State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan

by Fred Halliday (Editor), Hamza Alavi

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Genres: Pakistan

Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Simon Frederick Peter Halliday, FBA (22 February 1946 in Dublin, Ireland – 26 April 2010 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain) was an Irish writer and academic specialising in International Relations and the Middle East, with particular reference to the Cold War, Iran, and the Arabian peninsula.

Reviews

[Tariq Mahmood]

I was only really interested in Hamza Alvi's Pakistani article which was very very interesting.Hamza Sahib was a Marxist, and he has chosen to portray Pakistani ideology in a class-based paradigm. He has defined a separate class in the Pakistani society called the 'salariat'. So these were Muslim salary seeking minority during the Raj, predominantly from the Gangetic plains UP, Bihar who wanted more rights and recognition for themselves as they felt they were marginalized by the Hindu salariat class. Their main opponents within the Muslim community were the Islamists (the Deobandis) who were basically both anti-nationalist and anti-British. The divide was most visible during the Khilafat movement which as supported and abetted by Gandhi and Congress to overshadow ML. ML chose to part ways from Congress as a result of this pincer attack.
Jinnah was the ultimate champion of this salariat class which only reluctantly accepted Pakistan only after Congress had rejected the republic model offered by Cabinet Mission in 1946. And in Jinnah's secular Pakistan, the salariat class suddenly came to head with nationalism as most of the salariat class was either Punjabi or Muhajjirs. In the face of its anti-Punjabi sentiments, the salariat class decided to change the ideology to more 'Islamic', which found them at odds with their earlier secular nationalistic stance. And ever since, salariat or the Establishment have used the Islamic card to counter Bengali, Sindhi, Baluchi and Pathan nationalistic movements. But this increased tilt towards Islamic ideology has also resulted in blowback in terms of Islamists gaining a lot more influence. And these are the same Islamists which have always been against the salariat class.

[Ubaid Talpur]

A very positive book regarding knowledge of our country fron existence to General Mushraf's period