The Ahmadiya movement is considered as a radical movement inside Islam, which raised controversies in the history of Islam in South Asia. After partition of India, majority of the Ahmadiya community migrated to Pakistan and allied with the ruling Muslim League party, keeping aside their earlier anti-league sentiments. However, despite this, the Ahmadiya community had to face persecution in Pakistan and the Government attitude remained discriminatory. Later on Ahmadiyas were declared as non-Muslim sect by the government of Pakistan. This paper has made an attempt to look into the Ahmadiya question during the first decade of the emergence of Pakistan.

Pakistan as a nation state was born in 1947. The immediate task before it was not only to build up state institutions but also to address the important task of nation building by bringing the various sects, ethnic groups, classes and communities under a common nationhood. Anti-Ahmadiya sectarianism was one such event, which tested the cohesion of the state and ability of the ruling class to provide better governance and security for its citizens and minorities.

The Ahmadiya movement was launched in the year 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) at his birthplace Qadian, currently located at the Gurdaspur district of Punjab in India. It aimed to motivate the Muslim community to defend and propagate Islam to the world, and to revive the forgotten Islamic values of peace, forgiveness and sympathy for all mankind. At that time, Islam and Prophet Muhammad were heavily attacked and denounced worldwide notably by western writers and Christian missionaries. Religion also faced the critical assault of the modern liberal thought of humanism, individualism, rationalism and that of advancement of science and technology. So in order to reform and exhibit the humane face of Islam, Ghulam Ahmad founded the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiya in 1901.

The objectives of this paper are to find out why and how the anti-Ahmadi sentiments posed challenge before the newly born state of Pakistan. This paper is based upon the hypothesis that the sectarian conflict in a newly born state may stir the centrifugal tendencies, which in the long run can destabilize the state. The paper has addressed the following issues: Firstly, why Ahmadiya community created controversies in the Indian Subcontinent? Secondly, whether Ahmadiyas sought to break away from Islam by establishing a new faith? Thirdly, was there any role of Ahrars and Deobandis sects in fanning the anti-Ahmadiya sentiment? Fourthly, why did Ahmadiyas give full support to the Muslim League after the formation of Pakistan although earlier they had opposed the policies of Muslim League? Fifth, whether the ongoing constitutionalism had any role in strengthening the hands of fundamentalist forces and lastly, was anti-Ahmadiya movement politically motivated? The major sources of the paper are Constituent Assembly Debates of Pakistan of the said period, contemporary newspapers, various reports and government documents, etc.

History and Culture Journal, Anti-Ahmadiya Sectarian Riots, Ahmadiya Movement, Muslim League Party, Muslim Community, Christian Missionaries, Government Documents, Religious Communities, Ahmadiya Leadership, Sectarian Organization, Government Services, Nazimuddin Government, Anti-government Campaign.