Throughout the course of her history since independence, Pakistan has faced a persistent crisis of identity. Seldom can one find a country in the comity of nations whose intelligentsia and often the common people be seen speculating about the basis and rationale of their country. In the case of Pakistan, it is a common observation that our intelligentsia spares a major part of its time and the newspapers and periodicals spend a lot of their space on discussing the questions such as why did the country come into being? What purpose has it served? What can ensure its survival? Will it hold itself together against all divisive and centrifugal tendencies? Expressed in others words, Pakistan has for long suffered from an existential crisis.
Soon after independence, Pakistan had to opt for one of the two paths for its future identity. One was to realize that though the Two Nation theory was useful and conducive for the realization of a Muslim state in the subcontinent (thereby negating the Congress's assertion of a united Indian nationalism), the theory came to outlive itself once that country came into being. A continued assertion at the Two Nation theory would have implied that in future, a minority within Pakistan could have made a similar claim of separate nationhood as did the Muslims in India. Moreover, the continued assertion of the Two Nation theory would have 8 Pakistan in Search of Identity anchored Pakistan in the pre-partition situation preventing it from dissociating itself from a communal past and building itself on original and future-oriented foundations.
