The value of difference: Encounters between Hindus and Muslims in Karachi, Pakistan

In majoritarian contexts, difference often translates into national exclusion and questioned belonging but, simultaneously, it can also be central to how everyday life is navigated and relationalities are formed. This article considers the place of difference and the possibilities that it engenders through the ethnographic vantage point of the lives of low-caste but upwardly mobile Hindus in Pakistan. As recent arrivals to Karachi, from smaller towns and villages in Sindh, predominantly from the district of Thar, young Hindus find themselves in the company of Muslims in their colleges or at work as well as in their hostels and flat buildings. Focusing on Hindu–Muslim encounters in these contexts, the article illustrates how situational ‘peace’ forms not through a disavowal of difference but through a play on the instability of majoritarian categories of distinction, and how it produces possibilities that exceed the present.