2019/12/12 by Maria-Magdalena Fuchs, Simon Wolfgang Fuchs · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Bangladesh Politics, Society, and Development #Caste #Citizenship #Gender studies #Geography #Identity (music) #Islam #Law #Political science #Politics #Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East #Scholarship #Sectarianism #Social science #Sociology #South Asian Studies and Conflicts #State (computer science)
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/00856401.2020.1695075
openalex publication_date 2019/12/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
This introduction to the special section of South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, titled ‘Religious Minorities in Pakistan’, reviews the existing scholarship on this topic, points out gaps in the research, and discusses problematic notions and assumptions in both popular and academic discourses on minorities. Furthermore, it attempts a definition of the term ‘religious minority’, demonstrates its extensive entanglement with the question of caste—a characteristic specific to the South Asian case—and situates this discourse within broader debates about post-colonial state-building, the history of sectarianism in the region, contestations over religious authority, and the striving for a coherent political and cultural identity in Pakistan, the second-largest Muslim nation in the world.