Pakistan revealed unresolved identity, ideological rigor, frequent dependence on proxy war and a confluence of selective forgetting disease. Two events – seem to have ruled the basic questions about what Pakistan is and what it wants to live.
Opposite events
On one front, General Asim Munir, head of Pakistan Army, gave a speech, in which the ghosts of two-nation theory were revived, the ideological foundation on which Muhammad Ali Jinnah led the movement for the creation of Pakistan. In April, at the Foreign Pakistanis Conference in Islamabad, General Munir announced that the people of Pakistan are “basically different” from the Hindu – by religion, by tradition, by culture, and ambition. “Our ancestors thought that we were different in every possible aspect of life,” he commented, called for the fundamental story of Pakistan’s birth. His language and vowels were indifferent, divisive and arrogant – an appeal made to save Jinnah’s ideological heritage from forgetting.
A day later, in Dhaka, Bangladesh blamed Pakistan for the horrors of its disgusting past. During the first Foreign Secretary-level talks in 15 years, the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh demanded a long-awaited apology for the atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army during the 1971 liberation war. Even though the current rule in Bangladesh is doing Pakistan, but the demand for confession of guilt is not only irony – it is a regrettable theater of Mensia, designed as strategic practicality. However, the role of Pakistan during the birth of Bangladesh is an episode of great cruelty that it still echoes in the soul of the country. With an apology for a terrible campaign of systematic repression, Bangladesh has reiterated its demand of more than $ 4 billion in revaluation – part of the property of undivided Pakistan, including assistance, pension funds, and other state resources.
Here the irony could not be a starker, perhaps even sad. This is a moment rich in historical contradiction: while Pakistan’s security establishment confirms the hypothesis that the partition was compulsory and morally appropriate, its East Eastern Wing – once tired by fraud and stories – demands accountability for the violent consequences of that very partition, before the formal harmony can be beaten.
A theory, its reinforcement, interval
The theory of the two-nation argued that Muslims and Hindus were fundamentally different communities that were defined by religious and cultural cracks, and therefore, could not function harmoniously within an integrated political structure after the colonial rule in the Indian subcontinent. But this ideological claim was not just a political equipment; It became a deep embedded mythos, which was reinforced by the state of Pakistan through textbooks and speeches. Nevertheless, theory included its seeds of disintegration. When the cultural and linguistic aspirations of the Bengalis of East Pakistan were rejected from contempt, their votes were completely humiliated in the democratic elections, and their cultural identity was brutally suppressed by the Punjabi Elite in Islamabad, which was a lot of reasoning for two-nation.
The speech of General Munir, then, should not only be understood as a re -confirmation of a infamous ideology, but as an act of forgetting – was deliberately performed of the uncomfortable lesson of South Asian history. This is a return of familiar rest of a useless principle that promises certainty in the world defined by ambiguity and fracture. But such confirmation, no matter whether it is forced, then there should not be economic, political and security challenges in front of Pakistan.
Pakistan has never formally apologized for atrocities against Bengalis, with constant rule either with rejecting or falling violence, sometimes convicted evil elements. Distracted, Pakistan appears to be ready to repeat the same pattern of repression in Balochistan, which demonstrates equal aggression, refusal and reluctance to be politically attached to legitimately valid complaints. Instead of learning from its mistakes in East Pakistan, Rawalpindi got trapped in a cycle of dictatorial reactions to dissatisfaction, which strengthens a lot of partitions that once caused Pakistan’s disintegration. Current Bangladeshi regime’s ideological orientation – emerging out of Sheikh Hasina – does not represent a royal shift, but is inspired by an opportunistic repetition, misleading beliefs that are causing significant tension on the top of governance in Dhaka and especially in relations between many citizens. However, for most Bangladeshi people, terrible events of 1971 are not a distant historical record cases; They are vivid inter-generated memories, which are reinforced by collective trauma around the birth of the nation.
So deep is the burden of this trauma that it has motivated the Dhaka rule to demand both formal waiver and revaluation from Pakistan, even indicating a practical turn towards Bangladesh generalization. However, the demand for moral and physical accountability is not inspired by Vandana, but serves as a Catharic petition for minimal recognition of aggressive responsibility. This Pakistan continues to prevent such recognition, not only a sign of ideological obstacles, but also a deep pathology.
Pakistan’s hybrid rule should be asked: Is it well, through the recurrence of ideology at the price of self-examination? Has the call of two-nation theory made Pakistan more harmonious, more egalitarian, or more with its neighbors-or even with itself? The resulting question is now whether Pakistan can create a national identity contained in its own values and aspirations, not only in opposition to ‘Indian others’.
The two-nation theory may lead to the origin of Pakistan, but its emotionality and division makes it a very poor and insufficient guide for national action. Since the military tension increases in view of Indian aerial attacks on terrorist camps in Pakistan, which after the Pahgam terror attack, is thrown into relief the dangers of following the principle. Hybrid rule, with the puzzle of the Imran Khan incident, can find a little consolation in the obsolete concept of two-nation theory, along with the ongoing extremism in Balochistan, and the Afghan Taliban.
Vinay Kaura is an assistant professor in Sardar Patel University, Safety and Criminal Justice, Rajasthan in the Department of International Affairs and Safety Studies; And Ani resident Fellow, South Asian Institute, National University of Singapore
Published – May 08, 2025 12:08 am IST