The Garrison State Narrative

In Pakistan, the feeling that Pakistan is a ‘fortress of Islam’ has been cultivated as part of
the national identity. Why? This question becomes all the more intriguing and perplexing
when Pakistani census claims that, at least since 1971, Muslims constitute a solid and
overwhelming majority of at least 96%. Such a compact majority — if ideological rhetoric
about Muslim nationalism and Islamic Ummah is to be believed — should have ensured
cultural and religious cohesiveness, social peace, and solidarity. That, however, is not the
case. Who then poses the existentialist threat to Pakistan?

Looking around for possible candidates that could harbor nefarious intentions and designs
on Pakistan, one must first discount some typical bogeys. For example, one does not find a
communist insurgency in Pakistan compatible to the Nexalite movement in present-day
India. Neither is there a separatist movement compatible to the Spanish ETA or the militant
factions of the IRA that some years ago was able to strike targets on a recurring basis all
over Spain and the United Kingdom, respectively. There is a bleeding insurgency going on in
Balochistan at present, but the Baloch guerrillas have kept that ambit of activities confined
to the province thus far.

In psycho-ideological terms, however, the Pakistan nation has been fed, since the early
21st century, on propaganda that a grand conspiracy hatched by Hanud-o-Yahud-o-Nasara
(Hindus, Jews, and Christians) exists. In a nutshell, the argument is that since Pakistan is
the only Islamic nation that possesses nuclear bombs, it is on the hit-list of all those forces
hell-bent on reducing Muslims to subjugation and slavery, and thus subverting the triumph
of Islam in all the nooks and corners of the world. Such an idea is extremely tempting to
anyone who believes in the internal conflict between Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harab.

[Excerpts from “Pakistan: The Garrison State — Origins, Evolution, Consequences 1947 —
2011” by Dr. Ishtiaq Ahmed, OUP, 2013]