Pakistan under its Ethnic Shadows

I dont see any threat to Pakistani nationhood. I have concerns about the nature of that nationhood, but not about its viability.

IMO, Pakistan is headed toward complete Urduization of its population. There are religious and structural forces afoot that no one community can resist, unless some communities are as fully committed to self-preservation as Bengalis were. That does not apper to be the case. Neither do these communties have time on their hands.

Every new generation will have signficantly less of that commitment for self-preservation than its previous generation. Sindhis will struggle the most, and the longest, but they are also the least equipped to make any difference in the long-term.

In essence, Romair is on the mark as far as his own country is concerned. His confidence is quite well justified.

This shouldn`t be read to mean that this inexorable march toward an exclusively Urdu-based Islamic identity is desirable. It is more an expression of what is and is going to be rather than what should be. People will differ on the issue of desirability of such a future.

Pakistan ka matlub

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loot sako to looto.

The fault lines are most accentuated in Pakistan- one little push and it breaks into pieces.

Pakistan faces a greater identity crisis than India or France... since in Pakistan the fault lines are religious as well as ethnic.

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#10 by nakhok

The comments about democracy as a major centripetal force are fair. Indeed, democracy facilitates political discourse and acts as a safety valve. To borrow from Dr. Zafar Altaf (an ex-Federal Secretary), dictatorship is like driving at 100 mph on a highway: you can drive fast with little resistance but when you make a mistake, you end up in a fatal accident. Democracy, on the other hand, is like driving at 5mph through a crowded bazaar; sometimes your car gets bumped & scratched by pedestrians and bicyclists. But you never die.

However, the absence of democracy does not necessarily imply a breakup.

Field Marshall Tito`s Yugoslavia is a perfect example. Before World War II, Yugoslavia didn`t exist as a nation or state. The breakup of Turkey, Austro-Hungarian empire and Czarist Russia after 1918 created a dozen small weak states. In 1939, Hitler made a pact with Stalin to divide the Balkan states of eastern Europe among themselves. Nevertheless, the people of these states identified with neither Nazi Germany nor Communist USSR.

Marshall Tito provided a centripetal ideology in the form of Socialism that overcame the strong centrifugal forces. Bosnians, Slavs, Serbians, Croatians and Kosovars forged a new state out of thin air.

This new state was not democratic. It had deep religion faultlines (Orthodox Christian vs. Muslim) and no shared sense of history. The Serbians, e.g., celebrated June 28 as a black day when their Prince Lazar was defeated by Muslims at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 A.D.

Yet Marshall Tito managed to hold together such a polarized society together without democracy for 36 years! Through benign dictatorship, distribution of powers and a unifying ideology (socialism), he overcame the centrifugal forces.

These centrifugal forces emerged after central authority weakened in 1990. By then, Marshall Tito had died and the unifying ideology (socialism) collapsed. Democracy propelled racist leaders like Slobodan Milosevic and Karadzic to power; under military dictatorships, such unsavory characters would perhaps have been secretly imprisoned or assassinated... and millions of lives could have been saved in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.

The Yugoslavia example just scores a critical point: in the absence of democracy, a unifying ideology such as Islam, communism, fascism, etc. can also hold a nation together for several decades.

ylh #14 that is i think a fine answer to that question, and indeed a step further ahead in the right direction than the one i had tentativel provided.

but then: if being a pakistani basically means no more and no less than being a citizen of pakistan, that implies that there are no particular values that are uniquely pakistani. no particular structure of government that we can say should apply to pakistan and to no other country.

i think the implications are far-reaching indeed. we have more in common as fellow humans, regardless of nationality, then we do as fellow pakistanis. you have just given a death blow to nationalistic thinking.

pakistan zindabad. that is fine.

but more important: we, the people of this planet, paindabad.

Adnan:

``point out the fundamental flaws in the two nation theory.``

I am not middle aged but I can definitely point out the flaws in TNT. Every Indian. But, that is exactly why I like Manto`s position. A living breathing nation does not need a theory to survive.

Godot:

As an Indian, I claim to have no direct knowledge of Pakistan. It is all hearsay. All I can say is that if you are to ask the vast majority of Indians about the viability of India, they will give you a blank look. India exists, and that is reason enough. It should be the same for Pakistan. Let theories gather dust. As long as people are empowered with the idea of Pakistan that is reason enuff to be part of it.

``Is Pakistan viable?``

Pakistan has actually reached, in my opinion, almost its optimum size. There are no freedom movements going on in Pakistan. Not even an inkling of one. Despite all their complains, every province is now willingly a part of Pakistan. In fact, another (Kashmir) actually wants to join Pakistan.

So Pakistan is viable, as long as all the provinces feel they are economically better off with Pakistan, than without it. Even if Pakistan remains poor, as long as the provinces will be poorer, without it, they will stick with Pakistan.

That is how it works for all countries.

The only thing I can see that could break up Pakistan is if the provinces or ethnic communities think they are being overly dominated by another. The solution to that is to ensure one group doesn`t get overly powerful. Punjab is the only province that fits that bill.

