Paper short abstract:

As opposed to established explanations of Pakistan's creation, an entirely revised interpretation emerges from contradictions and reactions that pre-1947 growth generated in the Pakistan area. These dynamics also fundamentally explicate configurations of political economy in post-1947 Pakistan.

Paper long abstract:

Analyses of creation of Pakistan continue to be dominated by narratives of political history, maintaining that notion of separatism among Indian Muslims originated from unease of Muslim elites over competition and mobility by emergent Hindu professional groups in the Gangetic plain. However, this discourse sits uncomfortably with an adequate explanation for how and why the seemingly continued indifference of Muslims in Muslim majority provinces was finally converted to a homeland for Muslims. The outcome, emergence of Pakistan, is indeed negotiated as apogee of process of communal separatism. Little analysis is attempted to try and understand nature of the 'great divide' through deeper historical forces in actual areas that became Pakistan.

This paper explores long-term trajectory of economic change and its socio-political repercussions in Indus basin. This region now constitutes the largest contiguous canal irrigated zone in the world, yet its political economy ramifications and social impacts are hardly comprehended by analysts of 'Muslim nationalism'. The paper will argue that an entirely revised interpretation of creation of Pakistan emerges from contradictions and reactions that growth generated in this region, during colonial and even late Mughal periods. Moreover, these responses also fundamentally explicate configurations of political economy in post-1947 Pakistan. Could a 'continuum of counter-revolutions' have effectively reversed emerging market forces, thereby retarding modernizing institutions and in turn further embedding incumbent pre-modern formations that display such historic resilience?

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