National identity and national security – Pakistan

After all, in the 19th century and the first few decades of the 20th century, the long-held, exclusive, well-formed Chinese national identity could not prevent British colonial interests and then Japanese forces from taking control of mainland China to hold its people in bondage. It then took the Communist Party’s Long March and other factors to expel alien domination. In almost equally long-established Egypt, the people’s sense of distinct national identity did not deter foreign invasions and occupation by European or Ottoman powers. Is national identity then only one of multiple elements that build national security?

Let us begin with how words are used and how they are understood. Even before we attempt to examine the term ‘national identity’, let us visit the core word of ‘nation’. Nations of one kind or another have always existed in history, without necessarily being described as nations. In the modern context, the coupling of “nation” and “state”, and sometimes inadvertently misusing one term for another, has come to be widely used to define the formally organised units through which large groupings of people established their autonomy and presently conduct relations with other units.

The concept of ‘nation’ has evolved and crystallised quite rapidly in the first half of the 20th century. Perhaps four factors shaped the emergence of this concept and common use of the word ‘nation’. First: The cumulative impact of the Treaty of Westphalia in the 17th century. That pact initiated growing respect for the sanctity of territorial frontiers and, at least in a theoretical and formal sense, the principle of non-interference in the affairs of another state. This process encouraged a sense of solidarity among people living within demarcated frontiers which brought together groups and communities that began to see themselves as a nation instead of only being parts of clans, tribes and kingdoms. The focus also shifted by such entities gradually becoming people-centric rather than being exclusively ruler-centric.

Second: the cataclysms and catastrophes of the two World Wars in the first half of the 20th century in which the emotions, interests and aspirations of
nations were incited and inflamed — and held to be valid justifications for mass slaughter and destruction.

Third: the end of colonial empires including the Ottoman and British empires in particular but also the end of colonial occupation of Africa, Latin America and Asia by the French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian and German states of Europe. All popular movements against colonial occupation effectively used slogans appealing to national affinities.

Fourth: the establishment of the United Nations in 1945 with the signing of the UN Charter by 51 member-states. Over the past decades that number has almost quadrupled to its present level of 193 member states. The sheer proliferation of members of the UN has deepened and broadened
the concept of “nation”. Incidentally, if the USA did not already exist in 1945, the more appropriate name of the new global body should have been “United States”!

Regardless of the enormous variety of groupings and communities that are formally recognised as nations and nation states as well as sub-nations within a single state, it is necessary to note that national identity in all cases is always in two parts. One part is that of inherited identity whichever particular factor of inheritance it may be, eg language, ethnicity, faith, etc.

The other part of national identity is always contemporary, evolving and in a state of flux because people’s lifestyles and characteristics are inevitably affected by the exact places where they reside, by the impact of international, regional, national and local conditions that influence their livelihoods and their cultures. Thus, a sizable part of national identity changes subtly and incrementally over time: it is not fixed or static

In Pakistan’s case, there are two alternative views of national identity. One has deep roots in history. In his book Historical Foundations of Pakistan and its People by the (late) scholar Ahmed Abdulla, published in 1983, an analysis of the sovereignties exercised over the territory that now represents the land of Pakistan (post-December 1971) found that this part of the world was mostly autonomous and self-contained or subject to frequent intrusions from the north-west (Central Asia) or from the west (Persian or Arab).

Over thousands of years, direct control from centres like Delhi, Agra or elsewhere lasted for only 700 years. For over 6,300 years the ancestors
of about 90 per cent of the people of today’s Pakistan (the remaining approximately 10pc being those whose grandparents/parents migrated from
other parts of South Asia and India in 1947 and later) resided and thrived, conflicted, or co-existed in peace with each other on the territory of
contemporary Pakistan for most of recorded history. Despite being divided into tribes, fiefdoms or kingdoms, they had a direct relationship with the
land that is now Pakistan.

Therefore, the creation of a nation state in August 1947 can be seen as the unavoidable, pre-destined fulfilment of a long, historical process reaching a new formative phase.

Seen from this perspective, the growth of Muslim nationalism in South Asia after the abolition of the Mughal dynasty in 1857 became an inescapable,
logical manifestation of a natural, continuous evolutionary saga.

The other view of the national identity of Pakistanis is more limited and far more recent with a more sceptical interpretation. In this reading, Pakistan is seen as an “overnight nation” while simultaneously also becoming an “overnight state”.

