Pakistan and Its Diaspora: Multidisciplinary Approaches

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Pakistan and Its Diaspora

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Pakistan and Its Diaspora Multidisciplinary Approaches

Edited by

Marta Bolognani and Stephen M. Lyon

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PAKISTAN AND ITS DIASPORA

Copyright © Marta Bolognani and Stephen M. Lyon, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–11093–9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pakistan and its diaspora : multidisciplinary approaches / edited by Marta Bolognani and Stephen M. Lyon. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978–0–230–11093–9 1. Pakistan—Politics and government—1988– 2. Politics and culture—Pakistan. 3. Social change—Pakistan. 4. Pakistan—Social conditions. 5. Pakistanis—Migrations. 6. Pakistanis—Great Britain— Social conditions. I. Lyon, Stephen M. II. Bolognani, Marta. DS389.P3425 2011 954.9105⬘3—dc22

2010038985

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: May 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

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To my LUMS students Marta To Tadashi and Tomiyo Steve

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Contents

Notes on Contributors

ix

Acknowledgments

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Part 1

Introduction

1 The Mirror Crack’d: Shifting Gazes and the Curse of Truths Stephen M. Lyon and Marta Bolognani

Part 2 2

3

The Public Sphere

Rang de Basanti in Pakistan? Elite Student Activism, the Emergence of a Virtual Globalized Public Sphere, and the 2007 Emergency Marta Bolognani

3 Revisiting the UK Muslim Diasporic Public Sphere at a Time of Terror: From Local (Benign) Invisible Spaces to Seditious Conspiratorial Spaces and the “Failure of Multiculturalism” Discourse Pnina Werbner

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Part 3 Kashmir 4

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Across the Fence: Belongings and Representations between Pakistan and Kashmir Paul Rollier Kashmiris in Britain: A Political Project or a Social Reality? Martin Sökefeld and Marta Bolognani

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Contents

Part 4 6

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Religious Leadership

Changing Religious Leadership in Contemporary Pakistan: The Case of the Red Mosque Amélie Blom

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The Religious Formation and Social Roles of Imams Serving the Pakistani Diaspora in the UK Philip Lewis

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Part 5

Women

8 Pakistani Women and Education: The Shifting Patterns of Ethnicity and Class Marie Lall 9

“I Really Couldn’t Think of Being Married, Having a Family with Nothing behind Me”: Empowerment, Education, and British Pakistani Women Jody Mellor

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Conclusion: Being Pakistani beyond Europe and South Asia Marta Bolognani and Stephen M. Lyon

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Index

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Contributors

Amélie Blom is associated with the Institut d’études de l’Islam et des Sociétés du Monde Musulman (IISMM/EHESS, Paris). She is coeditor of SAMAJ (South Asia Multidisciplinary Journal) and coordinator of GR ASP (Group for Research in the Anthropology, Sociology and Politics of Pakistan), a listserv to link academics undertaking fieldworkbased researchers on Pakistan. She has been teaching Political Sociology at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and at SciencesPo.-Paris. She has edited The Enigma of Islamist Violence (Hurst, 2007), as well as several articles and chapters in collective volumes on Pakistani society and politics. Her research focuses on patterns of engagement and mobilization in the name of Islam in Pakistan. Marta Bolognani is Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol, UK. She did her PhD from Leeds University with a thesis that was later published as Crime and Muslim Britain: Race, Culture and the Politics of Criminology among British Pakistanis (I.B. Tauris, 2009). Dr. Bolognani was Head of Sociology, Criminology and Popular Culture at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff (UWIC) between 2008 and 2009, after returning from Pakistan where she had taught Anthropology and Sociology at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) between 2006 and 2008. She serves on the Executive Committee of the Muslims in Britain Research Network and is part of the Pakistan Studies Group for which she is one of the organizers of the annual “Pakistan Workshop.” Marie Lall is Senior Lecturer in Education Policy at The Institute of Education, University of London. Marie is a South Asia specialist with special reference to India, Pakistan, and Myanmar. She is the Institute of Education’s country champion for India, an associate fellow at Chatham House, and a honorary fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.

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Contributors

Philip Lewis is Adviser on Christian-Muslim relations to the Bishop of Bradford, UK, and lectures in the Department of Peace Studies of the University of Bradford. He worked at the ecumenical Christian Study Centre in Pakistan between 1978 and 1984. As a Commissioner for the Runnymede Trust, which produced the report Islamophobia (1997), Lewis’ special interest is how religiously diverse cities/societies are to cohere and the contributions to religions. His publications include Islamic Britain: Religion, Politics and Identity amongst British Muslims (I.B. Tauris, 2002) and Young, British and Muslim (Continuum, 2007). Stephen M. Lyon is senior lecturer in anthropology at Durham University. He is the author of An Anthropological Analysis of Local Politics and Patronage in a Pakistani Village (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004) and has published numerous articles on conf lict management and politics in Pakistan. He continues to research the role of new information technologies on political action in Pakistan, in particular, the impact of cell phones and the Internet on democratization movements within the country. Jody Mellor is a research assistant in the Department of Sociology at the University of Bristol, working on a project exploring social class in higher education. She completed her PhD, entitled Parallel Lives: Working-Class Muslim and Non-Muslim Women at University in 2007 at the Centre for Women’s Studies, University of York. Jody has also worked as a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK at Cardiff University and the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests include the intersections between faith, class, and ethnicity, the British Pakistani Diaspora, and migration in Europe. Paul Rollier is currently a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies). His thesis focuses on Shi’i rituals and religious discourses in Lahore, Pakistan. He received his undergraduate degree from the SOAS (London) in Social Anthropology and Hindi, and went on to study at the INALCO (Institut National des Langueset Civilisations Orientales) (Paris). He then worked as an Urdu interpreter with the International Committee of the Red Cross on a humanitarian assignment in Indian Jammu and Kashmir between 2006 and 2007. Martin Sökefeld is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Munich, Germany. He did fieldwork in Gilgit-Baltistan, among Turkish migrants in Germany and works currently on the Kashmiri diaspora in the

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UK. He is mainly interested in the anthropology of politics and focuses on diaspora, transnationalism, and politics of identity. Pnina Werbner is Professor in the Department of Social Relations at Keele University, UK. She has worked on Muslims in Britain, Sufi cults, the economics of social exchange and domestic symbolic economies among Pakistani migrants to Britain. One of the leading experts on Pakistanis in Britain, she has published a trilogy on the anthropology of their migration: The Migration Process (Berg, 1990/2000), Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims (James Currey, 2002), and Pilgrims of Love (Hurst, 2003).

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Acknowledgments

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his book has not only come about from the friendship between Marta and Steve, but their having been part of a group of scholars of Pakistan that has been meeting every spring for 23 years to discuss anything regarding this country, from refugee camps to ear wax removal professionals, from crime to piety, from war to marriage, from dreams to text messages. We have no doubt that the inspiration and the critical vision of this book reside in our being part of the Pakistan Workshop, though its shortcomings are only ours. Among all the people who have participated over the years in the Pakistan Workshop, Pnina Werbner has been to us much more than the acclaimed scholar she is publicly known to be—she has been our mentor and the best example of what a teacher should be like. Mwenza Blell has helped us a great deal in keeping up with the running of the workshop, always with much warmth and laughter. We are very grateful to the Pakistan Workshop for sponsoring the publication of Pnina Werbner’s reprinted article in this book. We are also grateful to everyone at Palgrave Macmillan for keeping the ball rolling and always being very friendly and cheerful with reminders of deadlines. Above all, we want to thank all the contributors for their patience and generosity in working with us, in particular Martin for Korean food in Munich, Jody for cupcakes in Mumbles, and Amélie for the bal des pompiers in Paris. We are grateful to LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) for having provided the resources necessary to work on the book between 2007 and 2008, and Paul Statham at Bristol University for his trust and tremendo support in the latest stages of the book production. Zahra Sabri and Ammar Rashid have helped us with very important practical help in collecting information about Pakistani social life in 2008. Huma Mulji has gracefully provided us with “Pardesi

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Pride” for the book cover, another testament to her generosity. The title Pardesi Pride is based on names given to “neo-housing schemes” cropping up across the periphery of several cities in Pakistan. Other such names include “Florida homes,” “Lake City Drive,” largely catering to an aspiring local middle class and a postmigrant population of suburban dwellers returning home when the country shows signs of political and economic stability. Pardesi Pride references greater Lahore. Greater Lahore consisted, until quite recently, of entirely agricultural land, and developed virtually overnight, creating absurd collisions of aesthetics, language, time, culinary, and other everyday practices. We think that this image is in a way a corollary to the arguments we make in this book. Over the three years that took to put the book together, national, international, and personal “falling ins” and “falling outs” have succeeded at such speed that we would have not been able to keep sane without the support of colleagues and friends Ali Khan, Sadaf Apa, and Sadaf Aziz at LUMS. Friends and colleagues in Britain must also deserve a great note of thanks for their patience. And, of course, Stephen would not have accomplished much without the support and infinite patience of his best friend and partner, Chisaki Fukushima.

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PART 1

Introduction

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CHAPTER 1

The Mirror Crack’d: Shifting Gazes and the Curse of Truths Stephen M. Lyon and Marta Bolognani

She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces through the room, She saw the water- lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look’ d down to Camelot. Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack’ d from side to side; “The curse is come upon me,” cried The Lady of Shalott. (“The Lady of Shalott,” Alfred Tennyson, 1842)

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omparison is foundational to the development of the social sciences. Both sociology and anthropology have made their most important contributions after careful comparative scrutiny of related but distinct phenomena. Hence, the justification for the present volume. We have deliberately brought together scholars working in far-f lung parts of the world whose connection come from the relationships that exist between the people with whom those scholars work. Pakistan and its diaspora are distinct and there are enormous differences between the lived experience of people born, brought up, and living in Pakistan and those people of Pakistani origin born, brought up, and living in Britain. It would be tempting to focus on one and neglect the other. In material terms, the f low of resources and people, however,

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Stephen M. Lyon and Marta Bolognani

is not unidirectional. Consequently, we have taken the position that Britain must be considered as integrally connected to South Asia and vice versa. By way of allegory, we invoke the tragic beauty of Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott.” The Lady of Shalott is bound to view the world only as it is ref lected in a mirror. From the ref lections, she weaves magical and beautiful tapestries of the world from which she is both disconnected and disinterested. Upon seeing Sir Lancelot, of Arthurian legend, she is compelled to gaze directly upon the real world. Her mirror shatters and she finally exits her protected tower to die in a boat that f loats to Camelot that lies in the world to which she is now inextricably connected and interested (albeit rather tragically). Gazing upon the truth can be an uncomfortable experience. It can be difficult to look on the familiar in fresh and challenging ways. Once the mirror is broken, the ref lection and object transform in ways that are not entirely foreseen. But what, in practice, does such an audacious assertion coupled with a potentially cumbersome allegory mean? From the Pakistani perspective, it may be that from the very earliest days, there were noticeable variations that identified diasporic Pakistanis from Britain as somehow more alien. In mainstream British society was it the responses to Rushdie’s Satanic Verses? Or perhaps the first Gulf War? When did Muslims in Britain stop being the “safe” minority (Kundnani 2002)? Certainly by the summer of 2001, with the riots across the northern industrial cities of England, followed so dramatically by the events of September 11, it was clear that the comfortable mirror that had provided the familiar gaze, had not only cracked but also shattered. Taken from the British and American perspectives, having to view the truth about Muslims and their societies has been something of a rude awakening for many people. There is real discontent and anger among many Muslims about perceptions of Western (particularly American, though not exclusively) abuse of power and resources allocation. Religion has proven a more effective mobilizing force than many in Europe or North America would have predicted. The truth, in other words, hurts, and we have to come to terms with the fact that the world out there does not entirely match the filtered representation that placed in the “good guy” category and others as the “bad guys.” The cozy simplicity of Manichean dichotomies has been shattered by the realities of the past decade (since 2001), not that the abject failure of the simplistic model has been abandoned, as evidence of the continued popularity of Huntington’s (1993) problematic clash of civilizations. Now that our mirror, so to speak, has broken and we are compelled to see the ugly, beautiful, and banal truths about

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Muslim worlds and our relations to them, it seems that there is probably no return. Even were American and British states inclined to retreat and pretend that invasions, bombings, detentions without due process, and extraordinary renditions had not taken place, one can be absolutely certain that the rest of the world will neither forget nor forgive in the near future. Taken from the Pakistani perspective, the crack’d mirror has an additional set of meanings. Since the Rushdie affair of the late 1980s, it became apparent that Pakistani diaspora in places like Bradford was not simple cultural extensions of Pakistanis in Mirpur or any other part of Pakistan. Things had changed and the diaspora was constructing their own unique forms of self-representation and personhood that nevertheless continued to draw on Pakistan and intersected in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. Thus the mirror here refers also to the fact that Pakistanis and diaspora are not simple ref lections of one another—they are distinct but mutually inf luencing forces on one another. Hence the crack’d mirror or Tennyson and Christie invoke an imagery that serves our purposes rather than any literal reference from either of those famous works. We must understand the ways in which Pakistanis and their diaspora continue to be simultaneously one aggregated population with strong f lows of information, resources, and people within as well as highly differentiated disaggregated groups with very independent political, social, economic, and cultural goals and trajectories. Such a view is neither simple nor straightforward. Pnina Werbner, in her now classic work on Pakistani migration to Manchester, invited anthropologists to relate to similar phenomena as migration process rather than migration (Werbner 1990). This statement implied that we cannot understand diaspora without giving due space to the home country that is not necessarily in a less favorable power position when it comes to social issues. At the same time, the economic and social impacts of migration on Pakistan’s economy and society have been perhaps regionally limited, but of great entity (Noman 1991). The whole concept of circularity and reciprocal inf luence between Pakistan and its diaspora have, however, increasingly fizzled out in a sort of proportional relation to the rising number of studies about integration of Pakistani diaspora in their host countries. A few exceptions to this rule, such as Shaw and Charseley (2006), focus on the global networks established mainly on marriage grounds. Though it is not our intention to promote an idea of cultural staleness and essentialized continuity, we hope that our collection of essays highlights the complexities of transcontinental ties, parallels and clashes, such as the ones represented by

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the contemporary political version of the “myth of return” among those British Pakistanis who feel threatened by post-9/11 policies in Europe (Bolognani 2007). For better or worse, then we must all now live with the impetuousness of recent global actions and confront the truths (or at least different representations of the truth) about Islam, Muslims, Pakistan, and Pakistani diaspora around the world. This collection of essays brings together experts on Pakistan and on Pakistani diaspora who have hitherto published in rather parallel and disjointed venues. We flatter ourselves to think that we have kept abreast of each other’s work, but in all honesty, it has been far easier to gaze only upon a partial reflection of our informants’ worlds and leave others to look at the far-flung connectedness that does in fact impact on the everyday lives of people. This volume continues our earlier effort (Bolognani and Lyon 2006) in attempting to rectify such myopia by intentionally bringing together diaspora specialists with Pakistan specialists. Unlike our prior collaboration, however, this time we have asked each contributor to examine a common set of themes, consciously neglecting issues of international security, which are beyond our agenda. We would not presume to claim the mythical (or poetic) status of the “Lady of Shalott,” but in our own ways, policymakers and politicians have busily woven their tapestries of the world’s ref lections but perhaps it is time to cast aside the familiar and gaze more honestly at the reality of social and cultural phenomena using our newly crack’d mirrors. Unlike the Lady of Shalott who met her tragic end as a result of facing reality, we hope such a fresh gaze will lessen the death and suffering of people around the world. International intelligence agencies, governments, and media have recently adopted an approach to the study of terror that assumes some kind of a link between Pakistan and Pakistani diasporas. The London bombings of July 7, 2005, raised not only the possibility of linkages between Pakistan and diaspora, but also of a more transnational panMuslim identification in which Iraq, Afghanistan, and other nationstates were suddenly part of the fabric of explanation for political violence. The ethnographic record clearly demonstrates that the link between diaspora and Pakistan is not imagined or mythical, but ongoing and tangible. The exchange of ideas, goods, and people between Pakistan and the far-f lung reaches of the world shape the experience of Pakistani Muslims in complex ways that demand a different kind of social science. We need to expand the usual boundaries of the unit of analysis and adopt a more systemic set of approaches that can account

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for the disparity of factors impacting on what it means to be Pakistani and Pakistani diaspora. This volume explores different levels and kinds of connections based not only on a geographical and cultural continuity but also on the projection exercised by global political factors. This form of essentialization of the Muslim world in some way ends up facing different localities with similar predicaments. We suggest that this book serves as a call for a different approach to Pakistan studies, one that recognizes that while it may be impractical for a host of reasons to conduct field research in different parts of the globe, it is nevertheless necessary to account for the very real social, political, economic, and cultural impact of populations that appear to have only sporadic physical contact. The chapters in this collection are based on empirical research conducted on the two halves of the mirror. We have selected four issues that seem to be cogent both in Pakistan and its diaspora: (1) The political public sphere; (2) Kashmir; (3) Religious leadership; and (4) Women. The issues are neither new, nor surprising. Indeed, these have been selected because despite gallons of ink having already been spilled on them, we do not appear to have developed adequate mechanisms for making sense of them operationally—and consequently, we are hampered in trying to make sense of them analytically. Women’s experiences have traditionally been marginalized within academic discussions on Pakistan and its diaspora. In order to redress this, we have a section focused entirely on women’s experiences. Throughout the collection we have sought to ref lect the experiences of women as well as men, paying attention to gender inequalities and the myriad ways these are played out in diverse fields. By focusing on the dynamics of cultural and political change in Pakistan and Pakistani diaspora communities, rather than taking a still picture of the actual scenario, this volume demonstrates the multidirectional nature of the f low of ideas and people that create the social landscape experienced by Pakistanis and diaspora globally. Such a focus permits the development of an explicit and organic bridge between political predicaments of Pakistan and Pakistani diaspora and enables more empirically sound analyses rather than abstract speculation of the global implications of the post-9/11 era. The Public Sphere Our book opens with a section that is very tightly intertwined with all the others— Kashmir, religious leadership, and women are all debated

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and performed in public. However, the very management of the public sphere has changed very rapidly and perhaps with unintended consequences, both in Pakistan and in the UK, where media exposure, in particular after 9/11, has majorly affected this field. This is very clear in the historical account of these shifts in Werbner’s contribution. Werbner, no stranger to the public debates on terrorism and Islamic politics in Britain, examines similar phenomena by focusing on the public transformation of the Muslim diasporic public sphere from benign invisible spaces to seditious and conspiratorial spaces. In both of these chapters, the emphasis is on the public representations and attempts to manage those representations to shape and control social events, and at the same time the constraints imposed by the selective media and political attention to particular aspects of Pakistani and British Pakistani public engagement. If the Noughties have characterized a new wave of appropriation of a variety of public spaces (from the streets to the web) among both Pakistanis and British Pakistanis, their way of engagement has also brought in new motivations, new rhetoric, and new means. The conclusion of both Werbner and Bolognani is that the public sphere connotations, the issues that are pushed or silenced, are mainly dictated by a response to national and global discourses. Bolognani argues clearly that issues affecting the majority of the Pakistani population, much more seriously than the judiciary and their concern with abstract discourses around “the rule of law,” were unlikely to create waves in Pakistan because of the lack of an international audience. What is important locally, or at least at a national level, needs to be communicated on the international scene if it is to have far-reaching effects. This has been proven by the controversial strategies of the student movement in Pakistan; as a sidekick to the lawyers’ movement, a very select minority of Pakistani youth, was able to push the “rule of law” arguments in the realm of international media, thus upgrading the protest to the level necessary for global exposure, condition sine qua non for success, as recent events in Iran have shown. Similarly, according to Werbner, what makes or breaks a public movement is the extent to which it is in sync with wider popular discourses. Werbner argues that there has been an ironic shift from a time, analyzed in her earlier work, in which the diasporic public sphere was invisible and local while being relatively benign;1 a space of rhetoric and factional conf licts for power—to a time when the debate has shifted to a national mediatized diasporic public sphere, no longer invisible and no longer benign. Werbner examines a specific aspect of how these debates have tested the multicultural experiment symbolically by looking at Muslim participation in Holocaust

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Memorial Day. This symbol is chosen and exploited in order to push a group’s message in a form that is more likely to attract attention within a very clearly defined agenda for the media in the post-2001 era. Equally controversial is the symbol (and reality) of Kashmir. In this volume we focus on Azad 2 Jammu and Kashmir as an area that has occupied a very marginal role in public debates on the region.3 Kashmir Kashmir has assumed a disproportionate amount of public attention in certain contexts. Regrettably, much of what is written on Kashmir strikes us as superficial and lacking the necessary descriptive or theoretical depth to be of significant value for our purposes. Kashmir has become the rallying cry of multiple groups for a dizzying array of causes. Rollier, in this volume, argues that Azad Jammu and Kashmir is strikingly absent from accounts of the complex political and religious dynamics underpinning the current conf lict. It has received far less attention than the Indian- controlled part of Kashmir in attempting to understand the primordial place that Kashmir holds in Indian and Pakistani nationalist imaginations. It has been, Rollier suggests, at best relegated to a footnote on jihadi training camps or the failure of the two-nations theory. The marginality of this part of Kashmir is of great importance in the creation of social identity for the people of that area. Rollier explores the ways in which this contested community of belonging negotiates the social meaning of displacement and maintains a sense of cultural continuity despite internal divisions along biraderi and ethnic lines. Looking at disputed notions of “kashmiriness,” Islamic radicalization, and ethnic boundary contestation, Rollier addresses the rather meager ethnographic offerings on Kashmir and Kashmiris in Pakistan. In contrast to the lack of attention to detail on Kashmiris in Pakistan, Sökefeld and Bolognani’s chapter concentrates on Kashmiri populations with more detailed ethnographic focus, but characterized as typically Pakistani rather than as a distinct Pakistani ethnic group. Sökefeld and Bolognani discuss the role of political mobilization for the formation of diaspora, using the Kashmiri diaspora in Britain to illustrate key points. The largest Pakistani subpopulation in Britain has been the focus of considerable attention from other Pakistani ethnic groups—not all of which is f lattering or polite. This chapter charts the process of identity transformation of Mirpur in relation to Kashmir and analyzes how political activists, Islamist groups, emotional reactions to

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the 2004 earthquake, and the search for enhanced self- esteem may all serve as contributing factors to the changing of relationships between Mirpur and Kashmir. In the early stages of migration, Sökefeld and Bolognani state that people from Kashmir were identified predominantly as Pakistanis. This identification subsequently shifted to a more localized origin category of Mirpuri. More recently a growing process of internal politicization inf luenced many of them in taking up a “new” Kashmiri identity. This chapter traces the development of Kashmiri political mobilization in Britain and in transnational context that affected this shift in identification. The contributions by Rollier and Sökefeld and Bolognani, while ostensibly addressing regional issues of ethnicity, are in fact providing ethnographically informed detail about the development of group formation more generally. Through a more integrated and comparative analysis of the ways that geographically and temporally divided Kashmiris have found to invoke imagined communities, and increasingly the ways in which those communities include one another, we suggest that there is a great deal to learn about human sociality. Religious Leadership Our section on Islamic leadership relates to a number of cracks in the mirror, majorly as far as geography, technology, and forms of teachings are concerned. Whereas at a first sight we may be inclined to think that following events in post-2001, much attention has been given to various forms of religious leaderships, both Blom and Lewis manage to provide a fresh analysis of the development of cracks in a quickly evolving field. Both authors argue that we are witnessing a rapid change in the forms and characters of religious leadership, strongly inf luenced by historical contingencies and political or even state interventions. While it is common currency that Islam “travels well,” few have actually concentrated on how travel, trade, social and linguistic shifts thriving in the Muslim world have actually affected the forms of religious leadership, often categorized along the lines of religious scholars (ulama), leaders of Islamist political parties, and heads of militant organizations. Blom challenges these clearly defined categories in her case study of the “qutbist and militant” imams of the Lal Masjid. She analyzes a new hybrid form of religious leadership following historical contingencies (such as the end of the state’s exploitation of jihadist movements in Pakistan) and based on culturally specific forms, such as the extended family. Blom’s politicosociological study reveals the fundamental role played by the interaction

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of human geography and technology in the emergence of this new form of religious leadership. While the choice from the very wide spectrum of religious guidance offered through technology (from Zakir Naik on Peace TV and Ghamidi on Geo TV, to less personalized but equally effective Web sites promoted by different groups) is very similar in Pakistan and the UK, the conditions influencing the popularity of one source of knowledge above the other may differ significantly. Both authors argue that a high degree of pragmatism and personal experience influence the choice of this fragmented and very dynamic field, but according to Blom, Pakistan is characterized by the inevitable consequences of a crumbling state in a crisis affecting the judicial system as much as human rights issues. It is in this crack that the Ghazi brothers, stronger in their pragmatism about the institution of a quick and fair justice system (shariah courts) than in their authority as religious scholars, managed to assert their authority within the walls of the Lal Masjid. Pragmatism is also a key word for Lewis, who uses it both referring to the believers and the British state. Among British Pakistanis there is in fact a very basic need for leadership that can adapt to changes in social circumstances as British born and bred individuals increasingly feel ummatic and political issues as organic to their faith. The British government is, correspondingly, keen to involve religious figures and institutions in activities functional to the prevention of and fight against violent radicalization and, therefore, has promoted specific training paths for the ulama. Lewis, in his guise as adviser on Christian-Muslim relations to the Bishop of Bradford, supports his argument about pragmatism by reviewing the scope and consequences of the Mosque and Imam National Advisory Board (MINAB)’s activities, focusing on the fear generated around the controversy of having potential government watchdogs embedded in Muslim communities that circulated throughout many mosques. Blom is also concerned with the relationship between religious institutions and political action. Her account of the complex relationship between differing religious organizations in Pakistan is instructive for a number of reasons, not least because it has reverberations in the mosques of Bradford, Manchester, and Birmingham—the very subject matter addressed by Lewis’ chapter. Without us attempting to present any formulaic solutions to the problems identified by Blom and Lewis, it is very clear that any effective policies that purport to grapple with the issues of disaffected and radicalized individuals from within the Muslim communities of Pakistan or Britain must surely benefit from a closer examination of the trajectories of both Pakistani and diasporic religious organizations and elites. On a more theoretical level, however, there is

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another important element that makes a strong connection between the two sides of the mirror—the strict connection between the evolution of the forms of religious leadership and institutionalized politics. With the due differences, both the Pakistani state and the British government have contributed in some way to the emergence of new forms of religious leadership, which is, as we have already mentioned, increasingly pragmatic. In Pakistan, the maulvi who, especially in the rural areas, is often simply the one who leads the prayers, is increasingly important where moral and political dilemmas arise, just as in Britain, where religious national institutions are growing exponentially alongside local mosques that increasingly concentrate on life cycle events (McLoughlin 1998). States are more or less consciously able to interfere in this field, and the imams have become much more aware that the religious needs of the individuals are to be matched by the needs of society for good citizens (whatever “good” may mean). This discovery, valid both in Pakistan and in the UK, makes a pure outlining of the “pedigree” of certain ulama by tracing their school of thought or sectarian belief quite inadequate. Even ulamas who attach themselves unequivocally to a certain school, have their leadership profoundly molded by their pragmatism and, once again, the need presented in the public sphere. The difference in structural factors conducive to acceptance of different forms of religious leaderships are characterized in different ways in the two chapters: Blom argues that class as it is inf luenced by Islamabad urbanization and in general Pakistani internal migration, is an important factor, while Lewis argues that generational change is the most important aspect in the choice process among British Pakistanis. In both chapters, and in particular in Blom’s, the ways in which women engage with religious leadership is important. This is not only because outsiders’ discourses on Islam very often revolve around issues concerning women, but also because it is a fact that women are taking up new and nuanced roles at the side of men in religious roles, often related to pedagogy. In Both Blom’s and Lewis’ accounts of these new types of participation in religious leadership, the central point of the debate seems to be the relationship between new types of women’s engagement with religious practice and dissemination, and emancipation as it is widely understood in the social sciences, and especially in feminist discourses. As Blom puts it, this is a crucial point in any debate as both sides (the one reading the new engagement as a form of emancipation, and the one seeing it as a sublime deployment of patriarchal categories by the women themselves) is pivoted around the use of the same symbol with a completely different interpretation. So, for

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instance, the burqa and the danda are interpreted by the former as a sign of liberation, and by the latter as a sign of oppression. This crack in the interpretation of social facts has been very evident in the concluding section of this volume. Women The concluding section of the book was arguably the most delicate and potentially problematic. Apart from Ahmad’s work on Al-Huda (2009) and her edited collection on Pakistani women (2010), there is not much research taking place that concentrates centrally on Pakistani women. Paradoxically women’s presence emerges remarkably strongly throughout the other issues addressed in this volume, and, we suggest, throughout the ethnographic record on Pakistan, most of which only peripherally deals with women or women’s issues. The major socioanthropological contributions to the study of women in Pakistan, Eglar (1959), Weiss (1992), Mirza (2002), and Haeri (2002), relate to historical phases that now seem long gone. While the country has undergone substantial economic and political changes, the way that these shifts have affected women are not clearly analyzed, especially as far as women living in the rural areas are concerned. At the same time, nonacademic literature is more than ever obsessed with the conditions of women in the Islamic world. Women’s empowerment has become a potentially vacuous literary topos, as Mellor argues, where the (British) Pakistani women’s experiences and Western representations surrounding notions of empowerment are due to dominant Euro-American conceptualizations of empowerment. In order to address the paradox of the high level of attention reserved to Pakistani and British Pakistani women in terms of emancipation, but the lack of reliable information, we have tried to collect, on both sides of the mirror, work that analyzes what is often considered, not least in certain excerpts of Islamic literature, the first step toward women’s development: education. Lall’s chapter, on the differential approaches to girls’ education in different parts of rural Pakistan, and concentrating on a variety of approaches that characterize different ethnic and class groups, is surprisingly not too detached from Mellor’s conclusions on university education in Britain. Both perspectives in fact enrich the debate on empowerment with the theorization of a two-layered approach. In both cases education allows women to improve their agency within the family, but at the same time, and with equally significant social effects, vitally contribute to their families’ empowerment, in the sense of status enhancement (both social and economic). This finding sheds new light

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on other literature on minorities and education in Europe, as it brings to the fore issues of ethnic cultural capital that impinge on the understanding of what education is and why it is valuable. Lall and Mellor leave it to our understanding to see that their interviews on the value of education address far more issues than the one of knowledge for the sake of it and technical training. Nonetheless the contributors to this volume differ is in the analysis of the variables affecting the education strategy of young women. While Lall is mainly interested in the interplay of ethnicity and class, perhaps as a consequence of her research in a predominantly monoreligious environment, Mellor is bound to put Islam at the core of her argument, in order to follow her interviewees’ lead. Mellor also takes up the contentious challenge of counterfeminisms in her study of young British South Asian Muslim women. As other writers looking at similar issues, Mellor reports that for the women participants in her study, embracing a more radical, ostensibly more patriarchal and restrictive set of Islamic practices is a form of empowerment. In Mellor’s study, the young women use their knowledge of Islam as a tool to wrest control of certain aspects of their lives away from their elders and other cultural controllers. In Mellor’s chapter, collusion with misogynist authoritarian elites paradoxically appears to secure some level of independence. Certainly, it is not the only means for securing women’s empowerment, and Islam is not the only locally embedded cultural set of practices that might be invoked, but it is not surprising that Pakistani and diaspora women, like men, have identified a set of powerful mobilizing tools available in religion. British Pakistani young women in education argue very strongly that their new understanding of Islam is the trigger for their better position in education. The fact that the religious argument does not appear in Lall’s analysis of the Pakistan cross-regional landscape may also be considered as evidence of the fact that many community discourses now reflect what is spoken in the public sphere. The argument that Muslims nowadays live in a perpetual political constraint as a result of constantly being in the limelight, even as far as playful popular culture sites are concerned (see Bolognani et al. forthcoming) has been made elsewhere. In Mellor’s chapter, however, the strong implications of the limelight on Pakistani women’s conditions produced by public debates is mostly evident—women argue that Islam is the main tool for their education, solution that responds to the critique of the alleged innate Islamic patriarchy. This tension between hegemonic representations and responses by the subaltern is the same that has permeated a considerable part of this book.

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In our analysis of the four different topics, we have noticed that the mirror cracks wherever and whenever an international framework or assumption is imposed in such strong terms that it creates reactive responses under whose tension the cracks are produced. Conclusion What is gained by fusing Pakistani and diaspora studies into a single volume? In some cases, there would no doubt be little achieved and a great deal of readers would simply ignore one-half of the volume. In the case of Pakistan, we suggest that there is an unquestionable value in systematic comparison and in a process of continually looking over one another’s shoulders even if we do not choose (as a number of anthropologists have done, for example, Werbner, Shaw, Charseley, and Bolognani) to conduct extended research in both locations. The mirror crack’d was a metaphor designed to invoke a variety of emotive responses. We did this manipulatively and intentionally. We suggest that Pakistan no more makes sense without a firm account of its diasporic influences (particularly those based in Britain) than the reverse. How can one understand arranged (or even forced) marriage in Bradford without recourse to the ethnography of Pakistan? How can one understand the partisan politics of Pakistan without understanding the well-honed political machines that serviced the likes of Nawaz Sharif and the late Benazir Bhutto from London? South Asia, in a very real sense, includes Britain now and vice versa. We do not say that to alarm the Yorkshire men who long for the times of an all-English cricket team, but rather to recognize the fact that Britain and the Indian subcontinent began a process of globalization in the nineteenth century that has persisted and accelerated ever since. From the 1980s Pakistan seems to have been shifting its contested political ambitions and those contestations have been felt directly and resoundingly in the communities across Great Britain. Our metaphor was, of course, further complicated by the curse of the Lady of Shalott. Once the safe reflection was cast aside to experience reality viscerally and directly, she was doomed to view only the reality. Her safe and protected mirror world was shattered. In Tennyson’s poem the Lady ends tragically, but we suggest that the tragic ending is not the only consequence of dispensing with partial and misleading representations of realty. With this volume we invite readers to turn away from the safe seclusion of the distant reflected world and engage with the complex interwoven world of the crack’d mirror, wherein the fascinating truths lay—warts and all.

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Notes 1. And we would add an independent space, capable of defining its own agenda. 2. The authors are aware of the profound political implications of the use of “Azad” in describing Pakistani- controlled Kashmir, but have decided to use this expression in order to ref lect the Pakistani bias of the volume. 3. It might seem odd that we suggest that Kashmir has been a marginal topic in the region, but we do so for sound reasons, as will become apparent below and in the section of this volume focusing on Kashmir.

References Ahmad, S. (2009) Transforming Faith: The Story of Al-huda And Islamic Revivalism among Urban Pakistani Women. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Ahmad, S. (2010) Pakistani Women: Multiple Locations and Competing Narratives. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Bolognani, M. (2007) “The Myth of Return: Dismissal, Survival or Revival? A Bradford Example of Transnationalism as a Political Instrument,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33(1): 59–76. Bolognani, M., Hyder, E., Iqbal, H., and Sabri, Z. (forthcoming) “101 Damnations: British Pakistanis, British Cinema and Sociological Mimicry,” South Asian Popular Culture, 9. Bolognani, M. and Lyon, S. (2006) “Special Issue: Celebrating 20 Years of the Lake District Pakistan Workshop,” Contemporary South Asia, 15(3): 255–261. Haeri, S. (2004) No Shame for the Sun. Lives of Professional Pakistani Women. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Huntington, S. P. (1993) “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs, 72. Kundnani, A. (2002) The Death of Multiculturalism. Institute of Race Relations Comment. http://www.irr.org.uk/2002/april/ak000001.html. Accessed July 19, 2010. McLoughlin, S. (1998) “An Underclass in Purdah: Discrepant Representations of Identity and the Experiences of Young-British-Asian-Muslim-Women,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 80(3): 89–106. Noman, O. (1991) “The Impact of Migration on Pakistan’s Economy and Society,” in Donnan, H. and Werbner, P. (eds.) Economy and Culture in Pakistan. Migrants and Cities in a Muslim Society. London: Macmillan. Shaw, A. and Charseley, K. (2006) “Rishtas: Adding Emotions to Strategy in Understanding British Pakistanis’ Transnational Marriages,” Global Networks, 6(4): 405–421. Weiss, A. (1992) Walls within Walls: Life Histories of Working Women in the Old City of Lahore. Boulder: Westview Press. Werbner, P. (1990) The Migration Process: Capital, Gifts and Offerings among British Pakistanis. New York: Berg.

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PART 2

The Public Sphere

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CHAPTER 2

Rang de Basanti in Pakistan? Elite Student Activism, the Emergence of a Virtual Globalized Public Sphere, and the 2007 Emergency Marta Bolognani

Introduction On November 3, 2007, General Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency. The major actions taken by the army during the period of suspension of the constitution included the removal of the Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry,1 the arrest of civil rights’ activists and lawyers, and the censorship of both English and Urdu media. Despite rallies and protests, the resistance to the state of emergency was relatively bloodless. Furthermore, the protest movement and the way it was organized, by relying on specific local and global social networks, shows some peculiarities that are likely to strongly inform further civic developments in the years to come. In the context of such specificities, this chapter aims at analyzing how an elite private university in Lahore (LUMS) became one of the pivots of the protest due to its unique social and cultural capital and some historical circumstances, such as the recently renovated political and strategic allegiances of Pakistan in world politics. In particular, it is argued that although a clear connection between the end of the state of the emergency and the elite student movement 2 cannot be made, the means and self-ref lection through which the protest grew, developed, and extinguished may create a precedent and have long-term repercussions on the public sphere in Pakistan. The analysis is based on the interrelation of the following aspects: the role of LUMS students’

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cultural and social capital in the protest, its specific class subculture, and the negotiation of the public space with its outcome of “virtual protests.” In the conclusion, the Luminites’ (LUMS students) involvement in the antiemergency movement is compared to the fictional account of the rebellion against the system of a group of Indian University students in the blockbuster Rang de Basanti (2006), and to the real consequences that the film had on Indian civil society. Such a comparison addresses the issue of how imaginary or virtual realities may nowadays be the principal stimulus for change in real life when there is lack of charismatic figures or the participants have to fight a widespread political apathy. This chapter is based on four case studies collected thanks to some of the main figures of the student protest and several informal conversations with other participants. Given the high involvement of ISI (one of the Pakistani secret agencies) in the emergency, all the names of the individuals interviewed have been modified to protect their safety. Other material was also collected through participant observation 3 of “virtual protests” on campus (then posted on YouTube.com or sent to CNN) and of administration meetings concerning the disciplining of the students. In addition, I monitored the Facebook pages of “Concerned Citizens of Pakistan” and Student Action Committee, the emergency mailing list, and the online publication the Emergency Times.4 The Emergency Context Musharraf ’s declaration of the state of emergency has been described as the ultimate act of a wounded bird. In 1999, when he secured power through an epic but bloodless coup against Nawaz Sharif, he was only brief ly openly opposed by protests from civil and human rights activists. An army general, Musharraf impressed many Western governments and some of the Pakistani upper classes with the projection of an alleged “liberal” vision (Cheema 2007). Portrayed stroking his Chihuahuas in one of his early interviews, during his rule TV channels and media groups f lourished in a country where even democratically elected prime ministers had been rumored to have sent punishment squads to rough up journalists who had written against them. After September 11, Musharraf formally became one of the closest allies of the United States in the “War on Terror” (Rashid 2008: 118). His real contribution in the antiterrorism struggle has been questioned by many political observers and has been internationally exposed by Hamid Karzai, the president of

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Afghanistan. One of the accusations moved against Musharraf is that he has not been willing to crush extremism completely as its continuous threat is the crucial factor pushing the United States toward the unconditional support of a military dictator (see Blom in this volume). Not particularly hated as a dictator before 2007, Musharraf nevertheless was never able to secure popular support. He escaped a few assassination attempts, but his real troubles started with the investigations about the missing persons of Pakistan carried out by the Judiciary. Pakistan’s Human Rights’ records, according to Amnesty International, have always been appalling, even under the rule of Benazir Bhutto who is now portrayed as the extinguished hope of a progressive Pakistan (Dalrymple 2007). In March 2007, however, Musharraf put an end to the human rights investigation into the “missing persons” by deposing the Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhry with charges (not followed by official proceedings) of corruption. The lawyers opposed the dismissal of the chief justice with street protests, strikes, and rallies. Eventually, the chief justice was reinstated. Around the same time, a group of men and women gravitating around the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad started blackmailing the government, threatening to burn shops and carry out suicide blasts if their vision of shariah was not adopted at a national level (again, see Blom in this volume). Deaf to requests coming from prestigious religious Saudi bodies of toning the form and content of their demands down, and ignored by the government for a long time, the tension escalated to such an extent that in July the mosque was raided and many civilians, including women and children, killed. This gruesome event, closely monitored by increasingly critical and independent media, appalled public opinion and at the same time seemed to trigger a series of suicide attacks especially against government and military targets that is still continuing. Overall, the involvement of the masses in the antiemergency movement has been negligible (Vora 2007), although once the emergency was lifted and both PML-N (headed by Nawaz Sharif ) and PPP (headed by Benazir Bhutto) started the rallies for the elections postponed from December to January (and eventually after Bhutto’s assassination to February), popular secret gatherings started returning to the streets. The reasons for the lack of involvement of the working classes in the antiemergency movement have been popularly identified with a general feeling of resignation about the recurrent use of martial law in the country, the fact that social justice issues (such as the rise of f lour prices) would have much been more appealing to them, and also the assumption that many people in the country still do not regard democracy as

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the best system of governance. A student involved in the movement said: I don’t know why the masses did not come out. The concept of Emergency instils fear. People would say “We would get beaten up, this is the way governments are.” There is a fact: there is no leadership in Pakistan that can run a street movement. ( . . .) You could say that it is not really judges that connect people . . . they are not the ones who have made their life better. You have to recognize that. Constitution [had been] maligned by everyone [in power before]. Musharraf had more power than the others because he has a lesser system of checks and balances, but the others did that too. My perception would be that [the masses also] agreed upon the injustice of Musharraf ’s government. But I cannot make the claim. (Haroon)

When the state of emergency was declared, Saskia Sassen, the wellknown sociologist, was visiting Pakistan. In her candid firsthand account published in nearly real time by the Guardian, she juxtaposed her own experience of the emergency in Lahore to the few images of violent police repression broadcast through the international media. Sassen talked of “niche repression” (2007) and described instead how quiet and routinely busy with the day-today routine the Lahori streets were. She also mentioned the few arrests of which she had been aware through her personal contacts, but what clearly struck her was the lack of involvement of the masses: The critical issue is: will the street rise? That is the concern on Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf right now. My experience of the street in Lahore tells me the answer is no. In its day of greatest violence, Lahore turned out to contain two separate worlds: that of violent repression and a larger, bustling, diffuse world of daily life. A thousand is a lot of arrested lawyers, but it can drown in a city of 7 million, especially when the local media have been closed.

Sassen’s gut feeling turned to be right and the protest turned out to be led mainly by lawyers, students, and prominent figures of the arts and of the human rights circles. The lawyers in Pakistan also represent the middle class and the lower middle class, while the rest are part of what is commonly and broadly called “the elite,” referring to upper classes (see Hasan 2002). The art and the music scene expressed their views against the emergency through the guitarist of the famous former rock band Junoon, Salman Ahmad, who wrote an open letter to Musharraf ’s

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son explaining his change of heart about his father’s politics5 (Ahmed 2007) and the leading pop singer Ali Zafar, who wrote a song (“Those for truth”) about the unfolding of the events.6 A Fertile Habitat for the “Rule of Law” Protest: LUMS and the Luminites The Lahore University of Management Studies (LUMS), probably the most prestigious university in Pakistan, was founded in the early 1980s by a group of enlightened entrepreneurs who identified the lack of a leading group of managers as one of the biggest obstacles to the growth of national industries. Thanks to private contributions, the university has now grown to a 2,500 strong institution. It has a Business School, a Computer Sciences Department, a Social Sciences’ and Humanities Department, a Maths Department, an Economics Department, a Law Department, and the School of Sciences and Engineering. In spite of an increasingly strong National Outreach Program (NOP) recruiting, promising students through bursaries across the disadvantaged national areas, the social composition of LUMS, as is widely recognized, is of upper middle classes from either business or feudal backgrounds. An anecdote may clarify the extent of its class and cultural homogeneity. When teaching theories of ethnicity at LUMS, I used the university example as a paradox of endogamy and cultural capital that does not formally constitute an ethnicity. Following the paradoxical example of Abner Cohen (1974: xxi) and his didactic paradox of the London City brokers as an ethnic group, I asked the students to debate whether Luminites are an ethnic group or not. The student majority always drew a list of characteristics that do make Luminites an ethnic group, despite highlighting the segmentary nature of such groups. The majority of them used as a common denominator the learning process adopted at LUMS, but also more practical and visually evident traits such as language (slang) and dress code. More crucially for this chapter, they also mentioned the general cultivation of human rights’ understanding as the basis of a distinctive culture that has its palpable manifestation whenever Luminites meet students from other universities. One student once confided that she invariably ended up patronizing students from other Pakistani universities by saying “You can only think like that because you haven’t read Alavi.” 7 Although the level of cultural homogeneity is exaggerated by public perception and the campus enjoys a wide array of ideological and religious niches, it is important to highlight how LUMS is perceived by the outside world

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and how, consequentially, the Luminites population constructs and projects its own identity. The universal medium on campus is English, and the students often speak English among themselves or at least a mixture of Urdu and English or Punjabi and English. Students come mainly from Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad, although the National Outreach Programme (NOP) recruitment has made the ethnic component more varied. The LUMS faculty is predominantly foreign- educated and, given the international interest affecting Pakistan, the campus enjoys frequent visits or Web-mediated lectures from a number of globally famous academics. One of the most common comments I came across when talking with second-year students is that coming to LUMS has taught them how to think independently and to challenge their high school text books, especially the ones used in Pakistani Studies, a compulsory discipline that covers a variety of subjects related to Pakistan, but has been criticized by many as a grossly biased propaganda tool (see, for example, Saigol 2005). The approach to education is, therefore, clearly very different to the one used in other Pakistani universities where critical thinking is not necessarily encouraged, and ref lection on Pakistani history may be strictly guided. The organization of the campus and of the administrative machine is openly inspired by the American Ivy League, from where many faculty members have returned. This, however, does not include all of the Ivy League principles, as, for example, the constitution of the Students Council affirms that such a body is not allowed to carry out political activism. Some of the students are keen to argue that the reason behind that rule that may seem to contradict the liberal promises for which the Institution is famous is motivated by watching the violent drift on campuses in Karachi where, especially in the early 1990s, politics and violent confrontation ruled at the expense of academic education (see Verkaaik 2003). The students do have a democratically elected Student Council, but they do not seem to fight for the recognition of any other participatory rights in their educational life. In early 2007, when the administration decided with no consultation to build the new business school on the only football pitch of the campus, the students did not protest. Stupor among newly arrived faculty members was countered by this rational explanation by a student: she cared for the sacrifices her family made to send her and her sister to LUMS and she feared that a battle to save the sport facilities, no matter how just, would eventually “introduce politics” on the campus and jeopardize the education in which their family had invested so much.

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Such a context, so detached from the images of Pakistan populating television screens, seems to be at the same time legitimate offspring of an elitist streak in Pakistani politics, and to some extent is contiguous with the liberal ambitions of the early Musharraf period (Cheema 2007). Schofield (1990) has argued that before 1960s and the rise of the charismatic figure of Zulfikhar Ali Bhutto, politics in Pakistan was mainly an upper- class “drawing rooms’ matter” far away from the masses. Then came the popular support for the Pakistan People Party (PPP), only to witness the political crackdown of the dictatorship of Zia-ul-Haq in the late 1970s, an era whose political and social damage is still to be accounted for, according to Hasan: Today the children of the elite no longer study in state universities. ( . . .) They no longer visit the local zoos, and museums or frequent the teashops and cinemas of Pakistan’s inner cities. ( . . .)They have abandoned the city centres and live in increasingly posh and isolated ghettoes. ( . . .) A senior lawyer ( . . .) recalls: “With the closing of the bars all discussions on politics, international affairs, culture and especially poetry, came to an end. We ceased to exchange views and in the process ceased to relateto the Pakistani society as a whole.” (2002: 4551)

In this context, elite students well versed in Karl Marx, Max Weber, Benedict Anderson, and many other scholars, f luent in English and well acquainted with technological means, seemed to have most of and the most effective means to engage with the protest against the emergency. Given the premise of the lack of activism, the LUMS students’ involvement in the antiemergency movement came as a surprise to many, although the cultural capital described above and the discourse imbuing much of the university courses may have anticipated such engagement: I would say that a few kids are Marxist but they are the only ideological basis within LUMS. Generally the concept of justice ( . . .) and human rights, that is something taught and inbred into students. (Haroon) (my emphasis)

Here lies what Spivak calls the catachresis, the disjuncture, between the means granted by political concepts of the West, and their use by postcolonial subjects, who cannot move but in their realm (Spivak 1993: 298): In my own opinion, I thought about this a lot, I think [LUMS students rose only then] because [ . . . ] the importance of civil rights or “the rule

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of law” was necessarily growing in the students organically to such an extent . . . it was more of [a process of ] Westernization. In general, the most mobilized people would be Punjab University with the following of Jamaat- e-Islami.[8] I think [in our case] it was Westernization. When I was working in the movement I saw how undemocratic the process was, like [in] the political parties. [Democracy] is not an organic value, it is a colonial overlay. [Just like] The women suffrage was not organic in an Islamic society and we inherited as part of the colonial experience. We never had a debate about women having a vote or not, so it does not [necessarily] mean that women rights are respected [outside the formal political realm]. (Faiza)

At the same time, a second catachresis occurred where the “liberal elite” in many aspects contiguous to Musharraf used the liberties grown under the same to go against him: LUMS represents Musharraf ’s “enlightened moderation.” Whatever he has done, we are what he has put forward, forward-looking intellectuals, we had made a placard that said “the children of enlightened moderation reject you,” so it was very symbolic, “you tried to father us,” we say no to you. (Safina)

In addition to the Oedipal reference that will be taken up in the comparison with Rang de Basanti, the LUMS case seems to be an example of “a discourse [that] borrows from the heritage the resources necessary for the deconstruction of the heritage itself ” (Derrida 1978: 282). “The Movement Was about ‘Who Do You Wanna Be’ ”: The Values of the Protest If above we argued that the movement was shaped in certain forms thanks to the terrain in which it grew, according to some of the participants and to my direct observation, at times it seemed that the movement was also concerned with reinforcing the very values that had led to the involvement of the subjects in the protest. If the articulation of certain discourses such as the one of “the rule of law” was all the more profound for students studying certain curricula, in a way the movement was instrumental to the reinforcement of a social identity. This was also the cause of much disdain, as if the whole participation effort was in itself a status symbol. In a satirical account of the new wave of student activism, Sami Shah, member of the Karachi-based stand-up comedy

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group “Black Fish,” in his Manifesto of Irrelevant Rebellion expressed his doubts on the modes of the protest thus: There are few environments that lend themselves as well to nurturing rebellion and revolution as a nice coffee shop. Between over-priced frapaccinos and foamy lattes, the words of resistance fall fast and hard, like coffee beans poured in a green cup at the end of a “Koffee with Karan” promo. Future Ches can take breaks between articulating the call for freedom and reading old science-fiction paperbacks on comfortable seating, all to the soothing sound of Jazz and Qawalli and Buffalo Springfield. Ideal venue seats 80 people and allows free wifi so that blogging and Facebook-ing can continue during the planning stages of the revolution. (Shah 2007)

As the students protesting were willingly or unwillingly clearly representing an elite group, the notion of responsibility toward the LUMS image was often brought to the fore of discussion. For the authorities, this was often translated in preoccupation about the protest forms to be adopted by the students. In the first meeting of faculty and administration after the declaration of emergency, the vice chancellor (VC) warned: If [the students] cross the norms, if somebody tries to be too brave, we will use our own rules to punish them. We will maintain that decorum. Start cursing people using foul language should not be encouraged in any space. They should show the example of the educated lot. We compare ourselves to those nations who protest in a civilized way.

On the students’ part no protest was raised against the code of conduct discussed by the VC, rather The kind of slogans we were using, is indicative of the kind of movement [we were]( . . .).In Karachi the slogans were different. [In Karachi they used] the same slogans [that had been used] for different military rulers. They were using also cheap Bollywood or love songs and changed the lyrics. [Here] There was an effort not to use “khutta, hae, hae” (dog, shame, shame) because of the connotations of dog. There was conscious effort to be as civilized as possible because of our social background, we wanted to differentiate from “vulgar barbarians, street types.” [ . . . ] Things got very rude when Islamia College Boys joined SAC [the Student Action Committee], a very “awami” (of the people, of the common man, “bazari”) college, as opposed to the Lums elite. We also made an effort to streamline slogans, so there were official and unofficial slogans. We should not even have specific anti-Musharraf slogans because

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not everyone wanted to get rid of Musharraf per se. ( . . .) (One of our instructors) says “burger bacchas” (burger children), in Karachi (as an opposite you would have) “maila,” “dirty,” those guys who are street guys into dirty jokes and the girls want to avoid, and “burger kids” [represent] the “burger culture,” Westernized kids, possibly disconnected with indigenous trends and society. ( . . .) The whole culture of this movement is also about “who do you wanna be?” ( . . .) We were consciously trying not to copy student politics that had happened in the past in Pakistan. Lahore had been at the height of politics in 1960s and 1970s and many parents had been there. For a boy it would be “manly,” our resistance is “Burger King resistance,” while they had been a macho movement, even the females. That street fight culture is not ours, the padda (fight) is much more tamed, in Karachi they would have got the guns out. The police are not going to crack down on you for no reason like they do in Karachi. Here people have too many contacts. Everybody knows each other. (Faiza)

The LUMS protest, therefore, seemed to be based on networks internal to the university, not only in terms of respecting the rules handed out by the administration, but also because “Not only do networks form the social environment on the basis of which individuals make their own choices in the short run, they also affect in the long run the cognitive parameters that lead to choices such as participating in a social movement or abstaining from doing so” (Passy and Giugni 2001: 124). The idea of belonging to LUMS and the ref lexivity accompanied by it—perhaps corroborated by the trust, which is critical when deciding whether to participate in a movement or not—were crucial in the building of this student protest. Social Movement, (Class) Identity Politics, and Space Such protest thus fits quite interestingly with the Social Movements’ topos of the study of the relationship between identity politics (especially in terms of class) and space. Batuman, in his study of the Turkish bourgeoisie political movement in 1970s’ Ankara, argues that spatial appropriation and the appropriation of the image of public space are crucial aspects of that political struggle (2003: 262). The Turkish bourgeoisie movement in fact developed in a bourgeoisie area and was unable to cross its boundaries, but was successful for that very reason. Unable to reach out to the masses, it focused on taking advantage of playing within those familiar and class-friendly boundaries. The protest at LUMS more than 30 years on was also able to

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use its bourgeoisie terrain in order to appropriate the image of the public space. Given the very nature of pragmatic means and social networks available to the bourgeoisie, however, the space of the protest became a global and a virtual one. Although it was not successful in involving the masses, the protest was effective because it relied on space and resources familiar to the participants, which were the ones that were most likely to produce an effect on Musharraf. The participants had the social and cultural capital needed: technical knowledge, familiarity with international human rights’ vocabulary, and personal acquaintances to reach global opinion and pressurize Musharraf ’s international allies. In the crack opened between the negotiation process of the risks involved in crossing the LUMS gates and the weekly protest time limit defined by the vice chancellor, Luminites creatively and aptly constructed their main form of protest, and made a virtue out of necessity. This consisted of the appropriation of a global public space through an expert use of the Internet, exploiting not only personal knowledge but also that passed on by faculty members who were teaching courses on the politics of nonviolence, political communication, and political philosophy, and also professors who had been involved in militant politics in the past. This capital was not so readily available to other university students. At the same time, this virtual public space was not easily accessible to the masses. Class-Based Impunity, Class-Based Risk and Rites of Passage Cynics like Sami Shah, mentioned above, may construct the virtual protest as a juvenile rite of passage purged of dangers. I would, however, not dismiss the virtual protest in this way. Relative legal impunity was in fact accompanied by risks that were somehow specific to the class of people involved, such as the threat of denials of visa to study abroad for the student activists. Fights with parents about one’s involvement were very common: Actually the biggest hindrance was parents, more than the State coming in. There was a feature on BBC I think where they said that Pakistani students were more scared of their parents than the state. I go out there everyday and I make sure they do not take my picture. Now my parents keep quiet because we had a fight, they threatened to marry me off. My mum said “You have to listen to us, we are your parents, you owe us,” and I said “Are you actually making me choose between my parents and my country?” and then she got quiet, because you can’t really pose this choice. ( . . .) [The quarter break was a very big factor and everybody had [to go back home and] sit with their parents who told them not to get

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involved. Some parents had been called by the army, and the children had to lie to the parents. (Safina)

Many of the students agreed that they felt a certain degree of impunity would have helped them in case they had been arrested: When you look at the extent of the missing persons[9] . . . .they do not recognize that the LUMS students are in a much better position, we cannot be taken away for more than 4 days, that was my guarantee, I can assure people unless there is some incriminating evidence, like conspiracy against the State, or terrorist activity, but in terms of protesting, a Luminite protesting would never have that problem, but we couldn’t guarantee that to other universities. (Haroon)

According to the emergency mailing list one LUMS alumnus was arrested during a vigil and was offered to leave the police station given his family connection, thus backing some students’ perception of their relative impunity due to their social status. However, the young man refused to accept any special treatment. Whether baton charge and prison were or were not an option, there were other threats that were more culturally effective and surely affected many young students’ minds: rumors started spreading that students participating in the protest would be denied visas to study abroad. This was, of course, enough for many parents to prohibit their children from participating in the protest. Others were worried about not performing to the best of their ability in the approaching highly competitive exams: It is [a] cultural [matter], it is the discourse that financial security is a priority. Financial security only comes in because apparently [ . . . ] jobs are hard to come by. It is true to LUMS only to a certain extent. It is true [that] a parent [would] question: “what if your grade goes down and that company doesn’t hire you and you get 5,000 less when you apply for a job”? (Haroon)

On the other hand, myths of sorts of rites of passage through protest and encounter with the police were growing: I went to the high court protest, it was very scary but, you know, it was also exciting. (Gulzar) Especially among many of the boys there was this “we are not getting any of the action,” “we are going to be sissy if we stay on campus for too long” ( . . .).We saw the videos of the baton charge at FAST[10]. ( . . .)

