Suchergebnisse

In order to understand the Pakistani state and government's treatment of non-dominant ethnic groups after the failure of the military operation in East Pakistan and the independence of Bangladesh, this book looks at the ethnic movements that were subject to a military operation after 1971: the Baloch in the 1970s, the Sindhis in the 1980s and Mohajirs in the 1990s. The book critically evaluates the literature on ethnicity and nationalism by taking nationalist ideology and the political divisions which it generates within ethnic groups as essential in estimating ethnic movements. It goes on to

How do sociopolitical developments in the 1980s endure in contemporary Pakistan? The article answers this question across three dimensions: first, the religious, as witnessed in General Zia-ul-Haq's weaponization of blasphemy laws that shaped the rise of a majoritarian political actor in the shape of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) in 2017. Second, the social, with Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization laws denigrating the agency of women leading to their resolute mobilization in the 1980s and again in 2018 in the shape of the Aurat March and Aurat Azadi March movements. Finally, the political, where the military takeover in 1977 invited a counter-movement in the form of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in 1981. In 2020, opposition parties formed the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) as a counterweight to the incumbent civil-military hybrid regime. The article concludes that Pakistan's failure to improve on the religious, societal and political indicators lies at the core of its dishevelled polity.

AbstractThe article attends to the dynamic of subjective interpretation of socio‐economic conditions by ethnic elites in ways that convince co‐ethnics of their relative deprivation and discrimination. The article asserts that it is essential to move beyond structuralist explanations relative to economic deprivation and discrimination for they stand to essentialise social and economic conditions as defined by ethnic entrepreneurs themselves. In studying the crystallisation of Mohajir ethnicity in the 1970s and 1980s, the article seeks to (re) present alternative interpretations relative to political, economic and social facts of discrimination as subjectively presented by the Mohajir ethnic elite. The article locates peripherality not in the political system that disadvantaged the Mohajirs but in the discourse of discrimination propagated by the new Mohajir ethnopolitical elite. It is in this sense that discrimination becomes what ethnic groups make of it.

The subject of international relations and its theories are based primarily on what the great powers do. Major ir theories including realism and neorealism have put small states and powers at the very margins of their respective theories arguing that since they do not display any form of power at the national and systemic levels they could as easily be discarded from theoretical and empirical debate and analysis. The present article challenges this theoretical construct and seeks to investigate whether the small powers are innate non-players in the international system and hence 'vulnerable' entities or display forms of power vis-à-vis the great powers in which their 'maneuverability', influence and independence may be manifest. This is attempted with respect to a comparative analysis of Pakistan and Singapore in which both an endogenously driven explanation taking into account both states' domestic constitutive features are brought into focus alongside a behaviorally-oriented exogenous explanation bordering on power and security.

Balochistan is in the grip of two distinct and mutually exclusive ethnonational and religious movements that straddle important swathes of its rugged and mountainous territory. From Quetta up in the north to the coast of Makran in the south, Balochistan is being shaped by the twin forces of local nationalism and jihadist organizations. Domestically, the issue of Balochistan has remained an Achilles heel for Pakistan's policy makers culminating in five separate insurgencies in the post-colonial era. All such insurgencies had to do with the imperative of a centralizing elite and the recalcitrance of a local elite resisting assimilationist pressures. On the religious front, since 2009 Balochistan has come under increased scrutiny, with the Americans alleging that Quetta and its environs are a safe haven for the Taliban leadership, including Mullah Omar. Coincidentally, Quetta has also seen rising sectarian conflict, and the Shia-Sunni divide in the city continues to assume importance in the War on Terror. In light of the rising tide of Baloch nationalism and jihadist activism, including sectarian killings, the paper puts forth a critically oriented analysis of the twin dynamics of religious activism and ethnic conflict in Balochistan and its attendant ramifications for domestic, regional, and global security. (JCCA/GIGA)