Not Islamic enough?: Bangla, Blasphemy and the law in Pakistan

ABSTRACT What do language policy in Pakistan and the drive to Islamise the state have in common? In the wake of independence, Pakistan emerged as a state striving to create a nation and it looked both to language and religion in search of constructing its Islamic national identity. This paper looks at the darker side of the nation-building process in the country, with a specific focus on the role of language in the struggle to purify Pakistan of its un-Islamic elements and at the shifting nature on the discourse of Islamic nationhood in the country. In particular, it spotlights how politics and law function not only to determine what constitutes an Islamic language and blasphemous speech but, in doing so, also construct the Islamic nation and its ‘Other’.