Narrative and counter-narrative

National narrative is an epistemic instrument, deployed to ascribe meaning and a sense of purpose to a human collectivity inhabiting a particular space. That space in the contemporary parlance is called a nation state.
In simpler terms, one may assert that a nation state, some time after its formation, is brought into a certain ideological framework. In some cases, the ideology comes to hold far greater importance than the state itself. Pakistani state is a glaring example of such a case where ideology supersedes the state itself. Thus the ideology which ostensibly underpins the state structure (of Pakistan) finds its articulation through what we call the national narrative.
Pakistani nationalism is predicated on the ideology which fructified much later than the existence of Pakistan. A general belief held by the liberal section of Pakistani bourgeois is that Major General Nawabzada Sher Ali Khan Pataudi (1913-2002) was the principal architect of the ideology of Pakistan. He was the Federal Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Affairs from 1969 to 1971, when the ideology was first conceived and subsequently circulated to its lasting effect. The state-controlled media and textbooks were the major source(s) to disseminate the ideology out of which the national narrative emanated.
While not denying the role of Maj. General Sher Ali Khan in giving an ideological colour to the national narrative, I just want that perception to be historicised here so that one can make better sense of it. In fact, the passage of Objectives Resolution in 1949 was the first concrete step towards the formation of Pakistan’s national narrative with tangible Islamic overtones. However, the people controlling the reins of power did not allow the clerics to take charge of that narrative despite their vying for it with full force in 1953.
For the first three decades, as Ali Usman Qasmi argues, the policy-makers were engaged with liberal interpretation of Islam, with people like Ghulam Ahmed Pervaiz, Dr Fazl ur Rahman and Dr Javid Iqbal advising them on matters pertaining to religion. Thus the national narrative resonated the inclusive or largely non-sectarian Islam, which reverberated the sensibility of what we call “Muslim Modernism”. It was only in 1974 that the clerics asserted themselves and appropriated the national narrative when Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims.
Ironically such narrative had ‘exclusion’ as its core postulate. Gen. Sher Ali Khan’s framing of the ideological framework levelled the ground for what transpired in 1974, the onset of religious exclusion in a practical sense.
Important here to mention is the way Muslims came to be defined de novo, in 1979. After appropriating Iqbal, his thoughts were invoked in order to substantiate the Ahmadi exclusion. Belief in the unity of God, the divinity of the Quran and the finality of Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) prophethood were three qualifying determinants for anyone to be designated as a Muslim. It will be pertinent to mention here that in the days of the British Raj, the ability to recite kalima was the sole criterion for anyone to be called Muslim. Quoting Qasmi will help us to have better understanding of the way British determined who was the Muslim and who was not. “In the late nineteenth century, the (British) courts arrived at the decision that recitation of kalima signified the initiation of a person into the fold of Islam and was hence to be considered the marker of Muslim identity”.
It must be borne in mind that the very act of defining is an exclusionary practice. From 1979 to 1986, the narrative having fallen in the fold of Sharia, it virtually became the guiding principle for the state policy and the religious exclusion became the seminal feature of Pakistani national narrative. The eventual realisation of that narrative was the intensification of sectarian fault lines and the advent of such organisations like Sipah-Sahabah Pakistan or Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, which pose existential threat to the polity.
While unravelling the Pakistani national narrative, one finds several unqualified and unilateral inferences forming its nitty gritty. These unqualified inferences are meant to be embraced without raising any question about their historical validity. Like it is assumed that “Pakistan was created in the name of Islam”; then it is also assumed that all Muslims are brothers hence the part of one millat/Umma. Such a presumption which I am designating as “unqualified inference” is a contradiction in terms; more importantly it is perilous for Pakistan’s existence as a nation state.
What makes Pakistan a unique country is its status as a nation state with its ideology, embedded in religion. It is therefore different from other ideological states of the 20th century like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or Totalitarian Soviet Union because these countries opted to have secular ideologies. It has already been ascertained that national narrative represents the collectivity. What has not been mentioned is the nation’s core as its sole focus. Therefore, the voice of the individual and those inhabiting the peripheries are scantily represented.
Consequently, the ethno-lingual identities having little representation, resort to dissonance towards the centre or anything that the centre subscribes to, including the national narrative. Now since the counter-narrative is being talked about, one wonders how the grievances of the marginalised identities will be addressed. One way to engender the counter narrative will be to cultivate and foster the sense of a Pakistani social which is inclusive. Can we go back to the definition of the Muslim with recitation of Kalima as the sole criterion for being a Muslim? That was the ‘definition’ which was in vogue during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Will it be possible to make it possible instantaneously? That is the question we will take up in the next week’s column.

Source: Narrative and counter-narrative