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the first day (Monday) of the emergency many students had gone to the High court (the girls were pushed inside the building, while the boys got a few blows). The lawyers were grateful that the students had come, but did not want them to suffer, and protected them, it was patriarchal protectiveness. The police had been caught by surprise to see the students there and had not had instructions about students, so let them go. When the students came back some of them were matter- of-fact, other people were very dramatic, “it was for real,” “the police man was huge, his hands huge,” as if it was a legionary battle. “He-man” action figure kind of thing. (Faiza)

Many kinds of threats were pulled against the students and the faculty involved. One renowned faculty member was arrested on the second day of the emergency during a meeting at the Human Rights High Commission in Lahore, and released three days after; another faculty member who was a Marxist activist was pushed into hiding and news of his arrest had been leaked in the first week of the emergency; at the end of November, five FIRs (first information report, equivalent to an arrest) were issued against three professors (one of whom was not even in Pakistan) and two students (one of whom had not even participated in the protest) with charges of wall chalking, but the arrests were never carried out even when these individuals returned to their normal lives on campus. In spring 2008, the family of one of the students who had been interviewed by CNN was visited by some ISI agents who seemed to be investigating her links to India. Although these were seen as diluted risks in comparison with the ones faced by protesters in other universities, the economic and reputational stakes were quite high for the subjects involved. These types of concerns seem to be a common variable in the study of youth political participation around the globe, and are by no means a character of Pakistani elite offspring. The tension toward securing a good future in a more competitive global market while living the highly transitional period of university education seems to be a common variable affecting youth political participation (see Rossi 2009: 470). “Where the Gates of LUMS Start, Pakistan Ends”: Shifting Physical and Virtual Spaces in the Protest As mentioned above, LUMS is seen by outsiders as a peculiarity within Pakistan and there is a popular saying circulating in Lahore that goes “Where the gates of LUMS start, Pakistan ends.” Paradoxically,

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according to Gulzar, this detachment from the masses was one of the reasons for the awakening of the political conscience of the students: We are so out of tune with the rest and there was a tradition in this country that when martial law comes in it will be accepted, but this rule does not apply here because these people are so out of touch with the country. ( . . .) It is paradoxical that we protested against something that affects the Pakistani community in a way. (Gulzar)

Although some students participated in organized protests in front of the Lahore High Court and then at the Lahore Press Club, in front of the police stations where activists had been incarcerated or in front of houses where others were under house arrest and subsequently even went for car rallies all the way to Islamabad, the great majority of the student involvement was witnessed within the LUMS gates (and projected on the Web). From Monday November 5 for three weeks (till the academic quarter break) the students organized sit-ins and marches every day during the lunch break (from 1 pm to 2 pm, with a slight variation on Fridays to allow Juma prayer). All these activities, approved by the administration, took place at the other end of the LUMS gates, where dozens of police officers in antiriot gear were stationed, often bullying the workers coming into the campus perhaps to send a message to the students and faculty participating in the antiemergency movement. The attempts to organize “flash protests” in commercial areas, still within the Defence Housing Authority, did not gain much momentum, although according to some participants, the shopkeepers showed some support. We have analyzed above the different subculture, educational and class background, and both the social and cultural capital informing the LUMS student movement. These characteristics of the protest had a decisive impact when, for example, the American media started consulting with and referencing the students on a daily basis. Once the global projection of the protest was achieved, Luminites turned their attention to collaboration with the local and national groups involved in the antiemergency movement. Shifting from the virtual space of YouTube protests to the pragmatic terms of interuniversity collaboration became one of the most meaningful experiences for the students as individuals: [Punjab University’ students’] parents are used to politics ( . . .) I always said that we had to learn from Punjab University (PU) as they had seen politics from a long time. Even the families they spring from. They are very involved in the neighborhood politics. Here we do not even know

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who our neighbor is, in our bungalow. Here students are children of army and government, but are still very sheltered. (Faiza)

Undeniably, as mentioned before, when discussing the in/out dynamics of the space management, going out into “the real world” (as it was described sarcastically by the interviewees themselves) was one of the most changing experiences brought about by the movement. Safina, one of the most active Luminites, described her first encounter with PU students as a “cultural shock,” referring in particular to the scarce presence of female students and the separation of the sexes in the meetings. This sparked an interesting debate within LUMS students about the positioning that they were taking. On one hand, they were clearly leading the Student Action Committee (SAC): We were the diallings of the media ( . . .) We were always at the front of the movement, not because of the numbers but because we started it. This time PU got mobilised much later, the SAC meetings could only [gather] a few people. Most of the people were from LUMS. The student movement is an interesting phenomenon as it revived student activism? after so long. People outside LUMS people do not believe we rose without an agent. They were asking “who told them to do that”? it was not a widespread movement in the country, why LUMS was affected so much?” (Faiza)

On the other, the students interviewed were quite critical about the quality of their own involvement when compared to the one of other universities: We had the luxury here of being more visible, but Islamabad did much more, there were 1,000 students protest on the streets. People say it was because of [LUMS] initiative . . . but others were taken to jail. If those who inspired do not show that they live up to the expectations, [the protest] will die with time. (Haroon)

Safina cherished the involvement with other universities by suggesting a long-term benefit exported from LUMS to the outside. She was in fact quite adamant that in the interaction other Lahori universities were picking up different social skills and intergender values thanks to Lums students, and shared her thoughts with other Luminites: Safina says they have learnt from us a lot, how to deal with women and respect women, they have learnt that you cannot be patronizing and respect women who do not wear certain clothes. She was under the impression that we were bringing civilization. (Faiza)

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However, Safina’s views and the ones of the Luminites who called for a project of voluntary tours of guest seminars about politics and the judiciary in other universities were contradicted by some students who thought that it was the Luminites who had more to learn from Punjab University rather than vice versa: Diversity, there is a difference between a PU man and a LUMS girl, true [but] . . . I think the LUMS people need to learn from them how to conduct themselves with others, there were issues there, because we [Luminites] talk a lot, there is a lot of “CP[11] culture.” (Haroon) PU had different concerns from us. The principal thing they wanted to discuss was not the judiciary, but how they would not allow the Islamic party to join . . . [They were saying]: “you don’t know what they are like,” their stories were fascinating. Jamaat i Islami after inviting Imran Khan to the university, their student wing, out of control, trapped him and called the police, they carried him on their shoulders, ducked, threw him in a van, locked him in a room and then gave him to the police. PU got mobilised out of embarrassment. Their concern was that [of not allowing Islamic parties in], and they told us these things, (and they are so practical, they knew about these things, they understand the land more than we do.) They are individuals not linked to parties, non-partisan, they were also from the progressive student movement, the left wing (Bhagat Singh cell). Safina said that we have to go to each university and educate them about the importance of the judiciary and the importance of mobilizing for the country. How can educate people who probably know more than you? (Faiza)

Safina’s position was more compromising: The PU students live in a bubble. We live in a bubble with regards to deprivation, but not with regards to the outside [world], no. Sure we don’t know about financial deprivation, but we know the history of our country, we know what the US is doing, what China is doing, this is also important. If you only know deprivation and you don’t know the rest, you can’t resolve it. (Safina)

At the same time, even Faiza admits that LUMS was considered by the others as a guide under many respects and makes a comparison with the cultural effects that LUMS seems to have had on the social landscape of Lahore in other ways: After we started, the other students [from other universities] uploaded stuff as well. Fashion also spread very quickly . . . everyone wants to be like LUMS in Lahore. Oh, the level society looks up to this institution! They are perceived to be head and shoulder above. And they also say where

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the gates of LUMS begin, Pakistan ends. When I came here 4 years ago you wouldn’t see many girls wearing jeans in Lahore, now a lot do, and I believe it is LUMS influence. ( . . .) If (the other universities) are looking to us as the intellectuals to set the tone of the protest, if it is peaceful, etc, they were constantly looking at us for the agenda. It is often the high culture the intellectual avant- garde that drives these movements. (Faiza)

The perception of the danger outside the gates of LUMS is a topic not everybody agrees upon. Some faculty members, during one of the meetings held by the administration to decide whether and how to support the student movement, claimed that even within the LUMS campus we should have not assumed “sanctity of space,” as on the second day of the emergency declaration even the Human Rights Commission had been raided when a group of citizens had reunited to discuss their position in relation to the new political scenario. It was quite widely accepted that the numerous international links that LUMS enjoyed abroad, such as the ones of alumni or former colleagues of current faculty, were raising the university to a symbolic position; people, however, disagreed on whether this would work as a sort of protection or as a sort of target for the government in order to send a very strong signal internationally about its seriousness about cracking down on the opposition to the emergency. One of the students responsible for the relations with the media was more likely to describe the positioning and the forms of the LUMS protest within a tactical strategy rather than as a cowardly move: Our media work was good—the police was kept outside the gates and could not get an idea of how many people were involved and who were the leaders. We pretended that our numbers were still big. The newspapers were very cooperative and made it easy for us to create this impression. I don’t think they were objective. (Faiza) We were able to let out our feelings, the growing loom, to express our voices, open discussion and find space. We had a very efficient media campaign, CNN, BBC, this was something huge it was important that the Pakistanis [her emphasis] were not happy, because in the past in the West [her emphasis] they were told that people were ok with that, we wanted to say that we were not ok with it. We were very scared, we blurred the pictures before sending them out. (Safina)

Rang de Basanti in Pakistan? The case in protest of the LUMS students, however small, had a major impact in the appropriation of the public space, not in Pakistan, where

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the censorship of TV and newspaper had some results, but especially in the virtual world of global news-making. This case study offers an interesting opportunity to ref lect on the shaping of the public sphere in Pakistan, a public sphere that is inextricable from the global one due to the international attention on Pakistan since 2001. The first observation regarding the Luminites’ protest is that it was very successful in appropriating such space, although insiders and outsiders of the protest do not agree as to what extent the end of the emergency was actually to be related to their uprising. The involvement of the masses never appeared to be a realistic goal for any of the participants. The realization that such involvement would have been difficult to bring about was the result of a ref lection on the political culture of the lower classes of Pakistan, both resigned to the undemocratic turns of the government, and at the same unfamiliar with or suspicious of the judicial issues, as their experience with the justice system is not generally a positive one. Bearing in mind that the most visible part of the protest was the one given space on global media, it is a useful reminder, in assessing the historical leverage of the Luminites’ protest, that technological means, such as the Internet, are not accessible to the majority of the Pakistani population. At the same time, such a majority does not have the language skills and the social, political, and philosophical vocabulary to articulate issues pertaining to “the rule of law.” They also have been missing a charismatic leadership that has been able to overcome their class and ethnic heterogeneity (it is arguable that Benazir would have been able to do so even if she was still alive). As the major allies of Pakistan, mainly the United States, have been promoting their image as the defenders of democracy around the world, this is the terrain where international pressure can be stirred to the advantage of Pakistan, but the language to do so seems to be mainly available only to the upper classes. In addition to the appropriation of the public space on a global level, all the four case studies agree that participating in the protest had a huge effect on their personal lives: When the Chief Justice [stood up], I felt there was finally something I could be proud of in this country. To be honest there isn’t so much to be proud of. Ok, there is this glorified romanticized past which is constructed which is not real. [ . . . ] I don’t go for protecting Pakistan only because of the way it is on the map. It is the place I come from, there is a sense of belonging, but now there is something meaningful, the feeling

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that you are fighting for the right cause is awesome. Now wherever I go and do, one part of me will be involved, even if I am a corporate lawyer in New York. (Safina)

If, following much contemporary literature on social movements, we understand that hardly ever such movements produce durable changes in society, but they are very successful in inf luencing the lives of the participants, it may lead to a further problem. A movement that for whatever reason, be it the social divide or the lack of familiarity of the masses with the concepts utilized by the protest, does not involve the masses, will never achieve the secondary aim of educating citizens from the masses. If we argue that Luminites will be better citizens or better Pakistanis because of their experience in the protest, such change cannot be realistically predicted within the lower classes. The cynics’ reaction to the lack of involvement of the lower classes in the protest should then not take the form of a prejudiced perplexity toward the political activism of the educated classes, but rather the form of concern toward what happens to civic education among the uneducated: they have been excluded by this informal process of learning about “democracy,” and they are bound to accept it, as Faiza has put it, “as a colonial overlay.” Thus, even if we argue that the involvement of the masses would not have exerted a stronger pressure on Pakistan’s international allies, such as the United States, the missed participation of the lower classes has to be taken into consideration when thinking of possible future developments of the public sphere in the country. In this way, albeit unconsciously, the protest participants have emerged, as Aronowitz put it, “as political agents, but in their own behalf ” (1992: ix). We have argued above that because of catachresis and the differential utilization of colonial and Musharraf ’s overlays, the Luminites’ protest was successful in engaging with global public opinion. The media effect, however, was not accompanied by more formal aspects of democratic practice. For example, only a very small minority of the protesters exercised their right to vote in February 2008, either because of lack of trust in the electoral system, or because of lack of trust toward the parties in power. Some of them, on the other hand, participated in the election monitoring activities. The disconnection between political discourse and basic political practice such as the one of voting is a theme that seems to be of great importance in South Asia. In spring 2006, a cinematographic success swept the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora: Rang de Basanti. The film became the center of such a debate that for months Indian media would talk of the turn

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of the “Rang de Basanti generation.” This film has very interesting parallels with the case study of the Luminites. It is in fact the story of a group of relaxed and politically apathetic Delhi University students accidentally recruited to act in a documentary on the violent resistance to the British Raj by the granddaughter of a British soldier who served in India at the time of the liberation struggle. The subtitle of the film A Generation Awakens, describes the process of change they go through when turning from disaffected Indian youth just waiting to leave the country they keep complaining about, into the vindicators of the death of a pilot friend who is killed in a plane crash because of the dodgy quality of the aircraft. The first commonality is the inspiration that both in the film and among Luminites has come from the West; in RDB, the trigger for the students’ conscience is the British documentary maker, while among Luminites their political discourse was clearly inspired by Western political philosophy (in the interviews, “social contract,” Voltaire, Weber are constantly mentioned). The catachretic process occurs through the narratives forced on them by the documentary director, a Raj’s granddaughter (intriguingly played by the daughter of Hong Kong’s former governor Chris Patten). As the crash occurs because some politicians bought faulty planes, the students take a gun and shoot the responsible minister first, and one of their own fathers involved in the deal, second, while in their minds the images of the shootings they have acted in for the British woman run frantically. The students, each one belonging to a different religion but united in the re-found loyalty to the Mother Nation, eventually break into All India Radio offices to speak to the country and they are killed one by one by the army. The film concludes with the reactions from many university campuses across India. Class and national divisions have slightly different takes, though. In RDB there is a conscious nationalistic and unifying discourse that groups all the protagonists under the idea of a very broad notion of justice. Luminites have only partially tackled what justice means to people who are not LUMS- educated and can relate to their knowledge of Western political theory. Their appeals for the rule of law seem more intelligible to an international audience than to their own country fellows. Rang de Basanti then brought to the forefront of Indian intellectual debate the issue of contemporary youth political engagement through the symbolic killing of a father. The paradoxes and complexities of the political involvement of Pakistani upper and middle classes students, of course, were not resolved in terroristic terms, but found a channel in virtual protest. The most striking symbolical difference, however, seems to me the lack of the Oedipal turn, as rather than killing the fathers

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who may have been deemed responsible for the current situation of the country, the Luminites were referring to the elders for guidance, thus making this virtual protest something less disruptive in the evolution of the political sphere than it may look at a first glance. Individually, they also appear to have widely respected the wishes of their parents in deciding to what extent they would contribute to the movement. The Rang de Basanti generation parallel results more striking when we compare the effects that the film had on civil society with the longterm effects of their participation in the protest among Luminites. According to Indian press, the Rang de Basanti effect was the source of a series of positive consequences on the political conscience and hope of many “real” young Indians. For example, the “Jessica Lal case,” the trial for the murder of a model committed by the son of an important Haryana minister, was finally brought to an end thanks to numerous protests against the privileged treatment that had been reserved for the convicted because of his father’s position. The film crew itself went to the rescue of a group of “tribals” who were being forcefully relocated in Gujarat for the construction of a dam.12 In Lahore, in April 2009, one Luminite was killed when run over by a car driven by the drunken son of an important local figure. The police were as usual reluctant to prosecute the driver given his powerful connections, but were eventually forced to carry out their duty by a Luminite- organized protest. The question that is naturally posed about whether Luminites have created a long-term RDB effect or not, is still quite elusive. The movement is much weaker but still alive. It has opened itself up through the organization of the support to bomb blast victims and apparently notions of social justice are trickling into the debates: It is possible that the movement changed the conscience that it will filter through over time. Identities are constructed and reconstructed with time. There is potential for something similar to social justice coming into the students. (Haroon)

The effectiveness of their actions on the end of the emergency is also still debated. As an anthropologist I would like to leave to political scientists to comment on the role played by the Luminites in the transition to a democratic Pakistan. In this chapter I have simply highlighted through my ethnographic tools how the subculture of this group has motivated and informed their resistance and how this subculture happened to match the concerns and the vocabulary of international press.

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I leave it to the scholars of the Transition Process (Gill 2000) to relate this to the potential of change in the national context. Notes 1. Allegedly the Supreme Court Chief was removed as rumors had spread over an approaching negative ruling about Musharraf ’s election as president while he was still holding the position of Army chief. 2. LUMS is commonly defined as an “elite university.” What is actually meant when people use such term is not quite clear. My understanding is, however, that in spite of the common understanding of this Institution as one attended only by the very rich, the term elite can actually be used only if referring to the setting and organization of the university that differs from the vast majority of Pakistani universities. Although the fees are very high, a great number of students are supported in their studies by financial aid, rather than by their own means. 3. Being a faculty member of the same university did not act negatively on my access to the protest movement. As will be argued further down, in fact, it seems that unlike many student movements, especially in Europe, Luminites enjoyed a close, positive, and deferential relationship with the institution and its staff and, therefore, seemed quite happy when asked to speak about their experiences. 4. Though the Emergency Times was primarily an online publication, it was, for the month of November 2007 at least, extensively distributed physically through student networks in campuses across Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. 5. Salman Ahmed had originally supported Musharrraf and his promises of fighting religious radicals and corruption in the country. 6. The song opens with a celebration of the allegedly extraordinary opportunity for change offered by the situation: Duniya mein kitne khule hain raste Kya tu ne dekha wo jo tere waste Ankhain mal ke ro ya jeele is pal ko Kiya hai musakhkhar jo tere waste.

7. 8.

[How many paths have opened up Have you seen that which (is) for you Cry rubbing your eyes, or live this moment (to the full) Which has been subdued for you.] I would like to thank Zahra Sabri at Columbia University for the help with the translation of the whole song. Alavi is a Marxist social scientist who has written extensively on class in Pakistan and is one of the favorite authors of some professors at LUMS. Jamaat-e-Islami is a strong politically militant and religiously informed party.

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9. By missing persons the student refers to the ones into whose disappearances the chief justice had initiated an investigation, claiming that they may have been abducted without trial by the secret agencies. 10. Foundation for Advancement of Science and Technology 11. Closely following the American undergraduate system, at LUMS part of each and every course assessment is Class Participation (CP). Students then compete in class discussions in order to improve their marks, making lectures quite interactive but often not necessarily relevant, as many students complain that marks are given for quantity and not quality. 12. Aamir Khan, the actor playing the main character in Rang de Basanti and one of the biggest stars in Bollywood, had subsequently had his blockbuster Fanaa banned from Gujarat in reprisal of his antidam protest.

References Ahmed, S. (2007) “Open Letter from Salman Ahmed to Bilal Musharraf,” http:// teeth.com.pk/blog/2007/12/01/open- letter- from- salman- ahmed- to- bilalmusharraf Aronowitz, S. (1992) The Politics of Identity: Class, Culture and Social Movements. London: Routledge. Batuman, B. (2003) “Imagination as Appropriation: Student Riots and the (Re) claiming of Public Space,” Space and Culture, 6: 261. Cheema, A. (2007) Political Crisis on a Silent Street, http://www.ssrc.org/ pakistancrisis/2008/01/02/political-crisis-on-a-silent-street/ Cohen, A. (1974) Urban Ethnicity. A. S. A. Monographs no. 12. London: Tavistock. Dalrymple, W. (2007) “Pakistan’s Flawed and Feudal Princess,” The Guardian, December 30. Derrida, J. (1978) [1967] Writing and Difference. London: Routledge. Gill, G. (2000) The Dynamics of Democratization. Elites, Civil Society and the Transition Process. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Hasan, A. (2002) “The Roots of Elite Alienation,” Economic and Political Weekly, 4550–4553. Passy, F. and Giugni, M. (2001) “Social Networks and Individual Perceptions: Explaining Differential Participation in Social Movements,” Sociological Forum, 16: 123–153. Rashid, A. (2008) Descent into Chaos. London: Penguin. Rossi, F. M. (2009) “Youth Political Participation: Is This the End of Generational Cleavage?,” International Sociology, 24: 467–497. Saigol, R. (2005) “Enemies Within and Enemies Without: The Besieged Self in Pakistani Textbooks,” Futures, 37: 1005–1035. Sassen, S. (2007) “Pakistan’s Two Worlds,” The Guardian, November 7. Schofield, V. (1990) Bhutto: Trial and Execution. Lahore: Classic.

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Shah, S. (2007) Manifesto of Irrelevant Rebellion, http://samishah.wordpress. com/2007/11/11/a-manifesto-of-irrelevant-rebellion/ Spivak, G. C. (1993) Outside in the Teaching Machine. London: Routledge. Verkaaik, O. (2003) “Fun and Violence. Ethnocide and the Effervescence of Collective Aggression,” Social Anthropology, 11(1): 3–22. Vora, A, (2007) Pakistan Students Push for Democracy, http://www.newint.org/ features/special/2007/12/14/pakistan-democracy/

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CHAPTER 3

Revisiting the UK Muslim Diasporic Public Sphere at a Time of Terror: From Local (Benign) Invisible Spaces to Seditious Conspiratorial Spaces and the “Failure of Multiculturalism” Discourse Pnina Werbner*

P

ublic exposés of hidden spaces where diasporic Muslims allegedly enunciate extreme anti-Western rhetoric or plot sedition highlight an ironic shift from a time, analyzed in my earlier work, when the Pakistani diasporic public sphere in Britain was invisible and local while nevertheless being regarded as relatively benign: a space of expressive rhetoric, ceremonial celebration and local power struggles. Suicide bombings on the London underground and revelations of aborted conspiracies have led to a national media debate in which Muslim “community” leaders for the first time have come to be active participants. They respond to accusations by politicians and journalists that multicultural tolerance has “failed” in Britain, and that national Muslim organizations are the prime cause of this alleged failure. Addressing this “failure of multiculturalism” discourse, the chapter questions, first, whether talk of multiculturalism in the UK is really about “culture” at all. Second, it explores why Muslim integration into Britain—the socalled success or failure of multiculturalism—has come to be “tested” by Muslim national leaders’ willingness to attend Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations. The public dialogue reflecting on these issues in the mainstream and ethnic

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press, the chapter proposes, highlights a signal development in the history of the UK Muslim diasporic public sphere: from being hidden and local to being highly visible and national, responsive to British politicians, investigative journalists and the wider British public. Preamble This chapter is based on a reading of selected documentary sources since 2004, drawn from the diasporic ethnic press and the mainstream British press and media. Among these are articles reporting on court trials of foiled British Muslim terror plots and clandestine media recordings of hidden, allegedly subversive, diasporic Muslim rhetoric. However, the aim is not to highlight tabloid- style scaremongering against Muslim immigrants, but to trace a developing public dialogue between British politicians and leaders of the Muslim community published in the mainstream and ethnic press and media. Its ultimate purpose is to highlight the impossibility of thinking of multiculturalism as business- as-usual at a time of global terror. Revisiting the Diasporic Public Sphere In 1992, I presented a paper bearing the title “On Mosques and Cricket Teams: Nationalism and Religion among British Muslims”1 that became the basis for a lengthy exploration of what I called the diasporic public sphere. Published as “Fun Spaces” (Werbner 1996), 2 it anticipated the more detailed discussion of the diasporic public sphere in my book Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims (Werbner 2002). Following Habermas (1989 [1962]), the stress was on the local face-to-face, imaginative, and creative aspects of the hidden, invisible public arenas diaspora Pakistanis create for themselves. At the time, the Pakistani community in Manchester, UK, the subject of my study, was encapsulated and inward looking, concerned with its own affairs, while being law- abiding and moderately pious. In the book I traced the process of “visibilization” of this arena of identity, fun, local factional politics and personal rhetoric in outraged response to the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses in 1988 and the first Gulf War in 1991. Against Habermas’s critique of the mass media as subverting the early bourgeois sphere, the book highlighted the way that diasporic Pakistani women and youth draw on the aesthetics of South Asian popular and mass culture to mobilise in autonomous arenas of their own, in resistance to male elders.

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This was before the 9/11 bombings of the Twin Towers and the “War on Terror.” Following those cataclysmic events, I argue in the present chapter, Muslim diasporic spaces changed both in the public perception and in their scale; what had been invisible but nevertheless benign, autonomous local spaces of debate, even if at times they were critical of the West, came increasingly to be regarded as conspiratorial. At the same time, the scale of debate shifted from the local to the national, with the diasporic public sphere now constituted by a series of polemical accusations and counterresponses by British politicians and Muslim national leaders, published in the national broadsheet and ethnic press. This painful dialogue concerned the invisible but allegedly seditious spaces and agendas diasporic Muslims were secretly fostering, and the implications of their “revealed” existence for “multiculturalism” in Britain. The Pluralization of the Public Sphere The 1990s was a period in which Habermas’s notion of a unified (national) public sphere was subjected to scrutiny by feminist and diaspora theorists, who argued for the need to conceptualize the pluralization and complexity of the public sphere. In an edited volume that reconsidered Habermas’s concept (Calhoun 1992), Nancy Fraser (1992) argued that women and other marginalized groups historically created a counter–civil society to the official, hegemonic public sphere. A truly functioning democracy, Fraser argued, requires such “subaltern counterpublics” in which oppositional interpretations of “identities, interests, and needs” are formulated (123). Similarly, Seyla Benhabib (1992: 94) proposed that the increasing porousness and complexity of the public sphere allows women and other marginalized groups to set new agendas. Rather than a single public arena, the point made by these feminist theorists was that such separate and diverse spaces are essential for subalterns to thrash out their own perspectives on public policies and the public good. If the public good, according to Habermas, was defined through public debate between rational citizens, later conceptualizations took account of its aesthetic and affective dimensions as well (for an overview see Dahlberg 2005). Paul Gilroy (1993), for example, had spoken of a black “alternative” public sphere of “story-telling and musicmaking” (200). Fraser (1992) argued similarly that “public spheres are not only arenas for the formation of discursive opinion.” In addition, as “arenas for the formation and enactment of identities” (125), they are in some sense a “theater” (110). This accords also with Alberto Melucci’s

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(1997) view that the work of identity is one of first discovering and then negotiating shared identities. Dahlberg cites Young’s argument that rational- critical discourse fails to take into account that “meaning is always in excess of what can be understood discursively, spilling over beyond the symbolic” (Dahlberg 2005: 115; citing Young 1987). Public assemblies, Bruno Latour proposes, are as much about “things” as people or the politics of representation (Latour and Sánchez- Criado 2007). In her theorization of public arenas in India, Sandria Freitag (1989), it will be recalled, argued that processions and public rituals encompass both the “political” and “religious,” the formal and informal, elite and popular concerns (14). My study of the local Pakistani diasporic public sphere similarly highlighted its poetics—the way that political passion and rhetoric allow speakers to reach out persuasively to their audiences. In the light of these arguments, the public sphere may be defined as constituted by ten key features: (1) Public good, defined through (2) Public debate between rational citizens, in a (3) Plurality (of subaltern counterpublics and spaces), characterized by (4) Porousness; (5) Performance; (6) Poetics; (7) Passion, leading to (8) Political mobilization; (9) Protest; and (10) Proliferation of organizations within civil society. Clearly, a recognition of the pluralised nature of the diasporic public sphere allows for a theorization of diaspora, community, and culture not as homogeneous, unified, monolithic, harmonious forms of sociality but as heterogeneous and conf lictual. Among British Pakistanis, the debate has been not only between the religious and less pious but between democrats, socialists, and nationalists, women and men, young and old, with each group positioned differently and having its own partial, meroscopic political viewpoint. Most diasporas engender a wide range of voluntary organizations that represent different interests and perspectives. Thus Khachig Tölölyan (2000) speaks of a “diasporic civil society,” constituted by a myriad of voluntary organizations. In the case of Pakistanis in Britain, who are both South Asians and Muslims, the historical migratory process of incorporation into British society as Muslims has been marked by internal diversification and a shift toward increasing religiosity, which can be traced through a series of stages: • Prof liferation (of religious spaces); • Replication (of South Asian Islam’s sectarian and ideological diversity);

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• • • •

Diasporic encounter (with Muslims from the Middle East); Confrontation and dissent (following the Rushdie affair); Identity-led religiosity; Adoption of Muslim diacritical ritual practices and attire in public; • Voluntary “self- segregation”; • The politicization and racialization of Islam in Britain; • Confrontation and dissent (following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq). As South Asians, however, Pakistanis have followed an entirely different trajectory, and this has led to the emergence of two distinct diasporic public spheres in which British Pakistanis participate situationally— one, of “hybridity,” fun, and mass popular South Asian culture, the other “pure” and Islamic. Both, in a sense, are politicized but their politics differ and are expressed in different media. The South Asian popular cultural sphere is expressed publicly through diasporic novels, films, television, newspapers, and classical and popular song and dance groups; its politics are focused above all on the familial politics of gender, class, consumption, and intergenerational relations, and secondarily, on racism within British society. The Muslim public sphere, by contrast, has been characterized in Britain by intensified religiosity and reformist, puritanical preaching, part of a worldwide discourse generated partly in response to intractable international political conf licts in the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Iraq. The diaspora has not been immune to this pervasive global radicalization of political Islam, popularized and vernacularized in theological texts and in increasingly restrictive lifestyle options, and encouraged, perhaps, also by increased levels of literacy among young Muslims worldwide, the rise of an extra-terrestrial Islamic media, the extensive use of the Internet by radical Islamic groups, and—in Pakistan—the huge expansion of neofundamentalist madrasas and training camps. Despite the fact that they lived in Manchester, that is, in the diaspora, first generation, local-level Pakistani leaders rarely addressed issues of local concern such as racism in their public events. Instead, they tended to orate about national events back home and international events such as the Middle East crisis and the plight of Palestinians. Within the invisible spaces of debate and ceremonial celebration they had created, these lay speakers, usually local businessmen or aspiring workingclass big men, assumed a larger-than-life dramatic presence, and their rhetoric

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was heroic and often millennial and apocalyptic (Werbner 2004). The critique of the West and along with it, of the failure of Islam or of Arab regimes, drew on a familiar globalized Muslim rhetoric. After the Rushdie affair, with its public protest and marches, Muslims’ visibility in Britain died down temporarily. It resurfaced once again in protest against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11. The emergence of an established Muslim national press at about the same time did not, of course, mean the disappearance of local arenas of diasporic debate. But as local organizations came together in national umbrella organizations, they were superseded at the national level by a more unified leadership and a “mediatized” Muslim diasporic public sphere. Moreover, from being invisible and benign, the hidden spaces of the old diasporic public sphere came to be redefined by the British media and politicians as hidden and conspiratorial. The conclusion drawn was that multiculturalism had, therefore, failed. This shift in public rhetoric and perception is the subject of the present chapter.

Public Arguments: Islam and the Media Uncovered Plots The debate about the diasporic public sphere in Britain today has to be seen in the context of international politics and the War on Terror. It took some time after 9/11 to discover that there were British citizens fighting in Afghanistan or on the side of the Taliban. Since then, the number of suicide bombers who were British citizens or residents of Britain has increased: there were two in Tel Aviv and following them, Richard Reid, the shoe bomber; the four suicide bombers of July 7; six others, three Somali and an Ethiopian, unsuccessfully attempted suicide bombing a fortnight later (sentenced in 2007). With a little over 1.5 million Muslims living in Britain, almost 1,000 have been arrested on suspicion of terror, and while most have been released without charge, more than 50 have been charged and many have now been sentenced. One set of terror plotters, mainly Londoners, used a warehouse to store more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer chemicals to make a large car bomb, allegedly to blow up a London nightclub; 7 men aged between 19 and 34, six of them with family roots in Pakistan, went on trial at the Old Bailey in February 2006 for this offense (Sciolino and Grey 2006). One Algerian resisting arrest shot a policeman in Manchester. In East London, a policeman shot one Bangladeshi terror suspect in the shoulder. The suspect and his brother were later released,

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a case apparently of mistaken information by a “reliable” informant, but not before their home, names, and faces were publicized in a major media event. As early as 2002, a Wahhabi/Salafi preacher of violent jihad, “energetic promoter of incendiary videos across the country to Muslim groups, inciting them to kill Jews, Hindus and other infidels” was arrested, and was tried in 2003 (Lewis 2007: 130–131). In August 2006, an alleged plot to blow up 12 aircraft above 5 U.S. cities was foiled after a massive surveillance operation; 24 young British Muslims, mostly British-born Pakistanis, were arrested in dawn raids in Birmingham, High Wycombe, and London. Others were arrested in Pakistan. The dawn operation caused travel chaos at airports. British Airways cancelled 400 f lights out of Heathrow. Passengers have been prohibited since from carrying liquids on board. John Reid, the home secretary, echoing the London Metropolitan police deputy commissioner, Paul Stephenson, said: “This was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale” (Laville et al. 2006), “Worse than 9/11.” “Let us have no doubt that we are probably in the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of the Second World War,” Mr. Reid is reported to have said (Whitaker et al. 2006). The British Pakistani AlQaida nexus had by now, according to the Independent, been firmly established (Whitaker et al. 2006). Yet the jury in the court trial of the suspects that took place at the Old Bailey in September 2008 remained deadlocked on the prosecution’s central allegation (The Times, September 9, 2008, front page). This type of scaremongering by security personnel and politicians has persisted, conveying the clear message that all British Muslims are potentially hidden terrorists. In February 2007, 9 suspects were arrested in another mediated dawn operation for allegedly being involved in a plot to behead a Muslim soldier serving in the British army. A further man was later arrested and five were charged and stood trial at the Old Bailey on February 23, 2007. Three were released, one of whom accused Britain of being a “police state.” In November 2006, MI5 (the British equivalent of the FBI) claimed in a front-page article in the Guardian (Norton-Taylor 2006) to have identified “30 major terrorist plots being planned in Britain,” and to be “targeting 1,600 individuals actively engaged in promoting attacks here and abroad.” These 30 plots “are the most serious of many more planned by some 200 British based “networks” involved in terrorism” (!). Most plotters were said to be British-born and connected to Al- Qaida in Pakistan. Young teenagers were being “groomed to be suicide bombers.” According to opinion polls cited by MI5, “more than 100,000 British citizens considered

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the July 2005 attacks on London were justified” (ibid.). This gloomy assessment by the head of MI5 at the time, Dame Eliza ManninghamBuller (she subsequently retired early), was backed up by increasingly histrionic statements by politicians and media reports on surveillance of university students (Dodd 2006). A further conspiracy was by young (foreign-born) Muslim doctors who planted a series of car bombs, two of them in London’s West End. One crashed his car into Glasgow airport. This plot too was foiled and the men involved arrested. Media Exposés and an Emergent National Public Debate Media investigative reports highlighted the connection of apparently respectable Muslim organizations with extremist anti-Western sects, or their secret links with fundamentalist organizations in Pakistan. Hence, according to a Guardian report (Lewis 2006) Tablighi Jamaat (the “Fellowship of Preaching/Proselytizing”) is being monitored “after it emerged that seven of the 23 suspects under arrest for allegedly plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners were affiliated to this movement” (Bajwa 2006c). In their response in the ethnic press, the organization’s leaders denied the allegations and reaffirmed the nonpolitical nature of their movement, including its rejection of Wahabbism (supposedly a sign of their extremism). A Tablighi leader, Emdad Rahman (2006), claimed in the Muslim Weekly that the organization is “one one of the most avant- garde Islamic movements in the world, a non-political group, shunning violence and engrossed in nothing more than proselytizing and calling Muslims to return to Islam.” In an article that protested the transparency and openness of this now global organization, one member is cited as asking: “People who go to Church carry out atrocities. Does this mean that the Church is a terrorist body?” (Rahman 2006, p. 13). Nevertheless, the lengthy trips that Tablighis engage in, with young people often spending more than a month on the road in Pakistan, and the movement’s strong links to the Deobandi, a religious tendency linked to the Taliban has made such protestations about a peaceful past less convincing to the growing cohort of expert “Islam watchers.” A second media exposé was of the roots of the Muslim Council of Britain’s leadership in Jamaat-i-Islami (the “Muslim Fellowship”), an early fundamentalist organization and political party founded in British India by a journalist, Mawlana Mawdudi, who first espoused the Islamization of the state (Bright 2005).3 Despite its mixed history of incitement against groups like the Ahmadiyya,4 Jamaat-i-Islami,

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somewhat like Hamas, has a reputation for sobriety and honesty, and is remembered for delivering services to the needy and aid to refugees at the time of the Partition of British India. Nevertheless, the movement is also associated with the Pakistani army’s violent massacres in Bangladesh during the civil war in 1971, and the extreme violence on campuses of its militant student wing Islami Jamiat-i-Tulabah (“students”) during the Zia years (President Zia was a member of JI) (Nasr 1994: 69). According to various Web sites, the JI, like other Islamic Pakistani movements, indirectly sponsors camps training young men to fight in Kashmir through its militant wing, Hizb-ul-Muhajideen,5 though its camps have not been the main training grounds for young British Pakistani jihadists. The British organization created by the movement, UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), which is centered in Leicester, along with its various youth wings and offshoots (see Hussain 2007), claims to be a separate organization, distancing itself from the parent movement and aiming to integrate into all walks of British society (ur-Rahman 2007a). The success of some of its members in founding the UK umbrella organization, the Muslim Council of Britain (henceforth MCB), may be related more to their organizational capacity than their political views. Nevertheless, leaders are accused of dividing humanity into believers and unbelievers (kaffir) (Bright 2005) and their puritanical ideology is also manifested in their public attack on homosexuality in Britain and their attempts to censure Muslim cultural festival celebrations allegedly transgressing strict Islamic codes of conduct. Such emergent divisions among Muslims reveal the validity of a post-Habermasian approach that stresses the pluralization of the diasporan Muslim public sphere in the UK. Diaspora Muslims include a wide range of nominally nonviolent groups that are nevertheless violently opposed, at least rhetorically, to any Muslims they regard as transgressive or deviant. Whereas there is no doubt about the media exposés, the timing of the shift in government opinion is less clear. Chetan Bhatt (2006) claims that as late as 2006, the Home Office and Foreign Office defined “reformist Islam” including Jamaat-i-Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood as “moderate” (98). By contrast, tracing the history of the emergence of the MCB and its relations with government, Jonathan Birt (2005) reports that as early as October 2001, “Number 10 stopped returning MCB’s calls,” following the organization’s failure to endorse the war in Afghanistan (96), and by 2002 its links with extremist organizations were publicly recognized by the Foreign Office (98–99). Against that, Sean McLoughlin, who also traces the process of the organization’s emergence partly on the basis of its own magazine, the Common

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Good, views the MCB and its affiliates as more positive, constructive organizations, less beholden to their subcontinental roots (McLoughlin 2002).6 Like the present chapter, these scholarly accounts rely heavily on the media. The extent to which a genuine dialogue in the public sphere was emerging in Britain between British Muslim organizations and a critical press and media became evident after a media exposé of a range of Muslim national organizational leaders. A hardhitting BBC Panorama program, “A Question of Leadership,” exposed the Jamaati roots of representative members of the Muslim Council of Britain and the often vitriolic, anti-Western, anti- Semitic, and intolerant views expressed by a range of different British Muslim leaders and Saudi visitors preaching at public meetings, gatherings, and mosques, beyond the public eye.7 Responses by Muslim leaders to questions about suicide bombings, religious intolerance, and the politicization of Islam by the program producer could be construed as fudged and evasive. Following the airing of the program (Panorama 2005), the Muslim Council of Britain refuted the accusations against it in a detailed letter that the broadcaster published on its Web site, alongside the producer’s reply (BBC NEWS 2005). In the back- and-forth correspondence that ensued, one somewhat ironic development was that the Web site became a forum for a theological debate about the arcane historical views of the movement’s founder, Mawdudi, with the MCB and BBC citing, in turn, book, chapter and verse—phrases, sentences, and countersentences—to prove or disprove the allegedly “fascist” aspects of Mawdudi’s vision of an Islamic state (ibid.). Throughout this dialogue, MCB leaders refused to condemn the founder of the movement. In a later article in the Muslim Weekly, the MCB president denied the program’s accusation that the Jamaat and its British affiliate, the UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), are opposed to “plurality, multiculturalism, universal human rights and peaceful co- existence” as “false and mischievous” (ur-Rahman 2007b). “In Islam,” he says, “the idea of human rights, cultural diversity and plurality of the human family, long predated anything similar in modern political thought” (ibid.). He points out that the Koran describes Christians and Jews as People of the Book, Ahl al-Kitab (though he fudges the extent to which they nevertheless remained second- class citizens in the medieval Muslim world). A third British media exposé, this time by Channel 4, reported on another Pakistani movement, Ahl- e-Hadith (“People of the Prophet’s Sayings”), a Pakistani group close to Wahabbism espousing a Saudi brand of Islam. The program reported that the organization allegedly

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hosted traveling clerics preaching hatred of the West at various UK mosques, including the Birmingham mosque headquarters of the movement (Bajwa 2007a). Most shocking about the sermons broadcast on Channel 4 was the constant references to “kaffir,” “kuffar” and “kufaristan”—unbeliever or infidel, the land of unbelief—as defining features of Britain and its citizens. 8 Some preachers seemed to be preaching the ultimate Islamic takeover of the British state.9 In defense, Muslims organizations said they rent their premises out without necessarily endorsing the opinions of visiting preachers, and that, in any case, sentences were taken out of context (ibid.). Nevertheless, the unbridgeable chasm between “us” and “them” exposed by the infidel rhetoric shocked British observers and was seen as a clear signal of Muslims’ refusal to integrate. Against these accusations, in a letter in the Muslim Weekly, a local Birmingham antiwar association defended Ahl- e-Hadith mosque leaders “for their faith and community work” while its imam was said to work “closely with peace organizations and government authorities.” In another major response, also published in the Muslim Weekly, Shouaib Ahmed (2007: 12–13), the general secretary of Ahl- e-Hadith, denied the alleged Saudi link, along with responsibility for anything the 100 visiting speakers had said in their sermons. He stressed the organization’s interfaith work and described “kaffir” as a “neutral term” (13), opposed to “mu’min” (believer), applied to anyone who “rejects Allah and his message.” He blasted the media for highlighting “a few theoretical statements about hypothetical jihads and hypothetical Islamic states, while keeping silent about the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, predominantly Muslims, who have been slaughtered (not in theory but in actuality) in recent years in the Middle East, usually in the name of ‘liberation from oppression’ and ‘establishing a democratic state’ and never at the express invitation or request of this silenced (by death) majority” (13). He ended by invoking eras of Islamic tolerance, and claimed to be a member of a law- abiding, peaceful community that works closely with the police and government services. Ahl- e-Hadith’s general secretary’s article in the Muslim Weekly was followed by three other articles rebuffing accusations by the media: one by the UK Islamic Mission, written by its president, Shafiq urRahman (2007a: 14–15), one by Dr. Ahmed Al-Dubayan, director general of the London Islamic Cultural Centre and Central Mosque (The Muslim Weekly 2007a: 15), and one by the Muslim Council of Britain (The Muslim Weekly 2007b: 15). The first article speaks of an “open season of Muslim- bashing and Islamophobia,” and of Jihad as “the greatest red herring of our post-modern Islamophobic discourse”

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(ur-Rahman 2007a: 14), which in fact is a “holistic concept” that refers to the “duty to do goodness and forbid evil.” He distinguishes “military jihad” (Qital ), the “lesser jihad,” which can only be “waged in a just and noble cause,” with rules “clearly laid down,” from civil struggle, the “greater jihad” ( Jihad- e- Akbar), which is “lifelong.” urRahman claims, somewhat ambiguously, that “in our own British context, British Muslims are under no Islamic obligation to take part in any conf lict or struggle overseas,” but adds: “It would not be Jihad should someone tried [try] to commit violence or indulge in any unlawful, let alone a subversive activity on the British soil” (14). In the same newspaper, the London Islamic Cultural Centre denies its Saudi connections (The Muslim Weekly 2007a: 15), while the MCB accuses Channel 4 of an “attempt at promoting sectarianism among British Muslims.” At the same time, it vows not to allow “divisive agendas” or “unacceptable and inf lammatory language” from mosque pulpits or on DVDs. As with Mawdudi’s writings, in this case too Muslim theological concepts have become, post-9/11, matters of public debate in Britain. Muslims are compelled in their defense against accusations of nefarious agendas to spell out more liberal interpretations of commonly used Koranic and Arabic concepts, terms, and ideas, in order to prove to a skeptical English public and media how they may be construed as acceptable and tolerant. Seditious Spaces? At the start of the post-9/11 debate on Muslim radicalization, it was assumed by politicians and the media alike that mosques were the main sites of incitement—that young Muslims were inf lamed by “ignorant,” uneducated clerics coming from abroad. This was a notion Pakistani leaders, generally disdainful of their clerics, were happy to promote. The notorious Finsbury Park mosque, raided spectacularly by helicopter, seemed to confirm this image. It was led by Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Egyptian Palestinian preacher sentenced to deportation in 2007, and it appears to have been the home of many of the early suicide bombers, who were clearly inf luenced by his rhetoric. Abu Hamza was ultimately arrested, having gone into hiding for more than a year, and jailed for seven years in 2006 on six charges of soliciting murder, inciting racial hatred, and possessing “threatening, abusive or insulting recordings,” and a document useful to terrorists. When evicted from the mosque, he preached to crowds in front of it in the street for several months.10 In February 2007, the Independent and the Times reported

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the arrest on charges of “encouraging terrorism” of a radical cleric, Abu Izzadeen, 31, born Trevor Brookes to Jamaican parents, and once the bodyguard of Omar Bakri Muhammad, leader of the now-banned AlMuhajiroun group and later spokesman for Al- Ghurabaa and leader of the Saved Sect, also now banned. He was the subject of an exposé by ITN, the Independent Television Network, in a video made in 2004, in which he described the secretary of state for defencs at that time, John Reid, as an “enemy of Islam” and the British government as crusaders “come to kill and rape Muslims.” In the video he is reported to have said that “Whoever joins them—he who joins the British Army, is a mortal kaffir, and his only hokum [punishment] is for his head to be removed” (Morris 2007: 10). The cleric was said to have also participated in the protests outside the Danish embassy and had reportedly praised the suicide bombers of July 7 (10). In response to the moral panic surrounding mosques and hatred toward preachers, a new body was launched in Britain: MINAB, the Mosques, and Imams National Advisory Body, comprising 1,600 British mosques and Islamic centers that, according to the ethnic press, “aims to stop mosques being used by fundamentalist extremists by helping to reduce their reliance on using ministers of religion from abroad” and increase the skills of local imams (Khanna 2006a: 5). Imams are described as “coming from nowhere and spreading hatred.” The new organization received publicity even in the national press. It was founded by four Muslim umbrella associations: the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the British Muslim Forum, and the Al-Khoei Foundation (representing moderate Shias in Britain)—“as part of the Home Office’s Tackling Extremism Together programme,” though founding members denied government “intrusion.” MINAB’s stated aim is to identify best practice, release a Good Practice Guide for British imams and mosques, provide advice on imam accreditation, and organize training courses (no byline, The Muslim Weekly, June 30, 2006: 2). One by one, new spaces of sedition have been uncovered or discovered by the British state and media. Added to the list of extremist mosques have been new Islamic bookshops, allegedly selling hate literature and socalled martyrdom DVDs. The 7/7 suicide bombers met in an Islamic bookshop, having been expelled from their mosque’s basement. In a Birmingham raid in 2007, the police targeted an Islamic bookshop, as well as a cybercafé and a food shop.11 In the public imagination, new sites of sedition seem to be multiplying in places where, previously, benign cultural or religious celebrations were held.

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Young peoples’ organizations have also become increasingly suspect. Two splinter groups of Al-Muhajiroun, Al- Ghurabaa (The “Strangers”) and the Saved Sect were banned by the Home Office in July 2006, on the grounds that they openly promoted violent jihad aimed at creating a worldwide Islamic state. Most protesters outside the Danish embassy in London, as reported in court trial proceedings, were members of AlMuhajiroun or its offshoots. Despite pressure from the government of Pakistan to ban it, the claims of another UK splinter organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT, “Party of Liberation”) to be nonv iolent were provisionally accepted by the UK government. One dissenting Muslim voice in the press argued, however, that “Anyone involved in Islamic da’wah (call to Islam) for the past 25 years knows that HT is an organization that foments revolution and bloodshed. That’s why they had posters up and down the country saying that leaders [of Muslim countries] must be removed, must be overthrown” (Bajwa 2006b: 3). In November 2006, Newsnight and File on Four alleged that HT in Croydon was “promoting gang violence by making recruits commit crimes to test their loyalty and teaching them that non-Muslims were ‘worthless’ ” an allegation denied by an HT spokesman (5). After HT, FOSIS, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, which represents 90,000 university students (Lewis 2006: 11), was the next to be criticized, partly for its defense of HT, which is banned on campuses by the National Union of Students (NUS). In April 2006, FOSIS was “widely accepted as a moderate organisation,” according to Paul Lewis of the Guardian, and “praised for its promotion of interfaith dialogue and campaigns against Islamophobia.” The organization achieved a large presence in the NUS and yet it has been constantly suspected of radical tendencies. In rejecting the reinstatement of HT, NUS president- elect Gemma Tumelty described HT, according to the press, as “homophobic, sexist and racist” (11). FOSIS has claimed that it is being spied upon by police, although this was denied (Badshah 2006). The f lood of media exposés of alleged Muslim radicalized organizations and spaces has become a veritable cascade. It is almost impossible to open a British newspaper without finding some new revelation. While it is obvious that in reality, few of the sites where British Muslims gather are places of conspiracy, by now adult and youth organizations, mosques, bookshops, and cybercafés, have all been identified by the police, the courts, and the media as diasporic spaces of conspiracy and anti-Western hatred. Following these, Islamic schools and even youth camps in the Lake District have been added to the list of dangerous sites. One school, the Jameah Islamiyah School in Essex, was accused

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of allowing terrorist training in its extensive grounds. It was finally closed in February 2007. A Saudi-funded private school, the King Fahd Academy in Acton, was warned to remove books that describe Christians as “pigs” and Jews as “Monkeys,” and was accused of fomenting hatred in the classroom. The Schools Minister announced that 45 independent schools, including Islamic institutions, had been closed since 2004 by government order (Frean 2007: 7). Perhaps most disconcerting was news in the national media that recruiting camps for potential terrorists were regularly held in the Lake District. Five suspects in the 21/7 failed suicide plot in London were identified in one such camp (Laville 2007). There were reports of Islamist rafting trips in North Wales, and terrorist training on farms in Kent and the Brecon Beacons. What could be more English than camping trips in Wordsworth’s English countryside among thousands of other carefree holidaymakers? The Englishness of many of the young Muslim conspirators, the majority Pakistanis born and bred in Britain, has been one of the most remarked-upon findings to emerge. Young men involved in terror plots or suicide bombings appear to be quite ordinary. Most come from relatively well off, lower middle class homes, rather than poverty-stricken inner cities. Most are not particularly marginal, being students, teachers, or small businessmen, and quite a few are mature, in their late twenties and early thirties, married, some with children. There is nothing to distinguish them, on the surface, from the vast majority of British Pakistani South Asian Muslims. The lead suicide bomber on July 7 played cricket with English friends the night before the bombing. Even the culprits’ piety has not been self- evidently unusual. In the light of almost daily revelations, the Sisyphean task facing national Muslim organizational leaders, that of counteracting the widespread public image of pervasive, hidden, Islamic terror, is huge. Instead of lobbying for and promoting Islamic interests, they find themselves and their organizations condemned by politicians and the media alike for their radical roots and failure to promote diasporic Muslim integration and multiculturalism. Multiculturalism in an Age of Terror Given these revelations, the “failure of multiculturalism” discourse has taken root in Britain, promoted by politicians, the media, and academics, and is a central aspect of the debate between Muslim leaders and British politicians.12 In scrutinizing this discourse, one needs first to

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deconstruct its implicit assumptions. Hence, in a recent paper published in Sociological Review (Werbner 2005), I argue for the need to go beyond the usual arguments against state- sponsored multiculturalism, and to consider multiculturalism as played out in historical moments of crisis and confrontation, in which culturally intractable oppositions and incommensurabilities surface. I labelled the theorizing of such intractable dilemmas as “multiculturalism in history,” to distinguish it from the more quotidian debates about state funding allocations for cultural activities, or special educational programs and dietary or clothing dispensations affecting ethnic minorities. For the Muslims of Britain, multiculturalism-in-history was set forth by the Rushdie affair, following the publication of the Satanic Verses. Alleging blasphemy punishable by death, Muslims in Britain seemed deliberately to insist upon values alien to the majority population. They burnt books and demanded the death of the author. The July 7, 2005, London suicide bombings by young British Pakistanis were carried out in the name of Islam and as retribution for the sufferings of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. Once again this seemed to underline an unbridgeable chasm between European values of citizenship and the rule of law, and Muslims’ vengeful transnational politics. The Danish cartoon affair was yet another manifestation of seemingly incommensurable values, this time in the field of art and representation. Diasporic Hindus and Sikhs have each in turn also sparked apparently intractable multicultural conf licts in Britain. In the Sikh case, the conf lict surrounded a play, Behzti (“Dishonor”), written by a young Sikh woman, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, which depicted the rape and murder of a young woman by a priest in the Gurdwara (Sikh temple). Produced by Birmingham Repertory, the play was cancelled after Sikhs responded with a massive show of public outrage and threatened violence (Asthana 2004: 13). In the case of Hindus, the clash of values arose in response to a solo exhibition by one of India’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Maqbool Fida Husain, whose one-man retrospective in London included portrayals of the Goddesses Durga and Draupadi in the “characteristic nude imagery associated with his work” (Khanna 2006b: 2). Asia House Gallery withdrew the exhibition after highly vocal protests by Hindu Human Rights, the National Council of Hindu Temples, and the Hindu Forum of Britain (2). The notion of multiculturalism-in-history is intended to separate day-today tolerance of cultural diversity and arguments over minor state funding allocations from exceptional cultural clashes that seem irresolvable. Historically, such confrontations are usually never resolved;

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they only “go away,” entering the collective subconsciousness of a community as a bitter sediment. This was certainly true of the Rushdie affair. The 2007 award of a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, almost 20 years after the confrontation over the Satanic Verses, ignited once again the bitterness British Muslims felt over the affair, despite their muted public response. One problem with the notion of multiculturalism is that it often leads to an intellectual cul- de- sac. Detractors of multiculturalism argue that culture is not identical with community; it is not a bounded or territorialized entity; it cannot be reified since it is constantly changing and hybridizing, an “open text.” While such deconstructive arguments are undeniable, they evade the question, first, of why certain issues evoke such passionate commitment and sharp disagreement, and, linked to that, is it accurate to speak of culture, when at issue are historical conf licts sparked by deeply felt religious feelings, in confrontation with liberal secularism or Western geopolitics? David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party (the largest opposition party) in Britain, was able to say in the same breath that they support the Notting Hill carnival (a cultural event) and that they reject multiculturalism as a failed policy. The “culture” he invokes is seemingly innocuous and nonpolemical, exclusive of race, ethnic chauvinism, or religion; hence an acceptable idiom in which to describe “difference” in neutral terms. But when talking about multiculturalism and its failures, more often than not the underlying attack turns out to be against diasporic Muslims’ alleged self- segregation in social ghettoes or their “extremist” defense of their religious commitments (there are countries, of course, in which language has the same effect). The fact that the underlying problematic of religion is not acknowledged publicly in Britain (as it might be in South Asia) so that “culture” becomes a euphemism for religion or community entangles government ministers and opposition leaders alike in strange contradictions of which they seem entirely unaware. Political Hubris The recent “failure of multiculturalism” discourse enunciated by British politicians of the left and the right ref lects a political hubris that is shared by many academic critics of multiculturalism. The unref lective assumption of these critics is that the cultures of minorities, defined in the broadest sense of the term to include religion, can be made to disappear by fiat if politicians and policymakers refuse to support them, either rhetorically, on official occasions, or with small dollops of cash.

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In reality, historically, the very opposite has often been the case. The cultures of minorities are strengthened by the need to mobilize internally for the sake of culture or religion in the absence of public funding. Singling out Muslim religious associations for censure as British politicians have chosen to do arguably merely legitimizes their representative status in the eyes of the public they serve. The censured organizations gain kudos for being powerfully independent, and not just yea- saying patsies who pusillanimously approve government policy. Ministers’ critique of Islamic religious organizations rather than ethnic ones (e.g., Pakistani or South Asian) implies, ipso facto, that for the British state, it is religion that ref lects “culture and community.” There are very good reasons why diasporic Pakistanis in Britain, who are observant Muslims, choose to highlight their religious identity in civil society and the public sphere: first, because as pious believers this is their most valued, high- cultural identity; but importantly also, there are in Britain laws which set out entitlements for religious groups. Among these are the right to found voluntary- aided state schools, supported by government funds; the right to worship, to build places of worship, and so forth. Oddly enough, despite all the recent uproar about the failure of multiculturalism, there are no laws in the UK that enshrine the cultures of immigrants, though limited legal rights to cultural, political, and territorial autonomy have been granted to Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.13 In other words, multicultural citizenship in Britain, as elsewhere, recognizes the rights of indigenous territorialized peoples and settled minorities, aboriginals, Native Americans, and so forth, to a measure of self-rule, autonomy, and formal representation in the public sphere. Only secondarily does multicultural citizenship apply to diasporic minorities and urban immigrants who are not settled territorially and make no territorial claims. The UK Race Relations Act protects ethnic and racial minorities—and this includes most Muslims. The recent law against incitement to religious hatred does not necessarily include what Muslims themselves regard as religious offense or vilification.14 On purely pragmatic grounds, then, immigrants fighting to gain equal rights in the UK will choose to struggle in arenas where there already exist established rights, some of which are denied them. In such cases there is no need to establish the ground rules and principles merely to insist on their universal application. One perhaps less obvious implication of multicultural citizenship is that everybody, even the majority, has a culture. The old assimilationist melting pot nationalism assumed that the majority way of life was normal in a taken-for- granted, transparent way; it was not a “culture” but

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just the rational way of being, ethically and morally. Majority culture and religion were, in other words, unmarked. Minorities had cultures and these were different, often irrational, and hence a problem. The sooner they got rid of these bizarre ways of living, the better. Unlike hegemonic nationalism, multiculturalism’s innovation as a philosophical movement is that it applies to all citizens, even the majority. This principle, of the equality of citizens’ cultures, appears to have been abandoned by British politicians in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings. The hitherto accepted right of minorities to foster their unique cultures or traditions alongside the majority culture and religion is now being effectively questioned, with constant demand that minorities make a serious effort to abandon their separateness. In a further twist that highlights the ambiguity of the culture concept, young Muslims themselves are rejecting their parental culture and tradition, in a paradoxical move that seems to deny culture in the name of religion. The Attack on Multiculturalism In his book Globalising Islam, Olivier Roy (2004) argues that neofundamentalist global Islamic movements have deterritorialized themselves by denying their cultures and traditions. In many ways, this is not a new argument. What makes fundamentalist movements modern, contrary to appearance, is the fact that—like modernist movements—they deny the validity of historical continuity; in a word, “tradition.” In referring to a sacred book allegedly enunciated by God Himself 1,500 years ago, and to the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad from that distant, inaccessible period, such movements claim to purify themselves from unlawful accretions over the centuries. These accretions have, of course, been part of the localizing of Islam, its embeddedness in different places and responsiveness to local cultural milieus. Paradoxically, Roy argues, this deterritorialized purification movement has led to the secularization of Islam since so much of everyday life is left out of the Islamists’ utopian vision of the past- as-future. In his view, the stress comes to be on personal, individual religiosity, perhaps a kind of Protestantism. Whether or not Roy is right, his analysis raises an interesting question: can there be a religion that is not also cultural? Pakistanis have always reiterated to me that Islam is a whole, all-inclusive way of life, and this indeed was the argument put by the Muslims of India in claiming a national homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent. But if Islam is a whole way of life, then surely it refers to the customs and traditions of particular localities? In a sense, both claims are equally

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dubious: religion is not the same as culture, at least not in the modern world, but nor is it entirely separable from it. Islamism may reject the Pakistani- style chiffon headscarf, but it substitutes for it another head covering that becomes over time a uniform, that is, a custom. This custom can, however, be shared by persons from different places and backgrounds. Nevertheless, I believe that it makes sense to distinguish between culture and religion, in a way that an Islamist does. This is because, as discursive formations in certain fundamental senses, they are not the same, and particularly so in the case of the three monotheistic religions. In these, religious belief is about a relationship with a transcendent being that demands conviction and commitment, experienced in highly emotional ways. It may be, as Durkheim (1915) famously argued in the Elementary Forms of Religious Life, that God is merely the embodiment of community; and it is probably true that culture, in the sense, first and foremost, of language, but also food, music, art, architecture, spices and perfumes, clothing, and so forth, also embodies a community— though not necessarily the same one. But religion and culture are not the same for the simple reason that cultural practices are not hedged in a similar way with sacred taboos, dangerous no- go areas. Culture is not pitted against moral transgressions and ethical violations, although those who perform it awkwardly can be laughed at for their gaucheness. Religion is threatened by believers’ internal doubt, which may or may not be fuelled by externally inspired skepticism. Culture is threatened by the physical destruction of objects or buildings, by forgetfulness, and perhaps more than anything in the modern world, by radical dislocations and changes in social organization. A person may have multiple cultural competences, and switch between them situationally, or she may be a cultural hybrid, the product of even or uneven fusions of two or more cultural worlds. There have been periods in the history of religion when boundaries between, for example, Islam and Hinduism in South Asia, or Judaism and Christianity in the Near East, were blurred. But in the modern world it would seem odd to be a Muslim, a Jew, and a Christian simultaneously, however syncretic one’s faith. The gap between culture and religion raises the question of what exactly is meant by multiculturalism in Britain. Whereas cultural “traditions” may be open to negotiation in the diasporic context, religious customs anchored in Holy writ and said to originate in a transcendental covenant may be conceived of as nonnegotiable. When encapsulated religious minorities negotiate a place in their new nation with the majority society, the more pious among them insist on the religious basis of

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customs (such as veiling) that in reality may have evolved historically. Culture for them assumes the aura of divine commandment, impervious to politicians’ invocations of “community cohesion.” The problematic tendency to conf late religion and culture in debates on multiculturalism and identity politics in the UK includes academics like myself as well—from defenders of multiculturalism as religion such as Modood (2005) or Parekh (2000) to their critics on the Left (e.g., Yuval-Davis 1997). The “mystification of culture” as Bhatt (2006: 99) calls it, conf lating religious pluralism with identity politics, imperceptively merges two quite separate, historically constructed discourses (Asad 2003). On the one hand, a discourse on religion that recognizes that modern religions are institutionalized, bounded, and textualized, subject to constant internal divisions and schismatic tendencies, more or less “extreme,” “doctrinaire,” or “humanist-liberal”; “pure” or “syncretic,” “relaxed”; “universalistic” or “particularistic” interpretations; and, on the other hand, a discourse on “culture” that recognizes its fuzzy, historically changing, situational, hybridizing, and unref lective aspects. Arguably, issues usually regarded as a matter of multicultural policy, for example the dispensation to wear exotic headdresses to school or work (turbans, veils, skull caps) more rightly belong in the constitutional domain of religious pluralism. Cultural conventions on headdress, which do not carry that nonnegotiable imperative quality, can be ignored. The attack on multiculturalism in Britain since 2006 has been led by three prominent public figures, speaking for wider constituencies: Ruth Kelly, until 2007 secretary of state for Communities and Local Government, and thus a representative of the Labour government, David Cameron, leader of the Opposition and of the Conservatives, and a third multiculturalist critic (not discussed here), Trevor Phillips, a British Guyanese, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, and since 2006 of the newly formed Commission for Equality and Human Rights. Ruth Kelly began her campaign against multiculturalism by calling, in August 2006, for the closing of Islamic schools that promote “isolationism and extremism,” and for an “honest debate” over whether multiculturalism “encouraged separatism.” Her speech was occasioned by the launch of a “Commission on Integration and Cohesion” (Bajwa 2006d: 1–2). In October 2006, she told police and council leaders to target Muslim “hot spots”—schools, universities, mosques, and colleges, and, in an open letter to the MCB, accused the organization of being “passive in tackling extremism, yet expect[ing] government support” (1, 3). While criticizing Muslim schools, the secretary of state, a devout

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Catholic, emphasized that “Muslims are entitled to the same rights as Anglicans, Catholics, Hindus and Jewish groups, which all have state schools” (2). In February 2007, Kelly announced that state money would be switched from groups like the Muslim Council of Britain to “local programs backed by local councils,” particularly to “work with those who may be excluded from colleges, schools and mosques and may be vulnerable to grooming by extremists” (thus denying the obvious truth that most persons charged with terror in Britain were [ex]students and not marginal) (Wintour 2007: 12). In a series of investigative articles published on October 20, 2006 (Josephs and Peled 2006: 3–4), the Jewish Chronicle analyzes the fall from grace of the MCB and links it to one major single symbolic event: the organization’s continued refusal to attend Holocaust Memorial Day, calling for it to be renamed Genocide Memorial Day. The weekly claims that Kelly warned the organization’s leaders that they would lose Whitehall financial support if they continued to boycott the event. It analyzes the strong support of the MCB leaders for the Palestinian struggle, various anti- Semitic comments made by its leaders, their support for Hamas (one leader had attended a memorial to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin), their antihomosexual stance and anti-Rushdie comments, as “cause for disquiet”—indicators of the continued conservatism “verging on fundamentalism” of the national leaders of the MCB. The accusations highlight the blurring of boundaries between contingent political behavior and religious extremism in the eyes of politicians and the media. Among the MCB’s associate members, the paper tells us, is the Muslim Association of Britain that has consistently refused to condemn Palestinian suicide bombing. Nevertheless, the JC also recognizes the MCB’s interfaith work. Holocaust Memorial Day has become, then, the litmus test of Muslim willingness to “integrate.” Unlike in the United States, where the Jewish lobby is very powerful, in the British case it is the British government that established HMD and that has led the demand that the MCB attend its state commemorations. For South Asian Muslims, it is perhaps not immediately obvious that to participate in the state HMD ceremony is to identify not only with Britain but also with a free, democratic Europe. Whereas the MCB leaders represent their nonattendance as a gesture of protest on behalf of the Palestinians, for British leaders it implies a rejection of the nation’s heroic historical act of liberating the camps and defeating fascism for Europe and the world. Perhaps most interesting sociologically is the clear understanding by British politicians that, above all, it is the public reconciliation between

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two diasporas—the Jewish and the South Asian Muslim—that signals existentially Muslim willingness to integrate into their new nation. Press reports of Jewish-Muslim interfaith dialogue attest to an apparent rapprochement, if not in the Middle East, then in the diaspora. A headline in the Muslim Weekly, for example, reported that “Judeo-Muslim groups unite to create European platform” in which a new organization, the Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony, surfaced for the first time, with Alif-Alef as its Jewish counterpart (The Muslim Weekly 2007c: 7). Among other participants was a reporter from Radio Salaam Shalom, the UK’s first Muslim-Jewish radio station. Financially, however, it is evident that there was no practical pressure that could be exerted on the MCB: the Jewish Chronicle reveals that at stake in the government’s threatened gesture of nonrecognition were relatively small sums of money granted to the MCB to support projects on citizenship and equality: £148,160 in 2005–2006, £50,000 in 2006–2007 (the group originally applied for £500,000). It also received £170,000 from the Department of Trade and Industry (Josephs 2006: 4). “Multiculturalism” was revealed as a policy of paltry financial support for an organization representing 400 Muslim umbrella organizations, networks, and mosques. Yet its leaders’ alleged sin of nonattendance on Holocaust Memorial Day was not entirely deviant or out of line with wider public sentiment in Britain: a YouGov poll for the Jewish Chronicle showed that a third of the general public supported renaming Holocaust Memorial Day Genocide Day with 14% wanting it dropped altogether (Bajwa 2007b: 3). So too, the Palestinian struggle (if not suicide bombings) is widely supported in Britain, where Israel is increasingly seen by many as a rogue state, while the War on Terror in Iraq and (to a lesser extent) Afghanistan are widely condemned. In an open letter to Ruth Kelly in the Muslim Weekly in October 2006, a copy of which was sent by the secretary general of the MCB, Muhammad Abdul Bari, to all mosques, local, regional, and national Muslim organizations across Britain, Mr. Bari defends the organization’s democratic structure and “successful initiatives in schools, prisons, hospitals, mosques and local communities.” He reminds the minister of a series of top-ranking British dignitaries and commissions that saw a direct link between British foreign policy and the rise of home grown terror. On Holocaust Memorial Day he says: Your suggestion that the MCB is not fully committed to religious tolerance and community cohesion merely on the basis of a single criterion

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of nonattendance at the HMD is both inaccurate and absurd. Since when has the achievement of community cohesion been dependent on attending the Holocaust Memorial Day? (The Muslim Weekly, October 20, 2006: 12)

He continues, “We cannot accept that some people are more worthy of remembrance than others,” and claims that “a particular political interest group and certain allied journalists have tried to intimidate the MCB into remaining silent about the ongoing injustice and human rights abuses perpetrated against the Palestinian people.” Nevertheless, the MCB is “absolutely committed to working together to maintain good relations with Britain’s Jewish community.” The successful London Olympic bid, he says, drew upon “London’s record of diversity and confident faith . . . made because of the extensive network of partnerships forged by the formidable Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and faith bodies like the MCB.” He goes on to remind the minister of the MCB’s record of calming violence following the various global terror attacks, encouraging voting, liaising with the police, distributing leaf lets and guidance on “rights and responsibilities,” all in an effort to combat extremism. Hence, the decision to terminate funding indicates that only those organizations that “support your government can expect to receive public funds” (The Muslim Weekly, October 20, 2006: 13). Such funding in any case was only for specific projects, not “core funding,” particularly justified because of the high levels of Muslim deprivation nationwide. He ends by accusing the government of fostering and promoting “new Sectarian Muslim bodies with barely concealed links to U.S. neocons” (the reference is probably to the sudden emergence of the Sufi Muslim Council of Britain), engaging in a “merry- go-round” to find Muslims who agree with it while stigmatizing the entire community in “drip-feed” ministerial pronouncements. The Emergence of a National Mediated Muslim Public Sphere in Britain This powerful public letter, like the others cited here, highlights the ability of a centralized Muslim umbrella organization to reach its constituency nationwide, through the press and other media (including the mail). It also highlights the sense of secure citizenship felt by the Muslims of Britain, who do not fear confrontation with the government, and are not intimidated by threats of funding withdrawal. The condemnation of the MCB underlines the difficulty for an organization of transforming

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itself from being a lobby for the Muslims of Britain, aimed at defending them against discrimination and Islamophobia, to being the community watchdog, controlling the radicalization of some members and the rhetoric of the majority at a time of global crisis.15 The organization’s public relations seem virtually nonexistent. For example, the secretary of the MCB omits to mention in defense of the Muslim community in Britain, mostly of Pakistani origin, that the Muslims of India under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, openly supported the Allied Forces’ battle against Nazism and Fascism in the Second World War. Constituting more than a quarter of the Indian army, by the end of the war, Muslim soldiers numbered almost half a million, and they were among the 160,000 total casualties of the Indian army, buried in war cemeteries in 50 countries extending from the Pacific Islands to Europe and the UK, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Several Muslims were awarded the Victoria Cross (see Husain 1998). Nor does Mr. Bari point to the fact that the Holocaust had been politicized by Israel and the Jewish diaspora, and their victimhood stressed as a way of justifying the oppression of Palestinians. Neither of these strong arguments in defense of the MCB’s unwillingness to attend the commemorations has ever been raised, possibly pointing to the organization’s continued Jamaati hard-liner views.16 On the other hand, the double standards used in British public policy are surely not lost on British Muslims either. Not long after her rejection of multiculturalism as a failed policy, Ruth Kelly was involved in a failed attempt, said to be backed by Tony Blair, to exempt the Catholic and Anglican churches from new rules on gay adoption, on the grounds that it would require the adoption agencies “to act against the principles of Catholic teaching” (Woodward and Carrell 2007: 1), or that “freedom of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation” (Archbishop Sentamu on Radio 4’s Today program, January 24, 2007). Kelly’s failed attempt appears to send out a message that multiculturalism is fine for Catholics but not for Muslims. David Cameron, the Tory opposition leader, also joined the tirade against multiculturalism. In a public speech in the Birmingham Lozells area that had recently been torn by interethnic violence between blacks and Asians, he echoed academic writings in arguing that, although it sounds like a good idea, multiculturalism, instead of promoting the “right of everyone to be treated the same despite their differences,” divides, often treating ethnic or faith communities as “monolithic blocks rather than individual British citizens,” and allocating housing along ethnic lines. He went on to list Muslim organizations viewed as extremist, including the

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Muslim Council of Britain, FOSIS, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Islamic Society of Britain, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Tablighi Jama’at (Neville-Jones 2007: 30–31). Yet his pronouncement of the failure of multiculturalism, which referred only to religious organizations, blurred the boundary between culture and religion and glossed over the reality that religious communities in Britain already have established rights, underpinned by legislation. Like the media and Labour politicians, Cameron too accused the MCB of bad faith. FOSIS, the Muslim students’ umbrella organization, was under suspicion, as we have seen, for links to the Muslim Brotherhood and for supporting the right of Hizb ut-Tahrir to operate on university campuses, while the UK Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) in 2006 had challenged the government in the High Court for allowing U.S. aircraft carrying bombs to Israel to stop at UK airports during the Lebanese war, which the organization defined as an “act of terrorism.” Its attempted injunction to halt such stopovers was rejected (The Muslim Weekly, September 1, 2006: 2). Instead of Muslim organizations, Cameron announced that the Conservative Party would reach out directly to “individuals,” bypassing organizations altogether. His speech drew on a report in January 2007, based on a widely criticized poll, that found that 37% of Muslim 16– to 24-year-olds said they would prefer to live under shariah law; 86% said religion was the most important thing in their lives; nearly a third thought that those converting to another religion should be executed. On the other hand, 84% said they had been well treated in British society. Munira Mirza, author of the report, said, “The government should engage with Muslims as citizens, not through their religious identity” (Bates and Agencies 2007: 5). This commendable notion of reaching out to “individuals” was exemplified by Cameron’s spending a night with an ordinary Pakistani family in Birmingham, with much media coverage. But his attack on multiculturalism hides the reality that national Muslim organizations do not need government endorsement to continue with their activities. They cannot be made to disappear. Instead, the rejection of multiculturalism is merely read by an already alienated Muslim diaspora as an attack on Islam. This is the dilemma faced by the British government. Moreover, with its move toward ad hoc funding of local groups, the British government and the opposition appear to be returning to the earlier, unsatisfactory reality of local multiculturalism—the local-level scrabble by local associations for small dollops of cash, poorly monitored. Ironically, this direct funding of groups at the local level is likely to cost far more than the funding of a single umbrella organization like the MCB.

