CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2008
| Author | Sharma, Raghav |
|---|---|
| Title | Pakistan As a Nation State and Flag Bearer of Islam |
| Summary | The tragic events of September eleventh all of a sudden appear to have sucked radical Islam into the centre of the contemporary political discourse. Any attempt to make sense of radical Islam and its rise to global significance has perhaps to begin with two intricately linked cases: Afghanistan and Kashmir. Both have played a seminal role in defining the contours of global jihad and also one’s in which Pakistan has been a central actor. This thesis sets out to examine the role of Islam in shaping the contours of Pakistan’s foreign policy discourse by locating it in the political-historical matrix of the Indian Subcontinent in the 1920’s, which opens up an unusual window of enquiry. Specifically, I address two questions: the first question concerns the possibility of indicating the crucial historical elements from whence Islam emerged as the primary trope for Pakistan’s worldview. This entails looking at process of colonial knowledge formation coupled with the advent of mass politics that played a key role in the crystallization of identities often defined by religion. These process at work since the late nineteenth century eventually culminated in the bloody partition of 1947 and thus constitute a crucial vantage point for making sense of much of the contemporary political discourse of the region. Thus, much of Pakistan’s quest for positioning itself as a champion of Islam stems from this particular historical matrix. This serves as a crucial explanatory variable in answering my second question of what made Afghanistan and Kashmir into becoming definitive for global radical political Islam that lucidly illustrate Pakistan’s commitment to promoting Pan-Islamism and also constitute South Asia and subsequently the world’s defining experience with ‘Islamic terror’. |
| Supervisor | Fumagalli, Matteo |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2008/sharma_raghav.pdf |
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