Wouldn’t it be fair to say Pakistan is a reconstituted successor state to the Mughals. The Mughals were conquered by the British and from the British Pakistan gained its independence, not the nation of India the British created. This is a fact, as our Independence Day is literally the day before India became an independent state.
While we (as a collective) are the descendants of all the peoples that have lived on the land, as a civilization the nation is a Muslim ruled cultural identity, that has always made room for its minorities. Our anthem is in Persian as was the language of the Mughal court.
Mughal developed a unique culture as seen by the national language, Urdu, from the local Hindi and the courtly Persian. Our links with Central Asia can best be seen from that angle. Aurangzeb himself even received an ambassador from the Russian Tsar, who lived in India for 3 years, after a hundred years of the Russians trying to send an ambassador.
Pakistan in Ayub Khan’s time showed promise, and was accorded a respectful reception by JFK and LBJ when Ayub Khan visited. We should be studying the national history from 1947-1965 to see where the identity was properly formed and where it fell short.
those that choose to stay in (or were unable to leave) India, were reassured they would be living in a overtly secular nation, which those that made Pakistan knew they didn’t want. Pakistan was the Re-expression of the Sufi Islamic culture of the late Mughal empire, with the influence of 150 years of British rule.