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Tory criticism of Muslim organizations, including the MCB, was contained in a conservative policy report entitled “Uniting the Country.” The report condemned what it calls “identity politics” and drew a comparison between the extreme right British National Party and separatist Muslim organizations that promoted shariah law and demanded special treatment, claiming they are a “mirror image” of the BNP (NevilleJones 2007; see McVeigh and Woodward 2007: 12).17 This followed an earlier report by a right-wing think-tank, Civitas, that claimed that “Multiculturalism fosters racial divides and even hatred” (no byline, The Muslim Weekly, May 19, 2006: 3). In their response in the Muslim Weekly, the MCB describe the claim that their organization espouses the institution of shariah law as a “red herring” while FOSIS argued it was “disproportionate,” given that there is not a single mainstream Muslim organization calling for the implementation of shariah law. The MCB described the report as “ill informed,” defended the organization’s record and claimed it only lobbies for “parity in the application of the law and equal respect” (Bajwa 2007c: 1, 3). Nevertheless, the continuous pressure and criticisms of the MCB appeared to have taken their toll, with reports of disagreements among senior Muslim leaders over HMD attendance. In a “secret meeting,” a third of its senior figures reportedly voted to cease the boycott, which was upheld by 23 to 14 votes (Dodd and Muir 2007: 12). There were, however, speculations that “the current momentum would see the MCB’s position reversed by next year” (12). Several leaders thought the organization should not be seen to “cave in” to government pressure, while others described the boycott as an unnecessary “self-inf licted wound” (12). The Muslim Weekly reported a decision to hold a wider consultation with its 400 plus affiliate bodies (Bajwa 2007b). This came, according to the newspaper, because “Holocaust Memorial Day this year acknowledged and remembered other acts of genocide and terror with particular emphasis this year on Darfur.”18 Hence the MCB, in a letter to HMD’s acting chief executive, admitted that “common grounds were being reached” (ibid.). On her part, the CEO emphasized that Holocaust day was an “opportunity to ref lect on more recent genocides . . . and it is our duty to stand up to those groups and individuals who encourage division and hatred in our communities” (ibid.). As early as 2005, vocal Muslim critics of the MCB like Dr. Ghayyasuddin Siddiqui of the Muslim Parliament accused Iqbal Sacaranie, secretary general of the MCB, in an article in the Asian weekly Eastern Eye, of “living in a dreamworld if it [the MCB] thinks just because it has different ideas, Holocaust Day will be scrapped. Why do our representatives always

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take a negative position?” he asks. “We should recognise what happened to the Jews in Germany. . . . Just because Palestinians are suffering should not mean the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust should not be remembered. . . . Let’s work together to create another day” (Verma 2005: 2). In 2007, Shahid Malik, outspoken Labour MP for Dewsbury,19 condemned the MCB in a column in the Times of London: “Whether they like it or not their current position looks like anti-Semitism . . . the old guard is stuck in a timewarp” (Dodd and Muir 2007: 12). In his commentary, the MP recalls his keynote speech at the National Holocaust Centre’s memorial event, with some 20 young Muslims in the audience. He defended the police as doing a good job fighting terror in tragic circumstances, before stating baldly that Ruth Kelly “has set down the rules for engagement with government. Attending Holocaust Day is a prerequisite.” (!) Rather than extremist, the MCB in his view “has chosen the easy, populist path of solely “defending” Muslims.” Rather than introspection, it had reinforced the “victim narrative” that dominates Muslim discourse. Justifying the introduction of a £5 million budget to empower Muslims at local level, Malik (2007: 23) argued that the government should “never again” be dependent on one group. Later that year the MCB approved its attendance of Holocaust Memorial Day, but withdrew it in 2009 following Israel’s bombing in Gaza (Brickman 2009). This exchange between representatives of different British Pakistani constituencies (moderate Muslims, Labour supporters, and more radical Islamic groups) outlines the emergent contours of a pluralized Pakistani national diasporic public sphere in Britain. It is an open space of dialogue, in the sense that debates take place in public, in the press, and media, and can be joined by British politicians and columnists as well. Although conducted in rational terms, the tone of the dialogue betrays the painful and highly emotive issues at stake. The argument within the Muslim diasporic sphere has gathered pace, as Philip Lewis (2007) documents, with monthly magazines like Q News, and newsletters, reports, pamphlets, novels, and blogs by women’s groups, community activists, moderate religious leaders, all involved, along with traveling preachers like Hamza Yusuf, who mobilize very large audiences promoting a less separatist, more open, and tolerant Islam. Conclusion: Intractable Dilemmas and the Diasporic Public Sphere The present chapter has documented the engagement and serious dialogue that has emerged in Britain since July 2005 between British

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politicians and leaders of the Muslim community through the media, ethnic, and mainstream press. It highlights, I have argued, the impossibility of thinking of multiculturalism as business- as-usual in a time of global terror, a theme I have reiterated elsewhere as well. Politicians would naturally like the Muslims of Britain to be contained within the envelope of the nation- state, to live scattered among the wider population, and to be concerned mainly with religious education and pastoral care. They reject not only the intense religiosity of many Muslims, including the second generation, but their living in an enclave and their diasporic commitments—not just to their country of origin but to Muslim communities elsewhere, especially Palestine, but also Iraq. They demand a nonpoliticized religion, which they label “culture.” And because Muslims in Britain are far more pious than most other British citizens and are equally emotional about their transnational loyalties, it seems multiculturalism has not only failed but supposedly foments hatred and division. Of course, at another level everyone—Muslims and non-Muslim alike—shares the knowledge that intractable international conf licts are impinging on the consciousness of young Muslims in Britain and encouraging a few of them toward—in their own eyes— heroic deeds of self- sacrifice, which to everyone else appear as unacceptable atrocities. How to reach these young people is a predicament shared by all British citizens, including Muslims. Attending Holocaust Memorial Day is not on the surface going to make any difference to these youngsters. Indeed, one may argue that as a form of peaceful protest, a way of expressing alienation nonviolently, politicians should welcome this show of defiance as preferable to suicide bombings. Against that, however, it may be said that the British state has stumbled inadvertently onto a crucible of citizenship: to attend Holocaust Memorial Day in shared commemoration alongside the Queen, the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other dignitaries, under the canopy of Jewish prayers, led by the Chief Rabbi of Britain; to share momentarily the memory of Jewish suffering is tantamount to committing oneself to an inclusive British and European identity, to a primary allegiance that takes precedence over divisive conf licts elsewhere and which denies the anti- Semitism prevalent in the Muslim world today. In a sense, too, it may well be that politicians feel on safer ground when they criticize religion, even if they label it “culture.” They know from their own experience of European history that religion can be more or less extreme, more or less tolerant, more or less politicized. Second, the term culture is also used to imply “community”: ethnic communities are expected by British politicians to exert moral control over their

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members. The failure of the Muslim community in Britain to control some of its youngsters is a failure of community and hence also of culture and multiculturalism. Clearly, it is absurd to believe that the paltry sums of money given by the government to Muslims organizations whose members are, after all, tax payers, can shake the foundations of Muslim faith in Britain. Muslims raise vast sums of money in voluntary donations, running into millions of pounds each year, for charitable causes and communal projects like mosque building. For the latter, they also sometimes access overseas donations. Ruth Kelly cannot determine the fate of Islam in Britain. The only use multicultural and multifaith state or local-state funding can have is positive: to require that organizations service a wider range of ethnic minority users than their own internal fund-raising would demand; to create alliances, to enter into dialogue with unlikely partners, to engage in joint efforts with other groups in order to provide help and services to the needy. Rather than fomenting hatred, top- down state multiculturalism is designed to attenuate divisions between ethnic and religious groups and propel them into dialogue. But no amount of state funding can stop groups from asserting their diasporic loyalty and sense of coresponsibility vis-à-vis diasporas beyond the nation-state in which they have settled. World politics, not religion per se, are at the heart of the current multicultural debate. In this context, the “failure of multiculturalism” discourse can also be seen to constitute an implicit postcolonial, postimperial warning by British politicians to South Asian immigrants, perhaps recalling the long history of subcontinental communal violence. The message transmitted is that the reach of the state and media into hidden diasporic spaces is inescapable. Millennial, incendiary divisive rhetoric against the state, the West, Christianity, Judaism, and so on, of a kind potentially leading to violence will not be tolerated. This is also the basis for the clause on “glorification of terrorism” in the recent British Terrorism Bill (Bajwa 2006a: 5). The “failure of multiculturalism” discourse is thus meant to remind minorities that in future there will be no no- go areas within the diaspora that are closed to the press and media. Double talk—one message for them, one for us—is unacceptable from now on. Increasingly, information on secretive extremist or terrorist organizations is becoming widely available. The Islamist, a book by an ex-HT supporter, Ed Hussain (2007), documents in detail his six-year journey through a wide range of hard-line Islamist groups, including jihadist ones. It describes government policy as a “disastrous combination of laissez faire and political correctness.” Madelaine Bunting, journalist at the Guardian, points out that the book may be used to attack Islam

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(Bunting 2007), but in my reading it is evident that Hussain is deliberately pointing the finger at particular Muslim organizations and individuals and disclosing their hidden agendas. The political thrust, then, is toward an open, transparent multiculturalism, legitimizing press undercover reporting or engagement with spaces hidden from the public eye, and cultural- cum-religious debates with minorities on their own ground, sometimes on quite arcane issues, such as the writings of Mawdudi. The question is whether this constant digging beneath the surface, the day-today media reporting on Muslim seditious plots and plotters, Muslim opinion polls that reveal out- ofline opinions and conspiracy theories, tirades by politicians against socalled multiculturalism, or the invocations by politicians on the need to “learn” to be good citizens, is in any way conducive toward a more positive integration of Muslims into British society? Such rhetorical attacks on a daily basis, many via the media, surely lead to a sense of siege and alienation among the vast majority of law- abiding Muslims, whatever their political sentiments. It is unclear whether the dialogue recorded here between politicians and the organizational leaders of the Muslim community in the broadsheets pitched in relation to the Jewish, Asian and Muslim ethnic press is, in fact, a dialogue. The Muslim Weekly claims a circulation of 40,000. Do the politicians read the lengthy defenses penned by Muslim organizational leaders, which are addressed to them? A hint that they might indeed be doing so can be found in a quite lengthy article by Ruth Kelly herself, addressed to the Muslims of Britain on the pages of The Muslim Weekly. And since then the dialogue has continued, with an article in the New Statesman and Society eliciting a response in the Muslim Weekly. Talal Asad makes the point that given that the public sphere is not an “empty space for carrying out debates,” but expresses the “memories and aspirations, fears and hopes—of speakers and listeners.” If this is so, then the introduction of new religious discourses disrupts “established assumptions structuring debates in the public sphere.” It “threatens the authority of existing assumptions” (Asad 2003: 186). In the case of the war in Iraq, a secular war against a secular dictator has been redefined by Muslims and some Christians (including, ironically, President George W. Bush himself ) as a religious war. The attack on multiculturalism may be conceived of as a rejection by British politicians and the media of this invasion of the British public sphere by religious discourses. If the public sphere is defined as a space of rational argumentation, economics, and politics, then faith and passion do not, it is implied, belong

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there (Asad 2003: 187). Nevertheless, it could also be argued that the reasoned responses of Muslim leaders, utilizing the national platform of their own ethnic press, has carved out a space of civility in which the responses of these leaders to expositions of their alleged extremism are expressed passionately and yet rationally.

Notes Versions of this chapter were presented at Lancaster University, the University of Western Sydney, and the Pakistan Workshop. I would like to thank the participants in these forums for their comments. I am also particularly grateful to Khachig Tölölyan for his acute and extremely helpful comments on an original draft of the chapter. * Werbner, Pnina. (2009) “Revisiting the UK Muslim Diasporic Public Sphere at a Time of Terror: From local (benign) invisible spaces to seditious conspiratorial spaces and the ‘failure of Multiculturalism’ Discourse.” South Asian Diaspora, 1(1): 19–45. 1. The chapter was presented at a conference on “European Islam, Societies and State” in Turin, Italy, sponsored by the Agnelli Foundation. 2. Arjun Appadurai (1996) also uses this term. My chapter was originally submitted to Public Culture. 3. Mawdudi’s many books have been extremely inf luential in fundamentalist circles, even beyond Pakistan. 4. A heterodox sect in Pakistan whose leader claimed to be a true Prophet, profaning the idea that Muhammad was the last Prophet of Islam. 5. According to an article in the Asia Times, under the supervision of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence services, a JI member apparently commanded the al-Badr facility in Khost Province, Afghanistan, where he commanded an international cohort of Arab jihadis, including the founders of Hamas. He later abandoned the JI and threw his fortune in with another Islamist group, opposed by the Taliban, who later took over the facility (Shahzad 2004). 6. Bhatt castigates the Left as well as the government for joining forces in the Stop the War Coalition with conservative nationalist religious groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, represented in the UK by the Muslim Association of Britain (on this see also Birt 2005). A different view would be, however, that the creation of channels for effective legal public protest was important in order to def lect young British Muslims from attempting to take the law into their own hands. I attended the largest million strong demonstration in London, arriving in one of the coaches from Manchester. What struck me most saliently was the absence of organized groups marching in solidary separateness, and the mingling of young Asians and Muslims as individuals with Guardian-reading CND types.

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7. Initially, mosques were seen by outsiders as the main Muslim public forum, but as this chapter demonstrates, there were many other Muslim spaces of debate which surfaced over time. 8. Philip Lewis (2007: 34) reports that the no less a luminary than the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia advised a British Muslim that Jews and Christians were kuffar who would be cursed, and go to hell. 9. A revisit by Channel 4 Dispatches of this earlier program in September 2008, “Undercover Mosque: The Return,” found equally damning lectures inspired by Wahhabbi teaching at the Regent Park Central Mosque women’s teaching circle. This too led to sharp responses in the Muslim press. 10. Most recently, in August 2008, the European Court of Human Rights stayed Abu Hamza’s extradition to the United States. 11. The pressure group Liberty condemned the publicity surrounding this police round-up of suspects in a plot to behead a British Muslim soldier, expressing its “grave concern” that journalists were briefed by Home Office advisors in advance of the raid (no byline, The Muslim Weekly, June 30, 2006, p. 2; see also Portillo 2007: 19). On Islamic bookshops see also Lewis (2007: 133). 12. Bagguley and Hussain describe this as a “wholesale rejection of the discourse of multiculturalism” (2008: 159). Their focus is primarily on the local level and accusations that local communities are refusing to integrate into British society. Hence the political call was for “community cohesion.” 13. The amended British Nationality Act, 2005, requiring persons seeking naturalization to have a minimal knowledge of English may be classed as a “multicultural” law perhaps. 14. The blasphemy law, part of common precedent law, is reserved for Anglicans only. This was an issue highlighted by the Rushdie affair, when Muslims demanded equal protection before the law. Despite talk of abolishing it, the law was never abolished. 15. On the demand for “responsibilization” see Michael (2006). 16. It seems extremely unlikely that Mawdudi and the Jamaati Islami supported the British and Allied war effort. Nasr (1994) makes no mention of Mawdudi’s views on this matter. Mawdudi opposed Muslims being part of an army under the control of a non-Muslim power. When he founded the Jama’at in 1941, its constitution clearly stated that pure Muslims must boycott the institutions of a non-Islamic polity, including the army and legislature. For Mawdudi, the Westernized leadership of the Muslim League’s vision of a Muslim state was against Islam (personal communication from Irfan Ahmad, ISIM, Leiden). The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was sympathetic to the Nazis. 17. The Report makes fascinating reading. Like the BBC Panorama site, it cites key passages from the writings in English of Mawdudi, Qutb, and Qaradawi, to prove the incompatibility between their ideologies and those

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of liberal democracy, and associates their rigid advocacy of a Sharia-based Islamic state and, in the case of Qaradawi, endorsement of Palestinian suicide bombers, death sentence for homosexuals and other extremist views, with the MCB and other Muslim organizations who “promulgate the teachings of Maudoodi and Qutb” (the MCB praised Qaradawi as a moderate). See in particular Neville-Jones (2007: 7–8). In contradistinction, Muhammad Ali Jinnah is quoted as a beacon of democracy and liberal values (10). Its comments on the need to promote a moderate democratic vision of Islam are thoughtful (12–13). 18. Apparently, an Armenian attempt to be included was rejected. 19. In 2007, he was appointed minister for International Development in Gordon Brown’s first government.

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Shahzad, S.S. (2004) “Cracking Open Pakistan’s Jihadi Core,” Asia Times Online, August 12, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH12Df03.html. The Muslim Weekly (2007a) “London Islamic Cultural Centre and Central Mosque’s Response,” January 19, p. 15. ——— (2007b) “MCB Respond to ‘Dispatches’ Documentary,” January 19, p. 15. ——— (2007c) “Judeo-Muslim Groups Unite to Create European Platform,” April 27, p. 7. Tölölyan, K. (2000) “Elites and Institutions in the Armenian Transnation,” Diaspora, 9(1): 107–136. ur-Rahman, S. (2007a) “UKIM Vehemently Rejects All Media Allegations,” The Muslim Weekly, January 19, pp. 14–15. ——— (2007b) “Undercover Mosques—Letter from Shafiq ur-Rahman,” http:// www.sacc.org.uk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=351&catid=44. Verma, H. (2005) “Calls to Scrap Holocaust Day Slammed,” Eastern Eye, September 23, p. 2. Werbner, P. (1996) “Fun Spaces: on Identity and Social Empowerment among British Pakistanis,” Theory, Culture & Society, 13(4): 53–80. ——— (2002) Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims: The Public Performance of Pakistani Transnational Identity Politics. Oxford: James Currey and Santa Fe: SAR. ——— (2005) “The Translocation of Culture: Migration, Community, and the Force of Multiculturalism in History,” Sociological Review, 53(4): 745–768. Whitaker, R., Lashmar, P., Goodchild, S., Carrell, S., Woolf, M., and Huggler, J. (2006) “Apocalyptic: Bigger than 7/7? Worse than 9/11? Piece by Piece, the Plot Unravels,” The Independent, August 13, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ uk/crime/apocalyptic-bigger-than-77-worse-than-911-piece-by-piece-the-plotunravels- 411660.html Wintour, P. (2007) “From Welfare to C02, Blair Keeps the Policy Initiatives Coming,” The Guardian, February 7, p. 12. Woodward, W. and Carrell, S. (2007) “Cabinet Rejects Exemption on Gay Adoptions,” The Guardian, January 25, p. 1. Young, I. M. (1987) “Impartiality and the Civic Public: Some Implications of Feminist Critiques of Moral and Political Theory,” in Benhabib, S. and Cornell, D. (eds.) Feminism as Critique: Essays on the Politics of Gender in Late- Capitalist Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Yuval-Davis, N. (1997) “Ethnicity, Gender Relations and Multiculturalism,” in Werbner, P. and Modood, T. (eds). Debating Cultural Hybridity: Multi- cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-racism. London: Zed Books, 193–208.

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PART 3

Kashmir

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CHAPTER 4

Across the Fence: Belongings and Representations between Pakistan and Kashmir Paul Rollier

Introduction Since partition, India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Jammu and Kashmir. For many Pakistanis, the accession of the predominantly Muslim princely state to India in 1947, and India’s policies since then are an unacceptable conspiracy to undermine the very existence of Pakistan. In 1989, young Kashmiris from the Valley launched a guerrilla war against the Indian rule, with the hope of gaining freedom (azaadi) or a measure of autonomy (khudmuktari). While India resorted to repression and heavy militarization to quell popular dissent, insurgents gradually began to articulate their struggle in the Islamic idiom of jihad.1 In the post-9/11 environment, the conf lict tends to attract international attention as yet another instance of the menace wrought on the paradigm of secular democracy by radical formulations of Islamic sovereignty. In this context, academic literature on Kashmir has primarily focused on the diplomatic vicissitudes between India and Pakistan, and on the genealogy of the Kashmir jihad and the related involvement of Pakistan’s military and secret services. Recent analyses suggest that in the present geopolitical situation, the possibility of peace in Kashmir now largely depends upon Islamabad’s ability and willingness to align itself on the “War on Terror,” and accordingly to sever its links with Islamist organizations (e.g., Schofield 2008; Swami 2007). Instructive as it is, the prescriptive approach often tends to endorse the

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very language of statecraft deployed by the main institutional protagonists in this conf lict, obscuring the complex social dynamics and symbolic transactions upon which these loci of sovereignty construct their claim to power over Kashmir. 2 Although discouraged, movements of people, ideas, and emotions do take place across the de facto border between India and Pakistan, the Line of Control (LoC), disrupting given constructions of the nation, the state, and the realm of the legitimate.3 Cast against the LoC, the fragility of these notions suggests that Kashmir is put to use in complex ways as a resource from which both Indian and Pakistani governments sustain and uphold a production of public representations, rumors, and fantasies about the “enemy” and the values for which each of the two states purport to stand for. Having been invested with foundational attributes in the crystallization of Pakistani and Indian sense of belonging over the past 80 years, Kashmir functions as a potent signifier for the imagination of nationalisms. While much literature on Kashmir tends to portray the states of Indian and Pakistan and their respective claim over Kashmir as immovable fetishes, this chapter seeks to understand how Kashmir is imagined in Pakistan, and conversely how ideas about Pakistan are generated through different forms of Kashmiri belonging.4 Kashmir and the Pakistani Nation To grasp this complexity, let us first consider the ways in which Kashmir has become an issue of central importance to the formulation and enactment of the Pakistani nation. Forged over centuries of interaction, a complex set of emotional, familial, and political ties between Kashmir and Pakistan continue to have a critical inf luence on the way Pakistanis and Kashmiris engage with each other. In particular, commercial and migratory ties, developed between Punjab and Kashmir during the nineteenth century, would later play an important role in inscribing Kashmir within the imaginary of a Muslim nation. Contrary to a number of colonial accounts, the Valley was isolated neither economically nor culturally. The production of Kashmiri shawls for European markets, which reached its apogee in the early nineteenth century, clearly points to Kashmir’s early introduction to global networks of exchange and movements of persons (Rawlley 1919). Autocratic Afghan policies (1752–1819), followed by the extreme condition of poverty and the widespread recourse to forced labor (begar) under Dogra rule had seen many Kashmiris migrating to neighboring Punjab (Bamzai 1962: 634–636).

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This migratory route was not a new one, as Kashmiri peasants and muleteers would often travel seasonally to Punjab in the winter months to search for paid labor. These long- established connections were again revived in 1877–1879 when a severe famine forced thousands out of the Valley (Lawrence 1895: 215). The subsequent improvement of roads linking the Valley to the western plains in the 1890s allowed for more trade with Punjab (shawls, silk, fruits), where an increasing number of Kashmiris would also come to pursue higher education. The majority of this population settled in Lahore, Amritsar, Sialkot, and Ludhiana (Rai 2004: 101–102).5 While some Kashmiri subjects of the princely state, such as the Mirpuris, succeeded in working in the British army and on British merchant ships, 6 others who had settled in Punjab endured discrimination in the army, in educational institutions, and in the bureaucracy (Zutshi 2004: 192). Despite the emergence of a few rais families during this period, these Kashmiris were for the most part small merchants, petty artisans, and laborers (Gilmartin 1988: 84–88). Relayed by an active Punjabi press, this community was increasingly involved in publicly discussing the appalling living conditions of Kashmiri Muslims at the hand of Dogra rulers in Kashmir. The Lahori Ahmadiyya, which had been proselytizing in the Valley since the 1890s,7 was particularly instrumental in mobilizing these migrants. This concern for Kashmiri affairs was given a political voice through the Kashmiri Muslim Conference, a platform where migrants could complain about their impoverished condition in Punjab and articulate their grievances against the Dogra administration (Jalal 2007: 352; Rai 2004: 261–262). But this movement acquired political significance only in July 1931, when the police opened fire on demonstrators outside Srinagar Jail. This episode, which came as the culmination of intense debates in the Valley over the nature of Kashmiri religious identities and their adequate political expression, arguably set off the struggle for rights and independence in the state and its simultaneous incorporation into the landscape of Punjabi politics. The violence that broke out that year in the Valley was widely reported and sensationalized in Punjabi Muslim newspapers and, according to police reports, “intensified the already deep and widespread feeling of sympathy felt by Muslims of all classes for their brethren in Kashmir” (cited in Jalal 2007: 360). While the first “Kashmir Day” commemorating the 1931 “martyrs” saw demonstrations of empathy as far as Calcutta (Lamb 1991: 90), the agitation in Kashmir received further impetus with the creation in Punjab of the All India Kashmir Committee (1931). Aimed at raising political awareness amongst Muslims, this committee

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comprised leading Kashmiri personalities, including Muhammad Iqbal, who in those years acted as a pivotal figure in giving countenance to the project of Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Majlis- e-Ahrar also tried to appear as the saviors of Muslims in Kashmir, organizing rallies, raising awareness about Kashmir in the rest of India and sending volunteers to rescue their fellow Muslims from Dogra “infidels.” But the agitation soon turned into a political fight. Keen to appear as defenders of Islam, the Ahrars accused the committee of working for the interests of the Ahmadi community. While Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley had been increasingly mobilized around the ways in which Islam could be put to use to articulate a distinct Kashmiri social and political entity of their own, the developments outside Kashmir in the 1930s, and particularly in Punjab, are critical to understand the importance that Kashmir would later assume in Pakistan. On the one hand, this period set the environment of domestic competition for the appropriation of the Kashmir struggle. Concomitantly, it saw the emergence of the figure of the Kashmiri Muslim as “symbolic of the oppression Muslims, more generally, suffered and would continue to suffer” at the hand of Dogra and British rule (Rai 2004: 263). The possibility of such a mobilization beyond the Kashmiri community itself suggests that a process of Muslim identification had already started subsuming kin and regional loyalties amongst a section of urban Indian Muslims (Samad 1995: 2). It is against this background that, following the partition of British India in 1947, thousands of Muslims f led the princely state for Pakistan. The Times reports that by October that year, in the Jammu region alone more than 200,000 Muslims had been “systematically exterminated, unless they escaped to Pakistan along the border” (cited in Ahmad 1977: 115). Thus, besides the early inclusion of Kashmir into a Muslim nationalist imagination, the scale of the violence inf licted on Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir during partition, and the subsequent quasitotal exclusion of its territory from Pakistan’s geobody are some of the defining features through which the military, educational, political, and informal narratives of Kashmir came to be formulated in the early years of Pakistan. Water, Blood, and Islam: The Pakistani Claim to Kashmir The official Pakistani narrative of partitioned Kashmir shows great continuity with these earlier constructions. 8 The Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948 is understood to have started with the entry of Kashmiri Sudhan and Pathans from the North West, following reports of the

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massacres of Muslims in Jammu, to lend their support to an indigenous resistance to the Maharaja in Poonch. The intervention of the United Nations was sought and Security Council resolutions passed, calling for the withdrawal of Indian and Pakistani forces and the holding of a plebiscite for the people to ascertain the future of the state.9 The grounds of the Pakistani claim to Kashmir are multiple. One central argument holds that in terms of infrastructure and economy, the state was primarily orientated toward cities that would later become part of Pakistan. Further, the waters of the Chenab, Jhelum, and Indus, which f low through the state, are considered vital to Pakistan’s interests. However, beyond these geographical facts, the significance of Kashmir in Pakistan rests primarily upon the perception that, being the largest Muslim state of British India, and geographically contiguous to Pakistani Punjab, the affiliation of the state to Pakistan is a perfectly legitimate and rightful demand. The lasting dispute is thus interpreted as the sign of India’s refusal to abide by the principle of partition established by the British at the time of transferring power. Likewise, the fact that the plebiscite called for by the UN security resolutions never took place is read as blatant proof of India’s illegal occupation and “her nefarious desire to annihilate a state based on Two Nation Theory” (Jafri 1998: 11). The various governments, and for that matter a substantial part of the Pakistani population, have almost always held on to the demand of a plebiscite under international auspices as the only possible solution to the dispute. Implicit to Pakistan’s stance, but rarely spelled out, is the view that were Kashmiris given the choice, religious proximity would inevitably induce them to merge with the Islamic Republic. In private conversations or public forums, one often hears references to this “religious bond” (mazhabi talluk). This relationship is commonly evoked with the sense of its being a more authentic repository of morality and sociality than the kind of allegiance one owes to a nation- state. In other words, this bond is expressed as something incommensurable to the “culture of politics” in which this principle finds resonance.10 This particular idiom used to figure the Kashmir-Pakistan relationship is, of course, intimately bound to the “mythology” sustaining the creation of Pakistan: that of a country destined to protect the life and interests of South Asian Muslims. The need to reassert the centrality of Kashmir for the realization of this project translates into a pervasive propaganda. Through state- sponsored TV channels, the press, schools, and tales, the majority of Pakistanis come to learn from an early age how Hindu India, aided by deceitful British officials, first robed the idyllic Valley from Pakistan before persecuting innocent Kashmiris Muslims.11 A Pakistani

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official publication candidly put it in these terms: “legally the people of Kashmir are free in their choice but [ . . . ] their safety, security and prosperity lies in accession to Pakistan as the arnica and aroma of all Muslims of the world lie in unity [ . . . ]. Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir. India does not want to see Pakistan as complete” (Jafri 1998: 4, 32). This statement is illustrative of Pakistan’s official stance whereby accession to Pakistan is postulated as synonymous with Kashmiris’ freedom and Pakistan’s completeness. Pakistani- administered Kashmir is thus referred to as azaad (free) Jammu and Kashmir, while the largest portion under Indian controlled is called maqbuza (occupied) Kashmir. By all accounts, the adjective azaad draws its meaning by virtue of being apposed to its antithesis, occupied Kashmir, whose assumed illegality aptly eclipses the political coercion underlining Pakistani rule in AJK and the Northern Territories. The issue is thus systematically portrayed as one of vital importance for the very survival of Pakistan. Politically, declaring Indian rule in Kashmir illegitimate is, therefore, not only crucial for the production of a claim to sovereignty over the whole territory, but it also underscores the very legitimacy of the existence of AJK and its incorporation—albeit presented as a temporary one—into Pakistan. The disjuncture between the condemnation of the territorial exclusion of the Valley from Pakistan and the simultaneous reassertion of its inclusion into the imagined Pakistani nation finds expression through a variety of allegories. Equally important to the political genealogy of postcolonial and Western nationstates alike, the metaphor of the body is frequently deployed to evoke the supposedly organic ties binding a land, its people, and the political power that stands for it. In the case of Kashmir, the geopolitical body of the nation- state aptly intersects with an Islamic idiom of brotherhood. The first page of a monthly journal run by Kashmiri migrants in Pakistan bears the following Qur’anic quote: “Muslims are like one body. If harm aff licts a certain part, the whole body is affected.” Next to this emotional call toward the ummah, one reads that “to be out of the shackles doesn’t make a man free: when the hands of the oppressor will be cut off, only then will the shackles be broken.”12 To a certain extent, this imagery is symptomatic of the successful integration of Kashmir next to Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Guantanamo on the geography of oppressed Muslims.13 The suspicion that Muslims are oppressed worldwide on the ground of religion is pervasive in Kashmir and Pakistan. The rhetoric of Islamic universalism contextualizes experiences of violence and injustice into a wider frame of understanding and facilitates a feeling of empathy

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toward distant religious “kin.” The imagery deployed in relation to Kashmir generally insists on the separation between the Muslim body and that of the “oppressor,” and primarily seeks to naturalize the bond between Pakistan and Kashmiris by anchoring it in a biological given. Reversely, to deprive Pakistan of what would make it whole is perceived as an “amputation” of the national body. Speaking to a Pakistani audience, a Kashmiri politician recently put it thus: “our relationship is spiritual and geographic, in fact, it is a relationship of blood.”14 This metaphor of blood, reminiscent of the physical violence of partition, underscores most collective representations and official discourses on Kashmir in Pakistan. The coagulating “blood of the Kashmir cauldron” (Moarif 1995: 56) and “the blood of innocent Kashmiris” (Jafri 1998: 16) are, in essence, Pakistan’s own blood. More, Kashmir itself “beats in the heart of every Pakistani” and “runs through Pakistan’s veins. Therefore, every Pakistani is with the people of Kashmir.”15 This recurrence of blood and amputated bodies is also predominant in jihadist propaganda on Kashmir, often coupled with the figuration of Kashmir as a “dishonored” mother or sister in need of protection, for the sake of whom young martyrs will in turn shed their blood. The emphatic and almost excessive repetition of Pakistan’s commitment, through the yearly state- sponsored demonstrations of solidarity on Kashmir Day, for instance,16 indicates the highly performative nature of Pakistan’s claim to sovereignty over Kashmir. The nation’s proximity to Kashmir is made to appear as self- evident as the bare fact of life; in a sense, Kashmiris’ “natural” aspiration for Pakistan becomes a matter of biology, and secessionist tendencies a disease. The proverbial expression in Pakistan that likens Kashmir to the country’s “jugular vein” (shah raag) appropriately draws on this biological metaphor while recalling the crucial importance of Kashmir’s rivers for Pakistan’s agricultural production. For the spiritual leader of an Islamic tanzeem operating in Kashmir, this is a matter of life and death: “one can survive . . . if any appendage of the body is severed, yet one cannot survive and live on if one’s jugular vein is slashed.”17 At the same time, the religious connotation of shah raag makes it a potent symbol of proximity, for Allah is closer to man than his own jugular vein.18 Importantly, the symbol of blood also conjures up the lost lives of Kashmiri and Pakistani “martyrs” whose death must be transformed into symbols of regeneration by giving them a teleological meaning within a given political context.19 The symbolic repertoire of martyrdom is extensive and shared across the warring

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factions: Kashmiris, Indians, and Pakistanis alike refer to their casualties as shahid (martyr), through the blood of whom the “f lowers” of freedom shall blossom. Blood is made to testify and to tell something about the will of Kashmiris. Blood, in a sense, is assumed to be as eloquent and univocal as the outcome of the yet-unrealized plebiscite. The process of identification that supports this view is concretely experienced at an emotional level as well, as ref lected in the general sense of empathy felt for Kashmiris across Pakistani society. Empathy, brought about by the identification with the victim—“when Pakistan sees the world through the eyes of the Kashmiris, it is learning to see the world through tormented eyes” (Moarif 1995: 54)—determines the particular configuration of feelings and collective representations that allows the Pakistan-Kashmir “fraternity” to be construed as one that morally compels Pakistan to assist the efforts of its oppressed Kashmiris brethren. The representation of Kashmiris as vulnerable and innocent victims accentuates the reversed figure of the despotic and ruthless oppressor, and thus the profoundly moral attitude of Pakistan’s interventionism. In terms of discourse, the figuration of this blood relationship enables the recognition of Kashmiris’ aspirations as Pakistan’s own. As an act of representation, this process “almost always involves violence of some sort to the subject of representation” (Said 1985: 4–5). Consider the performative contradiction of this presidential statement and the symbolic violence of arrogating oneself the right, or rather the humanitarian duty to define and perform the aspirations of those who have been made into powerless victims: “[Kashmiris’] dreams are our dreams. May Allah grant us the strength to realize them.” 20 The fantasized body of the victimized Kashmiri as an object of collective projection, primarily imagined through the controlled narration of dramatized tales and crude reports of Indian repression, constitutes the unquestionable ground on which the legitimacy of the state’s claim to sovereignty over Kashmir is produced. Yet the reiteration of this claim also suggests Pakistan’s fundamental inability to protect its own kin. Therefore, having framed the dispute within the terms of the “two-nation theory,” 21 the enduring incompleteness that Kashmir is made to stand for in Pakistan allows the state to continuously reaffirm its national ideology and, paradoxically, its impotency in fully realizing it. Assuming a seamless continuity between the 1947 partition and the ongoing insurrection, 22 and portraying Kashmiris as the anachronistic bearers of the Pakistan project, thus allows for the construction of Kashmir as Pakistan’s very own ideal (but also lost) cause.

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Human Rights, Understandings of Justice, and the Appeal of Pakistan The early inscription of the Kashmir conf lict on the United Nations’ agenda, as well as the legalistic language within which Pakistan has formulated the issue since partition have profoundly shaped the way people in Pakistan and Kashmir engage, represent, and negotiate their relationship to Kashmir. This inclusion of Kashmir into the modern global political order induces a certain language that equally permeates most specialists’ symposiums, academic publications, and informal conversations on Kashmir. This is the language of international relations, global politics, and nationstates, deployed through ubiquitous references to notions of sovereignty, self- governance, human rights, democracy, self- determination, and plebiscite. This idiom is particularly vibrant in Kashmir, partly because of the specific culture of politics that took shape under Dogra rule. As early as the 1920s, the nascent Muslim elite of the Valley ardently defended a notion of Kashmiri citizenship based on political rights for all Kashmiris Muslims (Zutshi 2004: 325). What initially started as a struggle for land holding rights against monarchical rule, articulated through the joint concept of huquq- e-‘awam (rights of the people) and haqq- e-khudiraadiyaat (right of self- determination) (Robinson 2006: 153, 185), provided the terms of reference to engage the international community in the postpartition era. With Islamabad’s alignment on the War on Terror and the subsequent downscale in its covert support of the separatist movement in Kashmir, the diplomatic strategy consisting in raising international public awareness about the plight of Kashmiris in India has become increasingly central to Pakistan’s Kashmir policy. 23 This humanitarian posture, portrayed as evidently beneficial to the “victims,” never extends to the people of Pakistan- administered Kashmir. In effect, the fetishization of human rights outside Pakistan essentializes and abstracts the multiple experiences of Kashmiris in both Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, and further obliterates the presence of all other religious and ethnolinguistic groups inhabiting the disputed territory (from Hindus in Jammu and in the Valley, Shias in Kargil, Buddhists in Ladakh, and Baltistan to Ismailis in Hunza). 24 This abstraction to the benefice of a victimized and essentialized Kashmiri runs the risk of undermining whatever sense of agency the people in question may have. The depoliticization accomplished by the humanitarian gesture (Hyndman 2000; Robinson 2006; Soguk 1999) allows for the emergence of a sanitized discourse beyond politics, a discourse concerned with the distinction of good

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and evil, signaled by the profusion of terms such as “cruel” and “inhuman” to describe India’s hold over Kashmir. In an effort to extend one’s power and construct the nation through the denigration of another, the recourse to a rhetoric of radical exclusion is all the more appealing that it can be enounced in the internationally sanctioned moral language of human rights. In other words, the dialectics between the “human” and the “inhuman,” deployed through a humanitarian language and allegories of fraternity effectively serve to delineate the realm of “natural” 25 or prescribed belonging and to attribute its exact negation to an absolute alterity, that of the enemy. However, even as the language of universal human rights and international law reproduces, and to a certain extent reinforces the very logic of statecraft, there is nevertheless a strong hope—and delusion—among Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley that testimonies of human rights violations will eventually put the international community under the moral compulsion to intervene as a mediator to the conf lict. Likewise, the insistent popular demands for freedom (azaadi), self- determination (khudmuktari), and protection from oppression (zulum) seek foreign attention. These efforts to engage the outside world on the ground of universal safeguards, and the relative failure to do so are central to the way many Kashmiris conceive of their struggle, whether devised in terms of jihad or otherwise. 26 This has been repeatedly expressed to me in the Valley by people manifesting their indignation at what they perceived to be the international community’s deliberate silence over India’s coercive politics. It perhaps signals a particular literal engagement with the notions of universal human rights and justice, that is, as an ideal sphere beyond politics. Or a refusal to engage with the logic of state sovereignty and negotiation, according to which the enactment of human rights, despite their nominal universality, rests upon the state to which individuals are citizens of, albeit unwillingly. 27 This position may proceed from the experience of a disjuncture between the precarious quality of everyday life in Indian- administered Kashmir, marked as it is by the possibility of arbitrary political violence, and the general awareness regarding the potential yet improbable promise of justice encapsulated in the notion of human rights. As the following comment exemplifies, disputed understandings of law and justice are pivotal to the way Kashmiris relate to the logic of statecraft and negotiate a sense of national belonging: Why should these laws apply to the representatives of the state as well? When a militant dies, you can be sure that a whole crowd will come to

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console the widow. But what happens when policemen die in encounters? Who remembers them? But yes, they should abide by the law to show people the distance that separates them from these terrorists. Their credibility is at stakes, and that of India too. (Salman, Baramula 2008 [Interview Collection])

It is precisely in relation to justice and accountability, and the experience of their intermittent absence, that people have sometimes expressed to me their affection for Pakistan. Ghulam Rasool, whose family has been severely affected by the conf lict, said: Well you know what happens to us when we’re taken to court. The lawyer given to us works against us, and the judge does not listen to us. Can you call this a justice, when innocents are getting tortured? For example a family goes to the field to till the land. Then the army comes all of a sudden to catch a militant. They don’t catch any militant, of course, so they turn to the family standing there, and they harass us. What choice do I have? I’m compelled (majbur) . . . Justice doesn’t exist here: it’s the justice of India against Kashmir, that’s all [ . . . ]. The only possible justice is the shari’a, not this man-made law, but the one given to us by God. This is why it’s better for us there [vahan: i.e., Pakistan], so we can have the shari’a. Because anyway, it is under this law that we shall eventually be judged. (2007)

This constitutes at least one aspect of the way in which Pakistan comes to take meaning in the culture of politics particular to Indianadministered Kashmir. Although not equated with purity as such, the ideal of a Muslim nation ruled according to Islamic law enables one to imagine justice as nonamenable to the contingency of politics and personal interest characteristic of Kashmiris’ experience of Indian democracy. The “Concept” of Pakistan in the Valley Over the summer 2008, a controversial decision by the Indian Jammu and Kashmir state government to transfer some land to a trust that runs the Amarnath shrine in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley has led to mass protests across the state. Some Kashmiri leaders have argued that the move was aimed at altering the demographic balance of Kashmir, paving the way for an Israeli type of Hindu colonization. As protests intensified, this affair soon became more than a matter of 40 hectares of land. People started drawing analogies between this agitation and

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the uprising in the 1990s, and a number of political leaders made it clear that only the granting of azaadi could bring the mobilization to a halt. 28 The concept of azaadi is central to the culture of politics in Indian Kashmir. When asked to define the concept, many Kashmiri would remain elusive, granting azaadi sufficient open- endedness to mean anything from self-rule to complete independence. The relationship between azaadi and Pakistan is a complex one. As protests were gaining momentum in the Valley over the summer 2008, one could see a number of Pakistani f lags being waved in a gesture of protest. A student of Srinagar commented on this: I only support Pakistan during cricket matches, even though I hate Pakistan as much as India. But you see, it is these Indians who constantly reproduce the 1947 partition between Hindus and Muslims in the first place, so I do the same with cricket.

As this statement indicates, the conf licting forms of belonging through which people in the Valley engage with Kashmir bears testimony to the complexities of a people and a territory through which the very principle of partition has been diversely performed and resisted for more than 60 years. Throughout the 1990s, thousands of young Kashmiris crossed to Pakistan to find refuge or to get training and arms before returning to the Valley. Despite the geographic proximity and the fact that most people in the Valley have a relative living there, for many Kashmiris Pakistan stands as a familiar yet distant horizon, a largely unknown and fantasized Muslim land. Bilal, a Kashmiri Muslim from the Jammu province, was born in 1982. As he says, he “grew up in militancy time.” At 15, Bilal aspired to be a fearsome gangster and sought to acquire a gun. Impressed by their courage, their pious “style,” and their beard, he decided to join the militants and cross over to Pakistan with two other friends, “for the fun of it” (maze ke liye). Bilal gave an account of his impressions that night, having just crossed the barbed LoC, eagerly waiting to catch a glimpse of Pakistani life for the first time: So we got there. We thought Pakistan would welcome us, with people putting garlands of f lowers around our necks. We really had a strange kind of “concept” [sic] in our mind. We thought, man, we’re going to wage a jihad, and this is Pakistan! That’s it, in our hearts we believed that Pakistan was . . . I mean, paradise for Muslims, and that people there would all be welcoming us with garlands of f lowers. We thought: “that’s

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it, we got there!.” We just couldn’t believe it! It’s the same for people here. Did you see how happy that man was today, when he told us he would soon be visiting Karachi? The people here who haven’t seen Pakistan really think that it is paradise. At that time we had the same “concept,” we thought we’d reached paradise, all the people around being our brothers, all Muslims.

Bilal’s concept is interesting for the use it makes of paradise, jannat. There is almost an esthetical pleasure, in Kashmir and beyond, to devise an oxymoron on the contrast between the situation of conf lict in Kashmir and the common cliché that equates the Valley with paradise. 29 Bilal displaces this cliché across geography: it is Pakistan, with its promise of brotherhood and recognition for Kashmiri manly valor, that bears the attributes of paradise. In this particular sense, for Bilal and his friends, Pakistan was, indeed, the “land of the pure.” In his longer account of that night, when he, the “guide,” and others secretly crossed over, Bilal had put a strong emphasis on the topography of the border region—the sudden declivity of a hill, the height of the barbed wire, the no-man’s-land, the thick forest—a topography that he suddenly experienced as surprising more condensed than expected: “I thought it was a three-month journey to Pakistan, but it turned out to be no more than 5 hours!” His projection and idealization of Pakistan rested upon an imaginary distance; as he got there, the concept would rapidly fall apart, triggering his decision to return back home at all costs. As this account exemplifies, in Kashmir, Pakistan is often experienced simultaneously on different levels. The enduring concept or fantasy of Pakistan is also enmeshed in social relationships and tangible experiences of Pakistan’s presence. To some extent, every family has a story to tell about Pakistan: that of a relative who migrated there in 1947 or after, the anecdote heard over the Pakistani radio, the rumors about Pakistani militants’ ruthlessness, and so on. People are also well aware of Pakistan’s stakes in local politics. Accusations of Kashmiris leaders taking bribes from Pakistan, for instance, are often invoked to explain or justify a politician’s popular discredit. At the same time, Pakistan is also experienced for some as a safeguard against total assimilation into the Indian Union, an insurance that the conf lict will not fall into oblivion. Significantly, these perceptions and experiences build up on a complex and ambiguous history, and happen to change over space— whether or not one lives nears the LoC—and time according to international developments and local events. In relation to the Amarnath controversy, reporters have highlighted the fervor with which Pakistani

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f lags have been hoisted in the Valley,30 perhaps suggesting a renewed sympathy for the neighboring country. While it is extremely difficult to ascertain the extent to which this is true, we can nevertheless try to account for what seems to be the general pattern through which the identification with Pakistan proceeds. At a certain level, the divisive effects of the conf lict have disrupted a vast range of social relationships that constitute the fabric of daily life in Kashmir. It is not uncommon, for instance, to hear that a local policeman’s brother has now become a militant, or that a militant recently turned informer (mukhbir) and denounced his neighbor in order to seize his field. People do switch sides, because there is little space to not take sides in the first place. In diverse and conf licting ways, one’s loyalty to the country has to be proved and reiterated, violently at times, as this person recalls: That day, when they [the JK police and Indian paramilitary forces] put us together and forced each one of us, with their lathis (wooden clubs), to shout “Jay Hind ” (long live India) and “Pakistan murdabad ” (down with Pakistan), my friend was crying . . .

