Dreams of a Secular Republic: Elite Alienation in Post-Zia Pakistan.

Since the onset of the "war on terror," an apparently irreconcilable "secular-religious" divide has come to the fore in Pakistani society with ostensibly deep historical roots. In this article the "divide" is critically interrogated through an historical-sociological analysis, including detailed interviews with a small sample of both "secularists" and leftists who do not subscribe to the "secular-religious" binary. The article emphasises that substantive social changes have taken place over the past four decades, coeval with the erosion of a relatively insular structure of power dominated by the secular, Westernised successors to the British. The concomitant rise of a "nativised" middle class has both been cause and consequence of the old elite's steady retreat into its private ghettoes. The latter's growing alienation from wider society - including the realm of formal politics - has been accompanied by growing alarmism about the increasingly illiberal and hyper-religious character of the mass of the population. Elite alienation has intensified since 2001, making the "secular-religious" divide a self-fulfilling prophecy. Notwithstanding its protestations, however, the elite remains themajor beneficiary of the prevailing structure of power, and ameaningful transformative politics - both secular and responsive to the material deprivations of ordinary people - remains conspicuously absent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]