Tropes of ‘insufficient national imagination’, ‘secular nationalism’ and ‘accidental state formation’ have long dominated historical accounts of Pakistan’s origins and have also been critical for explanations regarding this nation-state’s post’colonial trajectory. This article challenges these foundational assumptions about Pakistani nationalism by examining how the idea of Pakistan was articulated and debated in the public sphere and how popular enthusiasm was generated for its successful achievement in the last decade of British colonial rule in India. In this regard, it examines the trajectory of the Pakistan movement in the United Provinces (UP, now Uttar Pradesh, India) and the leading role played by UP Muslims aligned to the Muslim League (ML) in Pakistan’s creation, despite their awareness that the UP itself would not be a part of this new nation-state.
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