In particular situations, the coercive compulsion to choose, underscored by the “denial of translatability . . . that makes it possible for one to imagine oneself using the categories of the other” (Das 2001: 205) does not facilitate positions other than reactive ones. In other words, these (temporary) choices of allegiance rarely appear to proceed from an unproblematic rational act of free will, but are rather the consequence of contingent and compelling factors whose logic, if any, is not always clear to the actors themselves. In this polarized environment of generalized uncertainty, public demonstrations of pro-Pakistan or azaadi feelings can be the easiest and most direct gesture of provocation or irreverence against a perceived coercive rule. The slogan, Pakistan se rishta kya? La ilaha illa’ llah (What is our bond with Pakistan? There is no God but God) can be understood along these lines. Just as the essence of the Muslim confession la ilaha illa’ llah literally resides in “the initial negation [i.e., la] followed by absolute affirmation” (Jalal 2008: 111), the social impetus for this slogan condenses a negation— the refusal of a secular India which does not recognize Kashmiris as full citizens—and the positive identification with a religious and cultural heritage contained in the idea and desire for Pakistan. Importantly, this slogan builds on a popular rallying cry for the movement of Pakistan in the 1940s: Pakistan ka matlab kya? La ilaha illa’ llah (What is the

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meaning of Pakistan? There is no God but God). What this suggests is perhaps a similar yearning for the project of the movement for Pakistan, as a land where Muslims’ rights could be upheld, rather than the desire to integrate the Pakistani polity. Kashmiri Presences in Pakistan The intersecting representations and conf licting claims of belonging between Kashmir and Pakistan are mainly sustained by and engaged through a complex nexus of social relationships. The presence of Kashmiris in Pakistan is often underestimated. This is largely due to the metonymy by which Kashmiri comes to refer primarily to the Valley of Kashmir and to the notion of kashmiriyat (Kashmiri identity or essence) associated with it. Likewise, Kashmiri (koshur) speakers living in and around the Kashmir Valley, those commonly identified as ethnic Kashmiris, are only one amongst a multitude of other ethnicities, biraderi or qaum who also trace their origin to the former princely state. The notion of kashmiriyat denotes a set of supposedly distinct traditions sustaining a syncretic, cohesive, and immutable Kashmiri cultural identity (e.g., Puri 1995). The concept of kashmiriyat has been and continues to be evoked extensively by Indian and Kashmiri nationalists alike since the mid-twentieth century to sustain their respective projects of, on the one hand, a federalized nationalism based on regionalized plural identity, and of a unified and immemorial nation- state of Kashmir based on a unitary nationalism on the other. Yet, as Zutshi cogently argues, Kashmiri regional and cultural identity emerged in interaction with religious and nationalist languages of belonging, each of which was the object of a shifting emphasis or disregard according to the political and economic conjuncture prevalent at a given historical period (2004). Thus, instead of considering kashmiriyat as a form of “Kashmiri consciousness,” or as a collection of objective and transparent social facts (e.g., Ellis and Khan 2003), it is important to stress the contingent nature of this reified category of identity. For Kashmiri identity and kashmiriyat take on highly differentiated meanings as people strive to invest these notions with distinct positive contents in order to define the cultural boundaries of Kashmir, thereby legitimating particular political projects. To project AJK as an independent state and a model for Indianadministered Kashmir, the state of AJK is constitutionally autonomous from Pakistan, although in effect its government remains largely administered by Pakistani officials in Islamabad.31 All political candidates for

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legislative elections in the state must pledge allegiance to “the cause of accession to the state of Jammu and Kashmir to Pakistan”;32 in the words of a former president of AJK, it is the “government of Azad Kashmir, by the Pakistanis, for Pakistan” (HRW 2006: 27; Hussain 2005). Besides, the failed promise of Pakistan to hold a referendum on the status of AJK has led to a pervasive resentment among the people toward the central government (Ballard 1991; Blom 2002). The constitutional ambiguity that prevails over the status of AJK extends to the civil identity of its residents. In AJK and Pakistan, a Kashmiri national must carry a Pakistani identity card bearing the special mention “State Subjects of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.” This card gives Kashmiris, among other things, the right to purchase land in Pakistan and to take up positions in the state apparatus. However, in order not to be seen as endorsing the territorial status quo, refugees who f led the Valley in the 1990s are initially granted only a “refugee card” that may, after a few years, give the right to apply for Pakistani citizenship (Mahmud 2006: 53). Beyond the question of asserting whether the political relationship between the AJK government and that of Pakistan ref lects the former’s subordination to the latter or the ideological failure of the Pakistan project in AJK, for our purpose suffice to say that Kashmiris in AJK and in Pakistan must, in their daily lives, negotiate a complex layering of competing centers of authorities. A study of Kashmiris’ constitution as cultural, political, and religious subjects must, therefore, take into account the ways in which claims or ascriptions to a Kashmiri essence or uniqueness relates to the state(s)’ policies vis- à-vis Kashmir and Kashmiris. Unlike the Valley that hosts a relatively homogenous koshur- speaking population, AJK is a complex aggregate where Jats, Rajputs, Sudhans, Gujjars, and Kashmiri refugees/migrants come to invest the notion of Kashmiri citizenship with highly different meanings. Residents of AJK are culturally and linguistically different from those of the Valley. The metonymical use of “Kashmiris” to designate all AJK residents also indicates a conf lation of the political and the cultural: far from designating a coherent set of cultural identities, being Kashmiri also refers to the entitlement of rights based on one’s status as a state subject of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir before 1947 (Robinson 2006). In effect, a number of biraderis in AJK have more in common with Punjab than with the Kashmir Valley. While Gujjars are possibly the largest group, Sudhans and Rajputs have been more inf luential over recent history, and the two biraderis account for almost all politicians and leaders in the territory. AJK is also home to the Mirpuri Jats, culturally and geographically the closest to Potohari Punjabis. Owing to Mirpur’s

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rapid economic growth triggered by overseas labor remittances, the newly aff luent Mirpuri Jats in Pakistan and abroad now seem to more readily assert their “Kashmiriness” than they did a few decades ago. According to Evans, this should be understood by the fact that since the beginning of the insurgency in 1988, being Kashmiri has become “fashionable” as it carries more status than simply being Mirpuri (or belonging to other non-Kashmiri ethnic group), the latter often being looked down upon and stereotyped by urban Pakistanis and Valley Kashmiris (2005: 45; 2008: 728). Ballard further points that this change in ethnic self- ascription is also a political move, a position from which to express the deep resentment and disillusion felt by the AJK population toward the way the Pakistani government has treated them (1991: 2). Since partition, and as a result of the 1965 and 1971 wars and the current armed conf lict in the Valley, it is estimated that more than 1.5 million Kashmiris have crossed the LoC since 1947 (Mahmud 2006: 45). Those displaced in 1947–1949, mainly from the Jammu province, constitute the majority of this population. For the most part, these migrants were allocated property in the main cities of northern Punjab and eastern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Those displaced in the wars of 1965 and 1971 were also resettled in Punjab, even though many of this generation and their descendants have now moved to Karachi, Lahore, and Rawalpindi. Since the start of the armed insurgency in 1989, more Kashmiris, mainly from Srinagar this time, have crossed over to AJK and Pakistan. While most of them f led as entire families or villages in protestation to the Indian state’s violent counterinsurgency practices, others crossed the LoC in search of militant training. Most of them are still accommodated in refugee camps across AJK. The anthropological paradigm of the migrant/refugee conceptualized as a figure that disrupts the “national order of things” (Malkki 1995) is a restrictive one given the political and symbolic importance of migration in the creation of Pakistan. The term muhajir (plr. muhajirin) designates those Muslims from the subcontinent who migrated in order to protect their religion and to safeguard their interests as Muslims (Ansari 2008), while the word hijarat refers to either f light (from persecution) or emigration, and invokes a pan-Islamic claim of origins as well as a sense of grief and sacrifice. The foundational act of migration for millions of would-be Pakistanis at the time of partition is thus endowed with a sense of moral prestige. The official discourse on muhajir identity has filtered into urban politics and has come to form the basis for formal political associations, such as the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) to negotiate demands for relief and social advancement vis-

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à-vis the state (Verkaaik 2004). However, a distinction is being made between partition muhajir and muhajir- e- kashmir (Kashmiri refugees/ migrants). To the extent that their presence in Pakistan was thought to be temporary, the project of resettling them was separate from that of other migrants in Pakistan (Robinson 2006: 78). Indeed, the official stance in Pakistan holds that the final status of Kashmir being undecided, the fate of Kashmiris in Pakistan depends on their eventual return to a fully liberated Kashmir.33 The legal identity of Kashmiri muhajirs or refugees in Pakistan and AJK are closely associated with strategies to access resources (refugee allowance and reserved quota in the administration) and to be entitled to property and representational rights. These rights are themselves predicated upon the ability to prove that one owned property or land in the former princely state (Robinson 2006: 89). In other words, unlike other ethnic groups and qaum in the Pakistan, Kashmiris’ citizenship rights are tied to a place of origin rather than to their present condition as residents of Pakistan. This is particularly true for Kashmiris who came to AJK and Pakistan after 1989, the majority of whom are subject to a differentiated regime as Kashmiri “refugees.” The idea of Kashmiri citizenship is, therefore, a polysemic historical construct subject to changing national attitudes toward Kashmir and a point of convergence for various territorial claims and legal rights linked to Kashmiri identity. As observed earlier, emotional and political ties between Kashmir in Pakistan are strongest in Punjab. Besides their important demographic presence in the province (Kashmiris are the third largest regional migrant community in Punjab34), some long- established Kashmiri families have now secured influential positions in the industry, the military, and the administration. The mobilization for the Kashmir cause is thus more vibrant in Punjab than in the rest of the country (Shah 1995), and few Punjabis would question Pakistan’s right to take up the cause of Kashmiris across the border. But there are geographical variations. In the northern Potohar region, a historical recruiting ground for the military, support for the Kashmir cause is traditionally strong (ICG 2003). However, this may be changing, for both Pakistan’s military and Kashmir- orientated jihadist groups now tend to recruit more among the urban population of central and south Punjab.35 In any case, the interest and support for Kashmir in Pakistan seems strongest where Pakistan nationalism is well established (i.e., Punjab). In other words, “where ethnic identification has become meaningful Kashmir is not a significant issue” (Samad 1995: 75). Dispersed across the main cities of eastern and northern Punjab, postpartition Kashmiri migrants are

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by and large well integrated within the social structure of Punjab. But the geographical dispersal, the temporal span of displacement, and the changing politicolegal rights of Kashmiris significantly shape the nature of their engagement in maintaining a sociocultural sense of belonging and upholding the idea of a Kashmir nation. In Punjab, self-ascribed Kashmiri identity is often expressed as one that is based on the fact of belonging to a Kashmiri qaum. This “ethnic” category constructed in the midst of a Punjabi environment also evokes the concept of a nation that overrides the numerous linguistic and caste-based fault lines among this “community.” The fact that this group, unlike other biraderis based on patrilineal descent, is identified in terms of geographical origin further complexifies its contours and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that underline it. Thus, while partilineal groups of descent remain the primary markers of social belonging in AJK, Kashmiris in the rest of Pakistan tend to downplay these divisions. The “triadic relationship” (Sheffer 1986) between the community’s self-identification, their homeland, and the place of residence is thus experienced in different ways that do not mobilize the same collective memory and type of consciousness according to the conditions—forced or chosen—of one’s migration. While the important number of young, male seasonal labor migrants coming from AJK to Punjab tend to link up with other established Kashmiri networks who are often more politically active in relation to Kashmir, it does not automatically translate into a substantive and shared political or cultural consciousness. These shifting and overlapping affiliations, which depend on the perceived context and suitable “adaptive strategies” (Ballard 1994: 29), are nevertheless stabilized through kinship alliances. Efforts to intermarry among Kashmiri families, and more precisely among one’s zaat (caste) appears to be the determinant feature of an otherwise dispersed and diversely “integrated” community. Conclusion Beyond the framework of India and Pakistan’s relationship, the right to define who is Kashmiri and to whom Kashmir belongs intersects with complex and shifting strategies that undermine the notion of an underlying, directive Kashmiriness, understood as a cultural essence that would inform people’s sense of identity. In Srinagar, Muzaffarabad, or Lahore, to be Kashmiri mobilizes a wide range of competing and overlapping effects that extend beyond national borders. Those networks of emotional and memorial connections, in turn, form the ground upon which the wouldbe sovereign powers seek to stabilize social identities within governable

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entities. The resort to political symbolicism and collective fantasies seems all the more potent that the states’ legitimacy to rule with consent over Kashmir remains an uncertain and, at best, tentative project. As a reference point in the imagination of the Pakistani nation, and as a site of menace and compassion, the unfinished project of liberating Kashmir has been intermittently used as a resource to bolster national unity. Even though changes in Pakistan’s Kashmir policy do not involve the general public, their acceptability among the population remains determinant.36 Further, the formulation of the dispute in Pakistan along moral and religious lines finds a limit in Kashmiri migrants’ own efforts to articulate political demands in dialogue with Kashmiris in the Valley. The symbolic activities projected onto Kashmir to sustain nationalist mythologies as well as the discourses on legitimate statehood and international recognition should not divert attention lead to the fact that the question of Kashmir is not merely a matter of territory and national sovereignty, but also and more importantly a struggle for rights and justice that predates the creation of India and Pakistan. After 80 years of political manipulation and coercion to domesticate Kashmir within these two nationalist projects, the question of Kashmiris’ rights, in both countries, remains central to any improvement toward peace. Notes 1. I am grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for their generous support, and to Amélie Blom for her valuable comments. 2. There is an extensive literature available on Kashmir, although predominantly concerned with the Indian side. For a comprehensive overview of the political and diplomatic aspects of the question, see Akbar (2003); Bose (2003); and Ganguly (2003). For a detailed historical perspective, see Lamb (1991); Schofield (2003); and Zutshi (2004). 3. I use “Kashmir” to refer to the territory covered by both the Indianadministered “State of Jammu and Kashmir” and the Pakistani- administered “Azad Jammu and Kashmir” (henceforth AJK). Together, this territory roughly corresponds to the princely state as of 1946. Likewise, my use of the term “Kashmiri” refers to all inhabitants, migrants, and refugees whose origins lie in this territory. 4. On the relevance of borders and their transgression in modern state practices, see Appadurai (1996); Das and Poole (2004); Navaro-Yashin (2002); Gupta and Ferguson (1997); Soguk (1999). 5. Implicit in this formulation is an understanding of the imaginary as a dynamic and relational mode of subjectivizing reality: “the imaginaire is first of all an interaction, since ‘an image is merely another relationship’: that is, an interaction between the past, the present and a projected

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6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

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future, but also an interaction between social actors or between societies, whose relations are filtered by their respective ‘imagining consciousnesses’ ” (Bayart 2005: 137). According to the 1911 census, there were already 206,180 Kashmiris settled across Punjab and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (cited in Jalal 2007: 352). By the first few decades of the twentieth century, Mirpuris seamen initially working on British merchant ships in Bombay had already established ties with Britain. Today, more than half of Britain’s Pakistani population stems from the region of Mirpur in Pakistani- administered Kashmir (Ballard 1991: 4). See also Bolognani and Sökefeld in this volume. The presence of this sect in Kashmir, which maintained strong ties with Punjab, partly rests upon the claim of its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, that Jesus laid buried in Srinagar (Coupland 1991: 227). The continuity in terms of representation does not preclude the fact that the 1947–1948 war over Kashmir obviously constitutes a radical geopolitical rupture. Thus the Pakistan army, because it never had to fight a struggle of national liberation, was subsequently able through this “foundational” war to incorporate the symbolic stakes attached to Kashmir, and make it the cornerstone of its own brand of patriotism (I am grateful to Amélie Blom for drawing my attention on this point). One resolution was adopted by the United Nations Security Council in April 1948, and two subsequent passed by the United Nations Committee on India and Pakistan in August 1948 and January 1949. Text printed in Korbel (1966). On the UN involvement in Kashmir, see Chopra (1971); R. Khan (1966). On the difficulties of holding plebiscite, see Schofield (2003: 190–191). I here borrow the notion developed by Navaro-Yashin to describe the prevalent political culture in northern Cyprus. A “culture of politics” denotes “a whole set of experiences inscribed in collective memory, a network of common political reference points, an enduring political system with specific style of government, as well as an unarticulated and unconscious experience of the political shared by a group of people who have been subjects of a specific kind of polity under a definite historical conjuncture or context” (2005: 105n3). On Pakistani propaganda over Kashmir, see Abou Zahab (2008: 140); Murphy (2000: 215); Nayyar (2003: 119); and Salim (2001). Jo zanjiron se baahar hai, azaad unhe bhi mat samjho. Jab haath katenge zaalim ke, is waqt katengi zanjirein. In Kashmir Calling, June 2008, 18. This equivalence was remarkable during this year’s Kashmir Day in Pakistan (February 6, 2009), renamed the “Kashmir Palestine Day” following the Israeli attack on the Gaza strip in December 2008 and January 2009. Syed Yousuf Naseem (Convener of All Parties Hurriyat Conference—Azad Kashmir) speaking at a conference on Kashmir (“Prescriptive Approaches Out of the Prevailing Kashmir Imbroglio”), Islamabad. September 2, 2008.

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16. “Pakistan Is with Kashmir: Musharraf,” August 14, 2008 (www.ndtv.com). 17. In Lahore, this annual demonstration has limited popular appeal beyond a few Kashmiri refugee associations, political parties, and jihadi groups. This year, the latter category was mostly teenage, rural Punjabi supporters of the banned Jama’at-ud-Da’wah, which one could heard chanting slogans calling for the destruction of Israel, India, and the United States as a prerequisite for lasting peace. 18. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, ameer of the Jama`t-ud-Da’wah (www.jamatdawah.org). See also Rehman (1998); and “Kashmir Jugular Vein of Pakistan: Rulers Told,” The Dawn, January 13, 2007 (www.dawn.com). 19. “It was We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than his jugular vein” (Qur’an 50:16.) 20. One often reads the following Qur’anic quote in Pakistani books on Kashmir: “all call not dead those who are killed in the way of God. Nay, they are living, only ye perceive not” (Verse 2: 154). Cited in M. Khan (1975: 3). On the meanings of shahadat in the Islamic context, see Jalal (2008: 106). 21. Ex-president Musharraf, “President’s Message on Kashmir Solidarity Day: Government of Pakistan,” February 5, 2005 (www.pakistanembassy. org). For a critic of the “right to humanitarian interference,” see Rancière (2004). 22. The idea, generally traced to Sayyid Ahmed Khan, is that Muslims and Hindus constitute two separate entities. Therefore, the political, religious, and cultural integrity of Muslims could not be protected in the eventuality of an independent India dominated by a Hindu majority (see Jalal 1995). 23. Officials and Islamists in Pakistan typically refer to the Kashmir issue as the “unfinished agenda of partition.” See, for instance, “Kashmir Our Unfinished Agenda: Pak,” February 23, 2001 (www.rediff.com). 24. Murtaza Shibli, “Real Democracy: Pakistan’s Post-Musharraf Kashmir Policy,” April 2008. (www.kashmiraffairs.org) 25. Maloy Dhar, “Journey through ‘Pakistan Occupied Kashmir’ ” (www.kashmiraffairs.org). The same holds true for autonomist groups based in the Valley towards the diversity of the disputed territory (see Behera 2000). 26. On the notion of “naturalization,” see Comaroff and Comaroff (2005: 120–147). 27. On the paradoxical affinities between humanitarianism and jihad, see Devji (2008) and O’Neill (2010). 28. This idea draws on Robinson’s thesis according to which the discourse of human rights has depoliticized Kashmiri refugees in Pakistaniadministered Kashmir. She further argues that their participation in jihad does not so much proceed from an Islamic expression of territorial sovereignty, but rather constitute a continuation of this effort to protect human

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29.

30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

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rights through a morally sanctioned structure that allows for the reemergence of political subjectivity (2006: 14). The controversy broke out on May 26, 2008, with a state cabinet decision sanctioning the transfer of 39.88 hectares of land at Baltal to the Amarnath Shrine Board. This decision, which follows an order of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court passed in 2005, empowers the Shrine Board to erect prefabricated structures to accommodate pilgrims during the annual Amarnath yatra. The decision triggered mass demonstrations in the Valley and led to the government’s revocation of the land allocation, compelling the resignation of the chief minister and the imposition of governor’s rule. In turn, the annulment led to violent protest in various parts of the Hindu-majority Jammu province. These violent expressions of pent-up resentment against the perceived domination of the Kashmir province over the southern Hindu belt of Jammu in governmental affairs have been accompanied by an increasing polarization of the Jammu province population along religious lines. Upon his reaching the Valley, Jehangir allegedly exclaimed: Gar firdaus bar ro- e zameen ast/Hameen ast/ hameen ast/ hameen ast (If there is heaven on earth, then it is here, it is here, it is here). A modified formula, painted on a large signpost, greets all passengers arriving at Srinagar airport: “Welcome to Kashmir, the Paradise on Earth.” Extremely popular as a topos of colonial imagination, today the metaphor is largely used proverbially by Kashmiris to color descriptions of their Valley’s legendary beauty. The easy rapprochements never fail to excite the inspired observer: “Kashmir’s beauty was the first to be raped, women, a close second . . .” (K. Hasan, “Kashmir: Azadi, Azadi, Azadi.” Friday Times, 29, September 2008). On the imagination of Kashmir in India, see Kabir (2009). See Arundhati Roy, “Azadi: It’s the Only Thing the Kashmiri Wants. Denial Is Delusion,” Outlook, September 1, 2008. See Rose (1992); Asif (2006); and Ershad Mahmud, “Azad Kashmir and Self- governance,” The News, October 14, 2006. Article 4(7)(2), Azad Jammu and Kashmir Interim Constitution Act. Cf. Article 257, Constitution of Pakistan. “Migrant Population by Place of Birth,” Government of Pakistan, Ministry of Economic Affairs. (www.statpak.gov.pk). See Abou Zahab (2008: 139), and Nawaz, S. “Pakistan’s Army: Fighting the Wars Within,” Seminar, April 2008 (www.india- seminar.com). This is evidenced by the brief outrage in Pakistan and Kashmir following president Zardari’s alleged description of militants fighting in Kashmir as “terrorists.” See “Pakistan ‘clarifies’ Kashmir view,” BBC news, October 7, 2008.

References Abou Zahab, M. (2008) “ ‘I Shall Be Waiting for You at the Door of Paradise’: The Pakistani Martyrs of the Lashkar-e Taiba (Army of the Pure),” in Rao, A.,

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Bollig, M., and Böck, M. (eds.) The Practice of War: Production, Reproduction and Communication of Armed Violence. Oxford: Berghan Books, 133–160. Ahmad, A. (1977) “India and Pakistan,” in Holt, P.M., Lambton, A. K. S., and Lewis, B. (eds.) The Cambridge History of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 97–120. Akbar, M. J. (2003) Kashmir: Behind the Vale New Delhi. New Delhi: Roli Books. Ansari, S. (2008) “Muhadjir,” in Bearman, P., Bianquis, T., Bosworth, C. E,. van Donzel, E., and Heinrichs, W. P. (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Islam. Brill Online. Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Asif, B. (2006) “How Independent Is Azad Jammu and Kashmir?” in Sidhu, W., Asif, B., and Samii, C. (eds.) Kashmir: New Voices, New Approaches. London: Lynne Rienner. Ballard, R. (1991) “The Kashmir Crisis: A View from Mirpur,” Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai): 513 –517. ——— (1994) “Introduction: The Emergence of Desh Pardesh,” in Ballard, R. (ed.) Desh Pardesh: The South. Asian Presence in Britain. London: C. Hurst, 1994, 1–34. Bamzai, P. N. K. (1962). A History of Kashmir, Political, Social, Cultural, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Delhi: Metropolitan Book. Bayart, J. F. (2005) The Illusion of Cultural Identity. London: Hurst. Behera, N. C. (2000) State, Identity and Violence. Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Delhi: Manohar. Blom, A. (2002) “The ‘Multi-vocal State’: The Policy of Pakistan on Kashmir,” in Jaffrelot, C. (ed.) Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation? London: Zed Books. Bose, S. (2003) Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, Paths to Peace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chopra, S. (1971) U.N. Mediation in Kashmir: A Study in Power Politics. Kurukshetra: Vishal. Comaroff, J. and Comaroff, J. L. (2005) “Naturing the Nation: Aliens, Apocalypse and the Postcolonial State,” in Hansen, T. B. and Stepputat, F. (eds.) Sovereign Bodies: Citizens, Migrants, and the States in the Postcolonial World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Coupland, I. (1991) “Kashmiri Muslims and the 1947 Crisis,” in Low, D. A. (ed.) The Political Inheritance of Pakistan. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Das, V. (2001) “Violence and Translation,” Sarai Reader 2001: The Cities of Everyday Life: 205–209. Das, V. and Poole, D. (eds.) (2004) Anthropology in the Margins of the State. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Devji, F. (2008) The Terrorist in Search of Humanity: Militant Islam and Global Politics. New York: Columbia University Press. Donnan, H. and Wilson, T. M. (eds.) (1998) Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Ellis, P. and Khan, Z. (2003) “Kashmir Refugees: The Impact on Kashmiriyat,” Contemporary South Asia, 12: 523–538. Evans, A. (2005) “Kashmir: A Tale of Two Valleys,” Asian Affairs, 36: 35–47. ——— (2008) “Kashmiri Exceptionalism,” in Madan, T. N. and Rao, A. (eds.) The Valley of Kashmir: The Making and Unmaking of a Composite Culture. New Delhi: Manohar. Ganguly, S. (ed.) (2003) The Kashmir Question: Retrospect and Prospect. London: Frank Cass. Gilmartin, D. (1988) Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gupta, A. and Ferguson, J. (eds.) (1997) Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley: University of California Press. Human Rights Watch (2006) “With Friends Like These . . . ” in Human Rights Violations in Azad Kashmir. Human Rights Watch. Hussain, R. (2005) “Pakistan’s Relations with Azad Kashmir and Impact on IndoPakistani Relations,” in Dossani, R. and Rowen, H. (eds.) Prospects for Peace in South Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hyndman, J. (2000) Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. International Crisis Group (2003) “Kashmir: The View from Islamabad,” Asia Report, 68. (www.crisisgroup.org) Jafri, M. (1998) Plight of Kashmir. Rawalpindi: Kashmir Liberation Cell. Jalal, A. (1995) “Conjuring Pakistan: History as Official Imagining,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 27(1): 73–89. ——— (2007) Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel. ——— (2008) Partisans of Allah. Jihad in South Asia. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press. Kabir, A. J. (2009) Territory of Desire: Representing the Valley of Kashmir. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Khan, M. (1975) Raiders in Kashmir. Islamabad: National Book Foundation. Khan, R. (1966) Kashmir in the United Nations. Delhi: Vikas. Korbel, J. (1966) Danger in Kashmir. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lamb, A. (1991) Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846–1990. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Lawrence, W. R. (1895). The Valley of Kashmir. London: Henry Frowde. Mahmud, E. (2006) “Kashmiri Refugees: Facts, Issues and the Future Ahead,” Policy Perspective, 3: 43–67. Malkki, L. H. (1995). Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Moarif, S. (1995) “Kashmir: A Pakistani View Stranded in the Middle of Nowhere,” in Wani, G. M. (ed.) Kashmir: Need for Sub- continental Political Initiative. New Delhi: Ashish. Murphy, M. R. (2000) “The Hairbrush and the Dagger: Mediating Modernity in Lahore,” in Armbrust, W. (ed.) Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular

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Culture in the Middle East and Beyond. Berkeley University of California Press. Navaro-Yashin, Y. (2002) The Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in Turkey. Pinceton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. ——— (2005) “Confinement and the Imagination: Sovereignty and Subjectivity in a Quasi-State,” in Hansen, T. B. and Stepputat F. (eds.) Sovereign Bodies: Citizens, Migrants, and the States in the Postcolonial World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nayyar, A. H. (ed.) (2003). The Subtle Subversion. The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan. Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute. O’Neill, B. (2010) From Bosnia to Beslan: How the West Spread Al- Qaeda. London: Pluto Press. Puri, B. (1995) “Kashmiriyat: The Vitality of Kashmiri Identity,” Contemporary South Asia, 4: 55–63. Rai, M. (2004) Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir. London: Hurst. Rancière, J. (2004) “Who Is the Subject of Human Rights,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 2. Rawlley, R. C. (1919) The Silk Industry and Trade; A Study in the Economic Organization of the Export Trade of Kashmir and Indian Silks, with Special Reference to Their Utilization in the British and French Markets. London: King, P. S. Rehman, H. (1998) Kashmir: The Jugular Vein of Pakistan! Rawalpindi: Kashmir Liberation Cell. Robinson, C. D. (2006) “Refugees, Political Subjectivity, and the Morality of Violence: From Hijarat to Jihad in Azad Kashmir,” PhD thesis, Cornell University. Rose, L. (1992) “The Politics of Azad Kashmir,” in Thomas, R. G. C. (ed.) Perspectives on Kashmir: The Roots of Conflict in South Asia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Said, E. (1985) “In the Shadow of the West,” Wedge, 7: 4–11. Salim, A. (2001) “Enemy Images in the Textbooks,” in Nauman-Stiftung, F. (ed.) Kashmir: What Next? Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute. Samad, Y. (1995) “Kashmir and the Imagining of Pakistan,” Contemporary South Asia, 4: 65–77. Schofield, V. (2003). Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War. London: I. B. Tauris. ——— (2008) “Kashmiri Separatism and Pakistan in the Current Global Environment,” Contemporary South Asia, 16: 83–92. Shah, M. A. (1995) “The Kashmir Problem: A View from Four Provinces of Pakistan,” Contemporary South Asia, 4: 103–113. Sheffer, G. A. (1986) “New Field of Study: Modern Diasporas in International Politics,” in Sheffer, G. (ed.) Modern Diasporas in International Politics. London: Croom Helm, 1–15. Soguk, N. (1999) States and Strangers: Refugees and Displacements of Statecraft. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.

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Swami, P. (2007) India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad: The Covert War in Kashmir, 1947–2004. Abingdon: Routledge. Verkaaik, O. (2004) Migrants and Militants: Fun, Violence, and Islam in Pakistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Zutshi, C. (2004) Languages of Belonging: Islam, Regional Identity, and the Making of Kashmir. London: Hurst.

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CHAPTER 5

Kashmiris in Britain: A Political Project or a Social Reality? Martin Sökefeld and Marta Bolognani

Introduction It is estimated that 70% of the total Pakistani population in the UK is of Kashmiri origin (Bunting 2005). However, in the 2001 Census, only about 22,000 individuals who ticked the box “other” in the ethnicity section defined themselves as Kashmiri, in spite of an unofficial estimate of 500,000 persons of Kashmiri origin in the UK. The great majority of Kashmiris in Britain come from the districts of Mirpur and Kotli (which formerly was a part of Mirpur) of Azad Kashmir. The presence of these people in the UK is the outcome of a process of chain migration1 that, at least according to the literature, started already before independence and the partition of the subcontinent, and substantially accrued by the dislocation followed by the construction of the Mangla Dam (Bolognani 2007). Yet it is ahistorical to speak about these people simply as Kashmiris because after partition, when the larger movement of migration to Britain started, most of them were not identified and did not identify themselves specifically as “Kashmiris” but as “Pakistanis” or simply as “Mirpuris”—and many, perhaps even the majority, of them continue to do so even today. 2 Academic writing was also used to this identification and in many early works by Badr Dahya (1972), Muhammad Anwar (1979), and Roger Ballard (1990), for instance, these people are referred to as Pakistanis. Beginning in the 1990s, however, more and more political activists demanded the identification and recognition of these Mirpuris as Kashmiris, in contradistinction to Pakistanis.

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This chapter explores the role of political mobilization for the constitution of a British Kashmiri diaspora. We argue that political mobilization, or social mobilization in general, plays a much more important role in the constitution of diaspora (see also Sökefeld 2006) than the diasporic condition in itself, and that the constitution of the diaspora is so f luid and inf luenced by so many different hegemonic discourses that its durability cannot be taken for granted (see also Ali 2002: 160). This chapter shows how the idea of community that refers to the British Kashmiri dispersal has been shaped, shifted, and articulated by political activists, academics, and “ordinary people” through the collaboration of factors such as opportunities (i.e., the opportunity of relative freedom in articulating one’s identity), mobilizing structures and practices (the forms through which collective initiatives take place, that is, political parties), and frames (the ideas that contribute to the imagination of a collective) (Sökefeld 2006). This chapter is based on the authors’ fieldworks in Birmingham, Bradford, and the Mirpur District between 2001 and 2008. Sökefeld’s3 fieldworks in Birmingham and Bradford were mainly based around political activists, from organizations like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF, different factions), the Kashmiri Workers Association (KWA), Association of British Kashmiris, Muslim Conference, as well as with Kashmiri councillors and “independent activists.” Sökefeld’s research consisted of an attempt to cover the broad range of political affiliations among British Kashmiris. The methods employed were interviews and observations of meetings. Field research in political anthropology among political activists bears a number of methodological problems. One of them is the fact that the fieldworker almost necessarily becomes part of the game as he or she becomes a screen for the (political) projections of his or her interlocutors. Rather than being regarded as an “objective” observer, the fieldworker is treated as a person who is to be convinced of a particular—the interlocutor’s own—perspective. Another, related difficulty is that research among activists might block or limit the perception of the attitudes of “ordinary people,” of those who are not particularly committed to a political struggle but mostly remain distant and aloof of such issues. Hence, the idea of writing a piece of work with Bolognani, whose fieldworks in Bradford and Mirpur over a span of seven years were mainly among “ordinary people.” Bolognani’s data used for this chapter are a selection of information on Kashmiri identity gathered through in- depth interviews and participant observation for different projects not directly linked with the topic of British Kashmiri diaspora identity

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(see Bolognani 2002, 2007, and 2009). However, fieldwork interactions were often characterized by discussion of what meant being Kashmiri, and more specifically Mirpuri. The only exception is represented by data gathered through a British High Commission–sponsored project clearly aiming at surveying the social and political attitudes of British Kashmiris toward both British and Kashmiri politics (Kalra 2008). This piece of research was conducted in spring 2008 among young Britons returning to their family’s original abode, Mirpur District, on holiday. Diaspora and Political Mobilization: A Theoretical Framework Diaspora is a difficult concept that has become so widely used that it can mean almost everything or nothing and that authors like Rogers Brubaker (2006) have suggested that it should be excluded from academic vocabulary. Instead, we would rather suggest attempt to refocus the concept of diaspora. We are mainly interested in “diaspora as a social form,” to refer to the distinction that was proposed by Steve Vertovec (1997). One could also say that we are interested in diaspora communities, but then we have to hasten to add what we mean by “community,” another concept that has become very difficult as a consequence of its overuse. The concepts of both diaspora and community are prone to an implicit essentialist understanding, but we want to avoid this by all means. We regard community in the first place as an imagination that does not have to be congruent with a social formation. This means that the members of a social congregation, people who share some social relationships, do not necessarily share an imagination of community. To the contrary, such imaginations may be utterly disputed. The dispute may revolve around particular characteristics of meaning that are attributed to a particular (imagination of ) community, which implicitly would point to an agreement that there is some kind of community. In addition, the very form of categorization that is implied by a particular imagination may be disputed, that is, the question of who belongs and who not and where the boundaries are. This means that we cannot infer from a particular imagination of community to a particular form or distribution of social relationships. We do not want to say that social relationships among those who, according to some imagination, form a community do not exist or are irrelevant, but simply that they cannot be taken for granted. And this is where the question of mobilization comes into play. In the present, questions of community are almost always political questions, questions of identification and of recognition that make certain claims or

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reject others. Imaginations of community are implicated in struggles for power. In order to become powerful, particular imaginations have to be accepted and recognized; they cannot remain purely imaginary. That is, people as social actors have to be mobilized for or on the basis of particular imaginations of community. We define diaspora as an imagination of transnational community, that is, an imagination of community that refers to an elsewhere, which unites people in distant places and bridges different geographical and, by implication, political spaces. According to this definition, imaginations of community and actual congregations of people are distinct and potentially independent entities. It follows that diasporas are not simply created by migration and the dispersal of people but by ideas of community that refer to such dispersal. A diaspora comes into being, then, when a particular imagination is discursively created and when actors start to mobilize for this imagination, when they start to identify themselves or others accordingly. Again, dispersal and imagination are independent phenomena. People may be dispersed yet never develop a kind of imagination of community. Or such an imagination may come into being much later than the actual dispersal. The constitution of diaspora is, therefore, independent from the dispersal of a group. The imaginary community has to be accepted and recognized through politics and mobilization. Sökefeld has argued elsewhere (2006) that considering diaspora as a social form that can be analyzed through frameworks borrowed from social movements theory may be a very apt way to study the formation of diaspora. By analyzing opportunities, mobilizing structures and practices, and frames, we will be able to analyze structure, hegemonic dynamics, and agency within what is now more often called “British Kashmiri Diaspora.” A Shift of Identification The question of recognition of British Kashmiris as such became a hot topic before the past census that took place in 2001. Two years before the census the Kashmiri National Identity Campaign was established. The campaign lobbied for the inclusion of the category Kashmiri among the ethnic categories in the census forms. Others rejected this demand, alleging that it would create a rift in the British Muslim—and Pakistani—community. Particularly the Urdu press in Britain tried to silence the Kashmiri identity claim. The imagination of a Kashmiri community in Britain, and by that token the imagination of a Kashmiri

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diaspora, was highly disputed and became an issue of mobilization— mobilization both for and against the identification as Kashmiri. This politics of recognition has also been taking place in academia. Zafar Khan, Pat Ellis, and Nasreen Ali have argued in a number of papers that it is “Time to Separate British Punjabi and British Kashmiri Identity,” as part of the title of one of their article states (Ali, Ellis, and Khan 1996). Especially Zafar Khan and Patricia Ellis have demanded in their joint writings that Mirpuris should be referred to as Kashmiris and that they are distinct from Pakistanis or, by that token, Punjabis.4 As far as we know they are actually the first who have voiced this demand in academic writing. Ellis and Khan point out that British Kashmiris do not share an identity with British Pakistanis and that the former are not recognized as equal by the latter but that they are instead openly or covertly discriminated against. They also maintain that British Kashmiris themselves are “now asserting a self- ascribed ethnic identity separate from Punjabis/Pakistanis” (233). Thus, the shift of identification is in the first place a shift of selfidentification. Yet on the ground this shift is at best partial as many Mirpuris also today continue to refer to themselves as Pakistanis, at least in many contexts, as argued by Bolognani in her analysis of selfidentification of “ordinary people” (see below). This shift in identification as expressed by Ellis and Khan is, in our opinion, the first instance of a social process of identification as interpreted by political activists. It is an issue of political mobilization. Ellis and Khan point to the uprising in Indian- administered Kashmir 5 as the main reason for the shifting identification and the assertion of Kashmiri identity among British Kashmiris. The uprising in Kashmir has produced a kind of new self- awareness of Kashmiris as Kashmiris and especially an assertion of “pan-Kashmiri” identity, that is, an identity that encompasses all different groups that live in or relate themselves to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. According to Ellis and Khan, the main force that provoked this uprising and that consequentially bears to a large degree the responsibility for the shift of identification among British Kashmiris is the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF). The emphasis on the role of the JKLF is perhaps not surprising, given that Zafar Khan himself is a longtime activist of the JKLF and still holds an important office in one of its many factions. 6 It is not our intention to belittle the role of the JKLF, but still the history of political mobilization of Kashmiris in Britain is much more complicated and it started long before the emergence of the JKLF.

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Mobilizing Structures and Opportunities: A Short History of Kashmiri Political Mobilization in Britain The political mobilization of Kashmiris in Britain is part of a larger sphere of transnational politics that interlinks British Kashmiris with Azad Kashmir and Pakistan and is thus related to the Kashmir dispute. Azad Kashmir is that part of Jammu and Kashmir State that was declared azad (liberated) by Muslim activists and fighters in 1947/1948 as a token of the accession of the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan. We do not need to go into the depth of the Kashmir dispute here. Azad Kashmir is a very strange political entity. It is formally an almost independent state that has entrusted only some competences, like currency and defense, to Pakistan but has become totally controlled by and dependent on Pakistan. Azad Kashmir is a “quasistate” that formally has its own government but whose administration is headed and controlled by Pakistani officials. The present state is a far cry from what the activists of the Azad Kashmir movement fought for. They sought accession with Pakistan and not colonization by that country. Today, activists of Kashmiri political mobilization in Britain seem to be mostly part of politics oriented toward independence. They reject, to say the least, any unequivocal call for the accession of Kashmir with Pakistan. Thus, Kashmiri political mobilization in Britain emerged as a reaction to the Pakistani encroachment on Azad Kashmir. It is difficult to say when this precisely started, but in any case a significant early issue was the construction of the Mangla Dam that subsequently submerged the old city of Mirpur. Because of the large- scale loss of land and the displacement of a large number of people the construction of the dam implied, there was determined protest against its construction in the second half of the 1950s. The protest was violently repressed by Pakistani forces and this was a point in time when many people realized that the close link with Pakistan was much less beneficial than they had perhaps hoped for. Many people went to jail, among them Abdul Khaliq Ansari, a lawyer who subsequently was to play a key role in Kashmiri mobilization in Azad Kashmir. At that time a substantial number of Kashmiris was already living in Britain and some of them supported the protest in Mirpur by organizing meetings and marches and by protesting during the visits of Pakistani ministers. Here also the link of biraderi 7 comes into play as many members of the Ansari (Kaswi) biraderi and related clans had moved to Britain and it seems that they were particularly active in organizing the protests.

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In 1965, Abdul Khaliq Ansari and others, including Amanullah Khan, the later president of the JKLF, formed the Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front (PF) in Azad Kashmir. As former supporters and associates of Sheikh Abdullah, the popular Kashmiri leader on the Indian side, they took the name of the organization that had been formed in Srinagar 10 years earlier under the leadership of Mirza Afzal Beg, when Sheikh Abdullah was ousted from the government and put into jail. There were no organizational links between the two Plebiscite Fronts on either side of the then ceasefire line, though there was occasional communication, which took place in part through Kashmiris in Britain. The Plebiscite Front on the Azad Kashmir side intended to press again for the referendum that had been demanded by the UN Resolution on Kashmir, yet that was never implemented. The AK PF was, however, not content with two options in a future plebiscite, that is, accession of Kashmir either with India or with Pakistan, but stood for a third option: independence from both. In 1965, an underground wing of the Plebiscite Front was established in Azad Kashmir, the Jammu and Kashmir National Liberation Front (NLF), led by Maqbul Butt and Amanullah Khan. The NLF intended to start an armed struggle for the liberation of Indian- administered Kashmir. Maqbul Butt indeed crossed over yet was very quickly apprehended by the Indian police and accused of the murder of a policeman. He managed to escape from jail and returned to Azad Kashmir. In January 1971, the NLF was involved in another incident that fueled mobilization in Britain. It was the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane from Srinagar to Lahore, which was called Ganga-hijacking. While the hijackers and the activists of the NLF were first celebrated in Pakistan as heroes of the liberation struggle, the Pakistani government quickly turned around, jailed them, and accused them of being Indian agents. A special trial was set up in Lahore and initially several hundred people were arrested in Azad Kashmir, almost all of them activists of the PF. This led to large- scale protest among supporters of the PF in Britain. Veterans of that struggle are still fond of telling how they very effectively disturbed a public meeting with Pakistani Minister of Law, Abdul Hafiz Pirzada, in Birmingham and forced him to hold a separate meeting with them in which they demanded the release of the prisoners in Pakistan. Except for a few, the prisoners were indeed released as Pakistan seemed to fear more international attention for the case. At that time, there was no formally organized set-up of the Plebiscite Front in Britain but rather a network of activists, most of which were related by biraderi lines, and it seems that the PF had difficulties to

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attract a larger support precisely due to biraderi. Most of its activists— like Abdul Khaliq Ansari—were categorized as kammis, that is, artisans and service biraderis who did not command much respect among the dominant group in Mirpur and among British Kashmiris, the Jats. While the activism of the PF can be categorized as nationalist, there was another strand of Kashmiri mobilization in Britain that could be referred to as leftist and internationalist. There was a small but very committed circle of activists that was inf luenced by the Palestinian struggle, the activism against the Vietnam War, and other international issues, that conceived the activism in terms of anti-imperialism and anticapitalism. Recently, John Hutnyk (2006) issued a very committed statement for the inclusion of leftist politics in the writings on British Asians, and such leftist politics certainly did play an important role in Kashmiri activism. 8 Leftist activists from Kashmir formed the United Kashmir Liberation Front in Birmingham in the early 1970s and they sided with the efforts of PF activists in the Ganga-hijacking case, although they did not share the overall aims of the PF, which they regarded as rather bourgeois. Becoming involved in the antiracist struggle in Britain, some of them joined the Pakistani Workers Association and collaborated with the Indian Workers Association, yet then formed their own Kashmiri Workers Association (KWA) in the mid-1970s as a consequence of differences regarding the Kashmir dispute. Although the circle of the KWA remained rather small, the association was quite inf luential in British Kashmiri mobilization because several times they took rather innovative approaches. After the Ganga-hijacking case the Plebiscite Front had rather difficult times in Azad Kashmir due to close surveillance and pressure. As a consequence, the idea emerged to establish a more organized and powerful branch in Britain. In 1975, Abdul Khaliq Ansari and Amanullah Khan came to the UK and in early 1977 the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front was formed in Birmingham under the leadership of Amanullah Khan. It was originally intended as a kind of overseas support organization for the struggle in Kashmir although later Amanullah Khan transformed the JKLF into an independent organization. The JKLF was able to muster more support and members in the early 1980s and especially after 1984. In early 1984, Indian diplomat Ravinder Mhatre was kidnapped and murdered by persons from the circle of the JKLF. It was not the act of kidnapping itself but rather its unintended consequences that enhanced mobilization. The original plan had been to kidnap the diplomat in order to force the Indian government to release Maqbul Butt, who had crossed into Indian- administered territory and had been jailed

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again and sentenced to death. Yet India did not succumb to the pressure of the kidnappers but instead executed Maqbul Butt instantaneously. Kashmiris in Azad Kashmir and in Pakistan rose in protest against the execution yet Kashmiris in Britain experienced a large- scale police crackdown. The police raided many houses with weapons and dogs, several hundred people were taken into police custody and even more felt threatened. According to Kashmiri activists, the police attempted to threaten Kashmiris in order to please the Indian government. The JKLF felt unable to deal with this kind of pressure and Amanullah himself asked activists of the KWA for support. While the JKLF had worked politically mostly among Mirpuris/Kashmiris themselves, the KWA had been active in a much larger and diverse network of activism. The KWA framed the police raids as demonstrating racism and formed a Kashmiri Defence Campaign in which antiracist and (white) leftist organizations also participated. We are unable to say whether this campaign with its demonstrations and activities actually succeeded in stopping the police or whether the police raids would have stopped anyway. Yet in any case the Mhatre case and all its concomitant incidents can be seen as a critical event in the history of Kashmiri mobilization in Britain. It produced a martyr for the movement that continues to serve as focus of mobilization and identification; for instance, in annually held ceremonies of commemoration, it helped to publicize the JKLF and its struggle, although most Kashmiris condemned the kidnapping and murder of Mhatre. Indeed, the JKLF was able to muster many more members after 1984 than before. A campaign for the support of two men who were held guilty for murder in the subsequent court case produced long-lasting effects, at least in the local context of Birmingham. These two men, Riyaz and Qayyum, were sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1993, Kashmiris in Birmingham and elsewhere in Britain started the FR AQ- Campaign (Free Riyaz and Qayyum- Campaign) that argued that the two detainees had been sentenced on the basis of very weak evidence and demanded their release. At that time Labour Party was in opposition and the campaign asked for support, which was promised. Yet when Labour came to government, the promised support failed to materialize. In the late 1990s, the FR AQ- Campaign had become rather weak. It was suggested candidates should run for local council elections of 1998 in Birmingham in the name of the FR AQ- Campaign. To the surprise of those involved, one candidate indeed won a seat in a Kashmiri- dominated constituency. This constituency had been in the firm possession of Labour for many decades. Another candidate lost by a couple of votes only. The

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Campaign had rather unwittingly tapped a large- scale disappointment with Labour among Kashmiris after the party had come to power in the center. In the next year a party under the name of Justice for Kashmiris that had grown out of the FR AQ- Campaign ran the elections and won four seats. This is then another example of Kashmiri political activism in Britain. Meanwhile almost all councillors and activists of the party have joined the Liberal Democrats and thus the word Kashmiri disappeared again from the scene of parties engaged in local politics in Birmingham, yet this move helped to give Kashmiris a new weight and made clear that they are no longer simply a safe vote bank for Labour. Another stream of Kashmiri mobilization relates to the formal recognition of Kashmiris as a distinct ethnic minority in the British multicultural political system. This mobilization started at local level first, yet subsequently moved to the national level. The efforts for the formal recognition of Kashmiris at the local and national level were not so much an outcome of anything related with the Kashmir dispute or the uprising in Indian-administered Kashmir. The efforts were much more related to the British context. Local activists as well as Kashmiri councillors perceived Kashmiris as “underachievers” in the context of education, housing, work, and so on. Yet because Kashmiris were not categorized as a separate community for the purpose of statistics but simply classed as Pakistanis, the actual degree of this underachievement was not known. Further, measures that could help to raise the standard of Kashmiris could not be directed specifically at them because, again, for administrative purposes Kashmiris were simply Pakistanis. And Kashmiris allege that indeed Pakistanis (i.e., non-Kashmiris), due to their better developed relations with local administrations, took most of the funds that were made available for community development. Such more practical considerations were the immediate reasons for demands for recognition. But, of course, they were also connected to the symbolic issue of being recognized as a separate community—or nation—at par with Pakistanis, Indians, and others in Britain. Perhaps naturally, Bradford was the first British city to recognize Kashmiris formally in late 1998, yet others like Manchester, Birmingham, Oldham, Rochdale followed suit. In the beginning of 1999 the Kashmiri National Identity Campaign was formed in Bradford in order to start lobbying for the recognition of Kashmiris at the national level. Here again activists of the KWA took a leading part. The name of the campaign was deliberately ambivalent: “National” could relate both to the British national level and to Kashmir as a nation. Although the efforts for recognition of Kashmiris as distinct from Pakistanis implies that Kashmir should become independent

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of Pakistan, the campaign took no stance on the Kashmir issue itself but rather attempted to include Kashmiri activists of all different orientations. It was, however, strongly opposed by Pakistanis (including Pakistani media in Britain like Jang and the Embassy of Pakistan) and by some sections of the Muslim Conference in Britain. The KNIC especially demanded the inclusion of Kashmiris as a separate category in the forms of the census of 2001. The outcome of the campaign was not very encouraging. Due to rather long and slow administrative and political procedures, Kashmiri did not become a census category. There was only the option to tick the box “other” in the census form and then to write Kashmiri. The KNIC, however, lacked the means to publicize this possibility. Jang, for instance, refused to publish advertisements of this possibility. As a result, only some 22,000 persons identified themselves as Kashmiris in the census, in contrast with the estimated 500,000 or more Kashmiris who live in Britain. Yet this certainly does not mean that the other 480,000 explicitly refuse to identify as Kashmiris.9 Frames: Multiple Discourses and Cultural Productions among “Ordinary People” We have already argued that members of a social congregation, people who share some social relationships, do not necessarily share an imagination of community: There can be actors who powerfully express an idea of community and who take part in its discursive and social construction. Others remain more passive or even completely aloof, giving the imagination of community little or no significance for their own lives. Again others subscribe to the imagination of a particular community but they imagine it quite different or even in contradictory terms. (Sökefeld 2006: 270)

There must be an explicit conscious and hegemonic effort to make a group of shared geographical origin a diaspora. While the political activists’ arguments outlined above seem to suggest a growth of conscience of a British Kashmiri diaspora among nonactivists (called here for simplicity ordinary people) especially linked to the Kashmiri issue in South Asia, in Bolognani’s various fieldworks, a Kashmiri identity as a political one has only rarely emerged. In Bolognani’s first fieldwork in 2002, while focusing on questions of ethnicity among second and third generations British Pakistanis in

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Bradford, as an interview icebreaker she deployed a popular tool of social psychology, the WAI (Who Am I?) questionnaire. This exercise consisted of asking the interviewees of jotting down 10 labels by which they would be happy to introduce themselves by, and then organizing them in order of importance. The results (Bolognani 2002: 178) in general highlighted a very high degree of situationality of identity labels, so that they could not be used for any further theoretical speculation: what had happened in the first 10 minutes before taking the WAI questionnaire seemed to inf luence the results much to produce a theoretical conclusion about second and third generation British Pakistanis. However, if we take the results in the specific context of an analysis that looked at labels such as Pakistani, Kashmiri, Muslim, and South Asian, those results may be of interest to understand the stage of interaction between such labels back in 2002, nearly a year after the Bradford riots, when extensive public discussion was centered around Pakistani youth, because of the string of riots in Northern England in summer 2001. Nobody amongst the ones who compiled the WAI questionnaires described themselves as Kashmiri although all their families originated from Azad Kashmir. In the data corresponding to the 20 case studies on which the research was based, only 2 men orally described themselves as Kashmiri, and both of them did so to clarify another identity layer, after articulating other primary labels, such as Muslim and Pakistani. The first, Ronnie, at the time 22 years old, described himself as Kashmiri as an important element of his personal identity: of a paler complexion and with blue eyes, standing out among the other Pakistani students at Bradford University, he was used to somehow “justifying” his physical difference. He was also keen to highlight the fact that his family was not Mirpuri, a distinction that will become relevant toward the end of this chapter. The second, a writer and an academic, at the time in his mid-thirties, said: It is quite romantic . . . I used to say I was a Kashmiri. Now I am more to define myself a British Muslim: my national component is British, my heritage component is Pakistani, my first identity reference is Muslim ( . . .) I say I am Pakistani, but actually I am not because I come from Azad Kashmir, which is a separate entity.( . . .) Kashmir adds prestige, it has romantic connotations. (Amjad, quoted in Bolognani 2002: 191)

One member of the Socialist Workers’ Party went as far as describing himself as a South Asian, allegedly as an attempt to eradicate religious differences and bring in a more internationalist agenda. Politics

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was coming very, very feebly into the identity discussion. In 2002 then, Bolognani’s findings, emerging also from participant observation, were contradicting Ellis and Khan’s claims reported above that British Kashmiris do not share an identity with British Pakistanis as no instance of discomfort in identifying oneself with Pakistan was ever observed among 18–37 years olds in Bradford during the first eight months of 2002. As far as the issue of self- definition or self- ascription as Kashmiris goes, the analysis is rather more complex. The quote by Amjad above was quite unique in its connotation of Kashmir as enthused with romance, at least as far as Bradford goes. Knowing that most of British Kashmiris experience Kashmir through their knowledge (direct or indirect) of Mirpur, there is little of romance or prestige that in the public opinion can be related to that. Mirpuris have been in fact recurrently represented in sociological writings and the media as economic and educational underachievers, often burdened with multiple deprivation, and by many seen as “dysfunctional” because of the custom of marrying cousins, especially the one of an intercontinental nature. Modood, for instance, describes an imaginary continuum of achievement among British South Asians as having, on one hand Leicester Gujaratis and on the other Bradford Mirpuris (Modood 2004). Popular ways of public representations are, therefore, not contributing to construct a romantic idea of Kashmiris. Many of our participants interlocutors told that they felt rather looked down upon as Kashmiris or Mirpuris by Pakistanis, that Kashmiris are not much respected by Pakistanis, in Pakistan as well as in Britain (see also Rollier, this volume). For many of the British Kashmiris coming from the district of Mirpur and Kotli in Azad Kashmir, their commodification of Kashmiriyat carries far fewer examples than the one operated in the valleys through the preservation and celebration of traditional crafts and trades such as the ones of papier maché and shawls (see Kabir 2009). Not only do Mirpuris, who historically have always been at the periphery of the princely state, not seem to enjoy to this date a share of the pride in certain cultural manifestations and artifacts clearly celebrated as Kashmiri around the world, but they often seem to struggle to articulate their geographical identity in a positive way. It is true, as described by Ali (2002: 160), for example, that Azad Kashmiri f lags are popular during melas (South Asian fun fairs) and Kashmir is still a very popular part of the names of many welfare societies, restaurants, and shops. However, this may well be considered a rather politically uncharged symbol when one discovers that only a few

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among the youth carrying the Kashmiri f lag at the Bradford mela, for instance, know what the difference between that and the Pakistani one, as they may have bought it only by chance during a trip back to Mirpur. Similarly, reference to Kashmir or to Kashmiri villages in the names of shops (e.g., Karry Sharif Grocers) is very popular but may not necessarily be politically loaded. Nonetheless these Kashmiri signs are there, perhaps as vessels that can potentially be filled by new meanings in the future, as it happens with ethnic identities: Boundary variation for Barth comes in the content given to the ethnic category as a boundary “vessel.” That content affects or ref lects the firmness of the boundary and the significance of any of the diacritica which differentiate “us” from “them.” The more signs of difference available, the greater the boundary potential, but even where diacritica abound, there will be times when the “vessel” is left empty. The metaphor implies that ethnicity is always there, sometimes cool in the belly (like Azande witchcraft perhaps), but even then primordial. (Wallman 1986)

The claim by Ellis and Khan that the label Kashmiri is now of a growing importance in Britain is not ref lected by research, conducted by Bolognani among ordinary people, in particular among those under their thirties. I haven’t got a clue about Kashmir, for me Mirpur is Pakistan. (Safina from Derby, holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008) I consider this (Mirpur) Pakistan. If you want to know about Kashmir you should ask the locals. I do not know anything about it. (Shmayela from Peterborough, holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008) I feel Kashmiri only when from Mirpur I go to Islamabad and people cannot understand me and treat me differently because they don’t speak Punjabi and I do not speak Urdu. (Babu from Birmingham, holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008)

Furthermore the claim that such self- ascription has been stimulated by uprisings in Indian- administered Kashmir does not seem to be ref lected in the relative ignorance of the complexity and the history of the issues among ordinary people interviewed in 2008: Kashmir would be better under Pakistan (than as an independent State) because they have better laws, for example the law that regulates how much money you can spend over a wedding, while in Kashmir people

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get really indebted for that. Mirpur should be grateful to Pakistan for all that Pakistan provides to them. (Babu from Birmingham, holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008) It would not make a difference if Kashmir was Pakistan or independent. The people who live here make the place bad, you cannot blame Pakistan if the place is bad. (Yasin from Birmingham, holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008) I do not think the Kashmiri issue will keep its importance because this side is becoming more and more Pakistan, and that side more and more India. (Moazzam from Birmingham, holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008)

These findings, collected during a British High Commission–sponsored project on involvement in politics among young British Kashmiris, did not corroborate the thesis of a growing interest toward one’s Kashmiri heritage because of Indian politics in Kashmir. The data also do not support the idea that the Kashmir earthquake of 2005 was a watershed for the British Kashmiri youth to rediscover their Kashmiri origins (cf. Rehman and Karla 2006). As far as the Islamic element, or the political stress of the discourse of the ummah, is concerned, the implications of Kashmir were not very clear. Rather than considering Kashmir as a cause that combined both one’s sense of roots and the feeling for the injustice carried out against one part of the Muslim ummah, not much about this double connection was portrayed by interviewees. The idea of Muslim identity was much more present in its most abstract forms that reminded these authors of how many more protests and initiatives on Palestine rather than on Kashmir they had seen in Bradford: I mean, I consider myself as Kashmiri but because it belongs to Pakistan, I mean, I don’t know. There’s too much politics. Well, obviously our first identity would be Muslim. And we were born British. (A girl from Bradford holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008) There’s this another notion about kids and people there (in Britain) who relate more to the identity of being a Muslim . . . a global Muslim identity of the Ummah rather that being a Pakistani on the other hand. (Scottish male, holidaying in Mirpur in May 2008)

The great solidarity effort made by British Kashmiris and Pakistanis for the Kashmir earthquake does seem to ref lect neither the typical sense of guilt theorized by Hage (2002: 204) as the sentiments of those who once left the country to look for greener pasture and somehow cannot

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forgive themselves for not having returned, nor as vicarious nationalism as described by Smith: An ethnic minority or fragment, having renounced the quest for nation status or a nation- state for itself, desires it on behalf of another, “sisterfragment” or for its own core community. That has been the case with Greeks, Jews and Irish in America who support the struggles of their ethnic kinsmen overseas. ( . . .) In each case, their “vicarious nationalism” helps to compensate for their own self-transformation during and after immigration and the consequent partial loss of their ethnic heritage and institutions. By involving themselves in this extra-territorial political commitment, they hope to lessen the pain and cost of sundering political citizenship from ethnic solidarity in an era of nationalism. (Smith 1986: 151)

While Kashmiri activists may tend to read the huge solidarity effort as a process pivoted around the idea of Kashmir and the sense of belonging, many people may have simply contributed as apolitical charity, particularly as the earthquake happened at the end of Ramadan, when people tend to be more alert to the suffering of others. Apart from extraordinary events like the earthquake, most British Mirpuris relate to what they still often call “back home” (Bolognani 2007: 61) mainly on biraderi lines. Some have even coined the label of “humble dog syndrome” (73), or the idea of a sense of guilt generated by their better economic position through migration translated into an automatic support of the disadvantaged. Rather than being ref lected in an all- encompassing vicarious nationalism, most of them seem to operate on such syndrome by sending money to their own biraderi or by arranging marriages between their British-born children and their Pakistani-born nephews and nieces, rather than by actively getting involved in politics. This seems to be consistent with the analysis of Muslim identity politics in Bradford written by McLoughlin in 1996 and inspired by the ethnographic account of the “Charity Dinner for Bosnia and Kashmir” held in Bradford after id ul-fitr in 1994. McLoughlin argues that in contrast to hegemonically adverse discourses in Britain, British Kashmiris may decide in many situations to emphasize a much stronger identity than their ethnic one: the Muslim identity. Thus, during a charity dinner organized by Kashmiri businessmen in a very densely Kashmiri populated city, the plight of Kashmir was only marginal to the one of Bosnia and its very well media covered atrocities. The plight for which the funds were raised were more the ones of fellow Muslims rather than the ones of

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fellow Kashmiris. Interestingly, an analysis of the most popular Islamic channels in Britain may reveal that such media tend to largely ignore the Kashmir issue and, for example, give ample coverage to the Palestinian issue. For example, Islam Channel during bakkra id 2008, on the day of Hajj broadcasted repeatedly a short appeal for Palestine. It is quite evident that British Kashmiris, who mostly may be considered avid spectators of such channels, will not have access to as much and thorough information on Kashmir as they have to Palestine, for instance. Political Mobilization and the Constitution of Diaspora At the beginning of the chapter we presented a rather eclectic choice of Kashmiri political activism and mobilization in Britain, which shares a common predicament in that it has been done in the name of Kashmir and Kashmiris. This activism is explicitly or at least potentially dedicated to an oppositional perspective regarding the dominant Pakistani position on Kashmir, namely that Kashmir banega Pakistan—Kashmir will become part of Pakistan. This is certainly not the only kind of political activism among Kashmiris in Britain. There is, of course, considerable political activity among older Kashmiris in Britain that is committed to the official Pakistani and Azad Kashmiri politics of ilhaq- e Pakistan (accession with Pakistan). This takes place mostly under the banner of the Muslim Conference or the Pakistan People’s Party Azad Kashmir, both of which have their set-up in Britain as well. With a certain simplification we can identify three streams of political activism among Kashmiris in Britain: one that endorses the Kashmiri diaspora as a Kashmiri diaspora, a second one that projects it rather as a part of the Pakistani diaspora, and a third one that emphasizes the identification as Muslims more than a reference to either Kashmir or Pakistan. Involvement may depend on, among other things, generation, political ideology, or commitment to Islam. The situation is certainly more complex as there are many crosscutting relationships and not every British Kashmiri who supports, for instance, a candidate of the Muslim Conference in elections in Azad Kashmir, necessarily accepts the political ideology of the Muslim Conference. Many are, of course, involved in British politics, in different parties: Labour, Conservative, Liberal, Respect, and even the Socialist Workers Party. Among “ordinary” nonactivist people between 20 and 30 years old, we found mostly 2 types of reactions. The first one does not reject that Kashmiris are Kashmiris but almost instantaneously points out that in

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a larger frame (Azad) Kashmiris or Mirpuris are, of course, Pakistanis and that Kashmir is a natural part of Pakistan. The other attitude is to identify oneself as Pakistani in the first instance but to shift to an identification as Kashmiri when the issue is referred to. Here, Pakistani is a kind of default identity because it is assumed that outsiders simply don’t know about the issue of Kashmir among Pakistanis in Britain. Such attitudes cannot be assessed in quantitative terms. Compared with other diasporas that have developed a strong and inclusive long distance nationalism (Anderson 1998), transnational commitments of Mirpuris in many cases do not go beyond the bonds of their own biraderi. Whether British Mirpuris have absorbed media and academic reports on the level of underachievement in many social fields (Bolognani 2008b), or are themselves having trouble with self- esteem, in Bolognani’s research Mirpuris often seem to self-pathologize their provenance. There is very little of their identity related to Mirpur that they consider worth celebrating. Even in Pakistan, as Rollier argues in this volume, Kashmiri suggests much more romantic and f lattering notions than the ones attached to “Mirpuri.” If the closest experience of anything Kashmiri is then Mirpur, and if the way Mirpur and its people are often portrayed as backward and corrupt, identification with Kashmir may be difficult for most of the younger British generation. However, the British Kashmiri activists whom Sökefeld interviewed explain this negative self-image as a consequence of the hegemonic Pakistani discourse that portrays Mirpuris as backward and untrustworthy. According to their perspective, the political mobilization and recognition of Mirpuris as Kashmiris is necessary precisely to counter the vicious effects of this hegemony. The fact that even in these circumstances young Mirpuris are not spontaneously defining themselves as Kashmiri, however, suggests that the project of recognition of a Kashmiri diaspora has not been as successful as expected, as very clearly exemplified by the case study of the charity dinner by McLoughlin in 1994 (1996). This proves our point that relations between “back home” and the “host country” are not sufficient reason for a group to establish its own diaspora. Even the younger generations of British Kashmiris in fact still maintain many links with Mirpur (Bolognani 2007), but nonetheless majority of them seem oblivious to the label of Kashmiri unless somebody reminds them of it. These links are in the form of intercontinental marriage (allegedly practiced by half of the population, Shaw 2001), holidays (Kalra and McLoughlin 1999; Ali and Holden 2006) and even business (Bolognani 2008a). The intensity and the number of these links, however, do not seem to be ref lected in the constitution of a

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Kashmiri diaspora in UK where the impact of other political discourses makes the mobilizing structures of Kashmiri political activists much less effective than they used to be at least before 2002, when Ali did not hesitate to state that, in Luton, “Kashmiri ethnicity has been fairly successful in asserting itself ” (Ali 2002: 151) through hegemonic agents such as intellectuals, political parties, and welfare organizations. In the younger generation, then, Kashmiri identity fails to take a prominent space in terms of its cultural production and self- esteem. It also seems that in spite of the increasing attention in the public sphere on the politicization of Islam by young British Kashmiris, other histories of other oppressed Muslims are more prominent: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, and earlier Bosnia and Chechnya. Kashmiri diaspora in Britain seems thus more a political project than a “social reality”—or perhaps better, a political project that political activists intend to make into social reality. Yet there is a combination of powerful competing discourses that make political mobilization of Kashmiri identity not as straightforward as it may have been assumed. However, the Kashmiri presence through nominal reference, at least, is of such intensity that we wonder if in future the symbols of Kashmiri identity such as names of shops or f lags may be charged politically and filled with life, perhaps when factors such as Muslim or Kashmiri media10 make Kashmir a cause as prominent as the ones of many other Muslim people. For the time being, many British Kashmiris seem to be more concerned about the very particular (their own biraderi) and the universal (the ummah), leaving Kashmiri identity “cool in the belly.” Notes 1. On the complexity of that migration that is covered only insufficiently by the concept of chain migration see Kalra (2000). 2. In order to avoid essentialist implications of these categories, we have put them in inverted quotation marks here. For the sake of better readability we will, however, omit the quotation marks for the remainder of the text. 3. Martin Sökefeld wishes to thank the Wenner- Gren Foundation for generous funding of fieldwork. 4. See, for instance, Ellis and Khan (1998, 1999a, 1999b) 5. All academic writing that relates to Kashmir has to deal with the question of how to refer to the different parts of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir State because particular designations imply particular political claims and perspectives. We will use the term “Indian administered Kashmir” for the parts under Indian control and the official designation “Azad Kashmir” for this part of Pakistan controlled Kashmir, without implying thereby that this area is in a meaningful sense “azad,” “free.”

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6. He is the Chairman of the Diplomatic Committee of the JKLF-Amanullah and its spokesman in Britain. 7. Literally “brotherhood,” localized intermarrying “caste” group of agnatic descent. 8. Leftist orientation among Kashmiris is not a product of the political context in Britain but played a role already in the political struggles of pre1947 Jammu and Kashmir. 9. Recently, the KNIC was revived in view of the next census of 2011. Again, however, the campaign seems to be unsuccessful as most probably there will be no separate ethnic category Kashmiri questionnaires for 2011. 10. Recently there have been three attempts to establish Kashmiri TV channels but none of them survived for much more than a year.

