The rocky road to modernity: an assessment of Pakistan’s 75 years
Name
The rocky road to modernity an assessment of Pakistan s 75 years.pdf
Size
785.35 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
609633f20fa3b444c407551b597923d7
Author(s)
Hoodbhoy, Pervez
Date Issued
December 12, 2022
Journal
The Round Table
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Citation
Hoodbhoy, P. (2022). The rocky road to modernity: an assessment of Pakistan’s 75 years. The Round Table, 111(6), 656–671.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
To assess whether Pakistan is moving towards or away from modernity I examine here the evolution of three key aspects: the overall idea system of society, the political system, and national culture. A meaningful analysis must begin with pre-colonial India, examine how British rule made fundamental changes, and the emergence of Pakistan as a result of Muslim religious identity. Although the beginnings of Pakistani modernity were shaky, the earlier inclination was to equalise with the developed world at large. In the mid-1980s this changed profoundly with the advent of political Islam, explicit repudiation of overt forms of western modernity, and a sharply increased tendency to seek examplars in the Islamic past. That trend has since accelerated under the influence of social media. But most Pakistanis, I argue, still want to hedge their bets and seek the fruits of modernity within a framework that they perceive as not inimical to their faith in Islam.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mathematics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2022.2148391
