where anti-India rhetoric was dominant.
A recent list of closed holidays for the year 2013 (Figure 3) released by the
Ministry of the Interior makes an interesting read. Without requiring much
commentary, it showcases the changes that have taken place in Pakistan’s pol-
ity since 1947. Whereas in 1948–1949, such events as Dussehra, Dulhandi,
Figure 3. The list of closed holidays for the year 2013.
Figure 4. The list of optional holidays for the year 2013.
20 Ali Usman Qasmi
Good Friday, Diwali and Janmashtami were declared as closed holiday, all
such festivals have been relegated to the growing list of optional holidays
(Figure 4) specific to respective religious communities. The ensuing gaps in
the list have been taken up by such occasions as Kashmir Day, Iqbal Day
and Milad-un-Nabi. This is reflective of not just the changing religious demog-
raphy of Pakistan – especially after 1971 – but also the anxiety of the state to
anchor an Islamic identity and rally around symbols and events, which can
help cement this identity. The commemorative narrative, and by default the
project of identity formation, of Pakistan continues to evolve under the influ-
ence of various regional, religious and strategic compulsions. The recent reso-
lution of the National Assembly and the decision taken by the Sindh
government to declare a public holiday for Holi, it can be argued, is also part
of the same process of identity formation and the shaping of a commemorative
narrative, albeit a different one – one which ‘celebrates’ religious diversity and
considers it as a panacea to transform Pakistani society plagued with religious
extremism and violence.
Conclusion
This article has shown the constructedness of historical tradition and national
identity in the context of postcolonial nation-state. It has emphasised the
transitory nature of this process. By focusing on Pakistan as a case study, it
has shown that this process continues to evolve and shape the contours of na-
tional identity. According to Laura L. Adams, national holidays are used by
states to resolve issues about the meanings and aspirations of a nation-state
(Adams 2010: 9–10). It can be concluded on the basis of this article that in
the case of Pakistan, the development of a national calendar has tried to ex-
plain the meaning of the Pakistani state and its distinct nationhood on the ba-
sis of Muslim nationalism or differences with India even in the date of
independence. In order to project the history of Pakistan beyond 1947 so as
to invest the new state with historical antiquity and project an idea of golden
age, the commemorative narrative focused on the millennium in which
Muslim political authority was ascendant in different parts of the Indian sub-
continent. In this way, a commemorative narrative was shaped, which could
be used to emphasise the distinctness of Pakistan as a state separate from
India and the exclusivity of its Muslim nationhood in history while using
the performative aspects of these events for the spectacular postcolonial state
to display its authority and create a homogenised sense of historical time for
its citizens. These processes and developments were reflective of an aspiration
to anchor a national identity undergirded by Islam as a homogenising force
by incorporating within the national calendar those festivals that were previ-
ously excluded from it. This change in the national calendar to the exclusion
of minority festivals was not symptomatic of changing religious aspirations of
the people or acquiescence in the face of public pressure, but a policy decision
to shape an Islam-centric identity, which required the exclusion of minority

religions. Similarly, the reversal of this trend after the resolution passed by
the National Assembly of Pakistan – if at all it materialises – would not be
necessarily reflective of a growing sense of tolerance among the majority of
Pakistanis, but only an attempt by the state to change its narrative for strate-
gic purposes in order to deal with the existential threat of religious extremism.
In the decade of the 1960s when the rhetoric of ‘national’ was being played
out in such projects as ‘national reconstruction’, ‘national grid’, ‘national
television’ and so on, the revisioning of the ‘national calendar’ to celebrate
events exclusive to Islam helped equate ‘national’ with ‘Islam’. The transfor-
mation was carried forward with greater ease after 1971 once the sizeable
Hindu minority was lost as a result of the separation of East Pakistan. Hence,
through an exploratory survey of the policies adopted during different pe-
riods regarding national holidays, this article has used the prism of the na-
tional calendar to depict the changing trends in Pakistan’s history and as
an explanatory model to explain these changes.
Endnotes
1 The research for this article was generously supported by Newton International Fellowship’s
alumni funds and the Faculty Initiative Fund (FIF) granted by Lahore University of Management
Sciences (LUMS).
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Identity Formation Through National Cale

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NATIONS AND J O U R N A L O F T H E A S S O C I AT I O N AS

Nations and Nationalism •• (••), 2017, 1–22.

Identity formation through national

ABSTRACT. This article contributes to academic literature on the project of identity

KEYWORDS: national identity, nationalism, Pakistan, postcolonial history, public

In March 2016, Dr Ramesh Vankwani – a Hindu member of Pakistan’s parlia-

Assembly of Pakistan urging the government to ‘take steps to declare Holi,

From seasonal holidays to national holidays

The sociological approach proposed by Durkheim on the idea of holiday looks

as both rupture and continuity ﬁgure simultaneously. As Pierre Nora has

Pakistan through the evolutionary schemata of Muslim nationalism in India

Closed holidays and optional holidays: national calendar in Pakistan

numerous regional variations had to be taken into consideration as well. In

is being demanded determines the manner in which it will be observed in the

In 1950, a cabinet meeting was held to discuss the legality of declaring a

Figure 1. The list of closed holidays for the year 1948.

as statutory public holidays, which were considered to be ‘not in accordance

Figure 2. The list of optional holidays for the year 1948.

A major discussion about public holidays was discussed in November

non-Muslims. It marked a transformation from all-inclusivity to exclusivity as

as it signiﬁed fulﬁlling Pakistan’s aspiration to formally leave even the nominal

an opportunity to plead its case internationally. The observance of Kashmir

Figure 3. The list of closed holidays for the year 2013.

Figure 4. The list of optional holidays for the year 2013.

to shape an Islam-centric identity, which required the exclusion of minority

National Documentation Centre 1947. “Quaid-i-Azam’s birthday celebrations”, 223/CF/47.

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