The Pakistan National Alliance of 1977

This study focuses on the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA) and the movement associated with that party, in the aftermath of the 1977 elections in Pakistan. Through this study, the author addresses the issue of regionalism and its effects on politics at a National level. A study of the course of the movement also allows one to look at the problems in representation and how ideological stances merge with material conditions and needs of the country’s citizenry to articulate the desire for, what is basically, an equitable form of democracy that is peculiar to Pakistan. The form of such a democratic system of governance can be gauged through the frustrations and desires of the variety of Pakistan’s oppressed classes. Moreover, the fissures within the discourses that appear through the PNA, as well as their reassessment and analysis helps one formulate a fresh conception of resistance along different matrices of society within the country.