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MORE than four decades after the state of 'OFFICIAL NATIONALISM' a far more powerfulpopular responsein all
Pakistan was created.it is still a country in regions outside the Punjab. The rxation,in
searchof an identity.That is not becausethe Up to a point, it might be said that' that context, is made into a propertyof the
issue of our nationhoodhas not preoccupied Pakistan is not alone among third world privileged groups. Repression of sub-
our minds. To'thecontrary,it is one that wt countries in this predicament; among coun- national movements by the ruling bureau-
have been obsessed with. Much blood has tries where state power lies in the hands of cracyand military,in the name of 'national
been spilt just on that ground. Political one dominant ethnic group, alienating the unity' in the circumstances,is self-defeating
debate and conflict has revolvedaround the rest. In Europe, where sub-national groups for that only deepens their sense of aliena-
question: What is the legitimate place of have also come forward in recent times with tion; their sense of being a subject people.
sub-national aspirations and demands demands for autonomy and national self-
within a larger concept of Pakistani na- determination, the historical perspective THE SALARIAT
tionhood. There is a tension and a dialec- nevertheless has been rather different. There,
tical opposition between these two levels of by and large, national unification move- There is one class which has been central
political identity, which has never been ments preceded formation of nation states to this problem, both with regard to the
resolved, for those in power have tended to so that the resulting states embraced peoples Pakistan movement as well as regional na-
look upon sub-national movements as a who, in the course of such movements, had tionalism within Pakistan after indepen-
threat to 'the nation' and subversive of developed a sense of common purpose and dence. This is a'section of the urban middle.
national unity. comnion identity that brought them together class, those with educational qualifications
In the eyes of the articulateleadershipof as nations. In post-colonial societies such and aspirations for jobs in the state ap-
sub-national groups, the Pakistan 'nation' processes, that weld peoples together, have paratus, the civil bureaucracy and the
has been appropriated by Punjabis who tended to be rather tenuous. So it was, to military. I have called it the salariat [Alavi,
dominate the ruling bureaucracyand the a degree, in the case of the Pakistan move- 1987].This class has a particularsalience in
military that has effectively been in power ment. Whereas in Europe, nations were con- colonised societies with a predominantly
in Pakistan since its inception; in partner- stituted into states, in post-colonial societies agrarianproductionbase wherethe colonial
ship, they might say, until the mid-seventies the problem is inverted: to transforrh states (and post-colonial) state apparatus has a
with Muhajirs who were relatively well into nations. dominating presence in the urban society
representedin the Punjabi dominated state This problem tends to be less acute where and is the principal employer. Associated
apparatus.Membersof the under-privileged national liberation has been achieved with the salariat are urban professionals,
regionshavetendedto see themselvesas sub- through a long drawn mass struggle for in- lawyers and doctors, as well as the in-
ject peoples who have not been given their dependence and self-determination, which telligentsia,writers,poets, teachersand jour-
rightful place in the nation. In their eyes, has brought peoples together to constitute nalists, who share the life experiences and
with a subtle inflection of meaning, the 'na- nations, in their march towards a common many of the aspirations of the 'salariat'.It
tion' is transmutedinto 'country'.They exist destiny. The Pakistan movement has had a is from amongst these that an articulate
within its boundaries and are subject to its trajectory that has not included such a pro-. component of the political leadershipis also
laws and institutions. But the 'concept of *cess. In any case the whole issue becomes drawn.
'country' is not evocative like that of the more problematic where a single ethnic The Indian salariat, in its contemporary
nation. It does not draw upon a deeply group finds itself in control of the state form, originated in the 19th century when
embeddedsense of identification;it does not apparatus, through its disproportionate the colonial regimemade changes in the ad-
have the same emotive and legitimising representation in the state bureaucracy and ministrative and the legal system that was
charge.It does not give 4uite the same sense the military, as in Pakistan. There ruling now to be workedby those who had received
of belonging and commitment, as that of military bureaucratic oligarchies, having ap- an anglo-vernaculareducationratherthan a
the nation. The peoples of Pakistanhavenot propriated state power, identify the state and classical education in Persian, Arabic and
yet fused into a single community.The story the nation narrowly with their own parti- Sanskrit. Those who acquiredthe requisite
of the Bengalimovement,culminatingin the cular purposes and interests. educational qualifications were recruited
liberation of Bangladesh, is a manifest ex- If, in the circumstances, it were to be into the colonial state apparatus as clerks
ample of this-Pakistan-has yet to become claimed that Pakistan is a unified nation that or bureaucrats.These 'westernisedoriental
what Benedict Anderson speaks of as the would be tantamount to what Anderson gentlemen' as they were contemptuously
imagined community which, as he puts it, speaks of as "official nationalism". a na- referredto by British civil servantsin India
is "conceived as a deep horizontal com- tional identity that is not spontaneously were to play a key role in shaping the style
radeship"that cuts across boundaries and generated from below, but is imposect from and direction of early Indian nationalist
social groups and penetrates with varying above by those at the heart of the power politics and they wereat the centre,through-
degreesof consciousness, a great variety of structure in the country, in reaction to out, of the Pakistan movement.
social terrains LAnderson,1983: 161. powerful sub-national movements that evoke The salariatis internallydifferentiated,for