By Dipak Kurmi
The idea of Pakistan did not emerge organically from the masses of undivided India but was, instead, the cerebral construct of a Cambridge-based intellectual named Chaudhry Rehmat Ali. A Muslim Gujur from the Gorsi clan, hailing from Balachaur in what now lies in the erstwhile Parliamentary Constituency of Sri Anandpur Sahib, Rehmat Ali published a provocative pamphlet in 1933 titled “Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?” It was in this document, written at the age of 36, that he first articulated the framework of a separate Muslim homeland in northwest India. Though initially dismissed as the fanciful musings of a “permanent student,” Rehmat Ali’s vision would come to define the cartographic destiny of South Asia.
The name Pakistan itself was a geopolitical acronym rather than a spiritual revelation. It was an abbreviation comprising P for Punjab, A for Afghania (then NWFP), K for Kashmir, S for Sindh, and Tan from the tail of Baluchistan. An “i” was inserted later to aid pronunciation. Contrary to later nationalist myth-making, the term does not mean “land of the pure”; that interpretation, retrofitted to suit ideological aims, is a case of etymological opportunism.
In Rehmat Ali’s pamphlet, one sentence stood out, exposing the imperial rationale behind the partition proposal: “This Muslim Federation of North-West India would provide the bulwark of a buffer state against invasion of India either of ideas or of arms from any quarter.” It was a phrase that must have resonated with imperial strategists in London. While Indian leaders remained dismissive of the two-nation theory during the 1930s, one man who came to seriously consider it was Sir Winston Churchill. By the end of 1940, just as the Battle of Britain had concluded, Churchill — now the wartime Prime Minister of the United Kingdom — was actively discussing the Rehmat Ali proposal with his war cabinet colleagues.
Churchill, ever skeptical of the Indian National Congress, found common cause with the Muslim League’s separatist ambitions. The Congress had resigned from all provincial ministries in October–November 1939 to protest Viceroy Linlithgow’s unilateral declaration of war on Germany in India’s name. This provided Churchill a pretext to cultivate an alternate leadership within India — one that aligned better with British strategic interests. By March 23, 1940, the Pakistan Resolution was formally adopted at Lahore, providing institutional legitimacy to what had once been Rehmat Ali’s academic fantasy.
Churchill’s fear of a Soviet incursion into British India also shaped this calculus. Until Nazi Germany turned on the Soviet Union in 1941, the two totalitarian regimes were partners under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. A new iteration of the “Great Game” in Central Asia was looming, and the British sought to pre-empt it with a compliant Muslim buffer state on India’s northwestern frontier. Churchill, even as Leader of the Opposition in 1947, played a key role in persuading Muhammad Ali Jinnah to accept a truncated version of his dream — what Jinnah bitterly termed a “moth-eaten Pakistan.”
This West Pakistan, carved out of Punjab and Sindh, was built not as a homeland for South Asian Muslims but as a geopolitical bulwark for the Anglo-American alliance during the Cold War. It received the fertile lands of West Punjab, the commercial centres of Lahore and Karachi, and a position of strategic privilege. East Pakistan, meanwhile, was left impoverished and politically marginalised. It was never designed to thrive — its pastoral character rendered it dispensable in the larger Cold War matrix. The eventual emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 was, in many ways, a rebellion against the very logic of Pakistan’s artificial construct.
Seven decades on, the record speaks for itself. Bangladesh has achieved surprising success — higher economic growth rates, better human development indices, and relative political stability. Pakistan, conversely, has descended into strategic confusion and institutional decay. The once-vaunted military is now the custodian of a fractured state. As many commentators have noted with irony, Pakistan is perhaps the only country where the army has a country — not the other way around.
The Pakistani military’s nuclear arsenal, its first-strike doctrine, and its deep alliances with China and the United States once offered the illusion of strength. It served as Washington’s frontline ally in the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad of the 1980s and again during the Global War on Terror from 2001 to 2021. Yet all this strategic rent-seeking masked a rotting core. The army’s dominance has eviscerated civilian institutions, crippled democratic processes, and turned the idea of Pakistan into a brittle edifice propped up by coercion, aid, and ideology.
