Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Raja, Masood Ashraf
Author's Email Address	rajam6_98@yahoo.com
URN	etd-06132006-133645
Title	Texts of a Nation: The Literary, Political, and Religious Imaginary of Pakistan
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Department	English, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Robin Goodman Committee Chair Alec Hargreaves Committee Member Amit Rai Committee Member Christopher Shinn Committee Member Hunt Hawkins Committee Member
Keywords	Pakistan Novel Postcolonial Urdu Nationalism
Date of Defense	2006-05-12
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract This study focuses on the foundational texts of Pakistan. Most theories of anticolonial nationalism have a strictly culturalist emphasis, of which the works of Partha Chatterjee and Benedict Anderson are two good examples. I suggest that politics and not culture was the main signifier of the post-1857 struggle of Indian Muslims. While the social, religious and ethno-linguistic ideologies became a part of the mobilizing discourse of the Muslim elite, the main problem was not cultural—for they had always a had a living thriving separate culture—but a question of political survival under a national structure run by non-Muslims. Unlike Europe, where nationalism succeeded as the prime signifier of a modern identity, within the realm of political Islam territorial nationalism was always a sort of arbitrary compromise and it was never able to erase completely the pan-Islamic tendencies of political Islam. The history of the Pakistan movement is a good example of this tension between the nationalist and supranational politics. For political Islam in India this movement from a supranational-pan-Islamic identity to the politics of nationalism was a fairly complicated negotiation. Starting from 1857—the formal end of the nominal Muslim rule—until 1947 these tensions between the nationalist elite and pan-Islamic movements played an important role in defining the pre-and post-independence character of the Muslim politics. The main problem was to define a viable political identity in order to create a physical public space where the Muslims could live their lives according to a political system controlled by Muslims. It is this search for a viable political identity that led to the nationalist movement of Pakistan. In the same process, however, there were two major divisions within the Muslim community: the political elite led by the secular All India Muslim League (AIML) and the popular movements spawned by the religious scholars. Texts of Nation primarily focuses on the national texts produced by the Muslims from 1857 to 1947.
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