So as long as Punjab doesn`t overly dominate, I think Pakistan is viable. Where else would the people of Pakistan go? Very few can migrate outside Pakistan. They don`t want to join Afghanistan, Iran Bangladesh or India. Pakistan is all they have.

``Is Pakistan viable?``

Pakistan has actually reached, in my opinion, almost its optimum size. There are no freedom movements going on in Pakistan. Not even an inkling of one. Despite all their complains, every province is now willingly a part of Pakistan. In fact, another (Kashmir) actually wants to join Pakistan.

So Pakistan is viable, as long as all the provinces feel they are economically better off with Pakistan, than without it. Even if Pakistan remains poor, as long as the provinces will be poorer, without it, they will stick with Pakistan.

That is how it works for all countries.

The only thing I can see that could break up Pakistan is if the provinces or ethnic communities think they are being overly dominated by another. The solution to that is to ensure one group doesn`t get overly powerful. Punjab is the only province that fits that bill.

So as long as Punjab doesn`t overly dominate, I think Pakistan is viable. Where else would the people of Pakistan go? Very few can migrate outside Pakistan. They don`t want to join Afghanistan, Iran Bangladesh or India. Pakistan is all they have.

I don`t know about Adnan Sahib... but a Pakistani to me means any citizen of Pakistan.. regardless of religion, caste, creed or ideology... this is the only definition of nationhood and this simplistic defition can save us a lot of agony.

Besides like I said ... countries with real frontiers don`t need ideological frontiers.

re:#4 by nakhok
That article you posted written by Farrukh Saleem (from The Friday Times, Lahore, Pakistan
October 4 - 10, 2002) is pathetic, to say the least.
The author has been overenthusiastic in showing India`s fault lines and conveniently forgets the things that knits India together including a common perception of mythology, religion (among the majority), history etc. Years of struggling against the British Rule unified India as nothing else did.
India does not disown any of its past. It does not have to recreate a new identity. This is what makes India different from Pakistan. Pak has to prove (to itself more than to anyone else) that it is different from India. That is hard to do.

There are also some factual errors in that article:

``On top of that, for the past half-century there have been at least nine significant centrifugal movements seeking autonomy, secession or independence from India. Among them: Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF)``.
O.K so far.
But then the author goes on: `` Dalitstan Organization that seeks ``independence for the Dalits, or black Untouchables, also know as Dravidians, the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent before the arrival and dominance of the Caucasian Hindus``...``

Author has not made a deep study of the region or religion. Authors like this one lack scholarship and just parrot out the lines they have learnt in school. The fact of matter is: for quiet sometime now, many Indologists (both Indian and western) have been questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory. Many feel that there was no such invasion. If only this author knew both Tamil and sanskrit (as i do), he would understand why that is entirely plausible. Despite many Tamil politicians` efforts to get rid of sanskrit words from Tamil, Tamil still has a plethora of sanskrit words. If you look at other South Indian languages, the influence of sanskrit is for all to see.
The question is: was this influence due to rulers subjugating the ruled or can it be explained by a natural process of ``acculturation`` or ``cultural influences``
Further more, one may read some of the well known books (i personally like Gidwani`s book: The return of the Aryans) which debunk this AIT:
http://www.indiastar.com/ancient.htm
Excerpts:
``while scholars have identified some twenty Dravidian `loan words` in the Rig Veda, the Dravidian languages have `borrowed` at least fifty percent of their vocabulary from (Aryan) Sanskrit.`` Moreover, many Dravidian scholars credit ``the creation of Tamil, the oldest Dravidian tongue, to Agastaya, who figures in the Rig Veda as one of the prominent sages of his era. The Dravidian kings historically have called themselves Aryans and have traced their descent through Manu....northern and southern India share a common culture and religion... God Shiva clearly is synonymous with the Vedic God Rudra.`` There was no Aryan invasion, no Dravidian invasion, no Aryan-Dravidian war. Sanskrit has been shown to include elements of Munda, the language of the tribals. All three language groups are indigenous developments.``
Then that Paki writer writes:
Free Tamil Nadu that ``seeks independence for the Tamil people of south India and perhaps a union with the Tamils of Sri Lanka``
The above sentence exposes the intellectual bankrupcy of Paki writers and columnists (barring a few like Ayaz Amir). Tamils of South India are not demanding for seperation from India. Any idiot who knows about India should know this. The separitist issue of the 60s is dead now (just like this author`s brain is).

``... Dalitstan Organization that seeks ``independence for the Dalits, or black Untouchables, also know as Dravidians...``
Again, factually incorrect. Dalits and Dravidians are not same. The following Url says more about the dalits (and why they are angry with Dravidian leaders of Tamil Nadu):
http://www.ambedkar.org/gail/Dravidianmovement.htm

I do concede there are problems in the North East. Most of these problems are local issues which have taken a seperatist color due to central govt`s apathy. Things seem to be turning for the better of late.
In the end, why is India faring better than Pak despite so much complexities and problems? Democracy is just one reason.
Sridhar

#3 His Excellency

``India faces a greater identity crisis than Pakistan or France... since in India the fault lines are religious as well as ethnic.``

Pakistan`s ideological handicap makes it a bigger crisis for Pakistan than for India (or France). Journalist M.B.Naqvi doesn`t skirt the ideological angle in explaining the 1971 partition of Pakistan in spite of the ``centrifugal force`` of the Ummah:

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The News, Karachi, Pakistan
Wednesday December 11, 2002-- Shawwal 06, 1423 A.H.

