Embracing the Ummah: Student Politics beyond State Power in Pakistan

Nelson, Matthew J.

Abstract

Studies of student politics in Pakistan often focus on the competition between ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ student groups—for example, the leftward-leaning National Students Federation, regional parties with a broadly secular orientation like the Pakhtun Students Federation, the Islami Jamiat-e-Tuleba (Islamic Students Association), and sectarian groups like the (Shi'a) Imamia Students Organization. This paper describes the emergence of an increasingly violent stalemate between and amongst these groups since the 1960s. It then argues that for a growing number of students this stalemate produced a certain disenchantment with exclusionary efforts to control the ‘state-based Muslim nationalism’ that lay behind the formation of Pakistan itself. Seeking alternatives, these disenchanted students developed an interest in non-state-based forms of Muslim solidarity—forms that rejected the constraints of territorial Muslim nationalism in favour of transnational movements focused on the revitalization of Muslim solidarity on a truly global scale—movements like the (Deobandi) Tablighi Jama'at and the (Barelwi) Da'wat-e-Islami. Tracing this development, this paper takes up one application of Talal Asad's argument that alternative expressions of religion (and religious solidarity) are ‘produced’ by specific political circumstances. It also examines this formulation in the light of other theories that take an interest in the effects—indeed the potentially ‘democratizing’ effects—of protracted political stalemates.

Citation

Nelson, M. J. (2011). Embracing the Ummah: Student Politics beyond State Power in Pakistan. Modern Asian Studies, 45(3), 565-596. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X11000242

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 27, 2010
• Online Publication Date: Apr 28, 2011
• Publication Date: May 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: May 10, 2011
• Journal: Modern Asian Studies
• Print ISSN: 0026-749X
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-8099
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 565-596
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X11000242