Memorializing the Nation-State: Minar-e-Pakistan between Memory and History

When analyzing the nation-state, studies of Pakistan often portray the Pakistani state as autocratic and dictatorial. While the Pakistani nation-state performs various hegemonic roles, it is also “cultured.” This article illustrates this point by focusing on the nation-state’s patronage of cultural projects in the 1960s (and beyond), tracing the genealogies of sites in Lahore’s Greater Iqbal Park (the Minar-e-Pakistan monument, Hafeez Jalandari mausoleum, and the National History Museum) along with the Quaid-e-Azam mausoleum in Karachi. The article centers these as “sites of memory,” exploring the hybrid tensions between tourism, citizenship, and modern memory in postcolonial Pakistan.