Ethnic Nationalism or Uneven Development: A Subaltern Realist Analysis of Bengali Nationalism in Pakistan

Abstract

After a short span of achieving statehood on basis of religious identity, the Bengali Muslims redefined their identity and once again demanded a separate state on basis of linguistic identity. Hobsbawm believe that identity formation in terms of nationhood is a result of deliberate ideological engineering. Economic factors serve as tangible signposts to cultural subjugation. Though many historians owe the Bengali nationalism and claims of statehood to linguistic and cultural difference that proved detrimental for state and nation making in pre 1971 Pakistan, the prime argument of this paper is that nationalist discourse is a discursive formation and a sort of language game rooted in material socio economic phenomenon of inequality and disparity. The concept of inequality and disparity essentially employ that a binary exists, and a group is feeling excluded, marginalized and at disadvantageous position in respect to some other group. The feeling of victimhood is at base of the nationalist movements and (re)definition of identity. Employing the concept of Subaltern Realism given by Mohammed Ayoob and the toolkit of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, and taking discourse as a combination of material and discursive formations, influencing human subjectivities and conditions of existence; the paper will examine the material economic conditions of existence in pre 1971 Pakistani federation and discursive responses as claims of self-determination and separatist nationalism. One of the key findings of paper is that ethnic Bengali nationalism was a derivative phenomenon of economic exclusion and uneven development.