Because before August 1947 no nation had existed by the name of “the Pakistani nation”. Indeed, before January 1933 when Choudhry Rahmat Ali
published his pamphlet ‘Now or Never’, even thevery word “Pakistan” which he invented — leave alone a whole nation — did not exist. Such scepticism is also used to move to an even more cynical view: that the creation of Pakistan was a freak, abnormal deviation imposed by the British. And that, therefore, the alleged fabrication of a nation called Pakistan in which religion bound people together was so fragile that East Pakistan broke away in December 1971 and thereby demolished the claim of there being a genuine and sound basis for Pakistani nationalism and for Pakistani national identity.

But fortunately, harsh reality crushes such cynicism, and even scepticism. The authenticity of a separate, distinct Muslim nationalism has been
eloquently authenticated by the fact that, subsequent to December 1971, the people of Bangladesh fervently want to maintain their distinct Muslim Bangladeshi independent national identity. They do not want to be merged with Indian Hindu West Bengal on the basis of shared history, ethnicity or language — to prove that religion is one of the most potent factors in shaping national identity and aspirations.

In December 1971, a combination of elements, including insensitivity by West Pakistani elites to East Pakistani rights and expectations, blunderous political and military decisions within Pakistan and a covert Indian conspiracy followed by overt Indian military intervention led to the disintegration of the original Pakistan. That turning point represented a rejection of the state structure of
Pakistan — but it did not represent the rejection of Muslim nationalism.

So distinct is Muslim national identity in South Asia that even though Muslims in India reside in different parts of the Indian state, speak different
languages and have different lifestyles, they nevertheless share pride and exclusivity in their Muslim identity while remaining loyal citizens of the
Indian state.

The ugly spread of Hindutva in recent years expressed in the persecution of Muslims in general and in India-occupied Kashmir in particular has
only strengthened Muslim identity as being separate from Hindu identity. Muslims in India are unavoidably or willingly, as the case may be, able to
continue living in a single Indian state.

The loss of East Pakistan was a devastating psychological and physical blow to the emerging national identity of Pakistan that had begun to grow over the 24-year period from 1947 to 1971. Yet it is a remarkable phenomenon of history as to how rapidly and resolutely the desire and passion of
the people in (West) Pakistan expressed itself to ensure the continuity of the name of the State of Pakistan.

One reflection of this instinctive urge to retain and to further build the broad, unifying national identity of being Pakistani is the fact that, in the past 52 years, through 11 general elections at the national and provincial levels, not a single political party based on ethnic or sub-nationalist elements alone has come to power at the federal or even, most of the time, at provincial levels. Parties such as the Awami National Party (ANP) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or the Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party in Balochistan or the Balochistan National Party or the MQM in Sindh have almost always had to rule only as part of larger coalition alliances. Or, as in the case of ANP in KP in 2008-13, voters permitted that category of parties only one electoral term.

Post-1971, the country’s political landscape is dominated by political parties with a national, federal, unifying vision rather than by parties that espouse narrow versions of nationalism or religious sectarianism or extremism. This voting preference of the people of Pakistan, illiterate or literate, from one corner of the country or another testifies to the basic humanism and unifying dimension of Pakistani national identity.

If all the meanings of a “nation” remain elusive, the word “identity” is comparatively straightforward. Identity comprises those physical and/or
tangible characteristics that, in this context, determine the specificity of large numbers of people who see themselves as being part of a single nation-state even if some of them, at the same time, equally believe that they are also part of sub-nations or even full nations older in time than the nation to which they presently belong.

When we come to consider the relationship of national identity with national security, the first clarification required is to note that the term
“state security” is a more accurate and appropriate term than “national security” — even though the two terms can be said to be interchangeable
and synonymous.

Yet it is necessary to retain the specificity of state security as being relevant to the context of this essay, rather than the term “national security”.

To consciously exaggerate, but only to make the point: it is only historical nation states that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years that can be assumed to possess national security in the meaning of continuity, stability and even permanence as national entities, regardless of the precise form of the state structure within which these historical nations exist.

Virtually all other nations are relatively speaking in comparison to historical nations, still evolving and growing. Therefore, except for historical nation
states, and perhaps also those founded by religious factors, all the others are, to a larger or lesser degree, insecure!

In 2024, predominantly white Christian Italians, Hungarians, Germans, French, British feel threatened by the immigration of a few thousand non-white,
non-Christians from Africa and Asia who seek refuge from violent conflicts and poverty.

In this sense, after allowing for the distortive, misguiding role of populist elements in Europe, and in the USA, national identity also seems to have a
strangely fragile facet that is easily vulnerable to exploitation by threats magnified out of all proportion to their actual scale.

