An Anthropology of Events and Everyday Life

604 Pages·2012·5.22 MB·English

by  Khan, Naveeda Ahmed

Beyond Crisis
Critical Asian Studies
Series Editor: Veena Das
Kreiger-Eisenhower Professor in Anthropology,
Johns Hopkins University
Critical Asian Studies is devoted to in-depth studies of emergent social
and cultural phenomena in the countries of the region. While recognising
the important ways in which the specifi c and often violent histories of the
nation-state have infl uenced the social formations in this region, the books
in this series also examine the processes of translation, exchange, boundary
crossings in the linked identities and histories of the region. The authors in
this series engage with social theory through ethnographically grounded
research and archival work.
Also in this Series
Living with Violence: The Anthropology of Events and Everyday Life
Roma Chatterji and Deepak Mehta
ISBN 978-0-415-43080-7
Enchantments of Modernity: Empire, Nation, Globalization
(Ed.) Saurabh Dube
ISBN 978-0-415-44552-8
The Intimate State: Love-Marriage and the Law in Delhi
Perveez Mody
ISBN 978-0-415-44604-4
Settlers, Saints and Sovereigns: An Ethnography of State Formation in Western India
Farhana Ibrahim
ISBN 978-0-415-44556-6
Shared Histories of Modernity: China, India and the Ottoman Empire
(Eds) Huri Islamog˘lu and Peter C. Perdue
ISBN 978-0-415-48166-3
Beyond Crisis
Re-evaluating Pakistan
Editor
Naveeda Khan
LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI
First published 2010
by Routledge
912–915 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi 110 001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2010 Naveeda Khan
Typeset by
Star Compugraphics Private Limited
5–CSC, First Floor, Near City Apartments
Vasundhara Enclave
Delhi 110 096
Printed and bound in India by
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage
and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-415-48063-5
To my parents Munawar and Shafique,
my husband Bob
and my children Sophie and Sulayman
with my deepest gratitude
vi (cid:132) Beyond Crisis
Contents
Glossary ix
Foreword by Veena Das xv
Acknowledgements xxi
Introduction 1
Naveeda Khan
Part I: Artifi ciality of the State
1. Towards a Lyric History of India 31
Amir R. Mufti
2. The Politics of Commensuration: The Violence of
Partition and the Making of the Pakistani State 61
Tahir Hasnain Naqvi
3. A Real Terrorist 89
Oskar Verkaaik
4. Reimagining the ‘Land of the Pure’: A Sufi Master
Reclaims Islamic Orthodoxy and Pakistani Identity 118
Robert Rozehnal
Part II: The Diffi culty of Nationalist Visions
5. Registering Crisis: Ethnicity in Pakistani Cinema of
the 1960s and 1970s 145
Iftikhar Dadi
6. Listening to the Enemy: The Pakistan Army, Violence
and Memories of 1971 177
Yasmin Saikia
7. Strength of the State Meets the Strength of the Street:
The 1972 Labour Struggle in Karachi 210
Kamran Asdar Ali
8. Jama’at-e-Islami Pakistan: Learning from the Left 245
Humeira Iqtidar
viii (cid:132) Beyond Crisis
Part III: Foreignness Within
9. The Paradoxes of Ahmadiyya Identity:
Legal Appropriation of Muslim-ness and the
Construction of Ahmadiyya Difference 273
Asad A. Ahmed
10. Words that Wound: Archiving Hate in the Making of
Hindu-Indian and Muslim-Pakistani Publics in Bombay 315
Deepak Mehta
11. Itineraries of Conversion: Judaic Paths to a Muslim Pakistan 344
Sadia Abbas
12. Iqbal and Karbala 370
Syed Akbar Hyder
Part IV: The Everyday
13. Look Who’s Talking Now: Voice and Authority in
Pakistani Shi’i Women’s Gatherings 401
Amy Bard
14. Madrasa Metrics: The Statistics and Rhetoric of
Religious Enrolment in Pakistan 430
Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja and Tristan Zajonc
15. Uncivil Politics and the Appropriation of Planning
in Islamabad 452
Matthew Hull
16. Mosque Construction or the Violence of the Ordinary 482
Naveeda Khan
Afterwords
Living the Tensions of the State, the Nation and
Everyday Life 521
David Gilmartin
Anthropology and Pakistani National Imaginary 531
Katherine Pratt Ewing
Bibliography 541
Note on the Editor 565
Notes on Contributors 566
Index 569
Glossary
This is a select list of the non-English terms that appear in the articles
in this book. I have given the Urdu spellings although in a few cases
I have indicated the more usual spelling by means of a backslash.
For a few words I have opted for the Arabic spellings as the authors
privileged them. I have not attempted to standardise names across
the individual articles.
adab civility; comportment
alim religious scholar
amir ruler; commander
aql intellect; sense
arkan pillar; support, pl. rukn
ashraf noblemen; well-born; Muslim gentry; s. of
sharif
auliya/awliya literally friends of God; saints; pl. of wali
auqaf religious endowments; pl. of waqf
awam the people
azan Muslim call to prayer
baraka/barakat blessing; spiritual quality transmitted by saint
to his place of burial and his descendents
batai division of agricultural produce among
landlord and tenants
biradari brotherhood; patrilineage
chilla a period of 40 days demarcating such events
as mourning, spiritual exercises, missionary
trips, etc.
dargah shrine or tomb of a reputed saint which is
the object of veneration and pilgrimage
dars religious lesson
darsan seeing; looking; visiting a sacred shrine;
worshipping in the presence of an image
darud/durud benedictions; prayer in praise of the Prophet
Muhammad
dastan story; fable
dawa/dawat invitation; missionary activity