References Ali, N. (2002) “Kashmiri Nationalism beyond the Nation-State,” South Asia Research, 22(2): 145–160. Ali, N., Ellis, P., and Khan, Z. (1996) “The 1990s: A Time to Separate British Punjabi and British Kashmiri Identity,” in Singh, M., Gurharpal, and Talbot, Ian (eds.) Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change. Delhi: Manohar, 229–256. Ali, N. and Holden, A. (2006) “Post-colonial Pakistani Mobilities: The Embodiment of the ‘Myth of Return’ in Tourism,” Mobilities, 1(2): 217–242. Anderson, B. (1998) The Spectre of Comparison: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World. London: Verso. Anwar, M. (1979) The Myth of Return: Pakistanis in Britain. London: Heinemann. Ballard, R. (1990) “Migration and Kinship: The Differential Effects of Marriage Rules on the Processes of Punjabi Migration to Britain,” in Clarke, C., Peach, C., Vertovec, S. (eds.) South Asians Overseas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 219–249. Bolognani, M. (2002) “Bradistani: casi di etnicita’ Pakistana in Gran Bretagna,” unpublished thesis, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze Antropologiche, Universita’ di Siena, Italy. ——— (2007) “The Myth of Return: Dismissal, Revival or Survival?” in The Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 33(1): 59–76. ——— (2008a) Circular Flows: The Emigration of Britain’s Immigrants. A Pakistani Case- Study. London: Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR). ——— (2008b) “Good Culture, Bad Culture . . . No Culture! Representations of Bradistan in Public Policy and Regeneration,” paper presented at ECMSAS, University of Manchester, July 11–13. ——— (2009) Crime and Muslim Britain: Race, Culture and the Politics of Criminology among British Pakistanis, London: IB Tauris. Brubaker, R. (2006) “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 28: 1–19. Bunting, M. (2005) “Orphans of Islam,” The Guardian, http://www.guardian. co.uk/uk/2005/jul/18/july7.religion

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Dahya, B. (1972) “Pakistanis in Britain,” New Community, 2(1): 25–33. Ellis, P. and Khan, Z. (1998) “Diasporic Mobilization and the Kashmir Issue in British Politics,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 24: 471–488. ——— (1999a) “Hopes and Expectations: Kashmiri Settlement in the United Kingdom,” in Janusz, M. (ed.) Dominant Culture as Foreign Culture: Dominant Groups in the Eyes of Minorities. Boulder: Columbia University Press. ——— (1999b) “Political Allegiances and Social Integration: The British Kashmiris,” in Shalva, W. (ed.) Roots and Routes: Ethnicity and Migration in Global Perspective. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Hage, G. (2002) “The Differential Intensities of Social Reality: Migration, Participation and Guilt,” in Hage, G. (ed.) Arab-Australians Today. Citizenship and Belonging. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Hutnyk, J. (2006) “The Dialectic of ‘Here and There’: Anthropology ‘at Home,’ ” in Ali, N., Kalra, V., and Sayyid, S. (eds.) A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain. London: Hurst, 74–90. Kabir, A. (2009) Territory of Desire: Representing the Valley of Kashmir. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Kalra, V. S. (2000) From Textile Mills to Taxi Ranks: Experiences of Migration, Labour and Social Change. Ashgate: Aldershot. ——— (2008) “Home and Away: An Analysis of Young British Pakistanis/ Kashmiris Attitudes towards Politics and Social Issues whilst in Azad Kashmir,” unpublished report for the British High Commission in Islamabad. Kalra, V. and McLoughlin, S. (1999) “Wish You Were(n’t) Here,” in Kaur, R. and Hutnyk, J. J. (eds.) Travel Worlds: Journeys in Contemporary Cultural Politics. London: Zed Books. McLoughlin, S. (1996) “In the Name of the Umma: Globalization, ‘Race’ Relations and Muslim Identity Politics in Bradford,” in Shadid W.A.R, and Van Koningsveld, P.S. (eds.) Political Participation and Identities of Muslims in Non-Muslim States. Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos. Modood, T. (2004) “Capitals, Ethnic Identity and Educational Qualifications,” Cultural Trends, 13(2): 87–105. Rehman, S. and Kalra, V. S. (2006) “Transnationalism from Below: Initial Responses by British Kashmiris to the South Asia Earthquake of 2005,” Contemporary South Asia, 15(3): 309–323. Smith, A. D. (1986) The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. Sökefeld, M. (2006) “Mobilizing in Transnational Space: A Social Movement Approach to the Formation of Diaspora,” Global Networks, 6: 265–284. Vertovec, S. (1997) “Three Meanings of ‘Diaspora,’ Exemplified among South Asian Religions,” Diaspora, 6: 277–299. Wallman, S. (1986) “Ethnicity and the Boundary Process in Context,” in Rex, J. and Mason, D. (eds.) Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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PART 4

Religious Leadership

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CHAPTER 6

Changing Religious Leadership in Contemporary Pakistan: The Case of the Red Mosque Amélie Blom

Introduction Religious leaderships, and the type of collective mobilizations they foster in the name of Islam, have passed through major changes in Pakistan since the 1980s; especially in the growing urban areas where almost 35% of the population now live, compared to 25% in 1972.1 In addition to the well-known heads of “constitutionalist” Islamist parties, such as the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jamiyyat Ulama-i-Islam, and the Jamiyyat Ulamai-Pakistan, that the government has always quite successfully co- opted or exploited, new leaders have emerged and contributed to modify the landscape of Islamic activism in contemporary Pakistan, as proven by the “Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) Movement.” 2 For six months, this uprising shook Islamabad in 2007, the country’s so quiet capital that its dull life is a matter of regular jokes for Lahore or Karachi dwellers. The mosque’s imams transformed their male and female madrasa students into a “moral police” patrolling the neighborhood with bamboo sticks (danda) to force video and music shops to close down, established private shariah courts, issued fatwa forcing a woman federal minister to quit her job, kidnapped women and Chinese citizens accused of prostitution, as well as policemen. Eventually they transformed the mosque into a fortress protected by young men, armed with kalashnikovs, calling daily for jihad and shahadat (martyrdom) through loudspeakers, and till, eventually, the police and army

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commando groups raided it in July. In the local, as well as foreign, press, this movement was generally portrayed as a sign of the growing “Talebanization” of the Pakistani society: this anxiety-prone and catchy formula fails to grasp the sociopolitical complexity of what was, actually, an unprecedented type of protest and an archetypal crisis. This event, which tarnished the end of President Musharraf (1999–2008)’s dictatorship, did not simply demonstrate how vulnerable military rule could be to self-proclaimed jihad-inspired religious leaders, determined to implement their version of the shariah. It was, first and foremost, a revelatory event, unveiling, in the most dramatic way, the depth of the divorce between the militarized state and its former radical clients, as well as how profound and unnoticed the transformations affecting religious leadership had been in the past three decades or so. It was also a “critical event,” to borrow on Veena Das’ expression, after which “new forms were acquired by a variety of political actors” and “new modes of action came into being which redefined traditional categories such as codes of purity and honour, the meaning of martyrdom, and the construction of a heroic life” (1995: 6). Indeed, the “Lal Masjid Movement” became a rallying cry, an exemplary form of resistance to the “traitorous state” for sections of the fundamentalist youth and religious scholars that the Pakistani government’s collaboration to the U.S.-led “War on Terror” had deeply alienated since 2001. While new forms of religious authority in the Arab Muslim-majority world (For comparative studies, see Eickelman and Piscatori 1996; Salvatore and LeVine 2005; Salvatore and Eickelman 2004. On Egypt, for instance, see Hischkind 2001. For a gendered perspective, see Mehmood 2005 and Deeb 2006) have been fairly well documented, they have been surprisingly overlooked by academics working on Pakistan, except rare and precious monographs on specific organizations, such as the women-focused Al-Huda (Ahmad 2009), and on the new mediabased preachers (Ahmad 2010). Since David Gilmartin’s (1979, 1988) and Barbara Metcalf ’s (2004) seminal historical studies on religious leadership in Pakistan, scholarly attention has mainly focused on either state- sponsored “Islamic” policies (for classical macroperspectives, see Malik 1996 and Nasr 2001) or Islamist parties, whose “new religious intellectuals” compete with the state and the ulama “to gain ascendancy as the arbiters of Islamic practice” (Eickelman and Piscatori 1996: 44), such as the Jamaat-i-Islami leaders (see Nasr 1994). At the other extreme of the spectrum, the popular forms of piety kept alive by the numerous, mainly rural and decentralized, Sufi networks have attracted a lot of attention (see, for instance, Ewing 1997; Frembgen 2008; Werbner

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2003). But the new patterns of religious leadership in urban areas have remained in the shadow. Recent works on the subject comprise mainly descriptive accounts written by journalists or state officials who highlight only the most sensationalist, yet important Jihadist armed groups (Abbas 2005; Haqqani 2005 and Hussain 2007; for an academic perspective on Jihadism in Pakistan, see Jalal 2008). The rise of ulama as important political and social actors in Pakistan is discussed only in Zaman (2002). Zaman usefully highlights their f lexibility and adaptability to modern challenges, but addresses only scholars who are equipped with intensive training in religious exegesis and jurisprudence, leaving aside more ambiguous figures, such as the Lal Masjid’s imams. Similarly, if Muhammad Khalid Masud’s typology of the pattern of religious authorities in Pakistan— traditionalist, revivalist, and modernist—proves extremely helpful, it is based only on their respective positions on the shariah.3 It, therefore, does not take into consideration leaders who fit in neither of the three categories, such as, again, the imams of the Lal Masjid whose weakly elaborated views on the shariah were much less consequential to the movement’s success than their use of Islam’s discursive tradition in order to offer a combative position, and an alternative one to that of the quiet traditionalist ulama, against the “impious and failed state.” The Lal Masjid Movement thus offers a fruitful micropolitical site so as to grasp new dimensions of the political role that Islamic religious scholars have come to play in Pakistan and the original contentious rhetoric they articulate. After contextualizing this issue in the light of the major socioeconomic and political changes experienced since the 1980s, this chapter gives special attention to several dimensions of the crisis that have a broader relevance to our understanding of the evolving pattern of urban religious leadership in Pakistan: the family-based and “qutbist” dimensions of the leadership; the role of state’s policies in molding and then alienating it; the emergence of new and charismatic religious figures in urban centers, that of the “fighting mullah”; the yet modern and feminized dimension of the rebellion; the social and political alienation of wide sectors of the conservative youth, particularly rural migrants; and the intriguing conf lation of the idioms of “jihad” and “martyrdom” with that of Puritanism, social justice, and revolution at play during the movement. Analyzing this specific crisis is also a welcomed opportunity, though at a limited scale, to fill a blind spot of present- day research on Islam and politics in Pakistan. Research on this issue is usually torn between two directions: a statist and institutionalist perspective, on the one hand,

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and a strictly anthropological one, on the other. There is, as underlined before, a rich literature on this, as well as on the macrostructural and historical factors that explains Pakistan’s ambiguous “Islamic nationalism” (see Shaikh 2009). Anthropologists working on Pakistan have also recently shown an increasing interest for the way Islam is “lived” at the group as well as individual levels (Marsden 2005). But both perspectives remain disjointed. Political sociology, whose object is precisely at the juncture between top- down and bottom-up dynamics, is a discipline that has damagingly been silent (or silenced in Pakistan itself ) on religion and politics in Pakistan. Contextualizing the Lal Masjid Crisis The new voices claiming to represent Islam in Pakistan’s urban settings are the product of structural mutations, most being very similar to what happened in other Muslim-majority countries. Six key mutations can be identified.4 First, a set of state- sponsored policies encouraged by the praetorian and “moralistic state,” which ruled the country since the mid-1970s (and never fully disappeared since, not even during the 1988–1999 democratic interlude), directly contributed to a more volatile pattern of religious leadership. The state, since general Zia-ul Haq’s rule (1977–1988), promoted Jihadist militias to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir, highly politicized madrasa, allowed sectarian groups to preach freely and encouraged an increasingly rigid and intolerant definition of what an ideal homo islamicus should be. The effects of his puritan- oriented “shariahtization” have also been long-lasting in many spheres affecting life in the cities: education (banning teenagers coeducation in government schools, filling all textbooks with random Islamic references), gender relations (making nonmarital sex a criminal offence), Islamic piety (not respecting the fast in public became liable to a fine), and entertainment (the tremendous power granted to the censorship board), for instance. Certainly, at a personal level “Muslims in Pakistan have not been passive recipients of attempts by state authority to define and institute an Islamic order” (Kurin 1993: 179). Yet, at the collective level, a certain moral universe has emerged in which the public assertion of “Muslim-ness” has become a source of conf lict and apprehensions. When the military-led government was compelled by its foreign donors after 2001 to dismantle some of these long-lasting policies, it progressively paved the way to the Lal Masjid crisis. Second, a larger number of people, and not just the well- educated ulama and the political elite, and not just men anymore actually, want

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a public say in religious issues. This evolution is, partly, linked to a phenomenal expansion of mass education. Even if still low, enrolment rate at primary school level has gone up by almost nine times since the late 1950s and increased from 52% in 1983 to 71% in 1990 (from 24% to 36% for middle education) (Zaïdi 1999: 357). Urban women have not only gained a greater access to secular education (their literacy rate increased from 37% in 1981 to 55% in 1998) and the job market, but also to religious education, as shown by the remarkable progression of female students in madrasa, Sunni as well as Shia. Indeed, the number of alima shows a phenomenal growth: in 2006, at the darja ‘alimah examination (equivalent to a masters in Arabic and Islamic Studies) held by the Wafaq-ul Madaris al-Arabiyya, there were twice more female candidates (8,554) than men (4,660).5 Islamic activism has also undergone a striking feminization, as proven by the popularity of the Al-Huda Institute, which plays an important role in “re-Islamizing” young urban and educated girls, and by the very active role of a female madrasa’s rector in the Lal Masjid Movement. Other marginalized social groups, such as the urban alienated young middle class, have been in search of new avenues not only to make their voice heard, but also to push their vision about what an ideal virtuous self and an ideal Islamic state should be. The increase in mass education had another noticeable consequence on collective protests: more and more people have confronted the “objectification of Muslim consciousness” (Eickelman and Piscatori 1996: 37–45) promoted in state- sponsored schools, as well as in the mushrooming private schools (whose share was only 1,5% of all schools in 1976, but reached almost 50% in the late 1990s in urban areas) (Zaïdi 1999: 359), wherein Islam is presented as a self- contained, organized, and systematized entity (opposed to other reified entities, such as Hinduism or the West). They have also had to endure discrepancies between the romanticized Islamic community and ideal “Islamic form of governance” of their textbooks, and the reality of widespread social injustice, police brutality, and corruption. Third, Islam has acquired a much more pronounced public presence as a result, first, of Zia’s pro-madrasa policy that made nationwide madrasa’ number jump from 825 in 1980 (with about 100,000 students) to 6,761 in 2001 (with about 1,3 millions students)6 , while the boom of the private sector also gave birth to a wide range of private “Islamic” educational institutions, catering not only to the elite but increasingly for the middle and lower middle classes as well. Indeed, economic liberalization also played its part: since the mid-1990s, it brought new communications media (e.g., private TV channels, mobile

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phones, DVDs, Internet Web sites that, incidentally, the Lal Masjid imams used very skillfully). They, in turn, increased the fragmentation of traditional authorities and sharpened their competition for the monopoly over the symbolic representation of Muslims. This competition opposes not only the “religious” to the “seculars,” or the “traditionalists” to the “modernists,” but also Pakistan’s many Islamic sects or traditions amongst themselves.7 Within a given tradition, the rivalry for occupying the public space opposes leaders with very distinct sociological profiles: for instance, traditional Barelwi ulama have now to compete with self-made leaders, such as Tahir-ul Qadri who advertises its personality- cult based Minhaj-ul Qur’an on the private Q TV channel, while Deobandi well-versed scholars are overshadowed by Zakir Naïk, a Bombay-based preacher, whose DVDs and TV shows (haired on Peace TV) are extremely popular. 8 TV channels wherein specific issues (education, intergender relations, marriage, etc.) are addressed from a strictly religious perspective, the appearance of abaya shops,9 the multiplication of young women, and men as well, following an “Islamic” dress code, “Islamic” Web sites and advertising agencies, are all signs of a more visible expressions of public piety in urban areas and small towns. Hence, in today’s Pakistan, and in a similar pattern to what has been observed elsewhere, “the Islamic landscape is much more diverse, partly ref lecting both the / . . . / multi-party competition”—which resurfaced in Pakistan from 1988 till 1999—“and the competitive strategies of Arab and Muslim states that attempt to use various Islamic factions to further their own objectives. / . . . / To use the market metaphor, there is a more plural religious market, with more options among which individuals can choose” (Otayek and Soares 2007). This, combined with extended international migrations and travels, also results in more hybridized cultural references and new ways of debating Islam publicly. TV talk shows on atheism and “Western decadence,” for instance, coexist with music channels sponsoring female rock bands and with impressively open and critical debates on what the shariah should mean in modern times on Aag TV (Fire, a very popular youth channel whose slogan is “Live and Let Live”). Fourth, a new “class” of lumpenproletariat imams has appeared in Pakistan’s cities, as part of a wider movement of rural migration. The 1990s IMF- driven economic liberalization programs have, indeed, their darker side: the increasingly depressing economic situation in the countryside where the percentage of people living in poverty10 is twice that of urban areas rose sharply in the 1990s. The very limited opportunity for economic advancement in rural areas (according to official figures,

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the unemployment rate progressed from 3% in 1981 to 20% in 1998)11 led to unbridled rural migrations toward the cities. Reliable figures are hard to get (official censuses do not dissociate between urban and rural place of origin of the migrants) but it is estimated that in Lahore, for instance, almost a quarter of the population is migrants from the neighboring countryside. This contributed to change the pattern of class alignments as well as collective protests. Rural migrants are often perceived as “backward” by old city dwellers, and as a “dangerous crowd” by the enriched bourgeoisie. Since most of the state planning in urban areas has always been reactive instead of anticipatory, most of these migrants end up by living in shanty towns and finding jobs in the informal sector, including mosques and madrasa. Rural-based “professionals of religion” have also moved to the cities. Their overall number has augmented in a truly spectacular manner in the past two decades: while the population “increased by 29% between 1972 and 1981, the growth of the number of mawlana12 reached 195%” at the same time (Malik 1996: 232). There are about 2,000 candidates for the highest madrasa certificate per year. Recent and reliable figures are also hard to collect on this, but if Jamal Malik estimates are correct, the aggregated number of officially recognized mawlana has passed from about 700 in 1980 to 20,000 in 1995, without counting 40,000 or so local religious scholars who did not get the higher degree or did not pass through registered madrasa. Generous state funding and Zia’s policy of the “rule of equivalence”—which implies that since 1981, higher graduates from madrasa are considered MA Islamiyat (compulsory religious instruction in schools) or MA Arabic, hence eligible for equal status with other graduates in the job market—certainly promoted this trend. Malik soon understood that this socially and politically isolated new class could be “a potential for conf lict”: few of these graduates find jobs in the public sector while, and despite their growth, madrasa and mosques cannot fully absorb them. The frequent, and often bloody, conf licts over the control of mosques and their adjacent lands (a crucial issue during the Lal Masjid protest) that have marred the popular areas of Pakistan’s cities have to be understood in this context. Indeed, and fifth, the “Islamic street” is increasingly violent as attested, among other instances, by the intimidating brutal tactics of the oldest Islamist student union, the Islami Jamiyyat-i-Tulaba (an affiliate of the Jamaat-i-Islami), in its rivalry with other (banned) political unions on the main university campuses since the 1980s; the active campaign of recruitment launched in educational institutions by Jihadist organizations; or the targeted killings against the

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15–20% Shia minority orchestrated by the violent Sunni supremacist group, the Sipah-i- Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). Tenser intercommunal relations have, as a matter of fact, been the main legacy of Zia’s islamization, which favored Sunnis against Shias, Deobandis and Ahl-i-Hadith against Barelwis, and made non-Muslim communities an easy target to settle economic or personal scores. This growing sectarian intolerance opposes not only Sunni and Shia radical groups but also, again, different Sunni traditions. It compelled Barelwi- oriented organizations, a tradition followed by the majority of the population and used to focus on piety-related issues alone, to become more politicized and tightly organized, with groups such as the Dawat-i-Islami (which emulates the Tablighi Jamaat’s13 preaching tactics) and the Sunni Tehreek (which precisely “specializes” in mosques’ protection from rival groups’ attacks). Christians and Ahmadis,14 Muslims as well in half of the cases, regularly fall victim to false accusations under the Blasphemy Laws (initially enforced by the former colonial masters but made much more stringent by the military dictator). In this context as well, street protests launched in the name of “defending the honour of the Prophet,” such as during the controversy against Satanic Verses (1988–1989) and the Danish cartoons (2006), become an open field for sectarian rivalry and usually turn violent (see Blom 2008). Sixth, and in addition to being a reaction to the Western media’s fixation on Islam since 2001 and to the “U.S.-led War on Terror,” but preceding it, important changes in the way the central thematic of “Muslims in danger” is conceptualized in Pakistan’s official nationalism have contributed to make the frame of “Islam versus the West” the most popularized cognitive grid. Added to the old “Indian Hindu” enemy, “the West” has progressively become the main external “emotional other against which the country defined itself ” (Metcalf 2004: 230 ) in the 1980s. Zia (preceded actually by PPP leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in this matter) refashion, for very practical reasons, Pakistan as a “Middle Eastern state” linked to the “Muslim ummah,” and its rich funders, and opposed to the “secular West.” Nothing exemplifies this change better than the recent slogan cheerfully chanted by the audience at the Indo-Pakistan Wagah Border ceremony: “Allah superpower!” Finally, the U.S.-led coalition war in Afghanistan (since 2001) and Pakistan’s increased collaboration on its own territory since 2004 have, more recently, provoked other important changes in religious leadership: the emergence of a neo-Taleban movement in the tribal areas, bringing with it a resurgence of charismatic figure of the “mollah- commandant.” This was accompanied by a dramatic growth of suicide attacks as a repertoire

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of collective violence (only one between 1947 and 2001, but more than a hundred since 2002), leading to Pakistan to be dubbed by Western media and officials as “the most dangerous country in the world.” The Lal Masjid crisis is at the juncture of most of the mutations identified above. An imam and his brother, and importantly the latter’s wife, leading a Deobandi complex comprising a mosque and two madrasa well-known for their sectarian political affiliations, long patronized by the military elite, yet disregarded by the religious establishment for their limited Islamic education, took the mantle of the “fighting mullahs” against the state but, this time, at the heart of Pakistan’s capital city. Followed by a heteroclite group, dominated mostly by former Jihadist fighters, their wives, and students who had initially mainly migrated from the rural areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province or NWFP), they managed to transform a limited and reactive protest against the government’s new policy toward madrasa into a puritan war against Islamabad’s Westernized culture, then into an armed rebellion, and finally into a collective martyrdom that an “internal jihad” was said to justify. It very skillfully used the media and modern medium of communications to convey its message. It led to a wave of suicide attacks in the aftermath of the army’s assault. Finally, it created a huge debate in Pakistan’s society about the very issue of who can legitimately claim to be an “Islamic” leader and speak for “the Muslims.” The Sociological Profile of an “Islamist Family” Shehzad, a student from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa studying thanks to a scholarship at a private university in Lahore, told me: “It is strange: I had not shed a tear when my cousin died, but when I saw on TV the army attacking the Lal Masjid and learnt that Ghazi sahib had been martyred, I could not stop crying.”15 Shehzad had never met Ghazi Sahib. If the Lal Masjid crisis is, first and foremost, a family story, it is not only for the intimate identification it provoked, as attested by this young man’s reaction, but also for the fact that the “entrepreneurs” of the movement were all relatives; a common pattern among religious leaders in Pakistan. The movement had been initiated by two brothers, mawlana Abdul Rashid “Ghazi”16 and mawlana Abdul Aziz (arrested and recently released). The two were leading an important religious complex comprising of the Lal Masjid, and a network of nationally recognized madrasa, among which the two most important in the capital are Jamiat

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ul-Ulum al-Islamia al-Fareedia, or Jamia Fareedia, for men, and Jamia Syeda Hafsa, or Jamia Hafsa, for women (the latter razed to the ground during the military raid). Jamia Fareedia (of which Abdul Aziz was the rector, mohtamam, and Ghazi deputy rector), built in 1984 and attached to the mosque, moved later on to the posh sector E-7, where in 2007 its modern and well-kept dwellings could welcome around 2,000 people. Jamia Hafsa, built in 1992 next to the mosque, had 3,500 students (Khan 2005–2006: 40), half of whom were also lodgers. The women madrasa, directed by Abdul Aziz’s wife, was one of the most prominent female madrasa in the country for the number of students, and had expanded over the years by illegally occupying the surrounding public plots of land. This was the starting point of the protest. These two madrasa were among the 7,044 affiliated to the Wafaqul Madaris al-Arabiya Pakistan (the national federation of Deobandi madrasa);17 general Zia had particularly groomed this tradition. Pakistani Deobandis follow the movement founded in the Dar-ul Ulum Deoband in 1867 and have at their core the mission of purging Islam of the “deviant” forms of Sufism, which are currently still very popular in Pakistan. This movement does not thus reject Sufism per se (as this is seen as the perfect accomplishment of the Islamic spirituality), but rather attempts to reconcile it with the Hanafi legalistic school. In order to do so, it purges vernacular Sufism from those practices that are perceived as alien to the shariah, such as, in particular, celebration of the Prophet’s birthday, and, for the strictest, the pir’s intercession and the centrality of the dargah. In other words, its agenda is to “redirect” the believers toward their individual practice, the madrasa and the mosque alone (Matringe 2005; Metcalf 1982). Ghazi and Abdul Aziz’s father was the first mohtamam of the Lal Masjid: mawlana Muhammad Abdullah. This Deobandi alim born in Baluchistan migrated to Rojhan Jamali, a very poor district in Southern Punjab, before moving to Islamabad with the young Abdul Aziz and getting his position at the Lal Masjid in 1966. Abdul Aziz inherited his dad’s position at his death. With his qualifications only consisting of an intermediate certificate of dars- e- nizami,18 the well-respected ulama of the country saw him as “a bit of a joke,”19 a visionary preacher who would act on the basis of dreams of the Prophet. But his enf lamed sermons had made him very popular. His wife, Umm- e Hassan, a Young Punjabi with undeniable leadership qualities, was believed by the members of their circle to exercise great authority on him, and was allegedly the one who convinced him to maintain such an uncompromising position in front of the government. The biography of the younger brother,

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Ghazi, instead, is quite different. This “born- again Muslim,” born in 1964, was “pragmatic, sweet and friendly” (according to the testimony of a feminist activist!). His perfect English, his consummate familiarity with the media and his compromises with “modernity” (while his brother would even refuse to be photographed) have made him the emblematic figure of the protest, while his killing during the raid made him quite naturally an icon of Islamic resistance. However, nothing in his youth would have pointed to such an end. He had refused for a long time to study the Qur’an or grow his beard, while embarking on a degree in International Relations. After his MA from the Qaïde-Azam University in 1988, he got a job in the Ministry of Education, working at the UNESCO delegation. 20 It was his father’s death in the mosque compound in 1988 that seems to have changed him radically: he wanted to be called “Ghazi,” he grew a beard and was given the title of deputy imam (naib imam) of the mosque, and then of principal imam in 2004. 21 The Unhappy Ending of the Abdul Family and State’s Marriage The irony of the Lal Masjid’s rebellion lies in the fact that it broke out in a government mosque, under the direct control of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and whose khatib received a monthly salary from the government. 22 The Markazi Jamia Masjid or Lal Masjid had been founded at the same time as the federal capital, in 1966. It is the eldest and biggest Deobandi mosque in Islamabad. It is located in the relatively middleclass sector of Aabpara (G- 6), 23 inhabited by modest civil servants, members of the army, and even of the ISI (whose headquarters are at a walking distance), who would go there to pray. The notion of “family” is, therefore, useful at another, metaphorical, level. The Lal Masjid issue is also a perfect tale of marriage and divorce between the state establishment and the kind of Islamist leaders that the state used to pamper in the 1980s and 1990s. The mosque is a product of the Zia’s era; in so much that the pen used to sign one of the dictator’s infamous Islamization laws was considered almost as a relic in the Jamia Fareedia. Zia’s son, Ejaz ul-Haq, then minister of the religious affairs, was the government’s emissary when mediation with the Abdul brothers was attempted in 2007. Before the watershed of 2001, in fact, the Lal Masjid had been the center of the anti- Soviet propaganda of the 1980s and of the anti- Shia and projihad propaganda of the 1990s. The mosque had also been a refuge for “Arab mujahidin” traveling through Islamabad on their way to Afghanistan

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in the 1980s. 24 The mosque also welcomed Jihadist fighters en route to Kashmir. The Abdullah family had personal contacts with the Deobandi Jihadist movements active in the Indian Kashmir between 1987 and mid-2000s. The popularity of mawlana Abdullah’s sermons against the “leftists” of the PPP, from whom Zia had seized power in 1977, was as raging as the popularity of his anti- Shia sermons. Indeed, the mosque had also been an official channel for the SSP propaganda, to the extent that one of its offices had been called “Umar Farooq Chowki” 25 and that it was under mawlana Abdullah’s guidance that the group launched its movement aimed at creating “model Islamic towns” in 28 cities of the country (Rana 2007). When the SSP amir was assassinated, the Jamia Fareedia students sparked off riots in Islamabad. This sectarian sympathy proved hard to handle when it came to curbing the Lal Masjid brothers in 2007. According to an (unverified) account given by one of the siege’s witnesses, the army prefered to rely on Shia soldiers, instead of Sunnis, to seize the mosque so that they won’t succomb to the militants’ appeals and will remain merciless. This complicit marriage, however, was ended as a consequence of a series of changes in the Pakistani state’s policy toward Islamist movements already at the end of the 1990s, but especially after 2001. The first breaking point was the assassination of mawlana Abdullah in 1998, as his sons were convinced that he had been killed by the Pakistani authorities because of his support to the Afghan Taleban, 26 although his links with SSP are a much more plausible cause. The second breaking point is tied to the army’s involvement in the U.S.-led War on Terror: “We haven’t changed,” said mawlana Abdul Aziz in 2006, “we have always supported the Taleban and we will continue to do so, it is the Government that has made a U-turn” (cited in Khan 2005–2006: 60). This, followed by the extradition and the killing of Islamic militants close to al- Qaeda, the armed intervention in the tribal areas in 2003– 2004, and the official rapprochement between India and Pakistan in 2004, also meant that “state jihadism” as a privileged instrument of regional politics had come to a halt. Musharraf ’s “enlightened moderation” program, though timid, clearly marked an ideological breaking point from the Zia era. And indeed, the third breaking point was caused by the reform of madrasa that directly affected the ones ran by the Abdul family. This reform, announced by Musharraf in 2000, was speeded up after the London bombing in 2005. Such reform, in the centralizing tradition started even before than Zia, by General Ayub (1958–1969) sanctioned that public funds would be available only to those madrasa that made IT,

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modern mathematics, English, and Pakistan Studies27 part of their curriculum, and that were officially registered with the government and made the donors’ list public. The premises of the fourth breaking point lie in this context: the official announcement of the demolition of all the illegal madrasa. This proved that the state’s intervention into religious affairs and their authoritarian and centralistic reorganization will now be done by the toughest means if needed. In January 2007, the municipal authorities had issued warnings to 84 socalled illegal mosques and madrasa, Jamia Hafsa included, to stop using public lands. It even eventually pulled down a mosque located nearby the Lal masjid, the Amir Hamza masjid, for “security reasons.” This came as a real shock in a country where most of the mosques and madrasa have been built for the greater part illegally. Among the 183 mosques listed in Islamabad in 1994, for example, half of them had not been built with the authorization of the Awqaf Department, 28 while an average of one madrasa per week was opened in the capital, a trend triggered off by the growth of imams looking for employment and by natural urban growth. While at the end of the 1960s there was only one madrasa, by 2006 there were 127. 29 The authorities had always been indifferent to the phenomenon, or too concerned about the possible retaliations to any action meaning to curb it. But the American and British pressures linked to the common belief that madrasa were “schools for terrorists” justified, now, the government’s uncompromising attitude. A “Qutbist” Leadership All these changes of direction were unacceptable for the “clients”—the Jihadist ulama who were being nurtured up to the day before, as testifies by a declaration by Abdul Aziz at the beginning of the 2007 crisis: “We are told that the government is angry with us [ . . . ] but we say that we are also very angry [ . . . ] about the profanations against Islam, the assassinations of mujahidin and ulama, [ . . . ] The end of the Taliban in Afghanistan, women running naked in marathons, attacks against the madrasa, the non-implantation of Islamic laws in Pakistan, the Women Protection Bill which is abhorrent with regard to the Islamic laws, the withdrawal of Qur’anic verses from the textbooks, and the demolition of the Amir Hamza mosque.”30 Consequently, from a relay to the state’s Islamism, the Lal Masjid complex turned into a “qutbist” movement at war with the “Pharaonic” state and the “impious” society.31 The female students of Jamia Hafsa, under the guidance of their principal, were the first to oppose resistance to the government and to

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protest against the demolition of a mosque undertaken by the government and justified by fighting terrorism. Fearing that the same may happen to their madrasa, the students occupied a public library in January. At this point, guided by the Abdul brothers, the students of the Jamia Fareedia joined in. This particular front—the land dispute— was, however, put aside following the overwhelming call for the establishment of the shariah in the country and the promotion of virtue over vice (amr bil maroof wa nahi anil munkar);32 such a department was established within the mosque complex, following the Taleban model. Both the male and female students then started organizing “antivice patrols” in the nearby bazaars, forcing video and music shops to close and burning their goods in the streets. They also kidnapped a woman accused of running a brothel 33 and had her admitting to that publicly, dressed in a burqa (Umm- e-Hassan then boasted she had closed an “AIDS factory”).34 They threatened to forcibly close all the brothels in the capital themselves unless the authorities did so.35 In April, a shariah court established within the mosque, started dealing with matters such as the one of a brother and a sister allegedly living incestuously, and of a woman raped by a policeman. It also issued fatwa against, amongst others, the minister of Tourism, who, as a woman, was accused of obscenity for hugging her paragliding instructor in France, and the director of the movie Khuda ke lye, symbol of Musharraf ’s “enlightened moderation.” The more “Ghazi” and Umm- e-Hasan increased their TV appearances, the more the liberal press attacked the government’s lack of initiative and the more radical became the movement. The mosque then turned into an entrenched camp and the targets became more political: in June, four policemen were kidnapped, followed by Chinese nationals abducted in their own acupuncture center (accused of being a brothel). This was the last straw as at that very moment the minister of internal affairs was on an official visit to China (Pakistan’s very first military ally) At this point, General Musharraf declared that some al- Qaeda suicide bombers were hiding in the mosque; in the new political vocabulary of post-9/11 this communicated the decision of a military intervention. After a week’s military siege, 1,100 students hidden inside the mosque, exhausted and terrorized, eventually surrendered. Only a group of 400 men, women, and children stayed inside: an alleged one-fourth of them were killed during the final assault led by the army’s commando force in July. Among the victims were the faithful who had come to pray on the fatal morning (too scared to surrender or used as “human shield” by the militants, we probably will never know); dropouts running away from their families;36 Jihadist militants and their families; and hard-liner

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students such as this young woman living in Jamia Hafsa and who said: “My parents asked me to go back home, but I have told them “Never!” I came here with a passion for jihad and my desire is to become a martyr [ . . . ] It was incredible, I was hearing the shooting outside and I felt as if I was in Palestine!”37 If the early stage of the Lal Masjid crisis revealed the aporia of the relationship between the state and Islamist leaders in contemporary Pakistan, its evolution and dramatic ending proved how difficult it was for the state, and more precisely for the army, to dismantle a 30year- old patron- client relationship. Analysts supporting a functionalist reading see that this partnership is purely strategic in origin: the army exploited the Islamists so as to marginalize its political opponents, overcome its legitimacy crisis, and silence the ethnic question (see Abbas 2005; Haqqani 2005; Jaffrelot 2008 [2004]; Jalal 2008; Waseem 1994: 388–389). According to others, the army’s approach is above all reactive: the army keeps on maneuvering to resist to the pressure of the most politicized ulama who would presumably enjoy the support of a wide stratum of the urban middle class.38 Structuralist academic works, instead, believe that the state has substituted the colonial ideology with an Islamic one in order to penetrate and control society (see, for example, Malik 1996; Nasr 2001). But these three approaches can easily be considered complimentary—a complementarity that has its roots, actually, in the sociogenesis of the Pakistani state. The military elites (orphans of an ideology of national liberation) and the Muslim League (deprived of a functional party apparatus and of any social project) early on used Islamic symbolism as a strategy by default. Yet, in doing so, they both durably shaped the state institutions and the public sphere in such a way that the “Islamic moral order” (in one way or the other, be it “modern,” “socialist,” “puritanistic,” or “enlightened”) became an unavoidable point of reference, thus paving way to the Islamists’ (inf lated) inf luence in the political and social spheres. It must be added that a great role in this historical contingency was played by the incapability of the secular parties to deal with the Islamist claims. As pointed out by M. Khalid Masud, these parties have always opposed them at a strictly political level, overlooking the need to put forward an alternative view of the shariah (Masud 2005: 173). The New Charismatic Figure of the “Fighting Mullah” As argued by Verkaaik, the notion of jihad has been “popularized and democratized. Now potentially everyone can wage a war in the name

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of / . . . / jihad / . . . /, a process [that] first occurred across the border in Afghanistan” (2007: 98). The appeal to jihad by the Abdul brothers is then not a new one. This being said, it was nevertheless quite novel as it partook of the emergence in the landscape of Pakistan’s Islamist militancy, and as a result of the government’s collaboration to the War on Terror, of a new type, or a reinvented type, of political- cumreligious leadership, that of the “fighting mullah.” Their most famous representatives in the Pashtun areas are Nek Muhammad Abdullah, Baitullah, and Hakeemullah Mehsud in Waziristan; Faqir Muhammad in Bajaur; mawlana Sufi Muhammad and his son-in-law Fazlullah in Malakand and in the Swat valley. Each and every movement surely has its own sociological, political, and economic rationales. But these new fundamentalist leaders have common characteristics distinguishing them from both the traditional ulama (who precisely will oppose the Lal Masjid Movement 39) and the leadership of the old constitutionalist Islamist parties. This is why it is much more difficult for the state to co- opt or to manipulate them. Their leadership, in Weberian terms, is half-traditional half- charismatic as it is grounded in 1. a status of being specialists of religion in the Deobandi tradition (even though their command of the sacred texts is quite rudimentary); 2. a reference to a privileged relationship with the Prophet (whose appearance in mawlana Aziz’s dreams recalls the one in Mullah Omar’s ones); 3. The participation in bellicose jihad (see, for instance, the selfattributed title of “Ghazi” by Abdul Rashid); and 4. The confrontation with the state. These four sources of legitimacy, typical of the new fundamentalist Pakistani leadership, are pivots shared by the Afghani Taleban (which does not mean that both are exactly similar). (For a sociological study of the Taleban leadership see Dorronsoro 2005). This dynamic certainly has its roots in the developments of the colonial era and the formation of the nation- state. Sana Haroon, for example, has analyzed the progressive politicization and militarization of the mullahs in the tribal areas during the British “forward policy,” their deals and subtreaties with the British, their internal feuds and their instrumentalization by the Afghani monarchy and the new leaders of Independent Pakistan. Haroon has also traced more than a dozen of jihads launched in the tribal agencies since the mid-nineteenth century

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until 1947–1948.40 Each time, the issue at stake for the “fighting mullahs” was to protect the autonomy of their areas, especially in the spheres of justice and morality—as was the case for the Lal Masjid imams. This old and particular rebellious tradition has nevertheless been deeply modified due to the 1980s’ war in Afghanistan, the Taleban movement and the War against Terror, all contributed to stimulate the growth of an alternative leadership where the mobilizing forces are different: to the qualities of a warrior, the modern “fighting mullahs” add the skill of “tribal entrepreneur” raising funds by welcoming “guests,” that is, foreign militants, and who also mobilize a younger generation, belonging to poor and marginalized strata or to minor tribal clans, motivated by challenging the traditional patterns of domination.41 These changes are ref lected in the Lal Masjid protest where, it must be remembered, armed “guest” militants were harbored inside a mosque that young marginalized migrants were protecting. Rather than talking of a direct link between these different historical periods, these elements lead us to identify a model of shared struggles that makes sense in the imaginary or resistance of these new Islamist leaders. The following event substantiates this point. After the Lal Masjid was raided, a group of militants occupied the tomb of Haji Sahib Turangzai42 in the Mohmand agency. Their leader announced that he would continue “Haji Turangzai and mawlana Ghazi Abdur Rashid’s mission” and renamed the adjacent mosque “Lal Masjid Ghaziabad,” and the annexed madrasa “Jamia Hafsa” and “Jamia Fareedia.” Shariah, Modernity, and Girl Power This link between earlier struggles in the tribal areas and the Lal Masjid Movement should not overshadow the modern character of this revolt as proven, first, by its mobilization techniques. Along these were the wellorganized dramatic mise- en- scène on TV showing women and young girls dressed in black burqa, with bandages on their forehead carrying inscription of the kalma (“there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger”) and of “God is great”—recalling the Hizbollah female activists—and branding their own danda. These images, broadcasted ad nauseam by the media, left an indelible image in the spectators’ minds and came to epitomize the movement. A widely circulated video, made by Lal Masjid sympathizers after the raid, is equally exemplary of the modern organization of the movement. The video utilizes “magical” expediencies such as a voiceover imitating a voice from the afterlife, as if a martyr of the operation was addressing the audience, but also a strictly

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rational argument based on extracts from the national TV reports, such as the ones by PTV, GEO, and ARY. The same sort of rationalization process is found in the discussion forum on the Lal Masjid Web site.43 In its English and Urdu version, it reminds one of a myriad of blogs addressed to young people through the use of smileys and SMS-type language. The discussion forum talks about the Lal Masjid Movement, prudently interrogates itself on its future and explains the “ideology of Ghazi the martyr.” The senior members of the Lal Masjid forum do not hesitate to publish controversial questions and reply to them in a polite manner. To one “brother” who reported that he was shocked at the fact that the Jamia Hafsa women had been authorized to protest in the streets (“I thing u guys using Women and Girls as a defense and u gave them sticks and they walking on roads is this Correct to do??? Our Prophet Hazrat Muhaammad (PBUH) said that women should stay inside home”), a “senior member” replied: “My Brother, Women can go out of House for Jihad and Tabligh (conditions apply) and this is a proven fact from Prophet and his companions life. Women can also fight in path of Allah and can use all types of weapons in Jihad, there is no disagreement also on this issue / . . . / do you know that among the ranks of sahabah [companions of the Prophet] during [the battle of ] uhud when muslims were retreating one of those who protected the Prophet (saw) was a woman? / . . . / And do you see the girls of lal masjid in public mixing with men for just laughter and vanity?” When asked about the lawfulness of suicide bombers, “jihadyaar” (literally “jihad buddy”) answers by criticizing the ulama and includes a personal opinion, a sign of a strong individualism, that has nothing to do with submission to the religious authority: “yes suicide is forbidden 100 but Martydom operations i dont think so . . . / . . . / since martydom operations are violent and [ulama] cant think of doing it themselves / . . . / they will surely give all kinds of fatwas. Of course Allah (swt) knows the best . . . and may forgive me if i am wrong. wasalam.” It is as noteworthy that the Jamia Hafsa and Fareedia students constituted not a “brigade” (a term imposed by the progovernmental media) but a “Student Action Committee,” just like those that exist in many universities in the country. More importantly, the active participation of the women clearly distinguishes this movement from the one of the Taleban. It is indeed very significant that the principal of a female madrasa was the leader of such an important contestation in Pakistan. The growth in female madrasa in the subcontinent can be traced back to the 1970s as a response to the “women liberation, consumerism and the non-Islamic lifestyles perceived as threatening the

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believers’ community” (Sikand 2005: 215). The success of Al-Huda Institute for Islamic Education, founded in 1994, also derives from such phenomenon.44 The young and urban upper and upper middle classes are attracted by its capacity of combining modernity and Islamic education. But if women can thus disrupt men’s monopoly over interpreting Islam, they can only study or work “to serve Islam,” if they have before fulfilled all the duties toward her spouse and if they wear the niqab. In a way, Jamia Hafsa can be understood to be a sort of Al-Huda of the poor, as its students were coming from much more modest backgrounds. The worldview of the Lal Masjid female activists is similarly charaterized by a profoundly traditionalist vision combined with a modernist discourse,45 An understanding of education as an instrument of social mobility, the necessity of occupying the public space, and the same focus on customs and in particular unlawful sexual relationships (zina), prostitution, incest, rape, obscenity ( fahashi), and so on. The idea of the female body as the principal guardian of “Muslim-ness” is in fact a central theme in female madrasa, “a disciplinary society that shapes young women’s individuality in order to transform them into the incarnation of a precise ideal of Islamic femininity” (Farooq 2005: 68). Although details of the teachings provided in Jamia Hafsa are not available, it is known that in other Deobandi female madrasa (Farooq 2005), an ambiguous message is passed on to young women. On the one hand, and based on a well-thought selection of ahadith, they are taught to submit entirely to men’s decisions and learn as well all sort of sorts of stereotypes about their own inability to reason as women (prejudices that, incidentally, are not unique to Deobandis). But, on the other hand, the teaching imparted is pivoted around the model embodied by the wives of the Prophet (the study of the sira- i- sahabiyat has a very important place in the curriculum), their piety, their sense of honor, and their strong characters and combating spirit. These “female warriors” from the golden age of Islam constituted exemplary figures in the eyes of the Jamia Hafsa students. One of its 18-year- old students declared: “Even the most experienced can’t use a kalashnikov as well as me. I grew up in Bajaur, so I sure know what guns are about!”46 She also said to regret not having been able to deploy such skills in helping her “mujahidin brothers” during the siege: The daughter of our teacher was carrying on her shoulder all the time an automatic or a submachine gun. She taught us how to use them [ . . . ] though all the weapons were then given to the males [ . . . ]when they ran out of ammunition I still could give them water mixed with red chilli so that they could throw it at the eyes of our enemy.”47

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Most of Pakistani feminists have perceived the Lal Masjid women’s mobilization as the ultimate prototype of the alienating subjugation allegedly reigning in madrasa.48 However, this very mobilization can be read as being exactly the opposite, as suggested by the RJ of a local radio station, and that is to say, as an atypical manifestation of “girls’ power.”49 This explains the situation of “méconnaissance” (cf. OhnukiTierney cited in Verkaaik 2005: 167) at play during this event—a lack of possible communication between people using the same symbolic language but seeing very different and often opposite meanings in the same symbol—and why, consequently, the students could not communicate with their critics. For instance, while the burqa allowed them, literally covered of Islamic legitimacy, to mix with men outside the madrasa, it was seen only as a mark of oppression by the former. The same is true for the danda: perceived by the former as evidence of the aggressive nature of the movement, in reality it gave the female militants the equalizing power to overturn the symbol of the arbitrary police power against the oppressor (“We will not put down the batons because we do not have protection in this country and neither does anyone else,” said one female militant).50 This being said, times have certainly changed since the very first street protest of veiled women (then dubbed “enraged amazons” by the press) that happened in Pakistan. This was in January 1948: they gathered in front of the Punjab Legislative Assembly to call for economic equality (women should be entitled to the portion of farmland laid down under Muslim Law).51 This shift hence demonstrates the return in force, in the post-Zia era, of a form of political culture that Markus Daechsel calls “the politics of self- expression,” when “political activists [assume] that the world [is] made up of inward-looking and self- contained subjects— individuals and nations—whose sole purpose [is] the self- expression of their inner essences under circumstances of extreme crisis. The stuff of everyday life—how people cooperate and struggle with each other, how they exchange goods and values, how they exercise and resist power— [is] either entirely ignored or denounced as petty and distractive” (2006: 1). However, if “self- expressionism” was very much there, militants were far from ignoring social struggles, though they reframed them in the idiom of Islam. The Rural Youth against the New “Sodom” Although the ethnic base of the Lal Masjid Movement was quite clear, it seems that the “migration” question, opposing the outsiders (ajnabi) to

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the “locals,” was a much more crucial factor. The overwhelming majority of the 530,000- strong Islamabad’s inhabitants are “locals,” Punjabi: either civil servants or belonging to the liberal professions, employed by NGOs and OIGs or expatriates, while the ajnabi are seasonal migrants originally from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the FATA. The latter represent only 10% of the population of the capital and are employed as taxi drivers, maids, in transport, construction works, and petty commerce. Similarly, the young militants of the Lal Masjid were mostly from small Hindko and Pashtun towns and villages of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the FATA (in the madrasa Jamia Fareedia, up to 80%) (Khan 2005– 2006: 53).52 These ill-integrated youngsters, often nicknamed pindoos (village bumpkins) by the locals, had initiated their own battle against Islamabad (literally “the abode of Islam”), perceived as a new Sodom. They did not understand the codes of this “Pakistani Brasilia,” a paradigmatic example of authoritarian nation-building indifferent to social reality. Indeed, the city planning was made to serve General Ayub’s objectives, and thus was organized in a way similar to a garrison, in order to promote a very invasive form of control both on the society and the economy, and to promote nationalistic sentiments (see Spaulding 2003).53 However, over time, a number of unpredicted consequences that could not be easily absorbed by the rigid city planning transformed the state into the “enemy of the populations on the move” (Scott 1998: 1). The huge demographic pressure following the migration waves54 contributed to the growth of “illegal” madrasa, of deprived pockets in the very heart of the upper class areas, and of prostitution catering to the politicians and the rich expats. In Islamabad, given its size, the proximity between groups upholding such different lifestyles, belonging to such different social and economic classes, with such different visions about the world, with even very distinct dress codes, is much more acute than in Lahore or Karachi. The Lal Masjid55 is not more than 10 minutes on foot from the banks, hotels, upper class shops, and embassies. At the same time the Westernized middle class (f luent in English, its women uncovered, or even wearing trousers) is very visible in the cheap bazaars that have developed around the mosque. The Lal Masjid has thus become, over the years, a traditionalist enclave in the middle of a modernist urban landscape. Together with the affiliated madrasa, in the eyes of the militants, it constituted a surrogate space to the decadent city. A Jamia Fareedia teacher said: “The declared objective of our madrasa is to safeguard the Islamic heritage of the Muslims and to become a point of reference for a region subjugated

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to western inf luences and dedicated to unchaste pleasures: Islamabad needs such a madrasa” (Khan 2005–2006: 42). The Lal Masjid’s affiliated madrasa were all the more enclaves that they lived in their own world,56 contrary to the historical function of madrasa in Pakistan, this is to say, to be centers of religious knowledge opened to the world and where neighbors could come on a regular basis to ask for advice in their day-today life matters.57 Hence, their exacerbated Puritanism. The Shariah: Replacing or Serving Politics? The Lal Masjid militants and their mentors were fighting not only the government, but also the leaders of the Islamic parties, at whom a young militant shouted, during the reopening of the mosque on July 27: “Where were you when our sisters and mothers were brutally slaughtered? We won’t let you offer your prayers here, go to London and do your politic meetings!”58 This declaration dichotomizes two political spheres: siyasat and sacrifice (about this conceptual opposition see Verkaaik 2005: 172). To the politics of personal interest, corruption, opportunism (the “politicking” of parties’ negotiations to share power before the elections anticipated in November 2007), the Lal Masjid militants opposed the superiority of the “politics beyond politics”: the purity of intentions (pak), justice (insaf ), self- discipline, and sacrifice. But the contestation of politics goes even further. For the Lal Masjid’s militants, the most urgent need was to substitute a new moral order to that of “the failing state”: “The government is supposed to do certain things, perform some functions,” said Ghazi, “If it does not do them, the vacuum will be filled. If no one picks up the garbage in front of my house even after I repeatedly requested the concerned department to do so, what will I do—I will have to clean up myself.”59 The metaphor of the garbage is quite significant: the disgust inspired by the “secular” state to the Lal Masjid puritans justifies the fascist- style appeal to “clean up” society of its impure elements (Shia Muslims, prostitutes, music sellers, corrupt policemen, etc.). This peculiar conception of what political action should be explains why the mosque, instead of the street, was the space that they privileged for enacting politics: a case in point is that the “loose women” were forcefully brought into the complex to be purified, instead of being, for instance, paraded and publicly humiliated as it would happen in a village, for instance. It is also remarkable that the street protest was not their favorite mode of action, contrary to what happened during most Islamist-led protests in the past, such as the one against the Ahmadis (1953), the Muslim Family Laws (1961–1962),

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Ali Bhutto (1976–1977), the war in Afghanistan (post-2001), and the Danish cartoons (2006). To my knowledge, this is the first case, in independant Pakistan, of a mosque being the focal point of a political protest. For the Abdul brothers, political action means, more than anything else, shariahtization, which is itself limited to the regulation of sexual relationships, as proven by the crusades against prostitution and the fatwa enunciated by mawlana Aziz. Yet, this focalization on the female body is actually the starting point for the justification of the appeal to a “people’s justice.” Look at these rich, disgusting men of our society today who are not happy despite many wives, mistresses, cars, guards / . . . / Pakistan today is ruled by dacoits!”60 said a Jamia Hafsa female student in an interview, in which she also strongly criticized Liberalism (quoting Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations!) for enslaving the Muslim ummah into money-worship. The cases dealt with by the Lal Masjid’s shariah court all symbolized a revenge of the petit peuple against the powerful who are above all laws. For instance, one of the first cases was that of a Jhelum family whose daughter had been raped by a police officer who was beyond punishment or questioning by authority because he was under the protection of the district nazim (mayor). The Lal Masjid Movement has indeed strong accents of a social revolt: “We want this system changed” said Ghazi, “it only works to the advantage of the elite; it has nothing for the common man. What we are doing, or hope to do, is simply to raise our voice against this system and the injustices it perpetrates and perpetuates.”61 This anti- establishment critique is articulated together with the questions of inequalities related to ethnicity and second- class provinces, and in particular Baluchistan (from where Ghazi’s father had migrated), to which only the egalitarian and unifying ethos of Islam can provide an answer. The biographical trajectory of this imam’s “rebel son” whose earnings came from his connivance with the state interests as well as his own experience as a small functionary within an administration notorious for its corruption made this intriguing fusion between Marxism and Islamism even more pronounced. The”people’s justice” operated by the Abdul brothers enjoyed, initially, some social sympathy. This can also be explained by a very practical issue: the profound crisis of the Pakistani judicial system. In spite of a costly reform, the katcheri or “subordinate judiciary” that judges the majority of cases thrives with corruption and is jammed with cases and is incapable of offering a timely and fair trial. In this context, the shariah court 62 offers a free and efficient alternative. Its popularity can

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also be traced back to the series of judicial inconsistencies during the Islamization era that have empowered the religious leaders’ claims for Islamic justice while, de facto, disempowering them; 63 hence opening the “Pandora box” of their judicial activism and of the multiple private “shariah courts” that Islamist groups have formed since the late 1990s. Conclusion: The Road to Martyrdom Underneath a photo of the swollen but smiling face of Ghazi, after his death as a shahid (martyr), the home page of the Lal Masjid Web site announces: “Lal Masjid is back. You can kill the body but you cannot kill the passion . . . / . . . / Dusk on 10 July, witnessed the fall of a gallant warrior. Perhaps the bravest this land has seen. His revolutionary pride refused to bow down before a system, which is based on tyranny and oppression. He might be dead but he lives through the cause his blood sanctified. To our nation, which, is enslaved for the past three hundred years, he gave the will to resist the ruling class and the imperial powers with the slogan:   [] .”64 The movement is not dead, claim the partisans of the Abdul Brothers, by using again Marxist rhetoric (such as the concepts of revolution, class, and imperialism) and by outlining the ideology of “Ghazi the martyr,” who had never produced anything like this while alive. The Lal Masjid mobilization, originally a reactive one, eventually gave birth to a martyropath dynamic that produced, in turn, an emblematic cause that allowed the movement to persist in time. In other words, in the course of the event itself, “a community constructed itself as a political actor” by claiming “the right to demand heroic death from its members” (Das 1995: 2). Ghazi completely assumed this logic, when inviting his group, on the eve of the attack, to continue the jihad after his death: “Change comes as a result of sacrifice. If blood has to be spilled for the purpose, then we are ready to lay down our lives. Perhaps our movement will find a starting point if and when and operation is launched against our students and facilities.”65 His own adventurism is obviously here bypassed silently: a victim to his own and initially tactical passionate calls for jihad, Ghazi fell pray to his own strategy for fear of losing face. The more the confrontation with the sate grew, the more he was forced to go along with a movement whose strength he had not foreseen. A few days before the final attack, he had indeed organized his brother’s escape under a burqa! Abdul Aziz’s arrest, followed by his parading on national TV channels, probably led him to adopt an intransigent position, preferring the death of a hero, rather than national humiliation.

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If this sheds light on Ghazi’s case, how can we explain the process of collective martyrdom? We can surely invoke Umm- e-Hasan’s charismatic personality. She was described by her students as an “angel” (tall and of fair complexion, a sign of great beauty in Pakistan). We can also invoke the fact that mawlana Abdullah, himself a shahid, was already the object of a quasimystic veneration 66 and, also, the rigid relations of authority that are usually prevailing within madrasa. However, this reading does not fit with a witness’ observation of the actually very lax power relations that existed within the Lal Masjid’s madrasa.67 The events’ dynamics and the a posteriori construction of exemplary martyr heros are, in my opinion, much more convincing explanations. First, it needs to be recalled that most of the victims were Jihadist militants or killed Jihadists’ widows and orphans, whose bodies nobody came to reclaim after the “Operation Silence.” They were the ones who during the siege did not say a word, did not even ask for food or drink.68 Second, testimonies on the conditions of living in the Jamia Hafsa and the Lal Masjid at the time of the siege give an overall more nuanced picture. Two students recounted later that they had survived without water, electricity, or gas, forced to “eat tree leaves mixed with honey that the mujahidin brothers had managed to get from God knows where.” They could not lie down, locked in groups of 15 in sheds where the piles of rubbish were creating an unbearable stench. On the day of the army’s attack, according to one female student, “our room was filled with smoke, and we were struggling to breathe. We thought it would be better to go out and die of a bullet rather than choking inside, but our mujahidin brothers stopped us. After that, the army intimated us to go out or we would die, so we went out.” This recollection is particularly interesting as it shows that the desire of shahadat among the militants was in this case, and generally can be, quite ambivalent, a point that needs to be stressed as many post hoc analysis on “suicide attacks” in other contexts avoid mentioning it, for lack of information on what happened in the group’s interaction and in the minds of militants during such attacks. It is the very pressure of the “mujahidin brothers” here that could have led these girls to a presumed “martyr” (and not their own readiness for sacrifice) because when they were about to choke, they were ready to eventually surrender. Anyhow, the Lal Masjid affair certainly represents a milestone in the history of Islamic militancy in Pakistan, as much as the reaction to the military operations in the tribal areas do as well: a shift from the “external jihad” (beyond the borders) to the “internal jihad,” against the “napak” (impure) army, a pun that refers to the etymology of Pakistan (“the

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land of the pure”) that bears the idea of a betrayal of the nation. The obsessive pictures, in the video made by the Lal Masjid’s militants afterward, of the women’s the blood-tainted shalwar kamiz, 69 linking the aggression against the “female martyrs” who died during the military operation to a rape, aimed at creating a new political movement and a call for revenge on the basis of a community of suffering. The wave of suicide attacks on Pakistani soil soared considerably after the raid (5 in just the 10 days following the raid) and started to target primarily security forces and the police. The majority of these attacks may be traced back to a revenge dynamics. It was indeed at the cry of “Sons of a bitch, be ready to pay for the Lal Masjid martyrs!” that the Tehreek- e-Taliban militants broke in the dormitories of a police academy at the periphery of Lahore in March 2009.70 This attack had been preceded by four other suicide attacks directly linked to the Lal Masjid events: against an international NGO on the same day as the funerals of some of its “martyred” students (in Bajaur), against the police unit that had been deployed during the siege (in Islamabad), against the headquarters in charge of the raid (in the surroundings of Islamabad)—executed by the brother of a Jamia Hafsa student—and against a bus carrying members of the Air Forces (in Sargodha). This one had been executed by a Lal Masjid militant who had been freed for lack of evidence, whose father had died in Afghanistan and brother in Kashmir. So everything has come full circle: this family’s trajectory shows that the logic of “martyrdom” that had functioned for over 20 years to train militants and fedayeen sent by the army as cannon fodder to conduct its own regional conf licts has eventually turned against its instigators (On this point see Blom 2007). This is what mawlana Javid Ahmad Ghamidi (member of the Council of Islamic Ideology) meant when he declared: “They [the Abdul brothers] are the same people that the State has trained and deployed in the name of Islam over the years. Abandoned at the end of the Afghanistan conf lict, they have decided to pursue their own objectives ( . . .) The Pakistani establishment had thought that they would become robots, but they did not.” 71 Ghamidi’s position is important to recall. Indeed, this alim frequently labeled as a “modernist”—for his insistence on the temporal and geographical context of Muhammad’s revelation (e.g., veiling being noncompulsory for women today) and for his use of educational institutions to spread his views72 —has become a popular figure in the past decade amongst large sections of the urban Pakistani youth in search of alternative, yet authorized, voices to those of ulama such as the Lal Masjid imams precisely.

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Notes 1. Fifty-four million people according to UN estimates for 2005. The urban growth rate is about 3,4% in the mid-2000s (for a 2% annual population growth). The projection for 2050 are even more alarming, given the depressing lack of health, housing, sewerage, educational, and road infrastructures in urban centers: 50% of Pakistan’s 300 millions people will then be living in cities. 2. Lal means red in Urdu, the color of the mosque’s dome and walls. In the militants’ rhetoric, it subsequently came to symbolize the blood of the martyrs and the revolutionary nature of the movement. 3. While “traditionalist” Sunni groups equate shariah with the fiqh (Islamic law and jurisprudence) of the Hanafi school (such as the Deobandi Jamiyyat Ulama-i-Islam, JUI or Association of the Ulama of Islam, and the Barelwi Jamiyyat Ulama-i-Pakistan, JUP or Association of the Ulama of Pakistan), “revivalists” reject the taqlid (following the legal ruling of earlier scholars) and call for returning to the Qur’an and sunna only (such as the Jamiyyat Ahl-i-Hadith, JAH, or Association of the people of the hadith, and the Jamaat-i-Islami), and “modernists” call for the reconstruction of shariah in light with modern times (see Masud 2005). 4. Given the lack of academic work on the subject, this is simply an impressionistic list, resulting from ten years of personal observation, which would require complementary analysis. 5. Source: “Darwar T’adad Talba/Talbat Salana Imtehan 1427 AH [2006 CE],” Mahnama (monthly), Wafaq ul-Madaris (Multan), n°7, August 2007. Quoted in Farooq (2005). 6. Year 2001 figures given by the Pakistani Ministry of Interior. 7. Sunni Islam is divided in Pakistan among many “sects,” or doctrinal orientations, whose interpretation of the sources of religious authority differs, all of which emerged in late nineteenthcentury northern India as a revivalist reaction to British colonization and to Hindu nationalists’ activism. The two most important ones, in the Hanafi tradition, are the Deobandis and the Barelwis (naming themselves as the “ahl- i sunna wa jama’at,” literally “people of the [prophetic] way and the [majority] community”). 8. This colorful character specializes in “comparative religions.” His seemingly ecumenical message aims, exclusively, at demonstrating Islam’s superiority over other religions (a healing touch in a post-9/11 environment saturated with negative references to Islam). Reductio ad absurdum is his favorite tool (“if God had want us to be vegetarian, He would have not given us a digestive system capable of digesting meat”!) 9. The abaya (long coat), hijab (headscarf covering the hair), and niqab (hiding the lower part of the face) are locally perceived as recent importations from the Gulf. Pakistani women traditionally wear a shalwar kamiz (long tunic and ample trousers) and cover their breast and head with a dupatta (wide stole), or in conservative neighborhoods and regions, with a chador.

