"I am born on the land of Pakistan. I am Pakistani.": Terric nationalism among Hindu Pakistanis

Pakistan is known for the problems of its religious minorities. Moreover, official Pakistani nationalism is religio-ethnic - a state created for the Muslims of British India. One would expect that Pakistan's religious minorities don't feel a sense of belonging to it. Drawing on more than 5...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnic and racial studies 2023-11, Vol.46 (15), p.3360-3379
Main Author: Masood, Syeda Quratulain
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Belonging
Civic nationalism
Embodiment
ethnic nationalism
Ethnicity
Hindus
Land
Minority groups
Muslims
Neighborhoods
Pakistan
Religious minorities
Residents
subaltern
Subjectivity
terric nationalism
Working class
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Summary:Pakistan is known for the problems of its religious minorities. Moreover, official Pakistani nationalism is religio-ethnic - a state created for the Muslims of British India. One would expect that Pakistan's religious minorities don't feel a sense of belonging to it. Drawing on more than 50 interviews and four months of extensive fieldwork among working class Hindu residents of a mixed Hindu-Muslim neighbourhood in Karachi, Pakistan, this article evidences that they felt belonging to the Pakistani nation based on an embodied connection they had with the land of Pakistan through birth, nourishment from the land and similarly embodied connections of their ancestors. By presenting the idea of terric nationalism, this article critiques the ethnic/civic nationalism binary. Further it makes a case for nationalism studies to focus on the subjectivity of the subaltern to build theory.
ISSN:0141-9870
1466-4356
DOI:10.1080/01419870.2023.2185101