One element of national security is unchangeable ie its location — if it is landlocked without access to the sea or a navigable river, that state is virtually at the mercy of one or more immediate neighbours.

There are possibly 16 elements of nation-state security:
a) The capacity of a country’s armed forces to ensure the sanctity of borders and territory.

b) The capacity of supporting civil armed institutions, eg the police, paramilitaries, etc to enforce a minimum degree of internal law and order.

c) A national will in the people of a country to maintain the stability of the state and its permanence.

d) Adequate resources to sustain prolonged armed conflict with an external adversary, or against internal threats.

e) Possession of an ultimate deterrent usable against one or more external adversaries if the state’s very survival is threatened.

f) The strength of the resolve by society and state to confront internal violent extremism or terrorism.

g) Capacity to use effective counterterrorism agencies, most especially intelligence-gathering and the ability to conduct decisive pre-emptive operations.

h) Support from friendly overseas countries, in cash and in kind eg oil supply on credit.

i) Support from overseas countries through diplomacy at the UN and in other international forums.

j) Capacity to mitigate the adverse impact of climate change and ensure water and food security for the people.

k) A productive economy that harnesses the human and natural resources of a country through advanced human development and good governance, without heavy dependence on foreign aid and loans.

l) Balanced population growth and particularly the health, education and work-status of girls and women.

m) Quality of relations with immediate neighbouring states.

n) Nature of location of the state’s territory and its size, eg access to seas, or being landlocked.

o) Maturity of the political structures of the state to ensure accurate representation and articulation of the views of all, or most parts of the nation, including freedom of worship and representation for religious minorities.

p) Cyber power capacity, particularly for timely detection of attempted hacking of sensitive security cyber networks and systems, and to retaliate with cyber power capacity if threatening intrusions recur. Similarly, capacity to survive in hybrid warfare, if unleashed upon the country by hostile forces.

There is a direct linkage between some elements of national identity and some elements of national security. For instance: those dimensions that personify the determination to survive formidable odds and setbacks as those faced in 1947 and 1971 are linked to the strength of a nation’s will to ensure the permanence of the state, despite external and internal
dangers.

One element of national security is unchangeable ie its location — if it is landlocked without access to the sea or a navigable river, that state is virtually
at the mercy of one or more immediate neighbours which do have access. Another element of national security is not entirely within the control of a country eg the volume of its external trade that shapes its economy is determined by international flows of commerce and tariffs.

Yet another element of national security, particularly for a country like Pakistan whose carbon emissions are less than one per cent of global emissions, is nevertheless rated to be one of the 10 out of about
200 countries that are becoming the worst victims of climate change.

In the quality of relations with immediate neighbouring states, in the case of Pakistan, the state of relations with India is predominantly affected by
India’s hegemonic posture and its historic animosity against Pakistan. At the simultaneous birth of Pakistan and India in August 1947, more than one Indian leader (falsely) predicted that Pakistan would not last more than six months. Despite the partial fulfilment of this malignant attitude 24 years later with the formation of Bangladesh, Pakistan has survived for 52 years. This reality does not sit well with the extremist Hindutva forces that currently dominate Indian political power.

As if this were not bad enough, another immediate neighbour, Afghanistan, has refused to fully accept the permanence of the Durand Line demarcated in
1897 and enforced in 1947 as the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Support by Afghanistan to the TTP, as of 2024, is a reflection of this basic hindrance.

While there have been some limited positive phases in relations with these two immediate neighbours, by itself Pakistan is unable to concretise this particular element of national security because the onus for
truly accepting the permanence and reality of Pakistan lies with India and Afghanistan.

The 16 elements of national security can be divided into three clusters ie one over which the Pakistani nation state has no direct control whatsoever eg
global-scale climate change, global economic trends. A second cluster of elements consists of those over which there can only be partial control by Pakistan eg relations with immediate neighbours, level of response from international community, etc. A third cluster of elements comprises those in which Pakistan can exert virtually complete control eg balanced population growth, effectiveness of pre-emptive operations against internal threats from violent extremism.

In 2024, while cohesion between the political and military parts of the state is unhealthily dominated by the military, a more vigorous and sustained effort
is required to also transcend the divisive schisms that come with partisan-based democracy — to apply a concerted, holistic, unified approach to bind national identity with national security.

The writer is an author and former senator and federal minister. This text is a specially condensed, adapted version by the writer of a previously unpublished, original essay which appears, for the first time, in the anthology
titled Shade & Light, published by Paramount Books in August 2024.