Military Islamisation in Pakistan and the spectre of colonial perceptions

This article interprets General Zia ul‐Haq's Islamisation policies as the working of a political identity conditioned largely by its colonial roots. Pakistani nationalism and the ethos of the Pakistan Army were the most important formative elements of the state's military consciousness. In both elements, colonial patterns of thought are prevalent. The largely unchanged social practices of the Pakistan armed forces today are responsible for the preservation of a colonial logic of political manipulation: the vast majority of the indigenous population is perceived as a stagnant, backward and politically immature mass governed by religious sentiments, while legitimate politics remain the privilege of a Westernised elite. Like the administrations of the British, Yahya Khan and Ayub Khan, that of Zia ul‐Haq believed that the ‘common Pakistani’ was inherently religious and used religious symbolism to help legitimise its rule. The difference between the ideological stand of Pakistan's third military regime and its predecessors is not a qualitative one. Only because Zia had to come to terms with a relatively more difficult political situation than his predecessors did he push the logic of religious manipulation to its most extreme form.