Sadia Saeed: Pakistani Nationalism and the State Marginalisation of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan Pakistani Nationalism and the State Marginalisation of the Ahmadiyya Community in Pakistan

This paper examines the relationship between nationalism, state formation, and the marginalisation of national minorities through an historical focus on Pakistani state’s relationship with the Ahmadiyya community, a self-defined minority sect of Islam. In 1974, a constitutional amendment was enacted that effectively rendered the Ahmadiyya community a non-Muslim minority, in spite of claims by the community that it was Muslim and hence not a minority. This paper attempts to account for this anti-Ahmadiyya state legislation by arguing that the genealogy of the idea of a Pakistani state is key for understanding the politics of exclusion of the Ahmadiyya community from ‘Muslim citizenship’ – that is, who is and isn’t a Muslim.