The Nation-State Paradox: Unpacking the Discourse of Nationalism in Pakistan

Nationalism in Pakistan cannot be understood through the traditional lens of Western state formation. Unlike European nation-states, which evolved from shared language, ethnicity, and territory, Pakistan emerged in 1947 as an ideological state. Islam, rather than cultural or linguistic unity, was the adhesive of the new state. Yet, the structures of governance it inherited and adopted were entirely colonial, secular, and modernist. This friction between ideology and infrastructure has haunted Pakistan since its inception. The historical project of Western modernity, including its legal and political frameworks, is a product of colonial empire-building. Walter Mignolo termed this dichotomy the “darker side of modernity,” where rationalized legal-bureaucratic systems replaced moral governance rooted in community and faith.¹ In Pakistan, this imposition arrived with British imperialism, which dismantled the decentralized, jurisprudential Islamic legal order and replaced it with a centralized state authority designed for control, not moral justice.² British rule in India was not just a political conquest but a transformation of the native society’s very cognitive and cultural landscape. Through educational reforms like Macaulay’s Minute on Indian Education (1835), colonial administrators introduced Western epistemology while marginalizing indigenous knowledge systems. This pattern persisted in post-colonial Pakistan where modern education, law, and bureaucracy largely retained their colonial foundations. Wael Hallaq offers a particularly sharp critique of the state in Muslim societies. In The Impossible State, he argues that the modern nation-state is not merely incompatible with Islamic governance but fundamentally hostile to it.³ Unlike Islamic law, which emerged organically within communities and was interpreted through a complex system of juristic reasoning (fiqh), the modern state monopolizes law-making and legal interpretation, subordinating moral authority to administrative power. In this light, Pakistan’s postcolonial ambition to be an Islamic state while retaining modern state machinery becomes not only contradictory but, in Hallaq’s view, conceptually impossible.

Pakistan thus entered post-colonial independence with two contradictory paradigms: the aspiration for an Islamic moral polity and the reality of a Westphalian nation-state. These paradigms have never been reconciled. Islamic governance, anchored in the Sharia, subordinates law to morality. Conversely, the modern state enforces law as an expression of sovereign will, supported by coercive institutions like the police and military. This contradiction manifests in every layer of Pakistani nationalism. For instance, the imposition of Urdu as a national language alienated major ethnic groups. Bengalis in East Pakistan, Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch, and Pashtuns each carried their own historical, linguistic, and cultural identities. While Islam offered a common identity, it could not erase deep-rooted local affiliations. The civil war of 1971 and the creation of Bangladesh marked the first major rupture in the ideology of a united Islamic nation-state. Moreover, sectarianism has fragmented the very Islamic unity that nationalism aimed to institutionalize. Deobandi, Barelvi, and Shia communities have contested each other’s legitimacy, often violently. Instead of serving as a unifying doctrine, Islam became a site of political competition. These internal fractures highlight how the state failed to translate religious identity into a coherent national one. This failure is deeply epistemic. Drawing from Foucauldian analysis, truth and governance are intertwined with power. In The History of Sexuality, Foucault outlines how modern institutions exert control by producing particular “regimes of truth” that define what is normal, legal, or acceptable.⁴ In Pakistan, the modern state apparatus delegitimized traditional Islamic knowledge systems and replaced them with secular institutions under bureaucratic control. Courts interpret Islamic laws using colonial legal codes. Parliament legislates morality, while bureaucrats regulate religious education. These practices contradict the foundational idea that divine law cannot be subject to human sovereignty.⁵

The state also seeks to monopolize culture through standardized curricula and national narratives. Yet, as Nelson Maldonado-Torres argues, coloniality persists beyond colonialism.⁶ The knowledge systems, historical perspectives, and governance frameworks in Pakistan remain colonized. Fatima Sajjad terms this the “coloniality of disobedience”—where attempts to reject Western paradigms paradoxically reproduce them.⁷ In education, reforms like the Single National Curriculum aim to equalize opportunity but are designed within a framework still dominated by Eurocentric assumptions. The very effort to create a unified national identity through modern education becomes an instrument of coloniality. It enforces a singular narrative that marginalizes ethnic histories, local languages, and indigenous epistemologies. Additionally, the state’s reliance on global powers and donor-driven policy models entrenches its epistemic dependence. Policies crafted under international pressure—often under the banner of counterterrorism or economic liberalization—further distance Pakistan from developing a sovereign political vision rooted in indigenous norms. This external influence mirrors the logic of the colonial state: rule through elite intermediaries and suppression of grassroots resistance. The media and academic institutions are not immune to this dynamic. The preferred frameworks in political discourse, research funding, and curriculum development often reflect Western strategic and economic interests. Consequently, the production of knowledge in Pakistan tends to mirror colonial biases rather than challenge them. As Gayatri Spivak noted, the subaltern cannot speak when the conditions of speaking are structured by the oppressor.⁸

The nation-state model, rooted in European political theology, insists on centralized authority, sovereign will, and rational bureaucracy. Islamic governance, by contrast, privileges moral community, decentralized legal interpretation, and divine sovereignty. These are not merely different governance systems; they are mutually exclusive ontologies. In Pakistan, attempts to fuse them have not created harmony but produced structural dysfunction. This paradox is not limited to governance but extends to the very idea of the citizen. The modern state produces a political subject willing to sacrifice for the nation. Islamic governance forms a moral subject accountable to God. When sacrifice is defined by political loyalty rather than moral obligation, nationalism becomes a hollow slogan rather than a lived ethos. To envision a future beyond this impasse, Pakistan must explore pathways of epistemic decolonization. This means investing in localized knowledge systems, revitalizing regional languages, and fostering civic education grounded in indigenous values. It also requires a bold rethinking of policy-making—one that consults not just international donors or elite policymakers but communities, scholars, and religious leaders alike. In this context, nationalism in Pakistan is not a settled ideology but an ongoing discourse shaped by unresolved contradictions. It is a project under construction, caught between the metaphysical weight of Islamic ideals and the material demands of the modern state. Until Pakistan addresses this epistemological dissonance—by rethinking not only its policies but its paradigms—it will continue to face instability in identity, governance, and nationhood. The Pakistani case thus compels a broader reflection: Can a post-colonial state built on Islamic ideals survive within a colonial framework? Or must it invent a new political grammar, one that draws not from the ruins of empire but from the roots of its own civilization?

¹ Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).
² Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
³ Wael B. Hallaq, The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
⁴ Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 (New York: Vintage, 1990).
⁵ Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (New York: Russell & Russell, 1961).
⁶ Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “On the Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the Development of a Concept,” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2–3 (2007): 240–270.
⁷ Fatima Waqi Sajjad, “On the Delusion of Disobedience amid Coloniality: Location Pakistan,” Third World Quarterly(2023): 1–16.
⁸ Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 271–313.