IFI-CSH conference room (ground floor)

2 Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi – 110011

To attend online, please follow this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/

From the 1950’s onwards, the Pakistani province of Sindh has witnessed a nationalist movement that has put forward a set of grievances and political demands, ranging from greater autonomy to outright secession. The movement also engaged in cultural work that gave Sindhis a particular ethnic understanding of their collective identity. Although the Sindhi nationalist movement has failed to achieve independence or build a mass movement, I will show that it nonetheless significantly shaped Sindhi society and Pakistani politics. Based on my recently published monograph in French, this presentation introduces the key actors of the Sindhi nationalist movement and the essential tenets of their discourse. I first propose a socio-history of Sindhi nationalism to identify the actors that construct, consolidate and disseminate the Sindhi nationalist discourse. I then examine the content of the nationalist discourse in order to understand the processes through which identity markers are produced. Finally, I throw light on the broader contribution of Sindhi nationalism to Pakistan’s politics by looking at the impact of Sindhi nationalism on cultural policy and on electoral politics. In conclusion, I propose a tentative model for the study of ethno-nationalist movements located at the margins of the nation-state.

Julien Levesque is a political sociologist whose work focuses on socio-political dynamics in South Asian Muslim societies. In 2021-22, he was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at Ashoka University. Julien Levesque has been associated with CSH for some time: he was previously Head Researcher in the Politics and Society division at the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi, and has remained an associated member. His first monograph, published in January 2022 by the Presses universitaires de Rennes (in French), looks into nationalism and identity construction in Sindh after Pakistan’s independence. His ongoing work looks at the interplay of caste and minority politics among Muslims in India.

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