‘Pakistan is different from all other states created in the name of religion’

Javed Jabbar reflects on multiple elements of Pakistan’s national identity

KARACHI: Although Pakistan is one of the five nation states created in the name of religion, yet its origin is different from the others, including Vatican City, Saudi Arabia, Maldives and Israel, as well as all the other 193 nation states of the world.

Former senator Javed Jabbar said this while delivering a lecture on 'What is Pakistaniat'. He reflected on the multiple elements of Pakistan’s national identity to mark the 77th anniversary of the Lahore Resolution at the Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, on Tuesday.

While Vatican is headed by the pope, he said, Saudi Arabia, a custodian of Islam, has been formed in the name of one particular tribe. It is not only a religious state but a tribal and an ethnic one, he added.



According to him, you cannot be a citizen of Maldives until or unless you are a Hanafi Muslim. He maintained that there is no such bar for anyone becoming a citizen of Pakistan.

"No state came into being whose one part was a thousand miles apart from another and still survived for 24 years," he said while talking about Pakistan. "There are at least 60 strengths and 40 weaknesses of Pakistan." He added that some of them are reflected in the multiple elements of Pakistan’s national identity.

Giving a short answer to what is ‘Pakistaniat’, he said, "It's the emotional sentiment and the mental commitment to being a part of the Pakistani national identity. Yet, unlike historical national identities, Pakistani identity is of extremely recent origins and comparatively an infant identity."