Pakistan's National Narratives, Identity and the World's Views

Abstract

Pakistan and Pakistanis today, even after 77 years of their inception, are in search of a strong identity to stand on in front of the world views. There needs to be a mechanism of offering a narrative, in defence of the encroaching events. A national narrative has to satisfactorily carry both the trust of the nation, and acceptance of the world around. This paper describes, briefly, the understanding of the contemporary research, as to what is a national narrative, how is there a principle of movement in it, what is the war of narratives, and whose job it is to build narratives, spreading them around, and obtaining power holders ownership. The paper takes a historical tour of the various narratives that have been thrown on the floor at different times, since the Pakistan movement, till the present day, as to their origin, service and destination.  A model of the life cycle of a narrative has been presented. Based on the model, a number of narratives in the past have been examined. The findings, have given a guideline as to how should the narrative building be done. The paper gives a current picture, as to how many Pakistanis are there in different countries, and what image the people of those countries carry about Pakistan and Pakistanis. At the end, a way forward is presented, as to what can be done to improve the image.

Keywords: Narratives, Identity, Think tanks, Academia, Social media