Pakistan views itself as a strategically located country needed by the world’s major powers and as home to descendants of mighty Muslim warriors. This view of the self, coupled with the dominance of a narrow elite, accounts for Pakistan’s inability to address its periodic economic crises.

At least part of Pakistan’s quality of education problem stems from its ideological orientation. The goal of education in Pakistan is not to enable critical thinking but to produce skilled professionals capable of applying transferred information instead of being able to think for themselves. To produce soldiers, engineers and doctors indoctrinated with a specifically defined Islamic ideology, the country has ignored liberal arts and social sciences.

If there were lessons to be learnt from the East Pakistan/ Bangladesh fiasco, Pakistan’s civil and military leaders did not learn them. Instead of recognizing the inadequacy of the two nation theory, religious ideology and brute force in keeping the country together, the break-up was rationalized as the result of Indian hostility, malfeasance of Pakistani politicians, and the geographic remoteness of the eastern wing.

To end its march of folly, Pakistan needs to reassess its core beliefs about a religion-based polity, reconsider the notion of permanent conflict with its larger neighbour, recreate political institutions to reflect its ethnic diversity and rebuild its economy without reliance on the largesse of others. Only then would it be able to reliably get rid of the spectre of failure or fragility and low international standing by all non-military benchmarks.

Pakistan, unlike India, would not start out with a functioning capital, central government or financial resources, which necessitated greater homework on the part of the Muslim League leaders. Unfortunately, they did little by way of preparation for running the country they had demanded. Many of Pakistan’s teething problems were the result of this ill-preparedness but Pakistani accounts of the country’s early days paint them as hardships inflicted on Muslim Pakistan by its non-Muslim enemies.

The ‘ideology of Pakistan’ has created a nexus between the ‘custodians of Islam’ and the country’s military, civil bureaucracy and intelligence apparatus, which collectively sees itself as the guardian of the Pakistani state.

After the loss of its eastern wing, which became Bangladesh in 1971, Pakistan has been completely dominated by one ethnic group, the Punjabis, who tend to favour the ideological model for Pakistan and are heavily represented in the military, the media and the bureaucracy.

Pakistan’s young median age today means that an overwhelming majority of its current inhabitants were born in a country called Pakistan and, therefore, do not need an explanation other than their birth to be its citizens.

Pakistan’s unfortunate history may justify the description of Pakistan as being ‘insufficiently imagined’, but imagination is by definition not a finite process. An entity that is insufficiently imagined can be reimagined