Two-Nation Theory and Pakistan-Bangladesh |
The Two-Nation Theory has long been the most contested idea to emerge from the political history of the subcontinent. Its critics have repeatedly declared it obsolete, defeated, or buried under the weight of subsequent events. Yet history has a way of resurfacing truths that power politics tries to suppress. In recent years, Bangladesh’s renewed assertion of its sovereign identity, free from external manipulation, has once again brought the Two-Nation Theory into sharp focus. Far from being a relic of the past, it continues to shape realities across borders, binding Pakistan and Bangladesh in a shared historical, ideological, and civilizational struggle.
At its core, the Two-Nation Theory was never a simplistic slogan or a matter of administrative convenience. Its central premise was that Muslims of the subcontinent constituted a distinct political, cultural, and civilizational community, with their own worldview, values, and collective aspirations. To dismiss this idea as “historically lazy” is itself an act of intellectual evasion. Decades after Partition, despite wars, separations, and political upheavals, this premise continues to assert itself in lived realities from Pakistan to Bangladesh, despite repeated attempts to dilute, deny, or suppress it.
Pakistan and Bangladesh are not strangers bound by coincidence; they are siblings shaped by shared history, collective trauma, and resistance against domination. Their separation in 1971 was not the negation of the Two-Nation Theory, as often projected, but the outcome of complex political failures, regional grievances, and most critically, external conspiracy. The role of Indian intervention in exploiting internal........