Crowdfunding Nayā Pakistan: Development, Nationalism, and the Diamer-Bhasha Dam
On July 4, 2018, then–Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mian Saqib Nisar, announced an unprecedented campaign to crowdfund the Rs. 1.9 trillion ($12.4 billion USD) needed to revive construction of the Diamer–Bhasha and Mohmand dams. Encouraged to contribute as a form of ṣadaqa (voluntary charity), donation...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
The Muslim world
Year: 2022, Volume: 112, Issue: 1, Pages: 151-166 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | On July 4, 2018, then–Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mian Saqib Nisar, announced an unprecedented campaign to crowdfund the Rs. 1.9 trillion ($12.4 billion USD) needed to revive construction of the Diamer–Bhasha and Mohmand dams. Encouraged to contribute as a form of ṣadaqa (voluntary charity), donations from Pakistanis at home and abroad peaked at Rs. 12.9 billion ($80.4 million USD), despite widespread criticisms questioning the fund's motives and feasibility. Drawing on the developmental logic of dams and calls for a Nayā Pakistan (New Pakistan), the dam fund transformed Diamer–Bhasha into a popular symbol of a modern, prosperous, and pious nation. This paper explores the aspirations and limitations of these claims by tracing the historical, political, and affective discourses that inform the campaign. In order to contextualize the emergence of the dam fund, I argue that the broader developmental and humanitarian significance of the campaign should also be understood in relation to the statist frame of Pakistani Muslim nationalism. Above all, I seek to understand how the dam fund simultaneously presents Pakistanis as vulnerable to extinction, yet capable of their own rescue. I ask: what happens when the nation itself imagines itself as both the giver and recipient of charity? |
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| ISSN: | 1478-1913 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Muslim world
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/muwo.12425 |