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10. The poverty line is, according to the Pakistani government, the estimated rupees value of a food basket that will deliver the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of calories. 11. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s rural areas, this rate passed from 2% to 28% during the same period. 12. Literally “our lord,” title of a Sunni religious scholar with a formal theological schooling, often used as equivalent to ulama. 13. A Deobandi-inspired and proselytizing movement founded in India in the 1920s. It calls for a reform of personal religious practices and operates, worldwide, through active door-to- door preaching. Its annual congregation, held in Raiwind (Pakistan), is considered the biggest Muslim gathering after the hajj. 14. Respectively 1,6% and 0,5% of the population according to—unreliable— official figures. The Ahmadi is a messianic movement, formed in the late nineteenth century, which claimed to perfect Muhammad’s prophecy. The government declared his followers a “non-Muslim minority” (1974) and they are regularly attacked by Islamist organizations. 15. Interview, Lahore, June 2009. 16. The ghazi is the counterpart to the shahid (martyr), that is to say he returns victorious from an armed jihad. In this case, this title was granted following Abdul Rashid’s participation to the Afghan “jihad” at the end of “the Russian occupation,” as the man himself put it. However, whether this was a romantic self-made epiteth or one gained on the battlefield, the conscious use of “ghazi” is very significant. 17. When the Abdul brothers were excluded by such board in 2007, they created their own Wafaq-ul Madaris Islamia. 18. Equivalent to a Masters in Islamic Studies. 19. Interview with an instructor at the International Islamic University, Islamabad, November 2007. 20. Accused by his superiors of corruption, he was kept in place due to his family connections. 21. Aziz was then dismissed by the government because of his sermons too aggressively pro-Taleban. 22. The Abdul brothers benefited from private donations too. Among the donors on the list given by mawlana Aziz after his arrest, there were a senator and the chain of chemists Shaheen, Jang (Karachi), July 25, 2007. 23. Within the limits of what can be referred as such in this expensive city. Poor workers often commute daily from Rawalpindi and from surrounding villages. 24. Interview, Islamabad, November 2007. 25. The sectarian connotation is clear since Umar, the second Caliph, is considered by Shias as usurper. 26. The Web site of the Lal Masjid and their blogs were accessible until 2008 only: http://www.lalmasjid.com/nsite/aboutus.php

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27. In August 2005, the Supreme Court decided that the sanad (diplomas) delivered by the madrasa will be equivalent to a Matric only if their holders had also passed a test in these two disciplines and in Urdu. 28. “Theocratic Trends in Islamabad,” The Muslim, November 8, 1994. This phenomenon exists in other places: in Karachi half of the 30,000 mosques are built in a situation of complete illegality, on state lands that had been allocated to parks, for instance. 29. Sources: Syed Irfan Raza, “Education in Islamabad 2006: Almost One Madressah Opened Every Week,” Dawn, January 1, 2007; “Punjab Madrassas 1,132 ‘Less,’ ” Daily Times, July 27, 2007. According to the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration, only 77 madrasa are registered, but the government denies such numbers. 30. Cited in Aab- e- Hayat, March 2007, a monthly publication edited by mawlana Mehmud-ur-Rashid Hadoti and which was an instrument of dissemination of the Lal Masjid ideas. Aziz referred to other measures linked to the “Enlightened moderation” program, such as the organization of an annual female marathon, the new legislation on women aimed at weakening the “Hudud ordinances” and the ban of the word “jihad” in textbooks. 31. Syed Qutb (1906–1966), the leading ideologue of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, claimed that Muslims who failed to become “true believers” could be subjected to armed jihad, and advocated isolation from the infidel society as long as a state of jahiliyya (ignorance) prevailed. 32. Aab- e- Hayat , February 2007. 33. Sources are contradictory on this. According to The News, “Auntie” Shamim—a Christian or a Shia—was truly ruling a brothel “regularly visited by high ups.” But other sources state that her kidnapping resulted from a land property dispute. 34. Cited in Masoud Ansari, “Raging Zealots,” Newsline (Karachi), May 2007. 35. It should be added that this puritanic zeal was mixed up to a much more troubling issue: the disappearance of an ISI official who was closed to the Abdul brothers and who had initially come to negotiate with them, on the presidency’s request it seems. This information was brief ly mentioned in the press and then silenced.. 36. Like the case of a young woman and her husband, married against their families’ wishes, unable to pay off a debt, who had sought refuge in the mosque a year before and was killed during the raid (Interview with her father, Lahore, August 2007). 37. Story collected by the BBC Urdu, July 4, 2007. 38. Such reading can be attributed, although his analysis is much more nuanced, to Zaman (2002). 39. The protests organized by the Abdul brothers after the destruction of the Amir Hamza mosque were followed by other imams in the city. At the beginning, they enjoyed the support of the federation of the Deobandi

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41.

42. 43. 44.

45.

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madrasa but soon the important Deobandi ulama started taking their distance. The demands were legitimate, the means objectionable, suggested mufti Rafi Usmani, rector of the Dar-ul Uloom in Karachi (“The students of Jamia Hafsa are our sons and daughters, but their actions, together with the irresponsible attitude of the government, will lead to anarchy”). On the other hand, the Barelwi ulama were straight away critical, such as mufti Munibur Rehman, principal of the Dar-ul Uloom Amjadiya in Karachi (only the government has the authority to prevent vice and promote virtue according to him). Finally, the official Council for Islamic Ideology accused the movement of leading to nothing else but “fasad fil ard” (“disorder/corruption on earth”). Sources: Hamza Shaheryar, “Right End, Wrong Means,” The Friday Times, April 20–26, 2007 and “Police Move to Keep Seminaries under Watch,” Dawn, April 22, 2007. And this only by the disciples of the Sufi (Deobandi) Reformist Akhund Abdul Ghaffur (1793–1878, the founding father of the very first “Islamic state” in the Swat Valley) (Haroon 2007). Mariam Abou Zahab, “Changing Patterns of Social and Political Life among the Tribal Pashtuns in Pakistan,” Paper presented at the conference “Dynamics of Contemporary Islam and Economic Development in Asia,” Centre of Human Sciences, New Delhi, April 16–17, 2007. Turangzai, educated in Deoband, guided the lashkar [soldiers] of the Jamaati-Mujahideen against the British in Swat and Bajaur between 1915 and 1919. The questions/answers are put exactly as they appeared in http://www.lalmasjid.com/. This link has since then been disrupted by the government. Its founder, Farhat Hashmi, an ex- sympathiser of the Jamaat-i-Islami, had a PhD from Glasgow University. Her objective is to “To promote purely Islamic values and thinking on sound knowledge and research, free from all kinds of bias and sectarianism” (www.alhudapk.com//home/about-us). Ghazi replied to those who accused him of obscurantsim taht, for instance, he did not have any objection to women driving cars as his own wife was doing it. BBC Urdu, July 4, 2007 Ibid. This is according to informal conversations the author had during the crisis. “Great girls! Go out in your burqa and your danda, I am all with you!” said jokingly this RJ on his City FM 89 program celebrating Women’s Day on March 8, 2007. Cited in Rubab Karrar, “Inside the Mosque,” The Herald (Karachi), May 2007, p. 55. Marc Gaborieau, “Islam and Politics,” in Jaffrelot, A History of Pakistan, 240. The data relevant to Jamia Hafsa is missing although a similar profile can be deduced.

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53. Islamabad’s inhabitants were thus stratified on a sociospatial basis: housing were allocated, from East to West, following a decreasing order of status (for civil servants) or of pay scales (for the others). 54. Islamabad has the highest demographic growth rate of the whole country, but it should be added that the Census is in this case, for evident political issues, much more accurate than for other parts of the country. 55. The mosque, built at the time of the foundations of the city, is situated between two sectors: one reserved for small functionaries and the other is where the many institutions they work are in. 56. This has been aggravated by the relocalization of Jamia Fareedia at Islamabad’s periphery, in an isolated place surrounded by woods. 57. A function well preserved in many Barelwi madrasa of Lahore, for instance. 58. Quoted in “ ‘Taliban’ Back at Lal Masjid,” Daily Times (Lahore), July 28, 2007. 59. Ejaz Haider, “Interview with Abdul Rashid Ghazi,” The Friday Times (Lahore), April 20–26, 2007. 60. Cited in Dr. Fawzia Afzal-Khan, “Meeting Ghazi Sahib,” The Friday Times (Lahore), July 13–19, 2007. 61. Haider, “Interview with Abdul Rashid Ghazi.” 62. To distinguish from the “dar-ul ifta” existing in all big madrasa, and where muftis receive requests and response following the shariah and the fiqh responses that do not have any legal status yet. 63. In 1973, the Supreme Court declared that the Objectives Resolution (the preamble to the Constitution stipulating that “Muslims should be enabled to order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah”) was just a guiding principle. In 1985, when Zia transformed this resolution into a constitutional article, the entire issue of whether it has precedent over the rest of the Constitution propped up again. Since then, it is debated without any consensus emerging. Because Zia was also very careful not to question the supremacy of secular courts as final arbiter and because judges are, yet, rarely specialists of the fiqh (so cannot evaluate the conformity of a judgment with the shariah), the status of the courts are at the core of any call for the full implementation of the shariah in Pakistan. See Kennedy (1992). 64. http://www.lalmasjid.com 65. Quoted in Umar Farooq, “Deceptively Smart,” Herald (Karachi), May 2007, p. 51. Emphasis added. 66. His turban has been preserved as a relic in the main office of the madrasa Fareedia. 67. An Anthropology student who spent weeks in the Jamia Fareedia was indeed surprised by the instructors’ leniency regarding attendance (Khan

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2005–2006: 47). Female journalists who visited Jamia Hafsa or the Lal Masjid were also surprised of not being asked to veil themselves. And who are mentioned by a female militant captured during the raid. BBC Urdu, July 12, 2007. This was also confirmed in Zahid Hussain, “The Battle for the Soul of Pakistan,” Newsline (Karachi), July 2007. Which also aims at signifying the outrage done against the virtue of the Jamia Hafsa’s women as they usually covered this “wordly” cloth with a burqa. this information given by a cadet policeman after the attack, was first telecasted on TV but soon disappeared from the screen. Cited in Daily Times, July 13, 2007. Such as the Al-Mawrid and Danish Sara in Lahore. His Urdu translation of the Qur’an and his tafsir extend on his tutor’s work, Amin Ahsan Islahi (1904–1997), whose exegesis was based on the thematic and structural coherence of the Qur’an.

References Abbas, H. (2005) Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, The Army, and America’s War on Terror. New York: M. E. Sharpe. Ahmad, M. (2010) “Media-Based Preachers and the Creation of New Muslim Publics in Pakistan,” in Ahmad, M., Reetz, D., and Johnson, T.H. (eds.) Who Speaks for Islam? Muslim Grassroots Leaders and Popular Preachers in South Asia. NBR Special Report No. 22, February 2010, Washington: The National Bureau of Asian Research. Ahmad, S. (2009) Transforming Faith: The Story of Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism among Urban Pakistani Women. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Blom, A. (2007) “Kashmiri Suicide Bombers: Martyrs of a Lost Cause,” in Blom, A., Bucaille, L., and Martinez, L. (eds.) The Enigma of Islamist Violence. London and New York: Hurst & Columbia University Press. ——— (2008) “The 2006 Anti-‘Danish Cartoons’ Riot in Lahore: Outrage and the Emotional Landscape of Pakistani Politics,” South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, http://samaj.revues.org/document1652.html. Accessed October 8, 2010. Daechsel, M. (2006) The Politics of Self-Expression: The Urdu Middle- class Milieu in Mid-Twentieth Century India and Pakistan. Abingdon: Routledge. Das, V. (1995) Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Deeb, L. (2006) An Enchanted Modern. Gender and Public Piety in Shi’ i Lebanon. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dorronsoro, G. (2005) Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present. New York: Columbia University Press. Eickelman, D. F. and Piscatori, J. (1996) Muslim Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Ewing, K. P. (1997) Arguing Sainthood: Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam. Durham: Duke University Press. Farooq, M. (2005) “Disciplining the Feminism: Girls’ Madrasa Education in Pakistan,” The Historian, 3: 72. Frembgen, J. W. (2008) Journey to God: Sufis and Dervishes in Islam, Karachi, Oxford University Press. Gilmartin, D. (1979) “Religious Leadership and the Pakistan Movement in the Punjab,” Modern Asian Studies, 13: 485–517. ——— (1988) Empire and Islam: Punjab and the Making of Pakistan. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haqqani, H. (2005) Pakistan between Mosque and Military. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Haroon, S. (2007) Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Border. London: Hurst. Hischkind, C. (2001) “Civic Virtue and Religious Reason: An Islamic Counterpublic,” Cultural Anthropology, 16: 3–34. Hussain, Z. (2007) Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam. Lahore: Vanguard Books. Jaffrelot, C. (ed.) (2008 [2004]) A History of Pakistan and Its Origins. London: Anthem Press. Jalal, A. (2008) Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kennedy, C. (1992) “Repugnancy to Islam—Who Decides? Islam and Legal Reform in Pakistan,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 41: 769–788. Khan, M. A. (2005–2006) Pakistani Madaris and Change: Survival Strategies and Political Challenges. Mémoire de DEA. Paris: EHESS. Kurin, R. (1993) “Islamization in Pakistan: The Sayyid and the Dancer,” in Eickelman, D. F. (ed.) Russia’s Muslim Frontier: New Directions in Cross- Cultural Analysis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Malik, J. (1996) Colonization of Islam: Dissolution of Traditional Institutions in Pakistan. Lahore: Vanguard. Marsden, M. (2005) Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan’s NorthWest Frontier. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Masud, M. K. (2005) “Communicative Action and the Social Construction of Shari’a in Pakistan,” in Salvatore, A. and Levine, M. (eds.) Religion, Social Practice and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies. New York : Palgrave. Matringe, D. (2005) Un Islam non arabe: Horizons indiens et pakistanais. Paris : Téraèdre. Mehmood, S. (2005) Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Metcalf, B. D. (1982) Islamic Revival in British India, 1860–1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ——— (2004) Islamic Contestations: Essays on Muslims in India and Pakistan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Nasr, V. R. (1994) The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jama’at-i Islami of Pakistan. London: I.B. Tauris. ——— (2001) Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Otayek, R. and Soares, B. F. (2007) “Introduction: Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa,” in Otayek, R. and Soares, B. F. (eds.) Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa. New York: Palgrave. Rana, M. A. (2007) “A Court of One’s Own,” The Herald (Karachi), May. Salvatore, A. and Eickelman, D. F. (eds.) (2004) Public Islam and the Common Good. Leiden: Brill. Salvatore, A. and LeVine, M. (eds.) (2005) Religion, Social Practice and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies. New York: Palgrave. Scott, J. C. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Shaikh, F. (2009) Making Sense of Pakistan. London: Hurst. Sikand, Y. (2005) Bastions of the Believers. Madrasas and Islamic Education in India. New Delhi: Penguin. Spaulding, F. C. (2003) “Ayub Khan, Constantinos Doxiadis, and Islamabad: Biography as Modernity in a Planned Urban Space,” in Kennedy, C., Mcneil, K., Ernst, C., and Gilmartin, D. (eds.) Pakistan at the Millennium. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Verkaaik, O. (2005) “On Terror and Sacrifice,” in Kaur, R. (ed.) Religion, Violence and Political Mobilisation in South Asia. New Delhi: Sage. ——— (2007) “Ethnicizing Islam: ‘Sindhi Sufis,’ ‘Muhajir Modernists’ and ‘Tribal Islamists’ in Pakistan,” in Shafqat, S. (ed.) New Perspectives on Pakistan: Visions for the Future. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Waseem, M. (1994) Politics and the State in Pakistan. Islamabad, National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research. Werbner, P. (2003) Pilgrims of Love: The Anthropology of a Global Sufi Cult. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zaïdi, S. A. (1999) Issues in Pakistan’s Economy. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Zaman, M. Q. (2002) The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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CHAPTER 7

The Religious Formation and Social Roles of Imams Serving the Pakistani Diaspora in the UK Philip Lewis

Introduction According to the 2001 census, there are some 1.6 million Muslims in Britain, or 2.7% of the UK population. About 1 million or 68% have roots in South Asia—43% were Pakistani, 16% Bangladeshi, 8% Indian.1 Outside London, it is Pakistanis who shape the public profile of Muslims in Britain. These communities have grown over a 50-year period from about 10,000 in 1951 to three quarters of a million in 2001. 2 Seventy percent of “Pakistanis” have roots in Azad Kashmir, one of the least developed areas in Pakistan.3 Their traditionalism is kept alive by substantial exchanges: religious leaders, politicians, investment, and perhaps 50% per annum transcontinental marriages.4 Since 9/11 the challenge of incorporating Muslim communities in Western Europe has assumed a new urgency for policymakers. In many respects Britain enjoys a number of assets when compared to other countries. Migrants can enjoy dual citizenship, unlike it is in Germany. Britain has developed a race relations’ regime, which, for all its imperfections, is probably the most developed in Europe and thus offers some protection to “visible minorities” against discrimination in education, employment, and public services. In England, an established church offers public and civic space for “religion”—in marked contrast to France—as well as investing locally and nationally in church personnel committed to developing and deepening interfaith relations.

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Historical and trade links with the Muslim world, especially South Asia and Middle East, means the government is keen to promote its success in incorporating its Muslim citizens; so an increasing trickle of British Muslims find themselves, inter alia, in embassies in the Muslim world. Until 2001, Britain tended to think that such assets, as well as an undertheorized policy of “multiculturalism,” was creating institutional space for Muslim communities to express their differences, while developing a shared sense of belonging to their new home.5 However, the year 2001, which saw serious riots in a number of northern cities largely involving young Muslims of Pakistani heritage, challenged such complacency. A number of local and national reports into these disturbances variously spoke of the very worrying drift toward self- segregation with Muslim and non-Muslim communities operating “on the basis of a series of parallel lives . . . [which] do not seem to touch at any point, let alone overlap and promote meaningful interchanges.”6 Until such disturbances policymakers had largely ignored the social world and inf luence of imams in Britain. Interest accelerates with 9/11 and the exposure and imprisonment of a handful of high profile selfstyled “imams” and shaikhs—Abu Hamza al-Misri and Abdullah alFaisal—active in mosques in London inciting young British Muslims to engage in violence extremism against the hated kuffar (infidels).7 Particularly after 7/7, policymakers and the media have began to scrutinize the training and inf luence of Britain’s imams. In this chapter, I seek to shed some light on the status, training, as well as the religious discourses and changing tasks of religious leaders in the British Pakistani communities. Also, I concentrate on some of the mechanisms the government has devised to enhance their capacity. The Transplanting of Pakistani Mosques and Different “Schools of Thought” into Britain As Muslims have traveled, traded, and traversed new linguistic and cultural worlds they have been confronted with new questions. As they searched for religious guidance, they have generally turned to two categories of specialist. The Muslim jurists, who answered with legal opinions and the Sufis, custodians of experiential knowledge of God. 8 This process generated a constant dialectic of adaptation to new societies and a process of “Islamisation,” whereby madrasa-trained scholars ceaselessly campaigned. Against “aberrant” local custom . . . whether referred to as reform (islah), renewal (tajdid), religious summoning (da’wa) or even holy

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struggle (jihad) . . . to penetrate unfamiliar territory, to teach, cajole, inspire, and lead local peoples into a more “proper” observance of the faith. (Bulliett 1994) The “unfamiliar territory” now includes Britain. However, the challenges facing ulama if they are to transmit Islam to a new generation of British- educated Muslims from Pakistani backgrounds are daunting. First, they have to create institutions of Islamic formation in Britain, which can generate a leadership able to connect socially, intellectually, and linguistically with the 52% of Muslims under 25 years old, a majority of whom were born and educated in Britain whose first language is increasingly English rather than Punjabi or Urdu. Second, their monopoly as custodians of Islam has been challenged within South Asia for over a hundred years, initially by modernists and Islamists.9 Third, they have to compete with the well-funded Saudi Wahhabi/Salafi tradition, which has exacerbated intratraditional sectarianism.10 Fourth, on university campuses they find themselves up against wellorganized radical groups such as Hizb at-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) a movement that broke away from the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine in the 1950s. This group used to recruit Arab students in London campuses but since the 1990s has targeted British students from South Asian backgrounds in universities across the country.11 All these groups have Web sites and it is thus possible to educate oneself outside the world of the traditional leadership. If these challenges were not demanding enough Muslim religious leaders who have come from a Muslim majority society such as Pakistan have to readjust to a formative (Sunni) intellectual tradition—which was articulated in a world where Muslims took power and dominance for granted—to a situation where they are a minority, in a context that entails the “de-territorialisation” of Islam (Roy 2002). The late Dr Zaki Badawi (d. 2006), the doyen of Muslim religious leaders in Britain, remarked almost a quarter a century ago: “Muslim theology offers, up to [now], no systematic formulations of being a minority” (Badawi 1982). In Pakistan, there are five main Islamic “schools of thought” (maslaks) that have central bodies to determine syllabi, collect a registration fee and set examination papers for their respective “seminaries”—madrasa (See Malik 2008b). All these schools of thought have been transplanted into the UK. The most comprehensive mapping of mosques in Britain in terms of such “schools of thought” suggest that there are 600 Deobandi mosques, 550 Barelwi mosques, 60 Islamist, and 75 Salafi—all Sunni— and some 65 Shiite mosques, as well as ethnic- specific mosques for smaller communities such as Turks, Arabs, and so on.12

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It is worth stressing the novelty of the situation in which many imams living in Britain now find themselves. Qur’anic, juristic, and historical material traditionally generated four options for Muslims in non-Muslim societies: (1) struggle to incorporate non-Muslim societies into Dar al-Islam (the domain of Islam); (2) hijra—migration—to Dar al-Islam; (3) isolation from non-Muslims; (4) engage in a pact with the non-Muslim state to ensure the religious freedom to perform basic religious obligations. (These models draw on and develop from a seminal article by Masud 1989). Clearly, the final option is the most promising for British Pakistanis. However, since many Muslims feel beleaguered under the relentless post-7/7 media scrutiny, option three is still the favored stance of many mosques and their imams. The Satus of the Ulama New figures from the Foreign Office show that 420 imams from Pakistan have been granted visas to come to Britain to discharge religious duties since 1997 (Oakeshott 2007). This suggests that many mosque committees, dominated by the elders, still prefer to import religious personnel from their home country rather than employ English- educated ulama now coming on stream. This, despite the fact that of the two important, theological schools of South Asian, Sunni Islam, the Deobandi and the Barelwis, the former has been particularly successful in developing a network of madrasa in Britain. What is clear is that the social status of the majority of mosque imams is modest whether in South Asia or in Britain. He is an employee of the mosque committee. In rural Pakistan often funded by landlords, in Britain, by businessmen (McLoughlin 1998). Further, many imams are poorly paid, so the best educated in Britain often seek employment outside the mosque or eke out a living by doing additional part-time work. In Indo- Pakistan, “aff luent Muslims” hardly ever send their children to such institutions, which are considered to “care for the poor” (Malik 2006). This perception is partly echoed in a survey of Muslim opinion in the UK about the madrasa. One interviewee pointed out that attendance at such institutions was often motivated more by socioeconomic need than religion: “it’s a cheap education . . . and they get fed and looked after” (Gilliat- Ray 2006). Not only do imams, especially from rural backgrounds, have to live with low status, but also they do not automatically receive respect. A recent anthropological study of a Punjabi village, noted that

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There is respect for their position, but not for them. Stories of child abuse, alcoholism, illiteracy, and financial corruption . . . are everywhere . . . In a survey [to elicit] who people asked to help them in their problems, not one respondent said that they would go to any of the local maulvis for any problem. (Lyon 2004: 221)

A majority of Pakistani people in times of trouble visits the local Sufi and his shrine—the heart of Barelwi Islam. Within this world, the imam is often derided as a bearer of bookish knowledge and sectarianism (see Werbner 2003). Such sectarianism has become the bane of Pakistan. Its escalation, whether Sunni- Shia—exacerbated by the Taliban in Afghanistan—or intra- Sunni has been the focus of much recent academic commentary. The Pakistani state, in particular, has been accused of exacerbating such sectarianism by “scaling up antidemocratic and anti-pluralist trends in society” (Zaman 2005).13 Nothing has been more damaging since General Zia’s military tutelage of Pakistan (1977–1988) than the progressive subversion of the Pakistani educational system by Islamic ideology. According to a celebrated report by distinguished educationalists, early Pakistani textbooks presented ancient Hindu history without denigration, criticized aspects of the activities of early Muslim conquerors, and acknowledged with gratitude Mahatma Gandhi’s role in saving many Muslims at partition. These expansive views were eroded and replaced during the past 30 years by narrow, ideological readings that vilified and created hate of the (especially Hindu) “other” –while justifying jihad and glorifying martyrdom. In all, this contributed to the growing violence in Pakistani society, whether intrasectarian or against religious and ethnic minorities, as well as women (Nayyar and Salim 2004). It does not follow, of course, that these unf lattering assessments of imams persist in Britain. However, recent studies by British Muslim intellectuals paint a somewhat dispiriting picture. Professor Ansari, in his history of Muslims in Britain, remarks dryly that the proliferation of mosques is “accompanied by sectarian fragmentation and ideological inf lexibility” (Ansari 2004: 346). A study that largely showcases the work of young, British, Muslim scholars, Muslim Britain, Communities under Pressure barely mentions them at all (Abbas 2005). This does not suggest they are considered central to the future of Muslim Britain. The view depicted in the national press is hardly more encouraging. A young journalist on the Times, Burhan Wazir, a Glaswegian

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of Pakistani origins, in one of a series of articles on British Muslims, concluded: In the past six weeks . . . leaders of Muslim organisations, Muslim parliamentarians, parents [stressed the] . . . need [for] an educated clergy [sic] that speaks English and is erudite in the customs and conventions of the British Isles . . . Fewer than 10 per cent of British imams have received their instruction in the UK . . . [which include] dictatorial parttimers . . . [Recruited by] undemocratic councils . . . Typically imams have no employment contract, no pension and often no regular salary . . . a career marked by poverty is unlikely to tempt well- educated, British born Muslims away from commerce, medicine and information technology. (Wazir 2004)14

In She Who Disputes, a report by the Muslim Women’s Network, the portrayal of imam and mosque is equally negative. While a few positive changes are acknowledged, the overall picture is of the mosque as a largely male space: in Leicester a survey suggested that less than 2% of women were trustees on mosque committees.15 Since male community leaders pay the imam’s salary, he is presented as unable to address culturally taboo issues, such as domestic violence. Moreover, given the frequently tight-knit nature of communities served by local mosques, the women have little confidence that confidentiality will be respected. There is also impatience with the content and teaching style of the imams. A Londoner is weary with some of the language used in the mosque: I used to hate the word kaffir (infidel)—everything that goes wrong is down to non-Muslims. We need to look at ourselves—and improve. We must respect other religions. This would help kids be better human beings.

A young woman from Manchester complains that in the mosque you are taught the Qur’an in Arabic. If this was done in English we could “discuss it, learn from scholars, and be able to question what [we were] told.” Another from Birmingham comments sardonically that “The men in the mosques are not going to tell anyone about women’s rights under Islam! I had to go and get a book on Islam in English, to learn about my own religion!” Exasperation is expressed: “Muslim men sometimes think that they are born with the right to hit women and Muslim women think that it’s religious.” A Birmingham woman notes that “if khutbahs [sermons] in

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the mosque were made on the issue of women’s rights, it would have an effect on the men who go there.” Such women complain of the dominance of conservative literature in the mosques and want to be able to access “progressive interpretation on women and women’s rights.”16 Training of Ulama: The Tradition Explored The Pakistani anthropologist, Professor Akbar Ahmed, after discussions with teachers of madrasa and an examination of their syllabi over a period of 20 years, concluded that the typical institution was narrow and “exclusively Islamic”—based on the Qur’an, the Sunna, and shariah—and “encouraged religious chauvinism”: [With no space for] non-Muslim philosophers or historians . . . no Max Weber . . . worse, even Muslim ones, like Ibn Khaldun . . . [were] missing . . . [In all, they embodied an] Islam minus its sophisticated legacy of art, culture, mysticism, and philosophy (Ahmed 2003: 144).

Muhammad Zaman—a specialist on classical Islam and the social and intellectual world of contemporary Indo-Pakistani madrasa—notes that within Pakistan, any reform of the curriculum would have to engage with the reality that “many Pakistani madrasa . . . maintain ties with militant sectarian organizations in the country . . . and the views of the ulama on such things as the position of women or on pluralism are often far from being conducive to a democratic society”(Zaman 2005: 68).17 Zaman here is raising a real problem. The women cited in the earlier report—She who Disputes—assume without argument a number of positions: that what counts as Islamic rights for women is unproblematic, similarly that respect and understanding of other religions is a given. However, as a scholar of the classical tradition, Zaman is aware that very different views are embedded in classical legal texts and revered compilations of prophetic traditions, the mainstay of madrasa education. For example, a popular twelfth- century Hanafi legal text, Hidaya (Guidance), takes for granted that in a range of legal cases “the evidence required is of two men or of one man and two women” (Lewis 1994: 139). The formula “one man equals two women” has been extrapolated from a Qur’anic verse dealing with a particular issue but now generalized to encompass most legal cases. If we turn to an inf luential compilation of prophetic traditions, selected by Imam Nawawi, a Syrian scholar who died in 1278, entitled, Riyadh us Salihee, (Garden of the Righteous) similar assumptions are

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made. Traditions are quoted that suggest women are congenitally defective and should be considered by husbands “as captives in your possession”; if they “act licentiously in an open way, then leave them alone on their beds and beat them but not severely.” With regard to non-Muslims, the following tradition is cited: “Do not initiate the greeting for the Jews and Christians. When you meet one of them in the road, force him to the narrowest part of it.” Hidaya continues to be an important component of legal training in Islamic “seminaries” in Britain. Indeed, a new translation has just been published in England. As for the Garden of the Righteous, I was recently given a copy in English translation in a large Deobandi mosque in a northern city, intended for use among the more able students of 13 and 14 years old.18 Now, while such works contain much that is edifying and admirable, the material on women, religious pluralism, and jihad—as well as the mindset presupposed by such texts—pose problems in a world very different from the medieval empires in which they were produced. Traditional scholars, thus far, have been ill equipped to engage such questions as posed by the authors of She Who Disputes, except than by curt dismissal.19 Training Ulama in Britain20 While most of the traditional schools of Sunni Islam in Indo-Pakistan have established madrasa in Britain, the most successful have been the Deobandi whose first madrasa was established in 1975 at Bury, near Manchester; the network now comprises 18 such institutions. If the Deobandis in Pakistan could spawn the Taliban—intolerant of other Muslims, not to speak of non-Muslims—the Indian tradition was more eirenic and endorsed the notion of a “composite nationalism” whereby India could encompass different religious communities. Many Indian Deobandis adopted the politically quietist position of their revivalist wing, Tablighi Jamaat, the preaching party. 21 The latter remain significant in Britain given the dominance of Indian Muslims in institution building. However, the Taliban tradition has its apologists amongst British, Pakistani Deobandis. The Barelwis, probably the most numerous tradition in Britain, have been much less preoccupied with establishing madrasa, given the centrality of the Sufi master, Sheikh, in this tradition. They have created five madrasa, of which two are large complexes that have developed a good reputation within the Muslim communities, Eaton Hall, near Nottingham and Hijaz College, Nuneaton.

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Until very recently, students who attended the Deobandi seminaries were socialized in a relatively self- contained world.22 Islamic study dominated the morning sessions, taught through the medium of Urdu, 23 while a minimal English curriculum was taught in the afternoon to enable pupils in the age group 12–16 to conform to the dictates of English law. Students who completed the entire program of study often lacked good English and the interpersonal skills to relate to wider society. The structure of study guaranteed that students lived in two unconnected intellectual, linguistic, and cultural worlds. The curriculum taught at Bury—dars- i nizami—was an attenuated version of that initially developed in eighteenth- century India by the famous Lucknow dynasty of scholars known as the Farangi Mahall. The original syllabus with its enhanced significance given to logic and philosophy alongside the traditional subjects of the Qur’an, Hadith, and fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) was congenial to the Muslim elites who would become the lawyers, judges, and administrators of the Mughal Empire. Farangi Mahall offered an expansive and innovative curriculum: one of its great nineteenthcentury luminaries, Mawlana `Abd al-Hayy, was unusual in embodying in his scholarship a highly developed historical sense. He sought to contextualize the classical texts, especially the great works of fiqh, studied in the seminaries. He was deeply concerned that the lack of such a sense (of history) amongst his contemporaries meant that they were using all the elements of the Islamic tradition . . . in a wooden and inf lexible fashion, which made them increasingly less serviceable guides to Islamic behaviour in the present. “On account of this state of things,” he declared somewhat waspishly, “our ulama have become riders of a blind animal” and fell into a dry well (Robinson 2001: 121). However, with the emergence of the Deobandi tradition in South Asia in the nineteenth century, this tradition of rational sciences and emerging historical contextualization of classical Islamic texts was largely eroded in favor of a renewed emphasis on the revealed sciences of Qur’an and Hadith and the production of legal verdicts focused upon the moral reform of the individual. There are various reasons for this development, not least the disappearance of the old centers of patronage and demand for the Farangi Mahall education with the collapse of the Mughal Empire and the reduction of Islamic law to personal law. Western education was now the route to positions in British India, which left the ulama, the erstwhile educators of the ruling elite, with the task of the preservation of the core Islamic sciences in what was viewed as a hostile environment.

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The curriculum taught at Bury similarly ignores rational sciences and the contextualization of classical Islamic texts in favor of a renewed emphasis on the revealed sciences of Qur’an and Hadith. Apart from intense study of Arabic literature and language—the precondition for any serious study of the key Islamic texts—there is some study of the life of the Prophet, his companions, and an elementary review of early Islamic history, along with a minimalist selection of mediaeval texts: a short Qur’anic commentary by Suyuti (d. 1505); a brief text on the articles of belief by Nasafi (d. 1143), and a Hanafi fiqh text written by Marghinani (d. 1196), the Hidaya mentioned earlier. The apex of study was the canonical collections of Prophetic traditions (ahadith). Teaching methods aim to initiate students into the accumulated wisdom of a religious tradition, personalized in the life and teaching of a respected teacher. Teaching is one way and text based. The aim is the mastery of key texts and their traditional interpretation rather than the systematic and critical exploration of subjects; successful completion of the course entails the permission (ijaza) to teach these texts to a new generation. It is difficult to see how such religious formation could foster a critical traditionalism in dialogue with the complexity of the modern world. As the distinguished South African scholar Professor Ebrahim Moosa found when he studied at Deoband, “there were few teachers to whom one could air . . . doubts.”24 Instead of engaging with criticism, even today the movement prefers to silence such doubts. An elementary text on Qur’anic exegesis for 12 year olds used in Deobandi mosques in Britain begins with a health warning to students. It lists the many criteria a scholar had to meet before being considered competent to comment on the Qur’an and concludes with a Prophetic tradition. This solemnly warns students against entertaining their own opinion about Qur’anic meanings. They are to depend on the tradition of scholarly mediation. The abode for those who ignore this warning is the “fire” (of hell). 25 In the past decade, Bury has made internal changes and furthered its links with external educational institutions, following the lead of graduates who have gained expertise in the wider world. Talk radio is now allowed and some broadsheets and weeklies. Many students are opened up to wider currents in Islamic thought through specialist study elsewhere: comparative jurisprudence and Arabic at the Azhar in Egypt, Hadith studies at the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, and training as jurisconsults (muftis) in the Hanafi legal school in Karachi. In the 1990s, the more able students were encouraged to get further qualifications from British universities.

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The minimal attention given to the English curriculum is also changing. A local college provides science and computing facilities on site and personnel to teach examination subjects: both GCSE level and A level. I was told on a recent visit in 2007 that they now offered five A levels: in Arabic, Urdu, ICT, Law, and Accountancy—but no English, history, or social sciences. In marked contrast to the Deobandi tradition, it is worth glancing at the ethos and curriculum of the Muslim College in London that enjoys an inf luential political role because of the national profile of its founder, the late, Sheikh Dr. Zaki Badawi. Dr. Badawi, an Egyptian scholar trained at Azhar, was one of the few Islamic scholars in Britain at home in Islamic and modern Western disciplines. He studied psychology at London University and was awarded a PhD on the topic of Islamic modernism. After a stint as director and chief imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre in London, he set up the Muslim College in the mid-1980s to train Muslim scholars. The Muslim College is a graduate college and in collaboration with Birkbeck College, London University offers certificate and diploma courses on Islam. It also teaches MA students, the first batch qualified in 1990. To access the Muslim College Web site is to enter a very different world to the traditional “seminary.” In the Home page, there is an acknowledgment that living in a Western environment poses “a challenge to the ethical and social values enshrined in the Holy Qur’an and the Sunna.” To meet such challenges, there is “an imperative to understand Islamic traditional culture in its historical and social context . . . a prerequisite for the revitalizing of Islamic thought and making Islamic contributions to the realm of ideas relevant to the human condition.” The College aspires to academic standards comparable to those of other UK institutions of higher education. Unusually for an Islamic institution, the college invites rabbis and clergy to talk to students directly about their different faiths. Students are expected “to develop a critical approach to traditional and contemporary issues of religion . . . to combine theoretical, vocational and practical experiences . . . undertake independent research by dealing with both primary and secondary sources . . . [and] develop a sense of responsibility towards their community and the welfare of society at large.” The courses offered for imams include public speaking with a section on “psychology of the crowd”; counseling incorporates “principles of conciliation”; mosque administration, and a detailed section on understanding the community that includes working with women, youth, and public bodies such as police, health authorities, education, and social services.

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There is also a module on religious dialogue and relations with other religions. To juxtapose the Muslim College’s curriculum and ethos to that of a Deobandi madrasa is, simply, to realize the nature of the challenge facing the latter if they are to equip its English-educated students with the intellectual tools to relate confidently to the intellectual, social, and cultural world of young British Muslims. Especially, since the Disbands—unlike the Barelwi/Sufi tradition—consider music prohibited by Islamic law.26 Traditional Tasks of Religious Leaders The majority of the mosque imams across the country has little or no public and civic role. Their employers, mosque committee members, often import an understanding of their roles from back home. Writing of a typical jamia masjid in a Punjabi village—the biggest mosque that can accommodate up to 500–600 people for Eid prayers—an anthropologist noted that those who fund and control the mosque: . . . Do not ask the maulvi to intervene in their disputes and they would not approve if he were to introduce party politics in his sermons. The maulvi’s job is to say the azan, call to prayers, pray, be moral and rest unobtrusive. (Lyon 2004: 218)

Some years ago a Deobandi imam itemized his functions in as British mosque thus: To lead the five daily prayers; to teach the children in the supplementary school; to give the Friday address, khutbah (in Arabic) and the accompanying sermon in Urdu; to preside over rites of passage—at birth to whisper the call to prayer, azaan, into the child’s ear, to solemnize the marriage contract, nikah, and to prepare the dead for burial; to prepare ta’wiz, amulets, for those fearful of the evil eye; to offer advice, within his competence, on the application of Islamic teaching and law, on a range of issues put to him. (Lewis 1994: 117)

Barelwi mosques also remain largely the preserve of the first generation with a mosque committee organized on the basis of Pakistani clans— biraderis (brotherhoods)—rather than democratically elected. 27 In a recent study of one such mosque in a northern town, the author notes that as with other workingclass immigrants—whether east European Jews or Irish Catholics—the religious building provides an important space where they maintain self-respect and can “resist assimilation,

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navigate social exclusion (including the experiences of racism and unemployment) and organise self-help” (McLoughlin 1998: 1061). The mosque committee did secure funds from the local authority to start a homework club for teenagers underachieving at school, a day care center for the elderly men and an information technology suite, run by young professionals rather than the imam. The imam’s minimalist role has frequently been the object of concern, not least by more radical, Islamists groups such as Hizb at-Tahrir, a movement that broke away from the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine in the 1950s. An article in their magazine, by a British Pakistani member, laments: The Muslim youth in this country are very familiar with the mosque routine they endured as children. The daily visit to the mosque sent by their parents to learn and memorise the Qur’an . . . rather than centres for guidance and clarification, the mosques operated no- discussion, no question regimes and were completely unaware of the problems faced by the Muslim youth. They could not turn to the mosque . . . to have the confusing questions posed at school answered or simply to seek advice about avoiding the temptations and pressures [of the West] . . . 28

The Radical Fringes The inability of many imams to connect with young, British Pakistanis has created a space filled for some by the radical fringes, especially Islamists such as Hizb at-Tahrir and Salafis. A number of think tank and journalistic investigations have recently sought to prise open this closed world. Typical was a Channel 4 documentary broadcast on January 15, 2007—“Undercover Mosques”—that painted a worrying picture of certain Ahl-i Hadith (Salafi) and UK Islamic Mission (Islamist) mosques, especially in Birmingham. The program profiled preachers peddling a Salafi ideology of bigotry and intolerance rooted in and funded from Saudi Arabia. The content and tenor of the ideology is illustrated by the following quotations from the preachers profiled: Allah has created the woman deficient. If she doesn’t wear hijab we hit her. Take the homosexual man and throw him from the mountain You have to live like a state within a state until you take over. The peak, pinnacle, the crest, the summit of Islam is jihad.

One Birmingham mosque maintained a two-way video link with scholars in Saudi Arabia whose comments were kept on DVDs. Legal

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opinions—fatwas—were sought from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. A Birmingham worshipper puts the following question to him in the video link in 2006: Some people say we shouldn’t call Christians and Jews kuffar and we should establish dialogue and good relations with them. What’s your answer to this?

His answer is uncompromising: “This is not true, Jews and Christians who do not follow the Prophet Mohammed are kuffar. They will go to hell.” He says that Muslims can’t help nonbelievers. “Anyone who helps or defends an apostate, or a pagan, or an atheist, or anyone who attacks Islam, will be cursed.” The Grand Mufti is later heard saying that children should be hit if they do not pray: “Tell your children to pray when they are seven, and hit them when they are ten [if they do not].” Other preachers voice millenarian fantasies. Abu Usamah, a fiery, young American convert, who had already delivered himself of a number of peremptory judgments ranging from the view that the unbelievers, kuffar, are “pathological liars,” to the view that apostates from Islam should face exemplary capital punishments of the cruelest sort, finally turns with relish to anticipate the coming jihad against the unbelievers. 29 Now, of course, such preachers are careful not to justify 7/7 but they operate from within the same Manichean worldview. Their selective retrieval of Islamic texts that terrorize the imagination serves to create an atmosphere of expectation and uncertainty. The inf lammatory rhetoric and themes that emerge from such investigations into a minority of mosques in Britain, many of which serve British Pakistani communities, are clearly worrying. They indicate the extent to which Saudi funded Salafi and radical, Islamist inf luences have impacted sections of the British Pakistani communities, their mosques, and imams (see also MacEoin 2007). None of the mosques profiled in the program was Barelwi—who are bitterly opposed to Salafi Islam—or Deobandi, which together comprise the vast majority of mosques in Britain. Undercover mosques offered little insight into the intense debates within the very traditions they were profiling. For example, from the mid-1990s the Salafis fractured into three groups: purists, politicos, and jihadis. All three trajectories agree on matters of theology but differ with regard to other key issues: [The] “Purists” remain loyal to the principles of Salafi ‘aqida (creed), and the Saudi state . . . their priority was peaceful preaching—reform and

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correction of Muslim belief and ritual practice. The “politicos” . . . argued that [reform] . . . had to include a consideration of the complex and changing socio-political realities . . . The “jihadis”. . . were impatient of the status quo, had participated in theatres of conf lict like Afghanistan and wanted to take direct action, using violence to affect social change. (Hamid 2009)30

Moreover, individuals can move across categories. Dr. Usama Hasan is the 36-year- old Salafi imam at the Tawhid mosque in Leyton, East London. In 1990, while an undergraduate at Cambridge, he joined an extremist group and spent three years in Pakistan and Afghanistan where “he learnt how to use Kalashnikovs, M16s and hand grenades . . . he remained throughout the 1990s an admirer of Bin Laden.” This changed with 9/11 and especially 7/7: “I realized that Muslims had to speak out against extremists. We had to teach that jihad is a just war, but groups like Al- Qaeda have perverted it.” Such a volte-face has “earned Hasan death threats from some worshippers, while others have called him a ‘sell- out’ and a ‘government stooge” ’ (Taher 2008: 14).31 What is evident from such investigations is the urgency for British Pakistani communities to develop a religious leadership at ease with English and familiar with British society and its institutions and is able to channel their questions and criticisms into constructive engagement with wider society. A recent survey produced for the BBC in March 2007 of a sample of some 300 mosques in Britain found that more than 80% of the imams was from South Asia, almost half from Pakistan. Only 8% was born and educated in the UK. Moreover, across the total sample very few had taken any additional courses when in Britain. Once the British-born contingent that undertake their imam training (in the UK) are taken out of the reckoning, very few imams participate in further training. Out of 51 imams who have taken qualifications in the UK, 17 are British imams undertaking primary qualifications; 14 more are developing their primary imam qualifications with further courses in dar al- uloom (“Islamic seminaries”); 10 have obtained degrees in a British university, whilst only 13 have engaged in courses that may develop their skills in a British context such as English language (7), cultural awareness (2), Chaplaincy (2), and computer courses (2). As yet there is little sign of the mosque imams or their employers being ready to professionalize.32 Given the failure of a majority of Pakistani imams to connect with young, British Muslims, it is unsurprising that some are attracted to groups that can communicate in English, whether Salafi or Islamist.

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The Islamists emerged in 1920s and 1930s, in Egypt as the Muslim Brotherhood and in India as Jama’at-i-Islami (the Islamic Party). Realizing that the Muslim elites were being seduced by Western ideas and ideologies—nationalism, communism, fascism, socialism—Islamists reconfigured Islam as a rival but superior system and political ideology. In Britain, a new generation of Islamists has emerged, many of whom are more pragmatic than ideological. They have been at the forefront of creating an Islamic civil society sector—associations of Islamic lawyers, teachers, and doctors (Lewis 2007). It is only the radical end of this movement, of course, which is virulently anti-Western (for an insight into extremist groups such as Al-Muhajiroun, see Wiktorowicz 2005). Only Connect: Pioneering Imams Moving Out of the Comfort Zones In reality, there have been some changes often unnoticed by critics of the imams. With Deobandi “seminaries” producing a surplus of young British-trained ulama, the more able are seeking employment, whether full time or part time outside the mosque. A small but increasing number, from Deobandi and Barelwi traditions alike, are moving out of their comfort zones—some into school teaching or prison and hospital chaplaincy. Here they are learning new social and intellectual skills— “professionalism”—enabling them to engage with greater confidence in wider society. I brief ly profile here four such activists. Dr. Musharaf Hussain, in his early forties and of Pakistani ancestry, is the founder and inspiration behind the Karimia Institute in Nottingham, which he established in 1990. Dr. Hussain has traversed three distinct linguistic, intellectual, and cultural worlds. He acquired his elementary religious education from a Pakistani imam in Bradford, then went on to earn a PhD in medical biochemistry. After some years as a research scholar at a British university, he spent a year in a traditional Islamic “seminary” in Pakistan where the medium of instruction was Urdu and rounded off his Islamic formation by gaining a BA in Islamic Studies from Azhar in Cairo taught in Arabic. Karimia Institute is an innovative multipurpose centre serving the local community. It encloses a mosque, new sports center, accredited nursery, ITC suite, and a number of classrooms and a radio station. Its private primary school is located nearby. A recent annual report of the institute listed 17 projects, 20 full-time and 35 part-time staff and an annual budget of some £400,000. What is striking in the report has been their emphasis on youth:

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At Karimia our youth work is not about tackling disaffection but more of preventative nature by providing learning environment, recreational activities and camps. We want to inspire the young and train them to be good citizens by giving them a sense of direction and mission, so that they can be a positive force for social change. Our youth club attracts many youngsters who would otherwise be on the streets.

The report also makes clear the willingness of staff to be involved in a range of partnerships whether with the Local Education Authority, urban regeneration schemes, local Further Education College, or Youth service. Their work in providing tutorial classes in English, maths, and science for those under 16, as well as offering GCSE in Islamic Studies in Urdu; homework clubs, adult classes, and youth provision all point to their success in such partnerships. They also reflect on the demands of partnerships: It is important to emphasize the facts that the organization’s work does not only produce good in an individual’s life but . . . produces many goods for the wider society. [Further] work that is funded by others may be minutely scrutinized . . . [and] such funds cannot be used for Da’wa [“invitation” to Islam] work . . . and [must] not discriminate against anyone . . . Most of us joined [Karimia] because [we] are driven by faith to help and serve others . . . I hope that our secular friends and agencies will notice this commitment to faith and the important role it plays in people’s life.

In our conversation, Dr. Hussain remarked that as he engaged with wider society and its agencies, his fears and stereotypes began to be challenged. He feels most local Muslim institutions in the UK are still at the first two stages of creation and consolidation. Few have moved into the critical third phase—“professionalism.” He also had been one of the pioneers of a local Muslim charity—Muslim Hands—which now has 16 paid workers and operates in 35 countries. In 2003, it raised some £4 million. Muslim Hands is now a professional organization and won an “Investing in People” award: most of the staff had gone through his mosque, local schooling, and university. He is one of only two scholars in the Barelwi/Sufi tradition who sits on the central committee of the national Muslim Council of Britain. Since 9/11 he has been concerned to increase the range of contacts in his local community—not least a joint project with a local church—so as to challenge negative depictions of Muslims. He assumed national media prominence when in September 2004 he and the assistant secretary general of the MCB, Dr. Daud Abdullah, went to Iraq, supported by the

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British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to intercede for the life of Ken Bigley, a British hostage, later murdered. Dr. Hussain had already held a much publicized prayer vigil for Mr. Bigley, in his local Muslim primary school. It is not surprising that Dr. Hussain was appointed one of four Muslim presidents of the national Christian Muslim Forum inaugurated in January 2006 with the Archbishop of Canterbury as its founder patron. At CMF he has pioneered residential meetings between imams and clergy, drawing largely on imams who like him have moved out of the safety of the familiar world—many are chaplains in hospitals and prisons.33 Dr. Hussain is aware that if more ulama are to have the skills and confidence to benefit from the new openness of the local state and public bodies to Islam, there will have to be major changes in religious formation. He sets great store by the Muslim schools movement—there are now over 110 full-time private Muslim schools in the UK—most of which are affiliated to the Association of Muslim Schools, AMS, set up in 1993, to which he belongs and which he used to chair. He considers that such a network will render many of the Islamic “seminaries” in Britain irrelevant in the not-too-distant future. AMS network follows the national curriculum and so Islam is no longer being taught “out- of- context”—unlike many Islamic seminaries in the UK where teaching is still in Urdu and whose curriculum gives the appearance of being frozen in nineteenthcentury India. He surmised that the Muslims will follow the Catholics and develop a tertiary college and teacher training college within the next decade. Such an institution could draw on the products of the AMS and both offer degrees and pioneer an appropriate Islamic curriculum to develop a new religious leadership at ease in Britain. Such a curriculum should include history, philosophy, and the social sciences. In contrast to Dr. Hussain, Shaikh Ahmed Ali is an inf luential British Pakistani based in Bradford, a northern city. He is a Deobandi scholar in his early thirties, educated at a “seminary” in Britain—where the medium of instruction remains Urdu—and then at Azhar. Unlike Dr. Musharaf, he did not go on to tertiary education in Britain nor have exposure to British society as a teacher or a chaplain. However, like a growing number of able, young ulama, he has set up an independent, Islamic academy with the support of a number of young, like-minded Muslim professionals. Such institutions are free from control by the mosque committee elders and from the negative associations mosques often carry with Muslim youth. Ahmed’s institution organizes a range of activities for Muslim youth intended to maintain their interest through adolescence, which

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range from additional educational classes on the weekend in computing, English, and maths, as well as homework clubs, to summer camps. Everything is studied in English. He has pioneered an attractively produced series of Islamic storybooks in English for children, each based on an imaginative rewriting of a hadith. The first, entitled The Bully King was produced in 2000 and eight others have been printed. However, his particular strength is as a charismatic speaker who has developed an audiotape and CD ministry. He has over 60 titles and sells tens of thousands every year, not least in the United States. He does not avoid controversial issues whether drugs or forced marriage. A recent tape is amusingly entitled “The IT syndrome” (I am IT!) where he parodies the “big timers” and role models for disaffected youth in the community with their “7 series BMWs, Mercs & mobile phones” who forget the Qur’an’s warnings about “exalting riches and forgetting Allah.” He reminds them of the Qur’anic punishments—amputation for theft; “80 of the best” for false accusation; stoning for adultery with a married woman. Shaikh Ali is also exercised by the inroads of non-Muslim cultural practices. In a recent cassette—Tawheed and Shirk—he reminds his audience that shirk (associating something or someone with Allah) is the unforgivable sin. He expresses dismay that some misguided Muslims protested against the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. He recounts with approval a tradition to the effect that a companion of the Prophet is commended for cleaving the head of a female seer. Yet all around Ali sees Muslims adopting unacceptable practices: whether consulting their zodiac signs in the tabloid press or celebrating Valentine’s Day. He also rehearses an intra-Muslim polemic against practices of Barelwis such as praying at the tombs of Islamic saints for children. The shaikh blames much of this on the British education system and the indifference of Muslim parents. He laments the fact that many parents limit their Islamic responsibility to depositing their children from five years old after state school at mosque schools. “Such is the love we’ve got for Allah . . . Eight hours the child spend in [state] schools, you know the filth they teach you . . . [so that even if the child does not become] a kafir [infidel] . . . he accepts and embraces [their] ways . . .” (Quoted in Bolognani 2007: 365). In his two most recent CDs—Do Not Despair and The Future Is Bright—he rehearses the humiliations and defeats of the Muslim world of the past 50 years. Kashmir begins the catalogue of horrors—murder, torture, and rape of mothers and daughters—with the counter point that

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“the socalled civilized world deliberately turns a blind eye.” “Where else in the world do you see anyone else other than Muslims being persecuted and tortured? . . . If one non-Muslim is persecuted all of a sudden there is a huge cry in the name of human rights.” The same pattern is detailed with relation to Palestine with the same refrain: “They say we live in a civilized world; yet, such atrocities were not committed in the dark ages.” The answer to this catalog of horrors is not to doubt the power of Allah. Rather, all this is to be construed as a test whereby the truth of Muslim commitment is exposed. Ahmed points out that the recent international media scrutiny of Islam, whether positive or negative, has done what a “hundred years of Muslim effort [preaching] could not achieve.” It has been a wake up call for Muslims across the world, including Muslims in the West. “They realised that they would never be accepted ” (by the non-Muslim world). So they are deserting the bars and nightclubs and returning to Islam. “In Britain, too, young Muslims at universities and workplace who had forgotten their identity . . . post-9/11 with [people] looking at them in an evil way and seeing them as terrorists [now realize] we will never be accepted . . . [so] return to Islam . . . sisters are wearing hijab . . . the Lion is waking up” (my emphasis).34 Shaikh Ahmed Ali’s discourse ref lects a number of key themes— Muslim as victim, a Manichean discourse of Muslim and antagonistic non-Muslim world, and a utopian even millenarian rhetoric where the ummah will embody a “clear victory” and prevail over its enemies. In marked contrast to Ahmed Ali, we can turn to two other British Pakistanis in their thirties, Amjad Mohammed, a teacher and Rafaqat Rashid, a doctor. They are among the first batch of young religious, scholars who have been trained in Bradford on a part-time basis, by another scholar trained at Bury. This process can take up to 10 years. However, unlike Ali, they already have a good grounding in British society, which they bring with them into their training. They form the nucleus of a small group of fellow Muslim professionals who established the Islamic Cultural Association ICA in 2003. The aims of the ICA are listed in their literature and on their Web site; these include portraying a positive image of Muslims; enabling Muslims to play a more positive role in the wider community by fostering better community relations and to work for the good of society as a whole; facilitating a two-way communication between Muslims and public bodies and addressing educational and health deficits in the community; as well as seeking to eradicate discrimination and disadvantages faced by Muslims. They stress that the ICA “consists of professionals

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who have been raised in England” and have “a training in the classical sciences from qualified teachers and sources.” Their Web site has a range of helpful articles on Islamic beliefs, many are self- critical, such as the one entitled “Male Chauvinism and the Muslim World” where they criticize as incompatible with Islamic Law such abuses as female mutilation, honor killings, and forced marriage. They have a chat room where are discussed contemporary local issues such as the following: “Are our Muslim parents playing a proactive role in the education of their children?” “What should the government do to promote social inclusion of Muslims?” Non-Muslims also take part. Amjad Mohamed, the vice chair of ICA, produced an illuminating article on their Web site entitled “British Muslims—Where From, Where To, Where Now?” He notes that Today, the Muslim community in Britain is a relatively settled community [which has] established a diversity of Islamic organizations . . . however, occurrences like The Satanic Verses for example, are perceived as a conspiracy against Muslims. Also, external factors such as problems in the Holy Land (Palestine), the massacre of Muslims in Bosnia, and . . . [latterly] the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq . . . unsettles the resident British Muslims . . . The Muslim community had decided, possibly unconsciously, that rather than defend their religion, it would be better to isolate [themselves] from the wider society and, therefore, not attract attention. However, events over the last few years have changed that position. British Muslims can no longer hope not to be seen nor questioned. Events outside of their hands have dragged them from seclusion into the questioning eye of the general public. British Muslims have . . . to decide whether [or not] to “open their doors” to the wider community . . . [and thereby] dispel myths, misconceptions made against the religion of Islam. (my emphasis)35

The activist thrust of their work is evident in the Qur’anic text that adorns their literature: “. . . mankind can have nothing except what it strives for . . .” (53:39). Thus far they have organized or participated in a number of local conferences. In June 2004, they ran in cooperation with the police a drugs-in- community project. Dr. Rashid has pioneered gender- specific workshops in three mosques on diet and diabetes issues. More recently, they are working with Muslim youth workers mentoring some vulnerable youngsters. To further enhance his competence, Amjad recently completed a year’s program with Common Purpose, a charitable organization that encourages “middle management” in private, public, and voluntary sectors to meet and understand the challenges in

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our contemporary cities. Further, he has recently begun a PhD exploring Islamic legal resources for Muslim minorities. Future Directions? Clearly, the world of the mosques and imams are no longer off the government radar. In June 2006, the government facilitated the establishment of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Body (MINAB) comprising the Al-Khoei Foundation, the British Muslim Forum, the Muslim Association of Britain, and the Muslim Council of Britain.36 Further, it has invested in a number of initiatives such as the Radical Middle Way (RMW)—a traveling road show that aims to draw on the best of contemporary Muslim scholarship from across the world to present a robust and relevant vision for young British Muslims across the country (see Lewis 2007: 145–146 and their Web site). In autumn 2008, the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) allocated £1.3 million community leadership fund to 22 projects; almost a third of which focuses on capacity building of mosques and imams.37 Finally, the Home Office’s and DCLG’s Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund (PF) continues to work with imams.38 The priorities behind such projects are clear and admirable. However, the relative paucity of British Muslims scholars at ease with wider society is evidenced in the fact that while the many male scholars utilized in the Radical Middle Way are drawn from across the world—Egypt, Yemen, West Africa, United States, Canada—none is from Pakistan, and only one a British Pakistani, the admirable Dr. Usama Hasan. In short, there is no one from the biggest British traditions, Barelwi or Deobandi.39 How to engage these traditions and enhance the capacity of their imams will continue to be the major challenge, especially as less than 10% are educated in the UK. MINAB aspires to be independent, nonsectarian, representing the diversity of Islam and broad based with accountable system of representation. Article 2 of its revised constitution lists amongst its aims and objectives to build the capacity of mosques to function as “community hubs”; to advise on “improved access and involvement of women and youth to mosques”; advise relevant bodies on “training requirements/ needs of imams;” and “encourage Mosques to become centers of community cohesion, citizenship and dialogue.” Given the training and provenance of the majority of British Imams, not to speak of the sentiments evident in certain sections of Salafi, Islamist and even Deobandi mosques in Britain, such aims are aspirational and assuredly long term.

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It is also clear in responses to a consultation exercise MINAB undertook that “there is some disquiet that MINAB will impose democratic principles onto member [organizations]”; “MINAB should not be an enforcement agency.” There was agreement that MINAB could provide “guidance on creating activities to attract a diverse range of people from the community (i.e., professionals, youth, elderly) . . . [and] training programs for mosque representatives.” However, “there was considerable feedback on whether MINAB should be involved in moon sighting issues, Madressa curriculum, and local disputes. Overwhelmingly, the opinion has been that MINAB should only be involved in works pertaining to standards and self-regulation [around such issues as health and safety, childcare protection, etc.].”40 MINAB can advise on upskilling imams, to enhance their professionalism in a British context, but interference in madrasa curriculum is clearly off limits. The Pakistan government has also largely failed to engage the issue of curriculum reform other than through the “bolt- on” of modern subjects without integrating such perspectives within the wider Islamic formation. In Pakistan, the problem is deepening intraMuslim sectarianism and madrasa students who are not taught “how to relate with other communities in a culturally diverse country and a globally interdependent world” (Candland 2008: 111). In Britain, the situation is much less fraught. However, a recent survey of how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim seminaries in Britain teach about the “other” traditions, produced by a Muslim and Jewish academic at Cambridge University, makes clear the challenges, especially facing Islamic institutions: Most Islamic institutions training imams in the UK currently fail to prepare their students for positive participation in multicultural and multifaith Britain. The curriculum is based on a passive close reading of texts from a medieval past which, if studied without consideration of the socio- historical context in which they were produced and of our own contemporary multifaith context, can lead to misguided zeal and fanaticism. Moreover, the recapitulations of South Asian Barelwi and Deobandi narratives and polemics on British soil have produced culturally limited and hard- line Indian and Pakistani ways of interpreting Islam in British cities. However, there are a small number of Islamic colleges (focusing on postgraduate studies), which provide high quality educational programmes that take into account the diversity of twenty- first century Britain (2008b: Citation from executive summary. (n.p.) (The report can be downloaded from www.woolfinstitute.ca.ac.uk)

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Our necessarily impressionistic sketch of some pioneering imams who serve within Pakistani communities in Britain makes it clear that if a training in the UK is a necessary condition for being at ease in a British context, it is not sufficient to equip British imams to deliver the MINAB aims. What is crucial is additional exposure to wider society, whether through tertiary education or new social roles such as chaplaincy. In many ways, the most encouraging development is the emergence of a pattern of part-time training for imams who already have professional qualifications in Britain. Notes 1. The most reliable statistical overview of Muslim communities in Britain is given by Professor Ceri Peach (2006). 2. These estimates are given by Ceri Peach (2005), who estimates that the figure was 25,000 by 1961, 119,000 by 1971, 296,000 by 1981, 477,000 by 1991, and 747,000 by 2001. 3. Muslim communities are heavily clustered in a small number of urban areas. In eight urban areas whose population is between 13 and 20% Muslim, Pakistanis comprise two-thirds or more: in Bradford (82%), Birmingham (70%), Pendle (93%), and Slough (82%)—with Luton 60%, Waltham Forest 48%, and Blackburn 40%—I am grateful to Dr. M. A. Kevin Brice of Swansea University for sending me this data from a conference paper he delivered entitled: “The Myth of the Segregated Community?” I have rounded up the percentage points in his data 4. Educationally, significant sections of British Muslim boys of Pakistani ethnicity are underachieving at school. In 2000, only 30% of these children gained five or more GCSEs at Grades A*- C, compared to 50% in the wider population. Major gains have been made in the past few years but the gap between male and female success, present in all communities, remains among the widest within this group; 35% of Muslim families are growing up within households in which no adult is in employment—double the national figure. Unemployment levels are three times national figure; 68% of Muslim women are economically inactive compared to no more than a third of any other religious group. See Lewis (2007). 5. The Web site www.opendemocracy.org has an excellent, accessible series debating “multiculturalism” with a discussion paper by Professor Tariq Modood posted February 16, 2008. 6. Cantle Cohesion Review Team (2001: 9). A good way into the debates around the extent of segregation is Alan Carling (2008) 7. The Egyptian Abu Hamza al-Misri and the Jamaican convert Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal were sentenced to seven and eight years respectively in 2002 and 2003 for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. The former

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8. was one of the “Arab Afghans” who had fought the Russians in Afghanistan and was active in the Finsbury Park mosque; the latter had earned a degree in Islamic Studies at the Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud Islamic University in the Saudi capital of Riyadh before returning to London where initially he attended the Salafi mosque in Brixton, frequented by shoe-bomber Richard Reid. 9. These categories, of course, are not mutually exclusive. 10. The best study of these challenges as they played out in Pakistan remains Fazlur Rahman (1982). 11. For Pakistan see Jamal Malik (2008a) and for Britain J. Birt (2005). 12. Ed Hussain (2007) documented their activities in the 1990s. 13. This data is drawn from the exhaustive research produced by Mehmood Naqshbandi that includes ethnicity, maslak and estimated size of congregations. It can be found on his Web site, www.muslimsinbritain.org. that includes an insightful and candid guide for non-Muslims to Islam and Muslims in Britain, as well as his (2006) report produced by the Defence Academy of the UK. These mosques, of course, attract British Muslims with roots in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. 14. See also Kamran (2008). 15. Mehmood Naqshbandi estimates that most imams earn “between £6,000 and £12.000 per annum, with benefits such as accommodation provided” (2006: 9), 16. She Who Disputes, Muslim Women Shape the Debate, Muslim Women’s Network and Women’s National Commission, November 2006, 52. In Bradford, an official of the Bradford Council for Mosques recently told me that he was unaware of any women being involved in mosque committees in the city. 17. Ibid., 50, 52, and 32. 18. In a survey among Pakistan students in Urdu and English medium schools and universities, public and private, between 65 and 90% favored equal rights for women. This is 17% when compared with madrasa students. See T. Rahman’s (2008) survey that indicates that on a whole range of issues including support for aggressive foreign policy and opposition to granting equal rights to non-Muslims they were the most intolerant of all the student groups. 19. I have used a translation of Garden of the Righteous made by Ayesha Bewley. See www.sunnipath.com under “resources” where work is listed as Riyad as Salihin. According to a new English translation of the Qur’an, a phrase used to justify “humiliation” of People of the Book—9:29—in traditional exegesis has been misunderstood and does not carry this negative meaning. See M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (2004: 118). 20. They are unlikely—assuming they are aware of its existence—to signpost young people to relevant Islamic scholarship produced in academia, for example, Asma Barlas’ research that traces how women were “excluded

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22.

