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Accepted Paper:

Violence and state formation in Pakistan  
Gurharpal Singh (SOAS)

Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine the argument that violence was central to the state formation process of Pakistan, and such is crucial to understanding contemporary developments and the future evolution of Pakistan.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will explore the long-term consequences of Partition violence on the process of state formation in Pakistan. It will argue that because mass violence was central to the creation of Pakistan as a state, its institutionalisation within the structures of the state and as an instrument of state policy has been the defining characteristic of the post-1947 polity. Neither exogenous explanations of Pakistan's insecurity nor indigenous accounts of its failed democratization fully acknowledge the centrality of violence to the realization of the idea of Pakistan Indeed, the paper will argue that there is a need to revisit and re-examines the cycles of violence between 1947 and 1950 to rethink the relationship between these forms and their everyday routinization after 1947. Much as communal violence now defines the post-1947 Indian polity, mass violence and violence across borders has become the hallmark of Pakistani politics, of a catastrophic failure of nation and state-building.

Panel P24
Pakistan: state formation, identity politics, and national contestation
  Session 1