The production and performance of the anti-Ahmadi movement
Subsequent Statement of Responsibility
A. M. K. Jalal
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Tufts University
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2012
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
128
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
M.A.
Body granting the degree
Tufts University
Text preceding or following the note
2012
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
This study of the anti-Ahmadi movement charts a history of the exclusion of lower middle class Punjabi Muslims from the structures of the colonial and postcolonial states. Kept out by the state elite, they were able to manipulate the structures of the state to carve out new channels of power. Relying on these channels, which included recourse to the popular and the transnational, anti-Ahmadi activists were able to shape the very state that excluded them. In 1974, they successfully pressured the Bhutto government to pass the Second Amendment to Pakistan's constitution, denying the Ahmadi community legal standing as Muslims. That this excluded section of society ultimately forced the state to effect another exclusion--that of the Ahmadi community--is the tragic paradox at the center of this work.