Introduction

Pakistan, with a name meaning ‘land of the pure’, emerged as an independent sovereign state in August 1947, as a result of the partition of the former British India. Pakistan represented the culmination of the demand put forward by the Muslims of the British India to have a separate homeland. ¹ The Muslim minority had feared submersion and subjection at the hands of the majority Hindus within an independent India. The campaign for Pakistan – which began in earnest after the Lahore Resolution of 23 March 1940 ² – had been built around the assertion that Hindus and Muslims constituted two distinct nations, and in order for the Muslims to preserve their identity and interests, an independent Islamic state provided the only option. ³