23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

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from public life and from the processes of knowledge construction for the thousand or so years that the Muslim empire endured” and who develops a methodology to retrieve the Qur’an’s egalitarian potential buried under the weight of an exegesis that became “progressively more misogynistic” (2006: 257). Ulama is the plural of ‘alim, literally “knower” (of religious knowledge). It is a generic category that encompasses both the mosque imam who leads prayers and teaches to religious specialists such as a mufti, one who gives legal decisions based on Islamic law to those who consult him. The South African scholar, Ebrahim Moosa, now Professor of Islamics Studies at Duke University in the United States, in a fine article, reviews his 6 years studying in traditional “seminaries” in India including Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) and Deoband 30 years earlier, and ref lects on changes on a recent visit. Moosa characterizes many within TJ as embodying a “calculator mentality,” a preoccupation with rewards for performing certain acts of piety. “Inside the Madrasa, a Personal History,” Boston Review, January/ February (2007), www.bostonreview.net/BR32.1/moosa.html The ethos of the Barelwi “seminary” is more open than that of the Deobandi but the curriculum is not so different. “The movement which eventually led to the establishment . . . of Deoband was intended to reform Muslim education and society from within, rather than adopting English education and the Western ‘infidel’ culture, thereby contributing to the development of a new Urdu religious literature,” Jamal Malik (2008: 293). Moosa’s personal doubts turned on being “disturbed . . . that some of what passes as the execution of shariah practices involved gruesome amputations and f loggings. I believed that if there were other ways to deter murder and theft they would be preferable to the practices of early centuries. There were few teachers to whom one could air such doubts. Most would respond with dire warnings of the spiritual and theological hazards of such thinking” (2007: 8). Tasheel Durusil Quraan: Lessons of the Quraan Made Easy, vol. 8. Lenasia, South Africa: The Syllabi Committee, Jamiyatul Ulama Taalimi Board, n.d. 5. The material is drawn from their Web site, www.muslimcollege.ac.uk A biraderi is, in the language of anthropologists, an intermarrying, patrilineal, caste grouping. Khilafah Magazine, September 2003. The quotations and paraphrases of the program are taken from transcripts of the program made by MPCAKUK, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, UK, and available on their Web site, www.mpacuk.org I am grateful to the author for allowing me to see his chapter in advance of publication. Abu Hamza and Al-Faisal belonged to the jihadi strain. Dr. Hasan now works for the innovative London network, “City Circle” that has sought to create space for real debate within all the Muslim

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traditions in the UK for young, Muslim professionals. See Lewis (2007: 61–68). I am grateful to Professor Ron Geaves of Hope University Liverpool for sharing this information with me. A copy of the “Report on the Background of British Imamate February–March 2007” can be obtained from the BBC. For details of such residentials along with the full range of CMF activities, see the Web site, www.christianmuslimforum.org All the quotations are taken from the tapes I have transcribed—the dates are not given on the tapes but an approximation can sometimes be made from their contents. This information was taken from their Web site www.ica- online.org The Al-Khoei Foundation is a respected Iraqi led Shii center in London; the British Muslim Forum is a network of Sufi leaders with considerable grassroots support; the Muslim Association of Britain is a Muslim Brotherhood organization that largely draws its membership from the small Arab communities in Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain largely but not exclusively draws on Islamist—Jamaat- i- Islami and the Muslim Brotherhood—and Deobandi networks across the country. The seven projects explicitly mentioning imams and mosques are the following: The Association of Muslim Chaplains in Education (AMCED), which is to recruit and train staff to “promote community cohesion and prevent violent extremism”; the Luqman Institute, which is to extend “a pilot imam training programme funded in 2007–08 to develop training materials and deliver courses to 20 senior imams”; the Psychology and Religion Research Group at Cambridge University is to provide an imam training course to “equip young, newly qualified imams to engage with British culture and humanitarian values, and to find parallel values within the Qur’an”; Demos will provide workshops for “Muslim young people and Imams to explore the future of their interaction in the mosque”; “Nasiha [is] a Youth citizen capacity building project to network young people in higher education to educate and support Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils in mosque schools; the UK Race and Europe Network will pilot a citizenship toolkit for young leaders, teachers and imams and parents”; Faith Maters will compile a directory of “the 100 leading mosques that provide the best access to women . . . [so as ] to incentivise mosques to improve their engagement with and inclusion of women in all aspects of their work.” Open access material from DCLG Web site. See Preventing Violent Extremism, Learning and Development Exercise, Report to the Home Office and Communities and Local Government October 2008. Paragraph 100 remarks that PF projects have focused “on building multi-faith engagement. In some cases, this has built upon interfaith work already in place. Initiatives have included a local Church of England vicar speaking at a mosque ad an imam speaking at a church. Mosque and church open days and invitations to religious festivals at which

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communities learn about each other’s faith are popular. In some cases, this work has resulted in bringing imams together from differing schools of thought within Islam.” Pdf file available from DCLG Web site. 40. There are two Canadian scholars, a Sufi and Islamist, who have a Pakistani ethnicity. The Sufi would be acceptable to Barelwis. 41. I have drawn such data from their Web site www.minab.org.uk

References Tasheel Durusil Quraan: Lessons of the Quraan Made Easy. Lenasia, South Africa: The Syllabi Committee, Jamiyatul Ulama Taalimi Board. 2008a. Preventing Violent Extremism, Learning and Development Exercise, Report to the Home Office and Communities and Local Government. Home Office and Communities and Local Government. 2008b. The Training of Religious Leaders in the UK: A Survey of Jewish, Christian & Muslim Seminaries. The Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths Abbas, T. (ed.) (2005) Muslim Britain, Communities under Pressure. London: Zed Books. Ahmed, A. S. (2003) Islam under Siege, Living Dangerously in a Post-Honor World. Cambridge: Polity. Ansari, H. (2004) The Infidel Within, Muslims in Britain since 1800. London: Hurst. Badawi, Z. (1982) Islam in Britain. London: Ta Ha. Barlas, A. (2006) “Women’s Readings of the Qur’an,” in McAuliffe, J. D. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’an. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Birt, J. (2005) “Wahhabism in the United Kingdom: Manifestations and Reactions,” in Al-Rasheed, M. (ed.) Transnational Connections and the Arab Gulf. London and New York: Routledge. Bolognani, M. (2007) “Community Perceptions of Moral Education as a Response to Crime by Young Pakistani Males in Bradford,” Journal of Moral Education, 36: 357–369. Bulliett, R. W. (1994) Islam: The View from the Edge. New York: Columbia University Press. Candland, C. (2008) “Reforming Islamic Education in Pakistan,” in Malik, J. (ed.) Madrasas in South Asia: Teaching Terror?. London: Routledge. Carling, A. (2008) “The Curious Case of the Mis-claimed Myth Claims: Ethnic Segregation, Polarization and the Future of Bradford,” Urban Studies, 45: 553–589. Gilliat-Ray, S. (2006) “Educating the ‘Ulama: Centres of Islamic Religious Training in Britain,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 17: 55–76. Haleem, M. A. S. A. (2004) The Qur’an: A New Translation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Hamid, S. (2009) “The Attraction of ‘Authentic’ Islam: Salafism and British Muslim Youth,” in Meijer, R. (ed.) Global Salafism: Islam’s New Religious Movement. London: Hurst. Hussain, E. (2007) The Islamist. London: Penguin. Kamran, T. (2008) The Political Economy of Sectarianism: Jhang. Pakistan Research Unit, Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University. Lewis, P. (1994) Islamic Britain, Religion, Politics and Identity among British Muslims. London: I.B. Tauris. ——— (2007) Young, British and Muslim. Continuum. Lyon, S. M. (2004) An Anthropological Analysis of Local Politics and Patronage in a Pakistani Village. Lampeter: Edwin Mellwn Press. MacEoin, D. (2007) The Hijacking of British Islam, How Extremist Literature Is Subverting Mosques in the UK. Policy Exchange. Malik, J. (2006) “Madrasah in South Asia,” in Abu-Rabi, I. (ed.) The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought. Oxford: Blackwell. ——— (2008a) Islam in South Asia: A Short History. Leiden: Brill. ——— (ed.) (2008b) Madrasas in South Asia: Teaching Terror? London: Routledge. Masud, K. M. (1989) “Being Muslim in a Non-Muslim Polity: Three Alternative Models,” Journal of the Institute Muslim Minority Affairs, 10: 118–128. McLoughlin, S. (1998) “The Mosque- Centre, Community-Mosque: Multifunctions, Funding and the Reconstruction of Islam in Bradford,” Scottish Journal of Religious Studies, 19: 211–227. Moosa, E. (2007) “Inside the Madrasa, a Personal History,” Boston Review. Naqshbandi, M. (2006) Problems and Practical Solutions to Tackle Extremism. The Defence Academy of the UK. Nayyar, A. H. and Salim, A. (2004) The Subtle Subversion, the State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan. Islamabad: Sustainable Development Policy Institute. Oakeshott, I. (2007) “Home- Grown Imams to Curb Hate Preachers,” The Sunday Times. London: NewsCorp. Peach, C. (2005) “Britain’s Muslim Population: An Overview,” in Abbas, T. (ed.) Muslim Britain: Communities under Pressure. London: Zed Books. ——— (2006) “Muslims in the 2001 Census of England and Wales: Gender and Economic Disadvantage,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 29: 629–655. Rahman, F. (1982) Islam & Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Rahman, T. (2008) “Madrasas, the Potential for Violence in Pakistan?,” in Malik, J. (ed.) Madrasas in South Asia: Teaching Terror?. London: Routledge. Robinson, F. (2001) The Ulama of Farangi Mahal and Islamic Culture in South Asia. Delhi: Orient Longman. Roy, O. (2002) Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. London: Hurst. Taher, A. (2008) “Al- Qaeda: The Cracks Begin to Show,” The Sunday Times. London: NewsCorp.

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Wazir, B. (2004) “Mosques: Sources of Comfort, or Out of Touch?,” The Times. London: NewsCorp. Werbner, P. (2003) Pilgrims of Love, the Anthropology of a Global Sufi Cult. London: Hurst. Wiktorowicz, Q. (2005) Radical Islam Rising: Muslim Extremism in the West. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Zaman, M. Q. (2005) “Pluralism, Democracy and the ‘Ulama,” in Heffner, R. (ed.) Remaking Muslim Politics, Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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PART 5

Women

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CHAPTER 8

Pakistani Women and Education: The Shifting Patterns of Ethnicity and Class Marie Lall

Introduction Much has been written on gender and access to education, mostly discussing the stark gender inequalities with regard to education in many countries. It has been little noticed that cultural heritage and ethnic diversity play a significant role mediating these gender inequalities. This chapter aims to look at the ethnic differentiation with regard to attitudes to girls’ education in Pakistan. It challenges the established wisdom that poorer families prefer to educate boys rather than girls. With regard to equity, an argument has so far prevailed that poor parents, especially in rural and urban areas, tend to favor educating boys more than girls since Pakistan is a traditional, patriarchal, and largely Muslim society (Khalid and Mujahid-Mukhtar 2002: 30–31; Qureshi 2003: 14, 52–53). It is argued that rates of return are better for boys or that families are too poor to send both boys and girls to school (Aslam 2007). There is a feeling that unless profound structural changes take place across society, the Pakistani government education policies will have tried in vain to alter the gender disparity. This chapter argues, however, that some of these structural changes across society have already taken place and that when families are given access to quality education, gender disparity is no longer the issue it was a couple of decades ago. In fact, some families profess that they prefer to skip a meal rather than have any of their children—a girl or a boy—not

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attend school. Interestingly, this differs across ethnic lines with some ethnic groups being more positively inclined toward educating girls than others. Consequently, this chapter argues that instead of looking at Pakistan in a homogenous way when it comes to gender and education, provincial, ethnic, and class differences have to be taken into account. Ethnic differentiations are particularly important when looking at traditional perceptions of girls accessing and participating in education. It also suggests that attitudes change primarily when educational facilities can be accessed and where families witness the power of education on a firsthand basis. This in turn means that the school type, in other words government or philanthropic investment, also plays a role. The chapter first gives some background regarding girls’ education and what has generally been assumed to be true when discussing gender issues and education in Pakistan. There is then a discussion on education and class and one on education and ethnicity, before a case study of five women graduates exemplifies what education means to young women as well as how education can shift boundaries and traditions in rural Pakistan. Background The 1947 All Pakistan National Education Conference outlined the aim of free and compulsory education for the first five years in order to redress the imbalances left over from colonial times.1 In 1949, the central goals of improving quality, achieving 80% literacy in 20 years, and requiring 75% of children of school going age to be enrolled were formulated. The subsequent nine five-year plans (1957–2003) set out to increase the quantity of the schooling infrastructure and increase the enrollment of children through mass literacy programs. None of the targets of these plans was, however, achieved as envisaged. Literacy was raised from 16% in 1951 to 51.6% in 2003, but did not reach 100% by 1975 as had originally been planned. The Pakistani government spends less than 2% of GDP on education, whilst UNESCO recommends countries spending at least 4% of GDP. The current situation of Pakistan’s education sector is critical. This is nothing new. The SDPI report in 1999 already concluded that “the state of public basic education is an unmitigated disaster” (Khan et al. 1999: 24). As the state is increasingly less involved in the education sector, the private sector has come in to fill some of the gap. Today the public sector still offers the majority of primary education—86% but at middle level this share declines to 37%. 2 Whilst private schools

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used to cater to the middle classes and the very rich, a new brand of private schools (for profit) for the poor has also seen expanding numbers, both in semirural and in densely populated urban areas. Whilst government schools are largely seen as ineffective with not enough teachers, overcrowded classrooms, and no access to furniture or materials, the private for profit provision for the poor is a dangerous alternative as there is no control on what the children are taught. The SDPI report found that overall among government, private, and NGO schooling, NGO schooling was by far the most successful largely due to “good management,” which they identified as a key ingredient for good schooling. 3 Amongst other things, they f lag up the exodus of richer and brighter children to private schools, and government schooling standards deteriorating even further. According to their research most teachers in the government sector sent their children to private or NGO schools. In Pakistan, female enrollment rates are much lower and dropout rates are much higher than for boys (Qureshi 2003: 14, 47–48). Figures for 2006–2007 show that overall only 44% of women has ever attended schools compared to 69% men. This leads to an overall figure of 57% of the population having ever attended school. These figures are relatively stable with only a 2% move from 55% to 57% between 2004–2005 and 2006–2007. The percentage of the population 10 years and older having completed primary school is even lower: 35% for women, 56% for men, and 45% overall for 2006–2007. Gross enrollment rates for children aged 6–10 at primary levels show improvements—97% for boys, 80% for girls, 89% overall—but cannot necessarily be relied on as the dropout rate is high (Pakistan Social and Living standards Measurement Survey: 8–12). Besides, these figures are not for government schools alone and include all private and philanthropic options, which have been set up around the country. Education base lines reveal a complex picture, which gets even more complicated at regional level, as is discussed in the next section. To this day national literacy data not only show that literacy is very low (55%) but that literacy is substantially higher for men (67%) than for women (42%) (Government of Pakistan 2008: 169). In schools, the Gender Parity Index (GPI) was 0.63 for 2006–2007, with lower enrollment of girls across all provinces (170). The millennium development goals (MDG), which Pakistan has signed up to, aim to eliminate gender disparity in education by 2015. The current government medium-term development framework includes specific gender concerns, but previous government policies trying to tackle gender disparities have come to

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little. This has contributed to the belief that parents living in a traditional Muslim society prefer to educate boys rather than girls. Barriers that contribute to gender inequality have been classified by the World Bank (2002) as falling into three categories: equity, access, and quality. Practically this refers to family attitudes allowing girls to study equally with boys, having schools close enough to homes or safe enough for the girls to walk, schools having a reasonably decent infrastructure (boundary wall, basic toilet facilities, drinking water), access to textbooks, and sufficient well-trained female teachers, so that parents do not object to sending their girls to what is seen as a male- dominated environment. Despite numerous plans, policies, and internationally funded projects, Pakistan’s investment in education has declined over the years to 1.7% of GDP. On the ground this is ref lected in very poor physical infrastructure. Pakistan’s Economic Survey 2007–2008 states that only 51.6% of the buildings of all institutions are in a satisfactory condition and 5.7% of the buildings are in fact in a dangerous condition. Out of total institutions, 12,737 (almost all in the public sector) have been reported as non-functional . . . About 37.8% schools in public sector are without boundary wall, 32.3% without drinking water, 56.4% without electricity, 40.5% without latrine and 6.8% without building. (Government of Pakistan 2008: 176)

The lack of physical infrastructure is a particular barrier for girls to access education, as families feel that schools without a boundary wall are unsafe, and schools without toilets are simply not an option. Government schools are often overcrowded and too away for children to walk to.4 The issue of access of education to girls has been a vexing one for subsequent Pakistani governments, and government policy pays lip service to the subject. Since 1955, there have been provisions with education policy plans to increase the number of girls having access to schools. Qamar Jehan discusses how each successive national five-year plan has recognized the need for women’s education and issued specific recommendations. At first, during the first three plans, the main recommendation consisted in opening existing primary schools for girls. Subsequent plans addressed issues of development and offered a more integrated approach to women’s issues, which included education. They “stress[ed] the need to alleviate the deprived state of the female half of the population and acknowledge their unrecorded contribution to economic and social development processes.” (Jehan 2000: 143). Jehan also records the disappointing results of the plans:

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So far the results of these plans in the educational field have been consistently disappointing, partially due to inadequate funding. For instance the fifth plan target of raising education’s share of GNP never materialised [ . . . ] The sixth plan’s target of spending Rs 19.85 million on education (as opposed to the fifth plan expenditure of Rs 5.6 million) was also not met, not where the ambitious targets of all five year old girls being enrolled by 1987–88. (143)

More recent policies still engage with the issues of low girls’ enrollment and access issues. The now defunct 1998–2010 National Education Policy (1998–2010) stated: The future education will be more useful if we induct the following areas in the discipline of education: education to meet the demand of varied groups with an emphasis on disadvantaged section of society, i.e., minorities, female and rural area inhabitants, residents of urban slums, nomads, etc.

And the document that has replaced it this year—the new National Education Policy 2009 states—“Girls continue to remain under represented in the education system both public and private.” It promises as a policy action: “the plans shall also promote equity in education with the aim of eliminating social exclusion and promoting national cohesion. Greater opportunities shall be provided to marginalised groups of society, particularly girls” (National Education Policy 2009). All that this brief policy reviews shows is that the problem of educating girls equitably with boys is something the government has been paying lip service to since the 1950s. Given, however, that the government education system still does not provide the opportunities for girls’ accessing education at the same rate as boys, private and charitable providers have stepped in, some of which pay particular attention to girls’ enrollment. Whilst government schools still are the major type of institution on offer both across urban and rural areas, a large number of private alternatives, both for profit and philanthropic, have emerged. In general one finds that the quality of government school infrastructure and teacher absenteeism lead parents of all classes, even the very poor, to desert government institutions for private alternatives. This, however, does not necessarily mean that families are accessing education provision of higher quality—it is simply that they hope to do so. Whilst state schools are meant to be free of cost, one generally finds that parents still have to spend money for uniforms and books, making even state schools unaffordable. The poorest of the poor consequently often opt

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for madrasas that offer free board and lodgings with no cost attached. These are not going to be discussed in this chapter. What is interesting is the relationship between gender, class, and school type. Anecdotal evidence through interviews shows that poorer families tend to relegate their girls’ education to NGOs and philanthropic institutions. The gross enrollment rate for government primary schools between the ages of 5 and 9 are 69% for boys, 56% for girls, and 63% overall for 2006–2007 (Pakistan Social and Living standards Measurement Survey: 14). Comparing that with the previous overall enrollment figures means that the difference attends other types of institutions. But looking at Pakistan as a homogeneous entity will in the end only raise false conclusions—the provincial aspect discussed below has particularly interesting insights, especially with regard to girls’ education. The Changing Reality across the Ethnicities and the Provinces Pakistan is made up of four provinces, three federal territories (FATA, FANA, and Islamabad), and an autonomous state (Azad Kashmir). In the rural areas of the four provinces, four main ethnic groups tend to dominate. In the urban areas, however, there is a mix of ethnic groups.5 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has an ethnically more complex structure as it is the home to a number of tribal groups, the largest of which are the Pathans. The largest ethnic group across Pakistan are the Punjabis. Literacy rates across the four provinces are 58% in the Punjab, 55% in Sindh, 47% in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 42% in Balochistan. The GPI for the provinces were 0.72 for the Punjab, 0.63 for Sindh, 0.42 for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 0.38 for Balochistan (Government of Pakistan 2008: 169–171). This differs again between urban and rural areas, with rural areas showing lower enrollment of girls (Lynd 2007: 25–26). Government figures on how many people have ever attended school by province shows that the Punjab is strongest with 60%, followed by Sindh 56%, NWFP 50%, and Balochistan at only 39%. Those having completed primary school are 49% for the Punjab, 47% for Sindh, 38% for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 29% for Balochistan. Gross enrollment rates between the ages of 5–9 show some improvement with Punjab boasting 100% enrollment, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at 82%, Sindh at 78%, and Balochistan at 72% (all figures for 2006–2007, Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey: 8–10). The general perception we can get from these figures is that Balochistan is the weakest province when it comes to educating its children and that poor families, often living in remote areas or urban slums, will not send

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their girls to school. Whilst official data give a reflection of the reality on the ground, engagement with the local population can give a very different view, by offering an insight into local attitudes. The data detailed here was collected during a 3-week field trip across all four Pakistani provinces, 6 visiting 11 TCF 7 schools. In every school, a semistructured focus group was conducted with parents who had been invited by the school to attend. All in all 89 parents/caregivers8 of 5 different ethnic groups who had 449 children amongst them were interviewed. In most cases parents were poor and their families survived through manual labor (by working as vegetable vendors, occasional workers, electricians, guards, laborers, rickshaw drivers, car drivers, fishermen working on other peoples’ boats, welders in shipyards, donkey cart drivers, and masons). Some parents were from lower middleclass backgrounds (small shop owners, lower government servants, small farmers owning some land, and teachers in government primary schools). Most women were housewives, with the notable exception of the Bengali mothers in the Karachi slum, who worked in the shrimp cleaning industry. Some mothers had to do manual labor (working as maids or taking up sewing at home) to support unemployed or sick husbands. Apart from the few families from a lower middleclass background, all parents interviewed had received no more than a few years of basic schooling. The mothers were generally illiterate.9 In each school the research encompassed a 45-minutes interview with the principal, one period of classroom observation—chosen at random on the day—and a walk around the grounds of the school. In most cases the assembly was also observed. Interviews were also conducted with teachers at the schools. TCF has a policy of implying only women teachers in order to help maintain high levels of female student enrollments. By not subjecting the girls to male teachers, they in effect allow very traditional families to send their girls to the schools. The teachers and principals were interviewed on how education had changed their lives as well as how they felt their work was changing the lives of others, particularly girls. Further interviews were conducted with a batch of TCF female graduates, who all now have jobs and many of whom have opted to go into teaching. The discussion below draws heavily on the range of interviews conducted. TCF was chosen as schools network as they are represented across all Pakistani provinces. They reach urban and rural poor as well as lower middleclass families, in effect allowing for a much more accurate understanding of what the average Pakistani family thinks about education than if research had been conducted in private schools approaching the urban middle classes.10

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The fieldwork reveals some interesting outcomes with regard to gender and education, starting with who attended the focus group at the school—mothers, fathers, or both. The interviews revealed that once families had experienced quality education, they became committed to sending all their children to school—boys and girls. Mothers in particular spoke of the choices they hoped their daughters would have— choices they had often been denied on the basis of being uneducated and often illiterate. Fathers too were committed to girls’ education and spoke about the changing demands of a more modern world. While most families saw education as a means to an economic end, many also spoke about how education would make their children better people—whether or not they managed to improve their economic and social situation.

The Issues of Class, School Type, and Gender The Citizens Foundation (TCF) is one of the nongovernment education alternatives that has sprung up in the past decade and a half offering an alternative to government schools. TCF is a philanthropic organization and came into being in 1995 as a group of six friends, all entrepreneurs and Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of their own companies decided to build five schools in Karachi for the most disadvantaged living in urban slums who had no access to any form of education (public or private) whatsoever. Their desire was to take children off the streets and put them into schools. Out of this evolved the aim to provide quality education for the poor. Their schools network has developed into 600 schools across the country educating 80,000 children. Most schools cater to the urban slum and rural poor population. There is a particular emphasis on girls’ education although all TCF primary schools are co- ed. As TCF’s reputation has grown, parents from the middle and lower middle classes have been trying to get their children into these schools, especially in rural areas where there are few educational choices. Across the board the social mix is a healthy way of promoting greater social equality in a country plagued by class differences; however, it also means that poorer sections of society are competing with the middle classes for places in schools originally designed for them. TCF as an organization has been trying to foster education for girls as well as employment opportunities for women. In the schools with the greatest social mix, the more educated parents who came for interviews were particularly vocal about the need for girls’ education.

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Rural North-West Frontier Province (Nowshera)—Mixed Ethnicities, Middle Classes Official figures put the gross enrollment rate of girls at 63% in rural areas in 2006–2007 (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey: 10). Two schools were visited in NWFP. The first school was set off a main road and did not seem close to any particular village. The second school was located inside an army compound. In both cases the children seem to have come from the middle and lower middle classes, and less than 10% of the children avail of the full scholarship. In fact parents from the first school are prepared to pay for transport over long distances for their children to be able to access the school. Given that that this is a rural area it is assumed that most people in the area live off farming. In the first school, only two mothers came to the focus group. They had seven children (four boys, three girls) among whom three went to the TCF school. The first mother worked in the local hospital as a lady health worker, her husband being a teacher at a government school. The second mother was a housewife with her husband working in a medical store. In the second school, two mothers, one sister, and one father came. The fathers/husbands were government officials, working in a shop and as a contractor. The father who came did not have a job, but was supported by his brother who had a job in the Gulf. Between them they had 16 children (9 girls and 7 boys). All parents— both mothers and fathers were clearly middle class and well educated. All of them understood the value of education and were intent on maximizing the benefits for their children. According to the government statistics quoted at the start of the chapter and above, the Frontier province does not do well when it comes to educating girls. The reality on the ground at the schools visited differed from this as all schools had close to a 50% girl participation rate; mothers attended the interviews and were very clear on their daughters’ educational needs. The impression created was that educating girls was very much part of the local culture and was not a message that had to be reinforced by the school. It was interesting to see how once a “good” quality school was available, lower middleclass parents would go out of their way to access it. Whilst there has been a tradition for middleclass and lower middleclass parents across Pakistan to opt out of the government school system when given the chance to do so, the section below details that this was the case for lower class and poorer families as well.

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The Issue of Ethnicity and Gender Rural Punjab (Minhala and Muzafargarh)—Punjabis Official figures put the gross enrollment rate of girls at 88% in rural areas in 2006–2007 (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey: 10). Schools in two areas were visited—in the rural areas around Lahore and in the deep rural area around Multan, several hours’ drive from the nearest town. In both areas, fathers and mothers were present, and all were Punjabis. In Minhala, five fathers, six mothers, one grandmother, and one grandfather came to the focus group. They were interviewed together and there was no issue of gender segregation. They had 42 children (not counting the children of the grandparents who are grown up)—17 girls and 25 boys—between them, as well as one grandson and one granddaughter. In the rural area outside Muzafargarh, 11 fathers, 1 brother, 10 mothers, 3 aunts, and 1 sister attended the focus group. Between them they had 105 children (52 girls and 53 boys). The women and the men were interviewed separately. In both areas there was a strong culture of girl inclusion. The mothers in particular spoke of future choices their daughters would have. The fathers also professed to support girls’ education, not wanting to discriminate between their daughters and sons. This seems to be a recent phenomenon as local graduate girls who were also interviewed explained how local attitudes had changed with regard to girls’ education. Even in remote areas in Punjab the importance of girls’ education seems now to be accepted. All parents had high hopes for their children to become doctors. They asked for more schools to be opened and vowed that all would be filled. Balochistan (Gwader)—Balochis Official figures put the gross enrollment rate of girls at 45% in rural areas in 2006–2007 (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey: 10). Two schools were visited in Gwader. As the port is being developed, the local fishermen communities have been displaced and relocated to new areas, around 3–4km from the nearest government schools, much too far for small children to walk. One father and ten mothers took part in the focus group—all of them were Balochis. They had 76 children altogether (41 girls and 35 boys). The focus group was held with both the mothers

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and the father together, despite the mothers wearing the burqa outside of the school buildings. Gender segregation did not seem to be an issue. Balochistan is considered the least developed province with the starkest discrepancies between boys and girls accessing education. Despite this there was a strong culture of girl inclusion with regard to education and it seemed clear that the mothers were the ones primarily responsible for overseeing the children’s education. All of them spoke about how important they felt girls’ education was and all of them made sure that all their daughters received an education.

Rural Sindh (Keti Bander)—Sindhis Official figures put the gross enrollment rate of girls at 45% in rural areas in 2006–2007 (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey: 10). The school visited in rural Sindh was in Keti Bander at the southern coast edge, in an area that has suffered more recently from further impoverishment. Due to overfishing in the area, the local fishermen no longer bring home enough for families to survive on. The area is also short of water. Rural Sindh still operates on a caste-based social system (which is not the case in the other provinces of Pakistan) and the inequalities are generally starker than anywhere else in the country. Villages are made up of reed and straw huts and there is hardly any brick or mud housing. The villages visited did not have either running water or electricity. Two fathers, one grandfather, and two brothers came to the focus group and all were Sindhis. The principal explained that mothers never left the house and that she had never seen one at the school. Between them they had 31 children (12 and 19 boys). The men present appreciated the fact that educating girls was as important as educating boys, but they also pointed out that this particular school was blessed to have 25% girls, as most schools did not have that many girls in attendance. This area showed the biggest gender disparity, and clearly traditional attitudes with regard to educating boys over girls was still obvious. Karachi—Urban Slum—Pathans and Bengalis 11 Official figures put the gross enrollment rate of girls at 100% in Sindh’s urban areas in 2006–2007 (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey: 10). The locality of the two primary schools was in a slum located close to the coast, partly on reclaimed land. Although the housing in the slum is largely of brick and mud with some metal roofing, the prime issue is

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overcrowding. Most families live in one or two rooms, with three generations living under one roof. The average number of children of the parents interviewed was 6, which means that in general 10 people or more share the limited space. The slum is ethnically diverse with Pathan, Katchi, and Bengali families accessing the schools. Most families work in the fish and shrimp industry, with Bengali families having men, women, and children at work, whilst Pathan families often have only fathers and children working, with mothers staying at home. The wider colony also has a community of drivers, mainly of Pathan origins. In the first school, five fathers, four mothers, and one sister were interviewed. Most of them were Pathans or Afghanis from NWFP, and one father from Waziristan. Their families had 61 children between them (27 girls and 29 boys). The men and the women were interviewed separately. In the second school, 10 Bengali mothers attended the focus group and had 60 children between them (34 girls and 26 boys). It was interesting to note that both Pathan fathers and mothers and only Bengali mothers came to the school. Both Pathan fathers and mothers were quite keen to see girls educated. Only one father seemed to prefer to see his daughters at home. The culture of girl inclusion in education was surprising since Pathans are a very traditional community. This was surpassed by the Bengali mothers who had a very strong culture of girl inclusion and who saw that education was the way out of manual labor for their daughters. Shifting Perspectives across Ethnic Lines In most schools visited, girls made up around 40% of the school population. A notable exception was the rural school in Sindh, where despite the availability of a good school, only 25% of the school was made up of girls. Whilst the national literacy figures put Sindh in second place, this is due to the large urban population in Sindh, many of whom are nonSindhi. The traditional attitude of rural Sindhi families with regard to girls’ education is something that has been of provincial concern12 and is well ref lected in the primary enrollment figure for rural Sindh. Whilst in Sindh the bleak figures are a ref lection of how slowly local attitudes are changing, the national figures do not ref lect the shifting dynamics with regard to the other main ethnic groups’ attitude to girls’ education. The discussions with rural Pathan and Balochi parents were particularly revealing in how far attitudes and norms had shifted on the ground. This was, however, directly related to the availability of a good (and reputed) school within accessible distance.

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The Batch of TCF Girls Graduates One of the biggest fault lines in Pakistani society is that between the rural and the urban areas. Overall, 73% of urban Pakistanis have ever attended school, whilst only 48% of rural Pakistanis can claim to have the same. The figures for omen are 66% and 32% respectively. With regard to having completed primary school, things are even worse—64% of urban Pakistanis versus only 36% of rural Pakistanis who have completed primary school. For women the figures are 57% and 23% respectively (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey: 8–9). Most explanations focus on availability and local traditions/attitudes. The interviews conducted with six TCF women graduates in rural Punjab clearly show that the problem with educating girls are not attitudes—as communities can learn the value of education—and that rather it is a question of there being a good school. The girls were aged between 18 and 22, all were studying at BA or BCom level. After finishing their studies at the TCF school, they had all been given scholarships to go on to higher education. In five out of six cases, they were not only the first girls to go to college and university, but they were also the first women to be fully literate within their families. Most of them wanted to become teachers “to give something back” but one wanted to become a radio jockey and another, a banker. They had big dreams about going abroad, doing further higher education at masters level. Education to them has meant the opening up of possibilities and the permission to dream big. The young graduates, who had all grown up locally, spoke about how the attitudes in the whole area surrounding the school had changed: The TCF school changed the mind of people. Previously they did not want girls here to be educated. Now TCF has changed this mindset. Parents are encouraging children. [ . . . ] Now there are hundreds of girls going to school. [ . . . ] There’s a real change that can be seen in society. (Girl 3)

They felt that education had given them confidence and discipline. Whilst one maintained that she would have managed to get educated even if there had been no TCF school near her home, another maintained that she would not even have been allowed to learn to read. All of them agreed that education—and in particular girls’ education—was central in taking the country forward: “You need to take the children along to take the country forward.” (Girl 1). They also saw TCF as having created role models and understood the responsibility that came with this. They wished to see the same change they had undergone happen to others.

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Clearly the presence of a respected school was able to change the mindset of a rural community. Now all the local girls go to school and the community thinks this is perfectly normal—even if this was not the case just over a decade ago.

Women Teachers and Principals—What It Means to Educate Girls Throughout the fieldwork on the ground, women kept repeating how important educating girls was and how attitudes had changed. Many of the TCF teachers now were former TCF students. As mentioned above, they are all female. They see education as the vehicle for change in Pakistani society. Interviews with teachers across the provinces revealed that society seemed to change once parents saw the results of a good school and then wanted the same for all their children. This often took time as teachers and principals had to work hard for a number of years to convince parents, especially those who needed their children’s labor, to send them to school. “Pakistani society might question the value of girls education—but our parents remain resilient” was what one of the teachers said in response to a request to describe what chance in life education gave to girls. Today the teachers say that “there has been an awakening” and often there is a queue to register new students at the start of the year. Education, the teachers said, changed society. The poor communities these schools were located in had become cleaner. It was often the relationship parents developed with the teachers, which showed them the value of educating their daughters. Much of what the teachers said ref lected what the parents had said across there out of the four provinces, showing clearly that it is neither parental attitude nor tradition that keeps girls out of school in Pakistan—it is very simply the lack of availability and access, and often also the lack of quality that keeps girls uneducated. Conclusion This chapter has argued that the cultural heritage of a traditional Muslim society is no longer the constraint it was previously. Good schools are the centerpiece in changing attitudes, even in the most traditional, poorest areas of Pakistan, as the power of education transforms not only

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the children but also their families and their communities. It all comes down to a good school being accessible to the local community. Across all schools and provinces accessed during the fieldwork, parents, principals, and graduates alike spoke of changing attitudes with regard to girls’ education. It was not only the mothers who spoke vehemently about the choices their daughters would have through education, but also the fathers who were equally proud of their girls and boys. The schools seem in no small measure to be a driving force in this culture of change. So while gender disparities in education in Pakistan remain a grave problem, and it is clear that the middle classes value education, it is essential to understand the differing ethnic attitudes that have been shifting over time. Notes 1. In 1947 Pakistan had a literacy rate of around 16%, with only 10,000 primary and middle schools and 408 secondary schools, in that only 1,700 and 64, respectively, for girls. IGC Asia report number 84, October 2004. 2. Education Chapter, Pakistan Economic Survey 2007–8: 173 3. Khan, Shahrukh, S. Kazmi and Z. Latif, 1999, “The State of Basic Education in Pakistan: A Qualitative, Comparative, Institutional Analysis,” SDPI Working Paper Series # 47, Islamabad. 4. For more on barriers to access to education for girls in Pakistan please see Qureshi (2007); Khalid and Mujahid-Mukhtar (2002); as well as Qureshi (2003). 5. In Karachi, the capital of Sindh, migration of Pathans from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Mohajirs (Muslims from India) has meant that Sindhis are in a minority. 6. Data collected in one of the Karachi schools is not included because the area was very ethnically diverse and it was impossible to establish the ethnicity of the parents. 7. TCF (The Citizens’ Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that provides coeducation quality schools in the poorest urban slums and remotest rural regions across all four Pakistani provinces. See Lall (2009). 8. This includes adult- aged siblings and grandparents. 9. TCF has allowed an adult literacy program to be set up across some of its schools to allow parents to learn basic literacy skills. The program is called Jugnoo. 10. It would have been impossible to access the same number of parents, teachers, and students across the provinces in state schools. 11. Pakistan is still home to a large Bengali community who did not return to East after the secession of Bangladesh. 12. Interview at the Sindh Textbook board, April 2007.

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References World Bank (2002) Opening Doors: Education and the World Bank. Government of Pakistan (2008) Education. In Pakistan Economic Survey 2007–2008. Aslam, M. (2007) Rates of Return to Education, by Gender in Pakistan. RECOUP. Jehan, Q. (2000) “Role of Women in Economic Development of Pakistan: Higher Education Commission Research Repository.” Pakistan. Khalid, H. S. and Mujahid-Mukhtar, E. (2002) The Future of Girls’ Education in Pakistan: A Study on Policy Measures and other Factors Determining Girls’ Education. UNESCO. Lall, M. (2009) Creating Agents of Positive Change—The Citizens Foundation in Pakistan. Karachi: TCF. Lynd, D. (2007) The Education System in Pakistan, Assessment of the National Education Census. UNESCO. Qureshi, R. (2007) Gender and Education in Pakistan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Qureshi, S. (2003) Pakistan: Education and Gender Policy; Girl’s Education: A Lifeline to Development. Centre for Policy Studies, Central European University, Budapest

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CHAPTER 9

“I Really Couldn’t Think of Being Married, Having a Family with Nothing behind Me”: Empowerment, Education, and British Pakistani Women Jody Mellor

Introduction Western media have portrayed Islam as a sexist religion and Muslim women as victims of a patriarchal culture (Kundnani 2007). Sensationalist headlines have focused upon “forced” marriages and “honor killings” in the UK and abroad, powerfully inf luencing non-Muslim views on Islam (Saeed 2007). Despite all the attention on Muslim women’s supposed subordination, Western media rarely invite Muslim women to speak, and on the rare occasions that they do, Muslim women are almost never asked to talk about the issues that are important to them (Afshar 2008). This represents a disjuncture between British Pakistani women’s experiences and dominant Euro-American conceptions of empowerment and agency (Wray 2004). In this chapter I explore the empowerment strategies of a group of young British Pakistani Muslim women from the north of England. The emancipation discourse has in recent years been dominated by the Muslim headscarf debate, which has been used to maintain stereotypes about Muslim women by those who argue that the headscarf is a symbol of oppression (Koyuncu Lorasdagi 2009; Afshar 2008). However, in this chapter I attempt to revisit alternative discourses of emancipation

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by drawing on qualitative research on the significance of education as a tool of empowerment for young women. While the interviews were centered upon class mobility more generally rather than women’s empowerment per se, it became clear in the course of the research that the pursuit of educational qualifications was a ref lection of the women’s desires to exercise increased agency through the vehicle of upward mobility. Strong links between education and empowerment were also reported by Wilson (1978) who spoke to South Asian “first generation” female migrants. For all the ongoing negative attention placed on Islam, the findings of my research indicate that the women I spoke to did not regard themselves as oppressed by Islam. On the contrary, these women saw their religion as a source of agency and argued that textual-based interpretations of Islam increased their confidence, well-being, and access to rights. However, there is also evidence to suggest that faith may not in reality always empower women, especially when elders challenge women’s interpretations. Moreover, the participants’ motivations for studying at university were underpinned by a desire to empower their families. As I aim to show, the women I interviewed—who were all from workingclass backgrounds and were, at the time of interview, all students at university—were following a strategy of empowerment and hoped to gain qualifications and a professional job for the sake of their families as well as to increase their own life chances. Within the literature on white workingclass British social mobility, empowerment through individual class mobility has been conceptualized as a distancing—or an escape—from family and community (Lawler 1999; Skeggs 1997). However, despite the very negative publicity surrounding Muslim communities in the north of England following the “race riots” of 2001, empowerment for these women to whom I spoke did not mean rejecting their families in this way. These negative representations did not seem to encourage women’s geographical movement out of these localities. In relation to her empirical work on ageing as experienced by women from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds, Wray (2004) suggests that “universalised ethnocentric concepts” within Western social theory have characterized agency as an individual phenomenon that “denies the centrality of collective social practices and knowledge” (23). Though I seek to adopt a wider definition of empowerment for which mainstream Western feminism may allow, this is not to deny the ongoing gendered, classed, and generational inequalities faced by the women. This chapter explores how participants utilized education, particularly higher education, to empower themselves and their families. First,

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the women expressed a desire to contribute to their family’s well-being by achieving educational qualifications and to provide a source of highvalue social capital for the benefit of parents, siblings, and community members. As long as women’s honor (or izzat) was upheld, they expected that their successful educational qualifications would lead to well-paying careers, which would help their families in return for the ongoing support they had received. Second, the women expected that a university education and career would be a source of agency for themselves. By achieving a stable and well-paying job, they hoped to avoid serious ethnic and religious prejudice. It was also expected that qualifications and career would widen their marriage choices and bestow them with increased rights as young married women in the extended family. Noneconomic benefits of paid work were also considered important to women’s well-being. However, although all the women aimed to marry and have children, they held diverse preferences for career and family life. Some women aimed for elite professions and prioritized their education and careers rather than family whereas other women hoped for less demanding, family-friendly jobs that would allow a balance between paid work and family commitments. These preferences indicate the women’s diverse future aspirations and notions of empowerment. Before exploring previous research findings on British Pakistani women and educational achievement in more detail, however, I brief ly discuss the methodological framework of this research project. Between 2004 and 2006 I conducted in depth interviews and a focus group with young women aged between 18 and 27. All the participants’ parents migrated from the Mirpur region of Pakistan between the 1960s and early 1980s and their fathers worked (or had previously worked) in low-paid employment. The majority of the women’s mothers were housewives who had never worked outside the home. As the parents had received only a low level of education, the participants represented the first generation in their families to attend university.1 Most of the women grew up in east Lancashire, although smaller numbers were from Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. Due to the diverse sample, we found that the women experienced significant differences in relation to local educational and career opportunities (such as higher educational provision, transport links, religioethnic segregation, job opportunities, and levels of deprivation). However, all the women attended local universities; about half the sample commuted from home to university, with the rest of the women living away from their parents. Despite differing residential arrangements, the women played an active role in

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community gatherings as well as extended family life. For instance, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, and nieces featured prominently in the women’s accounts, as well as parents and siblings. 2 The women as a group were heterogeneous in relation to levels of religiosity and individual practices, but all the women were from the Sunni Muslim sect and considered their faith to be one of the most important aspects of their lives. British Pakistani Women, Education, and Empowerment As the children and grandchildren of South Asian migrants have progressed through education and employment, research on these areas has formed a significant part of the literature on South Asians, and specifically British Pakistani Muslim girls and women (Shain 2003; Jacobson 1998; Archer 2002; Ahmad 2001). Attention has been paid to the ways in which girls’ and women’s educational and career trajectories are inf luenced by the intersection of gendered, ethnic, religious, and classed positions and identities. For instance, Afshar (1989b) notes that racial and religious prejudice in the labor market differently impacts upon workingclass and middleclass British Pakistani women. For the migrant women she interviewed, “it is easier for the more middle class women to find acceptance and employment within the host community than it is for working class women” (1989b: 211). Though racism exists as much in middleclass spheres as it does in workingclass spaces, poor women are much more vulnerable than privileged groups to the negative effects of discrimination. The concept of “ethnic capital” (defined as the values, norms, and resources that form a central part of an ethnic group’s organizational structure) has been used to explain how ethnicity can result in advantageous outcomes for some communities (Zhou 2005; Thapar-Bjorkert and Sanghera 2010). However, Shah (2007) argues against the assumption that ethnicity as social capital necessarily leads to positive outcomes for all minority ethnic community members. Instead, she suggests that family and community networks hinder—as well as assist—educational pathways. Varying interpretations of Islam practiced by middleclass and workingclass Muslim communities may inf luence the educational opportunities open to young women (Ali 1992). For instance, in a study exploring the educational aspirations of South Asian women from workingclass and middleclass backgrounds, Abbas (2003) argues that the norms and practices of workingclass Muslim communities may exert negative inf luences on women’s educational progression, whereas

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the middleclass women to whom he spoke did not often encounter such difficulties. Lloyd Evans and Bowlby (2000) point to the significance of differing beliefs about the appropriateness of women engaging in paid work held by family and community members on women’s experiences of employment. The professional migrant Pakistani Muslim to whom they spoke did not view motherhood as a reason to stop working whereas the older unskilled women they spoke to “had been forced by financial necessity to change their ideas of what was ‘appropriate’ for Pakistani Muslim women to do” (2000: 472). Research on British Asian girls and women points to a myriad of reasons why women from minority groups may desire education and a professional career. First, academic qualifications and a stable, wellpaying job are considered effective ways to challenge racial and sexual discrimination. Whilst minority ethnic children may experience racial or religious discrimination at school, Shain (2003) notes that most of the British Asian girls to whom she spoke aimed to progress academically and adopted resistance strategies, which involved gaining academic credentials rather than relying on retaliation. Second, Ahmad (2001) notes that for some of the British South Asian women she interviewed, one advantage of gaining a university education was that it postponed marriage and would give women more choice in relation to marriage partners. Moreover, as Lloyd Evans and Bowlby (2000) suggest, there are many noneconomic benefits to paid work for minority ethnic women, such as increasing friendship networks. Gaining qualifications may also increase the status of women within the extended family. As Bhopal argues, “Education is the most important variable that determines South Asian women’s position within the household and the forms of patriarchy they experience” (1997: 490). Finally, as Thapar-Bjorkert and Sanghera (2010) indicate, for young British Pakistanis in Bradford, educational qualifications may lead to rewards for the whole family, not to individuals alone. For Muslims in particular, research has pointed to the importance of family members working together to ensure the well-being of the whole family (Afshar 1989b; Maynard et al. 2008). In this system, important decisions are negotiated, discussed, and resolved amongst kin (Thapar-Bjorkert and Sanghera 2010). Though greater numbers of British Muslim women are succeeding in education, research indicates that the importance of upholding izzat (or honor) continues to inf luence women’s educational trajectories. As noted by Bhopal (2000: 40), it is only women who have the capacity to “alter, destroy or enhance their family’s izzat” and that “the existence of an unmarried daughter brings with it connotations of uncontrolled

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dangerous sexuality, as well as shame and dishonour to the parents whose duty it is to marry her off ” (1997: 487). According to some of the earlier literature, mothers—who were responsible for their daughters’ izzat—were blamed if their daughters did not follow strict moral conventions (Wilson 1978; Afshar 1989b). This placed Pakistani mothers in difficult positions when raising their daughters in the UK, especially for those mothers whose daughters did not follow Pakistani cultures or traditions (Afshar 1989b). More recent research indicates that male family members are playing a more central role in policing women’s honor, ensuring that izzat is untarnished by restricting daughters’ and sisters’ freedoms (Werbner 2000; Archer 2002). The varying academic and career aspirations and trajectories of women, therefore, are related to a number of complex and competing factors including economic resources and social capital that can help or hinder the educational trajectories of women (Shain 2003; Mellor 2010). Moreover, it should not be assumed that education for women necessarily leads to greater agency or empowerment. For example, many students have unhappy experiences of university, for instance, achieving low grades, choosing the wrong degree, dropping out of their course (Bradley and Devadason 2008) or suffering from mental health problems (Walkerdine et al. 2001). These variable resources can go some way to explaining why some girls and women cannot, or do not, engage in postcompulsory education whilst others maintain high academic aspirations. Empowerment, Education, and Family Ties Parallel to the emphasis on izzat of Wilson (1978), Werbner (1990), and Guru (2009), all the women I spoke to indicated that izzat was a concern in their families, particularly for male members. For many women, these worries impacted on their educational opportunities. As Basheera told me, “in college I did find it quite difficult; people would report back to my brother.” Several participants discussed the Pakistani community’s suspicions of further and higher education in relation to the education of women. As Waller (2006) notes, “representations of ‘traditional’ students’ lifestyles revolve around a hedonistic quest for drinking, casual sex and recreational drug use” (124). For some of the women, these representations of university life were ref lected in family and community reactions to their educational aspirations. For instance, Zahida noted that the expectation that university would encourage women to abandon their culture and religion was so prevalent that the

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risk of gossip was a very real one, regardless of actual conduct. Though Zahida told me her behavior had always been impeccable, she was worried about accusations of wrong- doings and expected people to ask: “ ‘What you lying for? We know you do [drink alcohol]. Everyone does it.’ ” University was also challenged, some women told me, through discourses that considered education and paid work as antithetical to women’s caring responsibilities. For ambitious students with career aspirations, the community’s suspicions placed the women in particularly difficult positions and they worked hard to protect themselves and their families from harmful gossip. For instance, fearing that her father’s reputation would be blackened if the biraderi discovered she was living in student accommodation rather than with her parents, Basheera was careful not to disclose information that could incite gossip: I used to say “oh I travel” [commute to university] just because I didn’t really want people to know where I was and what I do, and things like that. I think they were like “he [her father] sent his daughter away” and they’ll start making up stories and things like that.

In response to actual (or possible) skepticism of their educational aspirations or pathways, several women utilized a textual-based interpretation of Islam—what Brown (2006: 427) has coined the “Islamic identity strategy”—to justify their right to an education. This use of Islam to promote the rights of women has been found by other recent research (Ali 1992; Werbner 2005; Dwyer 2000). By arguing that education is a requirement of their faith, they challenged the beliefs of some members of the community who, they claimed, wrongly practiced Islam through “homeland” cultures or traditions. As Yusra told me, The first word to be revealed in the Qur’an was “read,” and that’s like telling us to gain knowledge. And knowledge is massively important in Islam. In fact, it’s seen to be better to educate a woman that a man [JM: Yeah, she educates the children?] Yeah. And a man just educates himself. So, but culturally. You know, maybe it’s seen the opposite way around, get the girls married off young, sort of thing. But I think the culture and the religion are quite mixed up, quite a lot.

However, though the women were certainly arguing that education was a requirement of their faith, it was not always clear how these demands were being heard or how family and community responded to these challenges (Rozario 1998). Following Spivak, Lawler (2002: 110) argues that the significant question is not “who can speak?,” but instead who is

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listened to and how particular voices are heard. Some women I spoke to indicated that their engagement with textual sources was often ignored by some members of the community, especially when this competed with others’ interpretations of Islam. For instance, Bilqis told me about a disagreement with her father concerning her attire on her first day at university: . . . my dad was like “I don’t like the way you’re dressing.” But it’s confusing the culture into religion. In the Qur’an it says that you need to be covered, not that you need to wear Asian clothes. And my dad was like “it’s against Islam,” but it’s not against Islam. I’m not questioning Islam because it does say I need to cover myself, and I’m covering myself, and that’s the only thing I need to do.

According to Bilqis, her claims to be practicing an authentic Islam— rather than a culturally based orientation—failed to convince her father, and the matter was resolved only when her older brothers stepped in and reassured their father. Bilqis’ experience casts doubt on the efficacy of textual-based interpretations of Islam in always providing women with greater levels of empowerment. Other women I interviewed also indicated that this “intellectual” Islam is positioned as marginal to dominant discourses within their communities, a point that may have been overlooked by research presenting overly optimistic accounts of the outcomes of using these textual-based Islamic interpretations. Similar findings have been reported by Rozario (1998) who found that for some Muslim women in Australia, the efficacy of using faith to reject some negative community practices is limited. Similarly, others have found that most British Pakistani young women seek to conform to their parents’ wishes and expectations rather than challenging these (Shaw 1994). For instance, Afshar noted that despite the educational qualifications of some British Pakistani young women she interviewed, they were not “a disruptive inf luence, nor did they initiate a marked degree of familial conf lict” (1989b: 212). This unwillingness of some community members to engage with calls to respect women’s rights in Islam could be related to the dominance of older migrant men in community leadership roles (Burlet and Reid 1998). It may also be related to a general lack of involvement of migrants from rural localities in intellectual discussions on the faith (McLoughlin 1998; Ali 1992; Sardar 2009). Nevertheless, close-knit family and community ties were often empowering for the women I interviewed. Parallel to the experiences of the women whom Ahmad (2001) spoke to, all the women I interviewed

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indicated that parents had supported them throughout their educational trajectories, despite the lack of social and economic resources. Though media and governmental representations have regarded tightknit Muslim communities as the “enemy within,” there are empowering aspects to these networks, for instance, in assisting the women to attend university if this is regarded as worthwhile for the family as a whole (Mellor 2010). For instance, Yafiah told me, “if my parents had the money, if they were richer, they’d give me all the money they had in the world. They’d give me the clothes off their backs if they had to.” In return for this ongoing support, the women suggested that they were indebted to ensuring the well-being of their families. As Shoneen stated, “It’s like a code of conduct, for a person, I’ve been sent rules from God: my parents are most important to me.” This support of kin was considered a cultural tradition as well as an Islamic requirement. Despite some difficult negotiations with which the women I spoke to had to contend, they regarded themselves as having been entrusted with an important responsibility to ensure that their families and themselves could reap the benefits from their academic credentials and future professional career. Similar to the experiences of some of the participants I spoke to, some of the women interviewed by Brown (2006) were able to claim their rights to education and employment by arguing that these activities are necessary to fulfill their obligations as Muslim women to provide for their children. The participants in my research worked together with their families, employing various strategies to achieve the common goal of social mobility in order to ensure the well-being of the group as a whole. This supports research findings on the significance of educational success as an accomplishment that ref lects on the family rather than solely on individuals (Thapar-Bjorkert and Sanghera 2010). It also points to the ongoing importance of the moral economy of kin to Muslim families (Afshar 1989b; Maynard et al. 2008). Provided that izzat was not damaged, the participants indicated that as educated women they could render significant assistance to their families of origin as well as future children and husbands. Many of the participants indicated that parents had recognized the benefits of investing in their daughters’ education and according to some of the women, daughters’ education was perhaps as advantageous to the family’s status as that of the sons. Families equally encouraged young women and men to pursue education, a finding also reported by Thapar-Bjorkert and Sanghera (2010). As Ahmad (2001) notes, educated daughters signal that the family has been socially mobile and holds modern or liberal views in relation to the education of women. By achieving a degree in

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an elite subject, the women I spoke with expected to accrue what might be considered high- status social capital for their families. Nuzzat, for instance, told me that her father was delighted when she considered training to become a barrister: “A barrister’s a status symbol, I think my dad really likes the idea of, ‘that’s one of my kids’. That really appeals to him.” Likewise, Munazzah noted how her father used his children’s achievements as a basis on which to compete with other families: My dad wanted me to be a doctor [ . . . ] my dad’s one of those people who impresses the people around him as well, and he’ll go, “so and so’s daughter’s a doctor, she gets paid so much and it’s so easy for her.”

Potentially, a daughter with qualifications could also save a family a significant amount of money in dowry payments. As Bhopal (1997) notes, many British South Asians consider a potential wife’s future earnings carefully, and that “some brides with recognized earning capacity may be able to marry well with a slightly lower dowry than a bride without such qualifications” (486). Daughters’ educational achievements were particularly important in families where sons had not met parental expectations (see also Bettie 2003). Amongst many women I interviewed there was a concern that young British Pakistani men are failing in education whereas their female counterparts are becoming highly educated.3 Basheera, for instance, told me that she and her sisters had become much more highly educated than the young men in the family and were considered honorary sons to her father. Rather than relying on her brother, Basheera had taken up the task of contributing a building to her father’s village in Pakistan herself: “just so it sort of like, makes my dad’s name out there as well. You know, your son’s couldn’t really do it, so it’s like, one of his daughters can do it instead.” The participants, as hard working university students, were also able to offer siblings high use-value social capital to assist with younger family members’ educational trajectories. Though siblings are not usually characterized as exerting a positive force on the educational development of other children within the family (cf. Gillies and Lucey 2006; Crozier and Davies 2006), several women I interviewed were able to draw on their social resources in order to help guide siblings down favorable career paths.4 Gazala, for instance, advised her younger sister to opt for a vocational degree: “she wanted to go into an area which is specialized, you can’t get a job at the end of it [laughs]. But I told her to do something and make sure you can get a job at the end of it.” And

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as a postgraduate student with a professional job, Cantara offered highvolume social resources to her younger sister: . . . my sister and me have long chats, and I’ve been going with her to open days for colleges, and looking through prospectuses with her, and kind of giving her advice, but not, not pushing her in any one direction, but helping her to make her own decisions.

Similar findings have been noted by Gregory (2004), who indicates that older siblings play an important role in assisting their younger brothers and sisters with academic work. Following their success at university, several participants that I interviewed expected that their younger sisters have a wider range of university options than they themselves had had access, considering parents were more trusting of the system following the successful graduation of one daughter. For instance, Gazala—who studied at the local university—told me that her educational trajectory had created a precedent: “with my sisters and stuff now, they can go wherever they want to.” McLoughlin (1998) reports similar findings. The women not only offered their social capital as a resource for kin. Some spoke about the obligation to use their skills as graduates to “give back” to the Muslim or British Pakistani community. For instance, Yusra decided to stay in her hometown to work locally with young “pious” Muslims: “you’re going to go out and do bigger, better things. But I want to do those bigger better things here.” Yusra’s remarks bear some resemblance to Maguire’s (2005) discussion on the class politics that motivated a teacher to work in a deprived school because she wanted to contribute to the lives of those from workingclass backgrounds. The women I interviewed demonstrated close bonds through a strong immersion in community events and friendship networks. Some attended events at mosques such as halaqas, or Islamic discussion groups, whilst others were heavily involved in university Islamic societies. In addition to these activities, many spoke about attending other community events such as weddings and Eid celebrations. Due to the women’s broad social networks reaching across various class/caste, linguistic and age fractions, these social resources could potentially benefit many diverse individuals with whom the women came into contact. The religious duty, or fard, to assist the ummah or to make charitable contributions was mentioned by four women. Others gave their time—rather than cash—to help their communities, for instance, with translation or advice on education. Almost all the women aimed to settle down in their hometowns in order to continue to have close contact with their

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families, demonstrating an unwavering commitment to their kin and their localities, regardless of—or perhaps due to—the economic deprivation, lack of opportunities, and general sense of decline. For instance, Farzana suggested that it was unusual for educated, upwardly mobile young people to move out of the area: Amongst a lot of the Muslim community, and predominantly Asian community, which might be run- down, you do get a lot of professionals. [ . . . ] I wouldn’t want to move out of my area, just because I feel that’s my home.

