THE HAYAT HYPOTHESIS: IMPERIAL CRISIS, MUSLIM MODERNISM, JINNAH’S CHARISMA, AND THE BIRTH OF PAKISTAN

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay is written as an overview of Sikandar Hayat's (1946-) longtime scholarship on the creation of Pakistan with Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) as the focal leader. It seeks to bring out the main argument and analyses of Hayat's books on the subject. The main thrust of the essay, consistent with an exposition of Hayat's works, is that the creation of Pakistan was a complex process and that both Jinnah's critics, who often deny him agency, and his uncritical admirers, who exaggerate it out of all proportion, seem to miss the larger historical context and lessons to be derived from Jinnah's life and times. Hayat employs an analytical approach that, among other things, articulates a framework for understanding charismatic leadership in non-Eurocentric environments, restores valid agency to Jinnah, and never loses sight of the context and larger historical forces he, and the All-India Muslim League, had to contend with. As Pakistan marks 75 years of its independent existence, debates and discourses about its creation continue, and Hayat's contributions to that discourse need to be examined and understood outside his own country