Pakistan: Its ideology and foreign policy
- London Frank Cass 1966
- 188p.
In you the new entity of Pakiwa thru its way through on the map of Asia. It was not like Poland, a nation which had been deliberately suppressed, and the idea of which had haunted politics for hundreds of years. Within the old political framework of India, Pakinan was brought to life as a new nation by the Bowering of nationalism; and, when this happened, it demanded a habitation. By the agreement of the British Government, and with the assent of the Nationalist party of India, it received the sus of a sovereign state, separated entirely from India. It received the trappings of independence, and it began its life with a separate army, a separate flag, and a self-contained political and economic system.
A new state has to find its place in the world. It must decide what attitude it is to take its various neighbours, who are its potential friends, and what to do about the threats of those which are less well disposed to it. Its first years are spent in searching for its identity; and in this it behaves in a way very much like that of an individual person in certain circumstances when he is unsure what mask of personality he should assume. Mr. Arif Hussain's book is a notable contribution to the study of Pakistan engaged in such an activity; and from it, the reader may derive some essential knowledge about it.
Two possibilities lay open to Pakistanis. They could base themselves on their Islamic religion, which had been the inspira tion of Pakistani nationalism, and make this the guide to their foreign policy. Taking up the cause of Islam they could dwell in the past, see no enmity in other Islamic states, and propose to them policies which would be to the advantage of Islam as a whole. Alternatively they could recognise that this line of action had been rendered anachronistic by the progress of the years, and they could see that Pan-Islamism was a romantic creed, which seldom had made sense to a particular government, and least of all was a guide for the twentieth century. By this second attitude, Pakistan would decide, coolly and calculatedly, what were its material interests, and would set itself to pursue these.