Six decades after partition, Pakistanis are still taught a toxic mix of Muslim separatism, India-hatred, and pan-Islamism. Uncertain of their identity, they ask: Who are we? Arabs or South Asians? Is there a Pakistani culture? Should the country be run by Islamic law? Can Hindus, Christians, and Ahmadis be proper Pakistanis?

As Pakistan descends into an expanding insurgency and civil war, such existential questions have assumed centrality. A military that had tasked itself with defending Pakistan’s ideological borders now daily suffers the consequences of its earlier success in creating a religiously conservative country. Today, religious radicals within the ranks are colluding against those who they see as insufficiently Islamic. Multiple attacks following the killing of Osama bin Laden are now a cause of deep worry to the Pakistani establishment but, locked into a narrative that seems to offer it no escape route, as yet there is little indication that it plans a change of course.

Could greater freedom of public expression change the situation? Arguably, Pakistan has a feisty press and a multitude of independent TV channels that are openly critical of the government. And yet the public seems to want the sharia and is opposed to resolutely moving against Islamic militancy. Freedom of expression – or at least what seems like freedom – has done little good and, in fact, may actually be pushing the country deeper into conflict with itself. How does one explain this strange situation?

This nuclear-armed country’s downward plunge would have enormous consequences for all its neighbors. To survive, it needs a new basis for nationhood. What should that basis be and how can it be achieved?

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is professor of nuclear and high energy physics, and teaches at the School of Science and Engineering (LUMS, Lahore) as well as at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D degrees from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, and remains an active physicist who often lectures at US and European research laboratories and universities. Dr. Hoodbhoy received the Baker Award for Electronics and the Abdus Salam Prize for Mathematics.

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The lecture was delivered in Kathmandu on 7 June 2011 as part of the ASD/Himal Southasian Lecture series.