Nowhere is this brittleness more evident than in Pakistan’s reliance on semi-state militant proxies. What began as an asset in proxy wars — whether in Afghanistan or Kashmir — has morphed into a Frankenstein’s monster. Militant outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan have turned on the hand that once fed them. Domestic terrorism is rampant, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Internationally, Pakistan’s diplomatic credibility lies in tatters. The very instruments it once used to project power now serve to isolate it.
Moreover, the foundational ideology of Pakistan — the two-nation theory — stands intellectually bankrupt. The notion that Hindus and Muslims cannot coexist was disproven by the secular resilience of India, home to the second-largest Muslim population in the world. Even within its Islamic framework, Pakistan has failed to build unity. Shias, Ahmadis, Hazaras, and other sectarian minorities are targeted with impunity. Violent outfits such as Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi thrive, especially in Punjab and Balochistan, under the state’s selective patronage or passive complicity.
Regionally, Pakistan’s centralised governance model has alienated its own peripheries. Balochistan is in a near-perpetual state of rebellion. Sindh, especially the urban Mohajir population, harbours deep resentment against Punjabi hegemony. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the now-merged FATA suffer from developmental neglect and the blowback of Pakistan’s militant experimentation. Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir remain strategically useful but politically disenfranchised — ruled more as colonial dependencies than federated provinces.
Despite calling itself a federation, Pakistan lacks genuine federalism. Power remains entrenched in a unitary structure dominated by the Rawalpindi establishment and bureaucratic elite. Political parties function more as proxies than power centers, and elected governments often serve at the pleasure of the generals. The civilian facade is cosmetic; the real decisions are made behind cantonment walls.
Externally, Pakistan’s long-standing ambition of achieving “strategic depth” in Afghanistan has not only failed but backfired spectacularly. The Durand Line, a colonial relic, remains a point of contention with every Afghan regime, including the Taliban. Pashtun tribes straddling both sides reject this artificial boundary. The emergence of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a civil rights platform demanding justice for extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, underscores the growing unrest within. For India, amplifying such indigenous dissent can serve as a potent counter-narrative to Pakistan’s militarised posture.
Economically, Pakistan teeters on the edge. In 2025, its GDP growth is projected at a paltry 2.6 per cent. The economy is heavily dependent on external bailouts from the IMF, Chinese loans under CPEC, and remittances from its diaspora. Military-run conglomerates like the Fauji Foundation and Army Welfare Trust dominate vital sectors, crowding out private entrepreneurship. Tax evasion is rampant, inflation is soaring, the rupee continues to slide, and foreign reserves are evaporating. Even the country’s vast black economy cannot rescue it from this quagmire.
Politically, Pakistan resembles less a sovereign republic and more a semi-functional protectorate, dependent on the goodwill of its foreign patrons and the coercive apparatus of its own military. With chronic corruption, divided opposition, and a judiciary increasingly subservient to executive pressure, the country is spiraling into dysfunction.
The question now is not whether Pakistan will change, but whether it can survive in its current form. Its contradictions — ideological, ethnic, institutional, and economic — have deepened beyond the point of easy repair. While collapse is not yet imminent, it is no longer inconceivable. The notion of Pakistan disintegrating, once confined to the realm of speculative fiction, is now discussed in sober strategic circles.
For India, this evolving scenario presents both risks and opportunities. A disintegrating Pakistan could unleash chaos, refugee crises, and a scramble for control of nuclear assets. But it also opens a window for strategic recalibration. By investing in voices of dissent within Pakistan, by challenging its monolithic national narrative, and by exposing the hypocrisies of its ideological claims, India can subtly shape the discourse.
The Pakistan Question, then, is not just about its past — it is about its uncertain future. And the time may soon come when that future will no longer be dictated by military doctrine, but by the inexorable collapse of an idea whose time has passed.
(The writer can be reached at dipakkurmiglpltd@gmail.com)