Reporting similar findings, Shaw (1994) indicates that British Pakistani young women have remained within their hometowns and attempt to balance their careers with their various family and community commitments. The women, therefore, were playing a significant role in the support and empowerment of kin and community. I now turn to the ways in which women utilized education as a tool to empower themselves by aspiring to a professional career to challenge ethnic or religious prejudice, to provide a greater sense of well-being, and to gain increased agency within the family. I conclude by suggesting that despite the difficult negotiations involved with upward mobility, the women I spoke to were embracing the educational opportunities open to them as Muslim women, demonstrating that they are potentially agents of change, working to benefit kin and community as well as themselves. Self-empowerment, Education, and Faith For all the women, achieving a degree was a tool for self- empowerment in several ways. First, some were motivated to gain a well-paying job in order to empower themselves in the face of ethnic or religious prejudice. As Yafiah told me, after enduring years of racist and Islamophobic harassment at school, she hoped a career would provide some level of protection by providing her with greater social, cultural, and economic resources: “we found it quite hard, and that’s another reason why me and my brothers thought we’re going to try and do well in our education, to get away from things.” Afshar’s (1989a), Ahmad’s (2001), and Shain’s (2003) research on British South Asian females has also highlighted how girls and women use education and social mobility as a strategy for tackling racism. Most the women I interviewed selected traditionally “Asian” subjects to study at university, which they expected would lead

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directly to a career.5 Jasminah explained the reasons that elite or vocational subjects were popular, at least with parents: A lot of Asian parents always say that they want their children to be doctors or accountants. [ . . . ] they tend to be working class, from that kind of environment, and they know that the only way their children can succeed is by having an education which pushes them straight into a job.

Studying elite subjects such as law or science was also considered advantageous because the women expected that these degrees would contain more of a “mix” of diverse ethnic and religious groups. For instance, Yusra, the only woman I interviewed who read a humanities subject, expressed feelings of loneliness and being out of place: “I was the only Asian Muslim girl, and because I covered as well, and I was the only . . . I kind of stood out, I suppose.” The preferences of minority ethnic groups toward the sciences, vocational degrees, and other prestigious subjects such as law have been found in previous research (Din 2006; Abbas 2004; Walkerdine et al. 2001). Many women indicated that gaining a degree would confer increased rights within their family. They related their high aspirations to a desire to avoid the difficult lives their parents—and mothers in particular— had endured. According to the women, their parents had struggled financially on low incomes whilst supporting a family and their mothers had worked hard throughout their lives in difficult circumstances. Their mothers’ lack of access to education was often compounded by early marriage and cultural traditions or/and religious preferences for women to stay primarily within the home. As Kaleemah told me, “because I’d saw my mum having a difficult life, I didn’t want to follow the same kind of footsteps.” Brown (2006: 424) notes that the idea of complementarity of duties and rights in Islam benefits Muslim women, giving them “equal value and respect without insisting on equal treatment.” However, unlike some of Brown’s respondents, the women I spoke to did not use complementarity discourses in relation to gender divisions within the household, possibly because they did not regard staying at home to be an empowering position. The women’s ref lections on their mother’s lives are similar to the findings of research on workingclass South Asian women migrants in the UK by Wilson (1978) and Werbner (1990). Similar findings were also reported by Bettie (2003) who found that workingclass girls were encouraged to prioritize education by being witness to their mothers’ difficult lives. Significantly, my research findings highlight the ways that workingclass women’s educational

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trajectories are inf luenced by their mothers and offer a challenge to conventional models of social mobility that prioritize fathers’ economic participation, whilst mothers’ class characteristics have been considered irrelevant. Though attending university undoubtedly postponed marriage for the women to whom I spoke, getting educated was not primarily about delaying marriage and childbirth, which contrasts with some of the British South Asian women’s experiences as reported by Ahmad (2001). Nevertheless, for the women I interviewed, achieving a high level of education would bestow a greater degree of “bargaining power” in relation to the rishta (the marriage match). In particular, all the participants—with the exception of Munazzah—expressed a desire to marry a British-born graduate and Aaisha suggested that as a law student, she could request a husband “that had been to university and is educated, because I am educated, which is, you know, an achievement within itself.” In justifying these preferences, the women drew on the Islamic idea of complementarity of roles (Brown 2006). It was argued that if women earned much more than their husbands, the partnership would be in danger of failing. Cantara, for instance, envisaged that whilst it was common for women to marry “up” the class hierarchy, on the other hand, “if you marry an educated woman to an uneducated man it would be very unlikely that a marriage like that would work.” Thus, suitable partners for educated women were considered those with similar (or higher) education and earnings potential. There was also an expectation that educational qualifications and a well-paying job would provide the women with additional rights within the (future) husband’s family. Like some of the women Brown (2006: 426) interviewed, who considered education to be “protection against violations of rights in marriage,” several women I spoke to regarded educational qualifications to be a survival strategy that—if required— would help them to gain financial independence in case the marriage broke down. As Kaleemah’s words, which form the title of this chapter, indicate, “I really couldn’t think of being married, having a family with nothing behind me.” Education appealed to the women because it offered a way to circumvent the risks associated with the lack of control over economic resources. This has been indicated by Bhopal (1997), who notes that women are not given any control over dowries. For my participants, reliance upon a husband or in-laws for financial stability was considered too risky, especially in the face of rising divorce rates in the UK. Divorce itself is heavily stigmatized for British South Asian women, who may lose community support as well as family assistance

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if divorced (Guru 2009). Some interviewees expressed a concern that they may face challenges from husbands or in-laws when they attempt to return to work after having a baby. This desire to combine a fulfilling career with marriage and motherhood was one of the reasons why some women decided to pursue a university education in the first place, because of the expectation that women would be encouraged to work if they were well- qualified. This was the situation for Bilqis: . . . if I don’t get educated, when I get married the only thing I’ll do is that I’ll just have to be like a housewife, just looking after the kids and the husband and doing household things. But I don’t want it to be like that.

The participants also considered paid work advantageous for the many noneconomic benefits it provided, such as maintaining supportive friendship networks outside the home and engaging in something other than housework (Lloyd Evans and Bowlby 2000). As Rashida told me, “I just don’t want to sit at home and be a housewife. I don’t think I could bear that” and as Aaisha explained, “I couldn’t sit at home and do nothing, you know, I’d get bored, I’d start worrying about things.” Though all the participants aimed to work after marriage and childbirth, they held diverse expectations about and preferences for the work-life balance. Several women I interviewed hoped for elite careers in areas such as law, science, or business and were very focused on their career ambitions. This group of women wanted to get married and have children, but were not prepared to let the practicalities of motherhood diminish their aspirations and were willing to postpone marriage and children for the sake of their careers.6 For instance, Ameena was reluctant to think about marriage and children: . . . it’s not even on my topic of agenda, you know. But obviously we all have to settle down one day, but I’m not really thinking about it. [ . . . ] I’m not going to do anything before I’ve become a lawyer. I want to become a lawyer and then start thinking about everything else.

On the other hand, occupations considered less demanding and highprofile—teaching in particular—were sought by other women I interviewed. These women’s aspirations differed from the first group in that they aimed to balance their family responsibilities with their career ambitions. Some women in this group expressed a stronger awareness of the possible constraints involved in balancing a highly demanding

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career with motherhood and discussed the advantages of “familyfriendly” careers that would fit around children’s timetables and would enable part-time work if necessary. Similar to the first group of women, these women had high aspirations, but rather than defining empowerment through educational achievements and career progression alone, they tended to focus upon a job that would enable them to maintain a successful marriage and to spend time with family. For instance, Aaisha had previously planned to enter an elite profession but with time had decided to limit her ambitions and aim for a career that would allow them time to devote more time to family life and children. For Aaisha, however, this change in aspirations was only partly related to the importance of family networks. Contrary to normative public opinion that the higher echelons of society are less ethnically prejudiced as compared to workingclass spaces, Aaisha, who wears a hijab, feared continued discrimination in a competitive career and decided instead to search for a more modest job in order to limit racism or Islamophobia within the workplace. As Aaisha told me, I’ve gone down there [careers event] with my suit on, and with my headscarf, and I’ve seen their reaction towards you. Like they don’t look towards you, like they look at you, and just their body language says it all, their snobbiness, and - it’s kind of like put me off.

A small number of women were not yet certain about the balance they wanted between career and family and remained ambivalent about how they would manage paid work and family responsibilities. These women were still negotiating their educational and career paths, challenging and accommodating norms and values of their parents and community and considering the advantages and disadvantages of various paths. As Amatullah suggested, “It’s kind of all up in the air.” Conclusion Overall, this chapter has emphasized how 17 young Muslim women participants are engaged in a process of upward social mobility, using education as a way to empower themselves, their families, and their communities. The findings of this research correspond with the results of other studies that emphasize the centrality of education to conceptions of women’s empowerment (Wilson 1978; Ali 1992; Afshar 1989b). I have argued that Western representations of the lives of Muslim women sit very uncomfortably with women’s own understandings and

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experiences. The young women’s strategies examined in this chapter present a challenge to Western conceptions of the empowerment of Muslim women (Wray 2004). Despite the apparent difficulties faced by some of the women in relation to suspicions regarding university attendance, all the women I interviewed had been highly successful in their educational trajectories and had been entrusted with and were taking responsibility for their families’ social capital, economic resources, and emotional well-being. For instance, one woman had been so successful academically that she was labeled an honorary son by her father. Ultimately the research points to the ongoing importance of social class in general and upward mobility in particular to feelings of agency and well-being as experienced by women. These women—along with other Muslim graduates who were returning to the area—were also empowering the local community by using their resources to benefit a wide-reaching network of individuals. Though Ali (1992) has suggested that British Pakistani women from these northern English communities do not break away from negative community networks because these same communities provide protection against hostilities from white communities, my research indicates that a large part of what prevents the women from leaving, even in the face of economic decline and widespread unemployment, is their strong commitment to assist community members, using their skills as graduates. This situation has broader implications for the development and well-being of their communities and provides some interesting examples of departures from the middleclass “white f light” phenomena. However, though these women were already studying with relative degrees of success, it is impossible to predict what kinds of future barriers the women will encounter. So far, scholarly attention has been placed—perhaps too optimistically—on the ways that young Muslim women utilize textual-based interpretations of Islam to challenge “ethnically” based practices that are used to limit women’s freedom. The women I interviewed were voicing demands for greater agency but it is not certain how they were they being heard within their communities. It remains to be seen whether the turn to Islam necessarily offers all women a tool for empowerment. Moreover, it cannot be assumed that a university education is sufficient to transcend the traditional gendered division of labor. For instance, despite the women’s achievements and aspirations, they may struggle to locate suitable employment within their hometowns or may not be supported by future husbands and in-laws to continue their careers. On the other hand, some women did not define empowerment through

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educational achievements and career progression alone but instead aimed for uncompetitive careers that would allow a work-life balance. The women I interviewed represented educational successes, yet the question of whether educational qualifications will in reality empower these women and their families after graduation cannot be conclusively answered. It remains to be seen in future longitudinal research which paths these women select and where they eventually end up. Notes 1. I would like to thank the women who contributed to this project by sharing so honestly their interesting and touching experiences. Thanks also to Marta Bolognani who provided very helpful feedback. This research was funded by the ESRC (award no. PTA- 030-2003- 00074). 2. Jasminah was the exception to this: her father had gained a degree in Pakistan but as his qualifications were not recognized in the UK he worked as a skilled manual worker until retirement. 3. For more details of the methodology, including the research dynamics in relation to insider/outsider positions of faith and class, see Mellor (2010). 4. This may have implications for gender relations within communities— particularly in relation to marriage matches—especially if there remains an expectation that women will marry a husband with the same, or higher, educational qualifications and earning potential. 5. Siblings were not the only ones to benefit from the women’s success; Bilqis expected that her academic achievements would open up the possibility of university for other female relatives: “it’s a victory for my cousins as well.” 6. Ten women were enrolled on applied/pure sciences degrees and five studied law/business subjects. One woman studied a humanities degree and the other studied a social sciences subject. 7. However, while these women were certainly ambitious, they were not like Bhopal’s (1997) “independent” women who had relinquished ties to kin and had weakened links to their culture and religion after becoming educated. In contrast, these six women I spoke to did not consider that having a demanding career was antithetical to maintaining relationships with kin or to getting married, or to their faith or ethnic ties.

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Kundnani, A. (2007) “Integrationism: The Politics of Anti-Muslim Racism,” Race and Class, 48(4): 24–44. Lawler, S. (1999) “Getting Out and Getting Away: Women’s Narratives of Class Mobility,” Feminist Review, 63(Autumn): 3–24. ——— (2002) “Mobs and Monsters: Independent Man Meets Paulsgrove Woman,” Feminist Theory 3(1): 103–113. Lloyd Evans, S. and Bowlby, S. (2000) “Crossing Boundaries: Racialised Gendering and the Labour Market Experiences of Pakistani Migrant Women in Britain,” Women’s Studies International Forum, 23(4): 461–474. Maguire, M. (2005) “Textures of Class in the Context of Schooling: The Perceptions of a ‘Class- Crossing’ Teacher,” Sociology, 39(3): 427–443. Maynard, M., Afshar, H., Franks, M., and Wray, S. (2008) Women in Later Life: Exploring Race and Ethnicity. Maidenhead: Open University Press. McLoughlin, S. (1998) “An Underclass in Purdah: Discrepant Representations of Identity and the Experiences of Young-British-Asian-Muslim-Women,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 80(3): 89–106. Mellor, J. (2010) “Ethnicity as Social Capital: Class, Faith and British Muslim Women’s Routes to University,” in Taylor, Y. (ed.) Classed Intersections: Spaces, Selves, Knowledges. Aldershot: Ashgate. Rozario, S. (1998) “On Being Australian and Muslim: Muslim Women as Defenders of Islamic Heritage,” Women’s Studies International Forum, 21(6): 649–661 Saeed, A. (2007) “Media, Racism and Islamophobia: The Representation of Islam and Muslims in the Media,” Sociology Compass, 1(2): 443–462. Sardar, Z. (2009) “Islam, Public Space and British Muslims,” Public Lecture Series, Cardiff University, February 9. Shah, B. (2007) “Being Young, Female and Laotian: Ethnicity as Social Capital at the Intersection of Gender, Generation, ‘Race’ and Age,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(1): 28–50 Shain, F. (2003) The Schooling and Identity of Asian Girls. Trentham: Stoke-onTrent. Shaw, A (1994). “The Pakistani Community in Oxford,” in Ballard, R. (ed.) Desh Pardesh: The South Asian Presence in Britain. London: Hurst, Chap. 3, pp. 35–57. Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage. Thapar-Bjorkert, S. and Sanghera, G. (2010) “Social Capital, Educational Aspirations and Young Pakistani Muslim Men and Women in Bradford, West Yorkshire,” Sociological Review, 58(2): 244–264. Walkerdine, V., Lucey, H., and Melody, J. (2001) Growing Up Girl: Psychosocial Explorations of Gender & Class. London: Palgrave. Waller, R. (2006) “ ‘I Don’t Feel Like “a Student,” I Feel Like “Me”!’ the OverSimplification of Mature Learners’ Experience(s),” Research in Post- Compulsory Education, 11(1): 115–130. Werbner, P. (1990) The Migration Process: Capital, Gifts and Offerings among British Pakistanis. Oxford: Berg.

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——— (2000) “Divided Loyalties, Empowered Citizenship? Muslims in Britain,” Citizenship Studies, 4(3): 307–324. ——— (2005) “Honor, Shame and the Politics of Sexual Embodiment among South Asian Muslims in Britain and Beyond: An Analysis of Debates in the Public Sphere,” HAGAR International Social Science Review, 6(1): 25–47. Wilson, A. (1978) Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain. London: Virago. Wray, S. (2004) “What Constitutes Agency and Empowerment for Women in

Later Life? Toward the Development of a Culturally Sensitive Theoretical Framework to Examine Ageing,” The Sociological Review, 52(1): 22–38. Zhou, M. (2005) “Ethnicity as Social Capital: Community-Based Institutions and Embedded Networks of Social Relations,” in Loury, G., Modood, T., and Teles, S. (eds.) Ethnicity, Social Mobility and Public Policy: Comparing the USA and UK. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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CONCLUSION

Being Pakistani beyond Europe and South Asia Marta Bolognani and Stephen M. Lyon

Janie: So where are you from? Mansoor: Pakistan. Janie: Is that a country? Mansoor: We think it is, and the UN agrees. Janie: Never heard of it. Mansoor: You see, I am not surprised because the Americans are the worst at general knowledge. Americans think the world starts and ends in America. Janie: Where is your country on the globe? Mansoor: Pakistan is my country’s name. Janie: Well, where is Pakistan on the globe? Mansoor: Let’s see . . . I will just draw it for you . . . this is Iran . . . that is Afghanistan . . . that is China . . . that is India . . . and Pakistan is in the center. Janie: Oh, so you are India’s neighbor! I know India, they have the great Taj Mahal, I love that story! Mansoor: Thank you. We made it. Janie: You made what? Mansoor: The Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan built it in loving memory of his wife, and he was a Muslim like me. Janie: Why did you put it in India? Mansoor: Because Pakistan and India were the same country at that time. Well, we ruled India for 1000 years, we ruled Spain for like 800 years . . . Janie: My God, I wish the American embassy knew about that, they wouldn’t have let you in. Mansoor: Why?

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Janie: Because 800 years is the minimum you stay! (From Khuda ke Liye, dir. Shoaib Mansoor)

The 2008 Pakistani film Khuda ke Liye (KKL) has the contemporary topical Pakistani transnational story. Mansoor, a wealthy young man, leaves Lahore for America where he studies music. He meets an American woman, marries her, and after 9/11 is arrested, tortured, and finally deported by the intelligence agencies that have come to realize he is not guilty of any terrorism-related charges (the plot of the film anticipated of a real-life situation as described by Siddiqui 2009). His brother Sarmad, who used to play in the same band in Lahore, stops doing music when he meets a mullah from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. He also agrees to marry a distant cousin from UK to help her “revert to tradition,” and leaves with her for the tribal areas. The British cousin tries to escape, and once safe from her husband, she contacts a “modernist” imam who helps fight her case in court. She then decides not to return to the UK, but to go back to the tribal areas to help with the education of the local girls. The plot of the second highest grossing film in the history of Pakistani cinema is both a geographical triangle (Pakistan, United States, and UK), and an “identity triangle”: Islam, family traditions, gender relations (see Malik 2008: 169). If we weave the bounding contemporary condition of transnationalism with these three major identity frames, we put together an epistemological lens that may do more justice to post-9/11 Pakistanis’ world than the expression “vicious circle” related to exclusion, conservatism, and radicalization. Is the shaping of Muslim identity in stronger terms a cause or effect of international politics? And are the family traditions upheld so consistently because of structural constraints in the transnational sphere, or would they have stayed the same even if international circumstances would have been different? These are only two of the questions that highlight the incidence of international politics in the study of Pakistani diaspora. In this chapter we outline some interrelations between history, politics, self- and heterorepresentation, by arguing that the war on terror as a “critical event” (Das 1997) has, among its many unintended consequences, impacted groups and individuals in ways that are not always very visible but in a decade have already operated at levels that go well beyond the politicostructural and impinge as much on groups’ and individuals’ “internal conversation,” or the human virtual site where structure, culture, and agency interact (Archer 2003: 130). We also aim at using media examples in order to disentangle

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the complex ref lexive practice of internal conversation and that in our opinion is profoundly inf luenced by the limited global imaginary of “Muslims” and “Pakistanis.” In the particular context of post-9/11 politics, the history of how the representation (in current affairs or in popular culture) of Muslim Pakistanis is very significant, and North America is undeniably a privileged context to see the contamination between politics, constructed imaginaries of groups, and pragmatic consequences in individuals’ lives. As Rana puts it, the terms from which racism emerged-the combination of migration, illegality, and terrorism—were well in place before [9/11]. ( . . .) In the case of the Pakistani immigrant, class, nation, religion and gender result in a typology that has to do with understanding of Islam, terror, migration and illegality. Hence immigrants are simultaneously framed through the discourses of both home and host countries ( . . .) The US state plays a central role in this racial configuration of the Muslim as a terrorist in the representations of Wars on Terror, in addition to its exertion of state power through immigration control and legal statuses such as the Patriot Act. (Rana 2008: 60–61)

At a most visible level, state apparatuses become protagonists of this scenario, for example, through the quotidian observable security performances (see Amoore and Hall 2010: 315). At a less visible and detectable level different states have, with their citizenship politics as well as their antiterror ones, profoundly affected how “homegrown difference” as well as migrant minorities live and perceive each other. For example, even within Europe, the regulation of naturalization takes very different forms that are heavily bounded by reified notions of belonging. Territorial borders become, according to Rytter (in press), moral boundaries. In one of the most obvious instances, Denmark, family reunification is made possible only if couples can tick five different boxes, one of which is the highly controversial “national attachment” (tilknytningskravet) (ibid.). This is tantamount to establishing a normative guide on how family life should be within the state boundaries. For example, the Danish immigration authorities judge “national attachment” according to the “rule of supposition” ( formodningsreglen) that has very real consequences for Pakistanis, as marriage between “close relatives” is automatically treated as forced marriage just like how transnational marriages are perceived. Without using the extreme of the Danish case, in other contexts, very national- specific citizenship debates have become

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the catalyst of identity- construction as much as preempting and often essentializing citizens through the religious sociocultural category of “Islam.” This has been analyzed in Europe by a number of scholars (see, for example, Allievi 2006; Spielhaus 2010) who register an increment in the use of the label “Muslim” over the “migrant” one in public debates due to “reactive identities” attached to situational factors. In America, Witteborn has observed similar trends for Americans of Arab origin (2010: 556), while Maira (2004) and Stover (2010) have outlined such processes respectively among South Asian Muslims in New York and Pakistanis in California Silicon Valley. Stover has very clearly identified such “symphonic collaboration of citizenry and government” (Cainkar 2009: 4) thus: If assimilation is the decline of an ethnic distinction and its corollary cultural and social differences, then the examination of the ways by which an excluded community seeks to belong can help expose the boundaries of membership that a state erects against immigrant communities. (Stover 2010)

Thus, among Stover’s case studies we find groups that are identified as “others,” by differentiating between “Pakistanis here” and “Pakistanis there” and referring to the rhetoric of “good Muslim/bad Muslim” (ibid.) as interpreted by Mamdani (2004). Pakistanis as Muslims in America Although after 2001 the US Census Bureau explored the idea of creating a new Middle Eastern racial category including Pakistanis for a variety of reasons (such as for civil rights monitoring, see Ferrante 2008: 241), Pakistani Americans are currently classified as “Asian Americans“ or “Other Americans.” The heterogeneity in ethnicity and status, as well as the geographical fragmentation of Pakistani communities in America, seem to have facilitated the absorption of the population under the Muslim umbrella, at least for academic purposes. Currently, studies on American Pakistanis have not even approached the prolific British production, perhaps betraying the absence of a colonial history and postcolonial “hangovers” (see Rana 2008). This creates some ambiguity as Muslims are seen at the same time as a religious community and as a vague racial group that encompasses the “Arab-Middle Eastern-Muslim” (Rana and Rosas 2006: 225). According to Nimer’s estimates, however, Pakistanis

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are the single largest national immigrant group of American Muslims, equivalent to 17% of all Muslims in the United States (2002). Stover (2010) points out that if we were to include all South Asian Muslims under the same category, it would make up one-third of the entire Muslim population there. Around 75% of Pakistanis in America have U.S. citizenship or permanent residence status. A very cautious estimate account for 271,000 foreign-born individuals of Pakistani origin were residing in the United States in 2006 (Batalova and Ferruccio 2008). Punjabi migrants had already arrived in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century, especially through the West Coast, but became a more obvious presence after 1965, following the Immigration and Naturalization Act (Najam 2006: 42; Rana 2008: 56). Thanks to the policies that privileged the reunification of families, migration till the 1990s was characterized by gender balance among middleclass professionals settling down in the United States (Rana 2008), as well as a young population (Najam 2006: 65). However, Pakistan still figured among the countries sending a low number of migrants and thus was included in the Immigrant Visa Lottery (52), which resulted in the migration rate increasing some 70%. Pakistan was excluded from this scheme only after 2001. Although the American Pakistani diaspora is seemingly at the other end of the class continuum from those in Britain, class composition is in reality quite diverse (Mohammad-Arif 2008). It would appear, however, that in comparison to the British Pakistani aggregate experience, American Pakistanis appear to be more prosperous (MacFarquhar 2006; Mahmood-Arif 2008). In part, this ref lects the entrance trajectory of Pakistani migrants to the United States— most of them arrived through educational pathways and then decided to stay (Najam 2006: 52). Pakistanis in the Public Sphere: Standing Out and Standing Up Leonard’s (2003) review of the state of research on Muslims in the United States would suggest that to some extent Pakistanis have not been particularly important political actors historically. Arabs have mainly opted to organize along ethnic lines rather than religious ones, thus excluding a broader religiopolitical umbrella in which Pakistanis might have participated. African American Muslim organizations have stood apart from those groups whose membership has more recently migrated to the United States for a number of reasons—not least of which, the potentially heretical implications of the mythology surrounding the founder of the Nation of Islam, William Fard’s divine

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status (Lee 1996: 23–24). Consequently, it is not only the American census process that relegates Pakistanis to a marginalized periphery of the greater Muslim populations, but also the fragmented nature of American Muslims themselves. Leonard reports that Pakistani Americans who are registered to vote are more likely to consider themselves Republicans (2003: 102), although there is evidence of a destabilizing trend in the scrutiny of Republicans’ public discourses around Islam (see among others Ayers 2007). The historical tie with the Republicans is in stark contrast to the British Pakistani experience, where the overwhelming majority of British Pakistanis have historically voted for the Labour Party. In part, this ref lects a more explicit moral agenda in American politics, and while American Pakistanis are perhaps not that dissimilar to British Pakistanis in terms of how they may view immigration and economic policies, in the United States the two main parties provide voters with simple, yet stark, moral signposts about family values, sexual orientation, and general domestic conservatism. There is even open acknowledgment of the affinity between Muslims and fundamentalist Christian groups in Muslim literature (see Leonard 2003 for a more comprehensive discussion of the apparent contradictions in Muslim American political attitudes). Complicating the rough moral boundaries constructed by the major political parties is popular perceptions of the emphasis each party places on social services and taxes. The Republican Party, rightly or wrongly, has come to be known as the party of low taxes and free market responses to social service needs in communities. Given the very different employment and migration trajectories of American Pakistanis from British Pakistanis, it is perhaps not surprising that the trade unions–orientated employment of British Pakistanis has resulted in more traditional support for a more collectivist leaning Labour Party, while American Pakistanis have opted for the more free market, low taxation–leaning Republican Party1. In the year after 9/11 the Office of the Inspector General (the internal watchdog of the Department of Justice), found that the largest number of individuals detained under terrorist charges were Pakistani (33%), more than double the number of those from any other country (Stover 2010). A proper comparative study between British and American Pakistani diaspora that brings together the anecdotal evidence is still to come, as the tradition of grouping different ethnic Muslim groups under a single religious umbrella, so to speak, remains the most popular approach.

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The three case studies given here, however, are an analysis of possible strategies of “f lexible citizenship” (Ong 1999: 5) that may be adopted in the United States. By f lexible citizenship we refer to a pragmatic negotiation of lived citizenship that is based both on cultural meanings and structural contingencies. Maira (2004), Ewing and Hoyler (2008), and Stover all provide different examples of such pragmatic negotiations. Ewing and Hoyler (2008) argue that young American South Asian Muslims in North Carolina have gone to great lengths to emphasize both their American and Muslim identities. This resulted in a slightly unexpected heightened patriotism coupled with more overt religious expression, an attitude similar to Huffington Post contributor Kamran Pasha, born in Pakistan, raised in Brooklyn, and proud of “how America represented the best values of Judaism, Christianity and Islam” (Pasha 2009). In her study of South Asian young Muslims in Cambridge, MA, Maira shows how f lexible citizenship occurs at the cross-roads between self-making and being-made (2004: 226) and is hinged around popular culture, labor (or education), and religion. According to Maira, workingclass South Asian youth in New York may use Islamic arguments (such as “Islam teaches that whatever country you live in, you should support them,” perhaps heard on satellite TV; Maira 2004: 227) in order not to be suspected and continue their progression as “consumer- citizen” in the neoliberal ideology of productivity. According to Stover, professional American Pakistanis in California’s Silicon Valley use their profession to “market” themselves as “businessdevelopers” and “secular-pluralists,” pushing this “tactic” (Stover 2010) to the extent of arguing that their transnationalism is in the geopolitical interest of the States. The various organizations that mushroomed in California after 9/11 have Web sites, listservs, and multimedia resources to help individuals in addressing the challenges of integration. Stover defines this as “tactical essentialism,” or the shaping of a particular unified group identity that strategically pursues citizenship goals in a particular historical moment. In this way, what is called by Allievi (2006:18) a “reactive identity” becomes a much more conscious and assertive process in which resistance to hegemonic state discourses is enacted at least in part with the use of the same vocabulary. Such practices seem slightly at odds with the responses of Pakistanis in Europe. As for the British case, Lyon (2005) while conducting research on British Pakistani attitudes about their government’s policies on Iraq, Afghanistan, and promotion of Britishness encountered some young British Pakistani men who seemed keen to emphasize being

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British but these men also tended to emphasize a more secular selfrepresentation in their public lives, whereas those who had opted for a more explicitly Muslim public face deemphasized the more nationalistic attributes that might stem from Britishness. The Hall of Mirrors: American Attitudes toward Pakistanis It is clear that attitudes toward Pakistanis in the United States have undergone dramatic transformation. Salman Ahmad, of whom we talk later, sourly ref lects on the change that has taken place in less than a generation: In a different time, it wasn’t difficult to get thousands of Muslim Americans to a rock concert in Central Park. But after September 11th, America is a changed country. Especially for Muslims. (2005)

From the 1980s, when Pakistan and its people were largely unknown or confused with Palestinians, awareness of Pakistanis has gradually grown in significance for the American public. The late Charlie Wilson, former U.S. senator, perhaps epitomized the misguided and naive perceptions of many Americans about Afghans and Pakistanis. Wilson, along with at least some members of the CIA, appeared to view Pakistanis and Afghans as categorical allies in the Cold War, lacking individuation and internal variation. The manipulation of individuals and groups in northern Pakistan and Afghanistan was done as if all people involved shared a fundamentally common cause of defeating communism and the Soviet Union. Wilson argued that 9/11 was the result of American neglect of the region in the 1990s and to some extent, such an assertion must surely have some basis. When America filtered money to mujahideen forces in Afghanistan via various Pakistani agencies, they increased the military threat of small groups of Afghans who moved freely across the Afghan-Pakistan border. When the perceived need for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan ceased following the defeat of the Soviet Red Army, Pakistan’s intelligence services, in particular, took advantage of the networks of inf luence developed through the 1980s to try and manipulate the fate of the Afghan state. All of this seemed to bypass American consciousness and Pakistan remained largely outside discussions of terrorism. Osama bin Laden had risen to the surface as a notorious public enemy, but as a Yemeni Saudi Arabian who moved between Sudan and Afghanistan, Pakistan was nowhere in the picture. Bin Laden is not a Pakistani and, therefore, it is perhaps

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understandable that most Americans remained ignorant of the role of Pakistan in the development of globally organized networks of political violence against, and resistance to, Western hegemonic initiatives such as neoliberal economic policies, social engineering conducted via Western European, and American-financed NGOs and the increasing tendency of nationstates to cede sovereignty to unaccountable market institutions like the World Trade Organization. Not long after 9/11, however, it became clear that knowledge of Pakistan was destined to penetrate mass American consciousness in some rather uncomfortable ways. It is now clear that some groups within American state institutions knew all along the duplicitous role played by Pakistan throughout the 1980s Afghan War. Reagan looked to General Zia to be his staunch anticommunist ally, but under his leadership Pakistan was busy channeling resources ostensibly destined for Afghanistan toward the ongoing conf lict in Kashmir and the development of the nuclear weapons program (see Levy and Scott- Clark 2007 on the extent to which different branches of the American state appeared to be working on opposite sides in relation to both preventing and enabling Pakistan’s Islamic Bomb). And while Reagan may or may not have entertained suspicions that the Pakistan state did not entirely share American interests, it is clear that those under him knew full well that their allies were attempting to further specific Pakistani interests as defined by a particular ideological agenda. Leaked intelligence documents in the summer of 2010 via the Web site Wikileaks.org implicates Pakistan’s intelligence services with aiding Taliban forces in military action against U.S. troops. Such allegations only further speculation as to the extent of the Pakistani state’s complex and contradictory strategy in these matters (Schmitt and Cooper 2010). By the 2008 presidential elections Pakistan appears, of course, to have become firmly ensconced in American consciousness. Pakistan figured prominently in the televised presidential debates. Ironically, the candidate calling for more diplomacy to resolve international conf licts, Barack Obama, seemed to have opted for the harder rhetorical line on Pakistan. Openly declaring that an invasion of Pakistan was not beyond the pale of imagination would lead to the nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands. His Republican opponent John McCain expressed a Reagan-like affection for America’s solid ally, Pakistan, little wonder that American Pakistanis might not support the Democratic Party unambiguously. The change in resonance of Pakistan in nationwide discourses, since the then senator Obama’s speech about bombing Pakistan in January 2008, has never been so marked as following the

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arrest of Faisal Shahzad, the alleged would-be car bomber of Times Square, on May 2, 2010. Grenier (2010) writes that Americans now feel doubly insecure because the recurrent mentioning of Pakistan as a site of radicalization and terrorist training has steadily created a number of case studies that open up the insecurity imaginary of the average white citizen from al- Qaida to groups such as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan—the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP. Popular representations of Pakistan and its diaspora in the United States have also taken a sharp turn toward a far more politically ambiguous and threatening direction. In the plethora of procedural crime and political thriller television series that have emerged over the past 15 years and in particular since 9/11, Pakistanis have figured prominently in highly politicized and potentially dangerous ways. In the FBI procedural crime show Numbers, for example, a Pakistani charity figures as a central point of a terrorist investigation by the FBI. The episode, while seemingly attempting to show that not all Pakistanis are terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, succeeds in implying that one cannot tell which Pakistani might harbor terrorist intentions or terrorist sympathies and that innocent-looking as well as guilty Pakistanis might have very close social network connections. 2 In season 6 of the highly popular mafia soap opera, The Sopranos, fictional FBI agent Dwight Harris enlists the help of Tony Soprano to help identify Pakistanis involved in a credit card scam, and who may be generating funds for international terrorism. Again, the implication is clear—Pakistanis are not to be trusted. They may appear to be secular and “American” (whatever that may or may not mean in different parts of the United States), but they are all potentially dangerously connected to global networks of political violence. Interestingly, the deception discourse is the same that is enacted in the 2009 Bollywood film Kurbaan, where a Pakistani-born professor, disguised as an Indian and granted entry to the United States thanks to his marriage to an NRI (nonresident Indian) masterminds a terrorist attack during the evenings and claims, during the day, to be an “enlightened Muslim” teaching a course on “Islam and Western civilization” in a college. Of course, movies of this type reach a market that goes much beyond North America and other English- speaking countries, and legal or pirate markets around the world make such representations widely accessible in South Asia too, which results in politicization of audiences that the impact of which remains to be calculated (Bolognani 2010). In part, such representations must surely ref lect the growing awareness of policymakers and law enforcement officials of the extent to which Pakistani social networks, in particular family groups, cannot

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solely be understood as emanating from, or motivated by, emotive ties. As this volume aptly demonstrates, emotional, economic, political, and religious ties permeate the same networks of individuals. A marriage between a Pakistani diaspora bride/groom and a Pakistani-born spouse is more than just a romantic interlude between two StarStruck young people. It is the establishment of complex networks of obligation and reciprocity between groups of people. These are not explicitly conduits for political violence, but they can be manipulated by individuals with such intentions. Just as free trade enables certain unintended consequences (the drug trade and money laundering, for example), Pakistani social networks make it possible for individuals to move under the guise of emotive connectedness and escape closer scrutiny from immigration officials. The American and British response is curiously stern and contradictory. Though both countries want the f low of expertise (and wealth) from Pakistan, they are troubled by the fact that some young Pakistani men, born and brought up outside of Pakistan, become radicalized following relatively short stays in Pakistan. Being American Diaspora One of the most famous Pakistani Americans is rock star Salman Ahmad. Salman Ahmad is a very interesting case study as in his autobiography Rock & Roll Jihad. A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution,” he pivots the narration around his switching back and forth from Pakistan to America and he analyzes how life changed according to international politics both for a Pakistani man in the United States, and for a man in Pakistan; how foreign affairs decisions impacted on the daily lives of Pakistanis and Pakistanis abroad. Well known outside South Asia and South Asian diaspora for his concert at Al Gore Nobel Ceremony, UN charities concerts and collaborations with international stars such as Melissa Etheridge and Annie Lennox, in South Asia and among the South Asian diaspora, he is best-known for having been in the folds of 1980s rock band “Vital Signs” and then 1990s “Junoon.” Born in Pakistan, Salman Ahmad has lived on and off in the United States, first as a teenager, then as a young man, and now he continues to live there teaching Sufi music and poetry at Queens College in New York. Currently he declares his main commitment as “peace building and mutual understanding between different communities.” A self- declared sufi, Salman Ahmad sees a sign and a design in everything that has happened in his life. However, it is quite interesting that most of the signs about his career and his development as a human being and a sufi

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happened through his diasporic experience in the United States. His narration, however, is far from being the usual account of America as the land of opportunities; he clearly acknowledges that he was able to discover his junoon (passion/obsession) for music only in the United States, just as music was being crushed in Pakistan under General Zia, supported by the United States (2010: 13). Going back from New York City to Pakistan in the early 1980s after having developed his first taste for rock ‘n’ roll meant seeing all the values he associated with the United States being violated by Zia (69). Telling of his first concert in Lahore, fana (self- annihilation in love) in rock ‘n’ roll, Salman Ahmad sees no contradiction and, in fact, sees a kind of mutual enhancement of the place where he was “raised “and the place he “grew up” in: I changed into black jeans and an AC/DC T- shirt. Around my wrist I wound a string of blue prayer beads favored by adherents of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. I dabbed some black paint under my eyes and out my favorite necklace with a gold ‘Allah’ pendant. I felt like a New Yorker all over again—except there was no mistaking I was back in Lahore. (Ahmad 2010: 10)

Ahmad’s case study is interesting for our purposes in two ways: the first is the inclusion of American discourses (such as the one of liberty and self-fulfillment) in his internal conversation as a Muslim Pakistani, and then as the collection of personal experiences over more than three decades and their clear connection with politics. In many ways, Ahmad’s case study exemplifies some of the contrasts we see between British and American diaspora. Ahmad, like many British Pakistanis, was taken to Pakistan in his teen years and had his connection to the country and city of his parents’ origin consolidated. The binds indelibly put in place in ways that are remarkably similar in both places, yet the American experience, for a number of reasons, appears to result in more overt rhetorical Americanization than the British one. Perhaps this is a consequence of more rhetorical propaganda embedded within the American state school curriculum (pledges of allegiance to the f lag, repeated historical narratives about the founding of the country, the Civil War) along with more concerted nationalistic and possibly homogenizing discourses propagated via film and television. It may also be a consequence of scale. The smaller geographic size of Britain has resulted in higher proximate population densities of Pakistanis, which allows for the development of Pakistani neighborhoods and schools. Patterns of migration and imperial history also play their part. For a number of

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reasons, the experience of being a British or American Pakistani has diverged in some interesting ways, and yet, in both populations we find ongoing practices designed to maintain f lows of people and information. One of the intriguing aspects of these f lows is that they do not appear to be nationalistic in nature, but rather familial and personal. That such intimate, household-level networks can expand to such a scale is surely a lesson for all social scientists. Such networks may be very hard to control or manipulate, but they are also very durable and resistant to disruption. Conclusion In this chapter we have tried to give a further example of the importance of analyzing Pakistani diaspora and Pakistan together in order to understand in more nuanced and realistic ways. We have also identified the state, foreign policy, and popular culture as three important variables that should not be overlooked in putting together the “mirror crack’ed” (see the Introduction, this volume). This particular example of transnationalism highlights the complexities of the internal conversation, or the space of ref lexivity where structure, culture, and individual agency converge, as exemplified by the case study on Salman Ahmad. Though foreign policy clearly affects the fates of many Muslims around the world, the idea of the politics of citizenship and popular culture have not been sufficiently explored so far. While citizenship studies have been very popular and informed a number of different academic disciplines in the past decade, the more “intimate” consequences (for the ontology of “intimate citizenship” see Plummer 2003:140) on individuals’ and families of national policies have been explored only systematically, as far as Pakistanis are concerned, by Rytter (in press). Much more is being produced about Pakistanis in America and “f lexible citizenship,” a term used openly by Maira (2004), and which may apply to the works cited above by Ewing and Hoyler (2008) and Stover (2010). Popular culture can be problematic for social scientists to study; however, the opportunity to identify and, to some extent, measure shifts in perception via public representations is rich and powerful. There remain risks of overgeneralizing from what may be highly popular representations that are driven by concerted political agendas (such as representations promoted by organizations such as Fox News, with its overtly conservative sympathies). Nevertheless, if one takes a broader view of public representations in media and treats such evidence in the

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same critical light with which other evidence is handled (interview data, focus group data, questionnaire results, and so on), such information offers valuable complementary sources for determining perceptions far beyond what is possible within the constraints of the more traditional battery of social science data production methods. To be sure, the public sphere is not restricted to popular culture or public media representations and we do not intend to reduce it to such a narrow field. The contributions in this volume concentrate on a range of issues concerning people living in Pakistan and of Pakistani origin living abroad. The selection of broad themes, we suggest, is indicative not of a comprehensive list of all significant factors impacting on Pakistanis and the diaspora, but rather, those that are most obvious and pressing today. The specter of terrorism and alternative moral and cultural frames of reference, which might prevent effective communication between those of Pakistani origin and European origin, we suggest, is not only exaggerated, but also masks profound variation within different Pakistani populations. The differences between those people living in Pakistan and those in Britain are great, even while the continued social networks and channels of communication remain strong. The differences between British and American Pakistanis are likewise immense, yet they too maintain social connections, often indirectly via friends and relatives remaining in Pakistan. The interconnectedness has perhaps promoted a misleading impression of more imagined communitarian solidarity than is warranted by policymakers and wider American and British publics. In part, this stems from a poor understanding of the diversity and contradictions inherent in Pakistani society itself, as evidenced from the growing ethnographic record. There are well over 160 million Pakistanis in Pakistan today (with estimates creeping up to 180 million). These 160+ million people speak a variety of languages and hold a diversity of religious beliefs, even while the vast majority identify themselves as Muslim. In short, there is a great deal of cultural pluralism in Pakistan. It is no surprise, therefore, that such pluralism and diversity find its way into the many Pakistani diasporas around the world. What the contributions in this volume argue is that there is something powerful and connected about these groups despite differences in specific beliefs, assumptions about justice, association with political movements, or employment patterns. This connectedness lies both in the forms of social networks that emerge from the clusters of individual transactions as well as some foundational agreement about the constitution of persons. Such foundational agreement is, to be sure, rudimentary and f lexible (as the f lexible citizenship

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concept reinforces). Rather than an overt code of Pakistani-ness, akin to pukhtunwali, it is perhaps akin to compatibility found between Britain and its diaspora on the role of the individual and shared assumptions of the obligations incumbent upon members of a common social group. Such compatibility allows individuals the world over to see common cause with one another while simultaneously permitting gross contradictions between them. Notes 1. This, of course, raises the ubiquitous dilemma of attempting to universalize political “Left” and “Right” when the reality is that broadly speaking it would appear that North Americans and Europeans may not prioritize the same things when using these terms. 2. Episode 18, season 4. “When Worlds Collide,” CBS.

References Ahmad, S. (2005) “This Is My Country Too,” BBC documentary, http://news.bbc. co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/programmes/this_world/transcripts/this_world_its_my_ country_too.txt. Accessed June 7. ———. (2010) Rock & Roll Jihad. A Muslim Rock Star’s Revolution. New York: Free Press. Allievi, S. (2006) “How and Why ‘Immigrants’ became ‘Muslims,’ ” ISIM Review, 18: 18. Amoore, L. and Hall, A. (2010) “Border Theatre: On the Arts of Security and Resistance,” Cultural Geographies, 17(3): 299–319. Archer, M. (2003) Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ayers, J. W. (2007) “Changing Sides: 9/11 and the American Muslim Voter,” Review of Religious Research, 49(2): 187–198. Batalova, J. and Ferruccio, U. (2008) “Spotlight on the Foreign Born of Pakistani Origin in the United States,” http://www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus/ display.cfm?ID=672. Accessed May 12, 2010. Bolognani, M. (2010) “Media in South Asia in the Noughties,” Contemporary South Asia, December 2010, 18(4). Cainkar, L. A. (2009) Homeland Insecurity. The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Das, V. (1997) Critical Events an Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India. Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks. Ewing, K. P. and Hoyler, M. (2008) “Being Muslim and American: South Asian Muslim Youth and the War on Terror,” in Ewing, K. P. (ed.) Being and Belonging: Muslims in the United States since 9/11. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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Ferrante, J. (2008) Sociology: A Global Perspective. Belmont, CA: Thomson. Grenier, R. (2010) “Ominous Signs for US-Pakistan Ties,” http://english.aljazeera. net/focus/2010/05/201051271757128641.html. Accessed May 12, 2010. Lee, M. F. (1996) The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Leonard, K. I. (2003) Muslims in the United States: The State of Research. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Levy, A. and Scott- Clark, C. (2007) Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy. London: Atlantic Books. Lyon, Stephen M. (2005) “In the Shadow of September 11th: Multiculturalism and Identity Politics,” in Abbas, T. (ed.) Muslim Britain: Communities Under Pressure. London: Zed. MacFarquhar, N. (2006) “Pakistanis Find U.S. an Easier Fit Than Britain,” The New York Times, August 21. Maira, S. (2004) “Youth Culture, Citizenship and Globalization: South Asian Muslim Youth in the United States after September 11th,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 24(1): 221–233. Malik, N. (2008) “Religion, Gender and Identity Construction amongst Pakistanis in Australia,” in Kalra, V. S. (ed.) Pakistani Diasporas: Culture, Conflict and Change. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Mamdani, M. (2004) Good Muslim Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon/Random House. Mohammad-Arif, A. (2008) “Pakistanis in the United States: From Integration to Alienation?,” in Kalra, V. S. (ed.) Pakistani Diasporas: Culture, Conflict and Change. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Najam, A. (2006) Portrait of a Giving Community. Philanthropy by the PakistaniAmerican Diaspora. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nimer, M. (2002) The North American Muslim Resource Guide: Muslim Community Life in the United States and Canada. New York/London: Routledge. Ong, A. (1999) Flexible Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Pasha, K. (2009) “Why Muslims Left the Republican Party,” The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kamran-pasha/why-muslims-left-therepu_b_188333.html. Accessed April 17. Plummer, K. (2003) Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public Dialogues. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Rana, J. (2008) “Controlling Diaspora: Illegality, 9/11, and Pakistani Labour Migration,” in Kalra, V. S. (ed.) Pakistani Diasporas: Culture, Conflict and Change. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Rana, J. and Rosas, G. (2006) “Managing Crisis: Post-9/11 Policing and Empire,” Cultural Dynamics, 18(3): 219–234. Rytter, M. (in press) “The Semi-legal Family Life: Pakistani Couples in the Borderlands of Denmark and Sweden,” Global Networks.

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Schmitt, E. and H. Cooper (2010) “Leaks Add to Pressure on White House Over Strategy,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/world/ asia/27wikileaks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th. Accessed July 27. Siddiqui, S. (2009) “American Rose Fights for Pakistani Husband,” Dawn, http:// www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn- content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/American-Rose-fights-for-Pakistani-husband- 01-sal- 05. Accessed May 12 and 17. Spielhaus, R. (2010) “Media Making Muslims: The Construction of a Muslim Community in Germany through Media Debate,” Contemporary Islam, 4: 11–27. Stover, T. L. (2010). Hijacked Identities: Silicon Valley Pakistanis and Tactics of Belonging. UC Berkeley: Institute for the Study of Social Change, http:// escholarship.org. Witteborn, S. (2007) “The Situated Expression of Arab Collective Identities in the United States,” Journal of Communication, 57: 556–575.

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Abdul Khaliq Ansari 116–18 accession 83, 88, 98, 116, 127 activism 9, 24, 37, 111–12, 115, 120–1, 127, 129, 154 administration 24, 27–8, 32, 35, 100, 116 Afghans 162, 246 Afshar, Haleh 217, 220–2, 224–5, 228, 232, 235–6 Ahmad, Fauzia 220–1, 224–5, 228, 230 Ahmad, Sadaf 136 Ahmad, Saghir 86, 136, 220–1, 224–5, 228, 230, 250 Ahmad, Salman 22, 136, 246, 249–51 Ali, Nasreen 112, 115, 123, 129 Ali, Nazia 128 Ali, Shaikh Ahmed 187–8 Ali, Yasmin 220, 223–4, 232–3 Amanullah Khan 117–18 American Muslims 243–4 American Pakistanis 242–4, 247, 251–2 anti-emergency movement 20–1, 25, 32 apostacy 182 appropriation 8, 28–9, 35–6, 41, 86 army see also state of emergency impurity 159 relationship to Islamists 149 sectarianism 146 Asian Women in Britain 237

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Asif, Bushra 105 aspirations, educational 220, 222–3 attacks 63 authorities, religious 136–7, 152, 161 Azad Kashmir 98, 105, 107–8, 111, 116–18, 122, 127, 129, 131, 169, 206 see also Kashmir Bagguley, Paul 75 Ballard, Roger 98–9, 101, 103, 111 Balochistan 206, 210–11 Bari, Muhammad Abdul 65, 67 Bhopal 221, 226, 230, 234–5 biraderi 97–8, 101, 116, 118, 126, 128–9 Birmingham 11, 49, 68, 112, 117–20, 124–5, 174, 181, 192 Bradford 5, 11, 15, 112, 120, 122–3, 125–6, 131, 184, 186, 188, 192–3, 196–7, 221, 236 Britain government 11–12, 55, 64, 68 Muslim Population 58, 66–7, 71, 73, 197 Pakistani population 103 politicians 44, 59–61, 64, 70–1, 73 British India 50–1, 86–7, 177 British Kashmiris 112–15, 118, 121, 123, 125–9, 131 British Pakistani Women and Education 219, 221, 223, 225, 227, 229, 231, 233, 235, 237

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British Pakistanis 6, 11–14, 16, 46–7, 70, 79, 115, 123, 130, 170, 172, 181–3, 186, 227–8, 243–4 brothel 148, 163 census 103, 111, 114, 121, 130, 165, 169 children 21, 25–6, 30, 33, 57, 148, 172, 180–2, 187, 201–4, 206–15, 219–20, 225–6, 229, 231–2 church 50, 169, 195 citizenship flexible 245, 251–2, 254 multicultural 60 class 12, 14, 23, 28–9, 36, 38, 40–1, 47, 85, 140, 158, 201–2, 205–6, 208, 234–6 lower 36–7, 209 conflict 9, 54, 58, 83–4, 92–3, 95–6, 106, 108, 138, 141, 183, 247, 254 cultural identity 60, 97–8, 106 culture, popular 241, 245, 251–2 culture of politics 87, 91, 93–4, 103 curriculum 147, 153, 175, 177–9, 186, 191, 194 Dahlberg, Lincoln 45–6, 77 Deobandi 50, 142–3, 153, 161–4, 172, 176, 182, 184, 190, 194 disputes 87, 90, 102, 113, 174–6, 180, 193 Dodd, Vikram 50 dreams 90, 144 education boys 13 children’s 211, 235 ethnic inequalities 192, 202 gender disparities 201, 203, 211, 215 girls enrollment rates 209 institutions 85, 141, 160 mass 139

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opportunities 220, 222, 228 qualifications 218, 221, 224, 230, 234 women 204, 222, 225 Eickelman, Dale 136, 139, 166–8 Ellis, Pat 97, 107, 115, 124, 129–31 emancipation 12–13 empowerment 13–14, 217–20, 222, 224, 228, 233, 237 enemies 84, 92, 153, 155, 188 English among British Pakistanis 171 British Nationality Act 2005 75 in education 24, 147 in religious education 174, 187 religious leadership 183 ethnic groups 9, 23, 99–100, 206–7, 212, 220, 229 ethnic press 44–5, 50, 55, 73–4 ethnicity American Pakistanis 242 boundaries 124 inequalities 157, 220 social capital 220 teaching 23 Ewing, Katherine 136, 167, 245, 251, 253 fathers children’s education 226 educating daughters 208, 210, 215, 224 Pathans 212 FOSIS (Federation of Student Islamic Societies) 56, 68–9 FRAQ (Free Riyaz and Qayyum)Campaign 119–20 GDP, percentage invested in education 202, 204 Gilroy, Paul 45 girls 13, 28, 31, 35, 125, 152, 159, 164, 201–15, 220, 222–3, 228, 235–6

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Index Government of Pakistan 56, 104–5, 191, 203–4, 206, 216 government schools 138, 203–5, 208–9 Habermas, Jürgen 45 Hadith 52–3, 142, 161, 177–8, 181 Haroon, Sana 150 higher education 179 empowerment 218 women 222 Holden, Andrew 128 Holocaust Memorial Day 64–6, 69–71 Hoyler, Marguerite 245, 251 HT (Hizb ut-Tahrir) 56 human rights 23 Amnesty International assessment of Pakistan 21 discourse 104 European Court 75 fetishization 91 moral language 92 Hussain, Ed 51, 72–3, 77 Hussain, Yasmin 75 identity politics 28, 63, 69 imams 53, 172 in Britain 55, 172–3, 181 composition in Britain 183, 190 high profile imams in Britain 170 increase in number 147 Lal Masjid 143 needs of society 12 salaries 172, 174 status 172 training 179, 192 Indian-administered Kashmir 93, 97 Islam education 14 in Kashmir 86 lived 138 localization 61

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structural mutations in urban areas 138 Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) 68 Islamic laws see shariah law Islamic schools 56, 63 Islamic texts, classical 177–8 Islamists 10, 61–2, 72, 77, 104, 149, 168, 171, 181–4, 190, 195–7 Israel 65, 67–8, 104 izzat 219, 222, 225 Jafri, Maqsood 87–9 Jalal, Ayesha 85, 96 Jamaat-i-Islami 34, 40, 50–1, 135–6, 161, 195 Jammu and Kashmir see also Kashmir azaad and maqbuza categories 88 citizenship status 98 jihad ban in textbooks 163 humanitarianism 104 idiom of insurgency 83 martyrdom 137 popularization 149–50 tribal agencies 150 unbelievers 182 violence 54 women 152 JKLF (Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front) 112, 115, 117–19 judiciary 8, 21, 34 Kalra, Virinder 113, 129, 131, 254 Karachi 16, 24, 26–8, 40, 95, 99, 107, 155, 162–8, 178, 208, 211, 215–16, 254 Kashmir see also Mirpur formation within Pakistan 86 geography of oppressed Muslims 88 marginality 9 Kashmiri activists 119, 121, 126

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Index

Kashmiri identity 10, 97, 100, 112, 115, 121, 129 Kashmiris in Britain 111, 113, 115–17, 119, 121, 123, 125, 127, 129, 131 Kelly, Ruth 63, 65, 67, 70, 72–3 Khan, Zafar 115 Khyber Pukhtunkhwa 143, 155, 162, 206 Lady of Shalott 3–4, 6, 15 Lahore 19, 22, 24, 28, 31, 34–5, 39–41, 85, 99, 101, 117, 162–3, 165–7, 240, 250 Lal Masjid 10–11, 21, 135, 137–8, 140–1, 143–7, 149, 151–60, 162–3, 165–6 Abdul brothers 148, 150, 157–8, 160, 162–3 raid 135 lawyers movement 2007 21–2, 31 Leonard, Karen 243–4, 254 literacy 47, 202–3 LoC (Line of Control) 84, 95, 99 London anti-war demonstration 74 Mayor 66 Pakistani party political activities in 15 terrorism 49–50, 57 LUMS (Lahore University of Management Studies) 19–20, 23, 29, 32–4, 36–41 social composition of student body 23 student protests 19, 24–5, 28, 39 madrasa 147, 167 British 172, 176 equivalency with other higher degrees 141, 163 female students 139, 144, 152–3 government policy 143 growth of madrasa 147 Jamia Fareedia 144–5, 148, 151, 155, 165

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Jamia Hafsa 144, 147, 149, 151–3, 157, 159, 164, 166 legal status 163 reform from Pakistani state 146 madrasa legal status 147 Maira, Sunaina 242, 245, 251 Malik, Jamal 136, 141, 149, 171–2, 193–4 Malik, Nadeem 240, 254 Malik, Shahid 70, 78 marriage arranged 15, 126 between close relatives 241 break down 230 network connections 249 suitable partners 230 violation of rights 230 Marsden, Magnus 138, 167 martyrdom 89–90, 104, 119, 135–7, 158–60, 162 Mawdudi, Maulana 52, 54, 73–5 MCB (Muslim Council of Britain) 50–3, 55, 63–70, 75, 78, 185, 190, 195 income from the British government 65 McLoughlin, Sean 51, 126, 128, 181, 227 MI5 49–50, 78 middle classes 22, 203, 208 migrants see migration migration 5, 99, 101 consciousness 101 diaspora 114 Immigration and Naturalization Act 243 from Kashmir 10 muhajir 99 shift from Mirpuri to Kashmiri 111 militants 159 ambivalence towards martyrdom 159 death 92 divided loyalties 96 harrassment of families 93

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Index MINAB (Mosque and Imam National Advisory Board) 11, 55, 190–2 Mirpur (Kashmir) 5, 9–10, 83–4, 98, 103, 106, 111–12, 116, 118, 123–5, 128 history 83 Mirpuris 10, 85, 99, 111, 113, 115, 122–3, 128 Modood, Tariq 63, 123 Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) 99 mosque committees 172 biradari run 180 women members 174, 193 mosque schools 187, 195 mothers aspiration for daughters 208, 210, 229 education 207 education of daughters 215 labor 207, 212 MQM (Mohajir Qaumi Movement) 99 multiculturalism 44, 52, 59, 63, 170 attacks on 61, 63, 68, 73 culture and community 59 culture and religion 62 failure 43, 48, 57, 59–60, 68 human rights 52 multiculturalism in history 58 politicians criticisms 73 rejection of 67–8 religious pluralism and identity politics 63 Ruth Kelly 63, 67 Musharraf, Pervez 20–2, 26, 29, 146, 148 Muslim Americans 244, 246 Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) 55, 64, 68, 74, 190, 195 Muslim Brotherhood 51, 68, 74, 184, 195 Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine 171, 181 Muslim Council of Britain see MCB Muslim Identity Politics 126

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Muslim League 75, 149 Muslim women 174, 217 agents of change 228 economic inactivity 192 empowerment strategies 217 myth of return 6 Najam, Adil 243 Nasr, Vali Reza 51, 75, 78, 136, 149, 168 NGO schooling 203 Pakistan, creation of 87, 99 Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) 21, 25 Azad Kashmir 127 Pakistani Americans 242, 244, 249 Pakistani government education policies 201 Pakistani universities 23–4, 40 Palestine 71, 125, 129, 189 geography of oppressed Muslims 88 partition 83, 86–7, 89–90 Mahatma Gandhi and Muslims 173 Pathans (Pukhtuns) 86, 206 Piscatori, James 136, 139, 166 police 28, 30–1, 34–5, 39, 53, 55–6, 63, 66, 70, 85, 119, 135, 160, 179, 189 political mobilization 10, 46, 112–13, 115–16, 127–9 PPP (Pakistan People Party) 21, 25 primary schools 186, 204, 206–8, 211 Prophet 74, 142, 144, 150, 152–3, 178, 187 Prophetic tradition 175, 178 protest Afghanistan and Iraq 48 anti-Musharraf 29 Danish embassy 55 Jamia Hafsa 152 Kashmir 116, 119 leaders 22 media 8, 36 student 20, 28 virtual 20, 29, 38–9

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262

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Index

PU (Punjab University) 26, 32, 34 PU students 33–4 public sector 141, 202, 204 Punjab 84–6, 98–101, 103, 107, 167, 206, 210 Punjab University see PU Qur’an 104, 145, 161, 166, 174–5, 177–8, 181, 193, 195–6, 223–4 Qureshi 201, 203, 215–16 Rahman, ur- 51–2, 54, 79 Rai 85–6, 108 Rana 146, 168, 241–3, 254 Reagan 247 Red Mosque 21, 135 religious education 71, 139 religious leaders 70, 143, 158, 169–71, 180, 196 religious leadership 7, 10–12, 133, 135–8, 142, 167, 183 religious pluralism 63, 176 religious prejudice 219–20, 228 religious scholars 10–11, 136, 162 Republicans 244 Rural Sindh 211–12 Rushdie affair 5, 48, 58–9, 75 Safina 26, 30, 33–5, 37, 124 Salafis 171, 181–3, 190 Salvatore 136, 167–8 seminaries 171, 176–7, 179, 184, 186, 194 shahadat see martyrdom Shain 220–2, 228, 236 shariah law 21, 68–9, 93, 136–7, 140, 144, 147–9, 161, 165, 177, 180, 194 calls for reconstruction 161 fiqh 161 status of courts 165 Shias 91, 139, 142, 162 siblings 219–20, 226–7, 234–5 Sindh 206, 211–12, 215

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Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) 142, 146 sisters 24, 89, 148, 156, 188, 209–10, 212, 222, 226–7 social capital 20, 220, 222, 226–7, 233, 235–7 Sökefeld, Martin 9–10, 103, 111–12, 114, 116, 118, 120–2, 124, 126, 128–31 Srinagar 94, 99, 101, 103, 117 SSP (Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan) 142, 146 state of emergency 19–20, 22, 149, 159, 209 Stover, Tamera 242–5, 251 Sufi Muslim Council of Britain 66 suicide bombers 48, 55, 57, 152 terror 6, 64 arrests in Britain 48 British foreign policy 65 grooming 64 and multiculturalism 57 War on Terror 48, 65, 91, 142, 146, 150–1, 240 textbooks 108, 138–9, 147, 163, 197, 204 tribal areas 142, 146, 150–1, 159, 240 UK Islamic Mission (UKIM) 51–3, 181 ulama 10–12, 136–7, 147, 152, 160, 162, 171–2, 175, 177, 186, 194, 196, 198 United States 20–1, 36–7, 64, 75, 104, 187, 190, 194, 240, 243–6, 248–50, 253–5 universities 23, 28, 30–1, 33–5, 40, 63, 74, 77, 152, 171, 185, 218–19, 222–5, 227–8, 230 urban slums 205–6, 208, 211, 215 Urdu 24, 124, 152, 161, 163, 171, 177, 179–80, 184, 186

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Index violence 42, 54, 72, 85–6, 88, 90, 106–9, 197 political 6, 92, 247–9 wars 47–8, 51, 65, 67, 73, 83, 91, 99, 103, 105–6, 142, 146–7, 149–51, 157, 240–1 Werbner, Pnina 5, 8, 15 Western media 143, 217 Wilson, Amrit 218, 222, 229, 232

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Wilson, Charlie 246 Woodward 67, 69, 78–9 World Bank, gender inquality classifications 204 Wray, Sharon 217–18, 233 Zaman, Muhammad Qasim 137, 173, 175 Zia-ul-Haq, President-General 51, 142, 144, 146, 165, 250

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