DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES invites you to a talk by  DR. AJAY DARSHAN BEHERA, Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia University


“MAKING SENSE OF PAKISTAN: THE STATE AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS”


Ajay Darshan Behera is a Professor at the Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. He is also the Coordinator of the Centre for Pakistan Studies at the Academy. His main areas of research interest are foreign policy and security issues in South Asia, Political Violence, Insurgency and Terrorism, Conflicts and Conflict Management, India’s Foreign Policy, Political Development and Foreign Policy of Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Prior to joining the Academy of International Studies, he was the Officiating Director of the Centre for Strategic and Regional Studies, University of Jammu, Jammu. He has also been a Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi and Assistant Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. He was the recipient of the 1996 Kodikara Award instituted by the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. from October 2001 to June 2002 and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA from September 1997 to January 1998. He has contributed several research articles to edited volumes and journals in India and abroad on non-military dimensions of security, transnational security threats, confidence-building and conflict resolution, ethnic conflict, insurgencies and terrorism, and light weapons. He teaches courses on International Relations Theory, Security Studies and Pakistan. He is the author of a book Violence, Terrorism and Human Security in South Asia and a monograph The Politics of Violence and Development in South Asia and has co-edited the book Pakistan in a Changing Strategic Context.


Like many other post-colonial states, in Pakistan too state-building is an ongoing process. But state-formation in the context of Pakistan has been conditioned by the peculiarities of its origins and subjected to distortions by its ruling elites. The debates around what was the founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s vision still continue. Constitutionally, Pakistan is an Islamic state. Many have argued that Jinnah used the Muslim identity to secure a separate state, but by no means had he aspired for an Islamic state, least of all a theocratic state. In fact, many believe, he had hoped for a secular state. The death of Jinnah, soon after independence, weakened the Muslim League profoundly and was to leave a lasting impression on the development of political institutions. The subsequent process of constitution-making put the hope of a secular state to rest. The Objectives Resolution adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, ensured that Pakistan would be an Islamic state. The talk will discuss the issues around understanding Pakistan as a State.