Why Jinnah`s Pakistan ended
by M B Naqvi
mbnaqvi@cyber.net.pk

..... One emphasises a narrower reason for the earliest power struggle between the Punjab and Bengal Groups in the first Constituent Assembly in 1948-49. East Bengalis had opened their account with the expropriation of all intermediary landed interests between the state and the cultivator. This without compensation reform frightened the social elites in West Pakistan, almost all of whom landlords. Bengalis acquiring the central power seemed to them like encouraging the new Bolsheviks to repeat that enormity here also. So they were determined to deny the Bengalis their due share of power and entered into an open conspiracy: they sought help from the bureaucracy and got it. With West Pakistan`s landowning MPs help, they cornered all power.....

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Pakistan remains bogged down by the same ideological handicap to this day:


http://www.dawn.com/2003/03/20/op.htm#2

DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan
20 March 2003 Thursday 16 Muharram 1424

No land reforms any more!
By Sultan Ahmed

Ex-Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto did not say so that openly, while sustaining feudalism in reality but Mir Zafarullah Jamali has said categorically there will be no land reforms under his government.

Simultaneously he has said, rather inexplicably the days of big landholdings are over. And he has asked the landowners to extend their cultivation without fear or hesitation which could mean larger farms than they have now.

What that means is that feudalism is safe and sound in Pakistan, while it has vanished from the rest of South Asia, including India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. And that is almost inevitable when a landholder like Mir Zafarullah Jamali is the prime minister, Ali Mohammad Maher is chief minister of Sindh, Jam Yousuf is C.M. of Balochistan and Chaudhri Pervaiz Elahi is the C.M. of Punjab. .....

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#3 His Excellency

``India faces a greater identity crisis than Pakistan or France... since in India the fault lines are religious as well as ethnic.``

His Excellency`s analysis is faulty because he ignores the mother of all fault lines, namely, the ideological fault line.

Democracy is the greatest single ``centripetal force`` to mould a nation or a harmonious union (like the EU) out of disparate ethnic and religious groups. Tamilnadu and Maharashtra are miles ahead of the BIMARU states (the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar pradesh which have now been supplemented by the equally backward Chhattishgarh and Jharkhand) in every social and economic indicator. Democracy ensures that the BIMARU states get heard in the Union in spite of their backwardness.

Pakistan has a severe handicap on the ideological front. The buck has always stopped at the GHQ in Pakistan at least for the last quarter of a century if not since 1958. 80% of the military is recruited from 5 districts: Attock, Rawalpindi, Chakwal, Jhelum and Gujarat in Punjab; and 3 districts of NWFP: Mardan, Peshawar and Kohat. Under the circumstances, military dictatorship has always meant dictatorship of the recruitment area over the rest of Pakistan. Under military dictatrship, the geographical concentration of Pakistan`s military is inevitably a force multiplier for the centrifugal forces.

The East pakistanis were the first to rebel against this millstone of military dictatorship. It came not long after ``Field Marshal`` Ayub Khan celebrated Pakistan`s decade of development. The East Pakistanis instinctively knew why they had failed to see the ``development`` first hand.

The situation hasn`t changed except that the East Pakistanis are no longer there to be kicked around. Military boots now must kick butts in West Pakistan itself. The military remains the most pampered group in Pakistan. Its land grabbing has strengthened the ``centrifugal force``. Sindhis, for example, are poorly represented in the military - so most of the land allotted in Sindh is owned by a Punjabi or a Pushtun officer. When an absentee landlord from a different area controls a large tract of land in another province, complications are bound to arise.

His Excellency`s analysis will remain faulty if he ignores the ideological fault line.

Godot: you ask ``Is Pakistan a viable nation? ``

What kind of a half-assed question is this? OF COURSE every nation states includes people of different ethnicities to the point where every individual is a minority of one. The only way to meet your criteria would be to make 135 million clones of yourself - and even then Godot #1 will be arguing with Godot #2.

The proper question to ask is ``What does it mean to be Pakistani?`` Perhaps adnan sahib or ylh would care to explain this one. (hint: an answer in the negative, i.e. ``it means not-Indian`` would be an unacceptable answer).

as for Godot, you are welcome to take a shot at the answer if you care to. as for me, i thought i knew the answer and as i grow older i become less and less sure of that other than to say: ``it means i was born there and thus have emotional attachments to the land and the people``. no more, no less.

Godot:

All societies evolve. So is Pakistan. Maybe not in your life time. Maybe not in mine.

The arguments presented are flimsy and have outlived their relevance.

On the streets of Pakistan, I`ve never once come across arguments about the need for `authentic nationhood`. Maybe Pakistanis in Pakistan are plain stupid. More likely, this mumbo jumbo about `authentic nationhood` is usually appealing to expatriates who think Pakistan`s evolutionary process should have achieved in 50 years, what it took America or Britain or any other mature democracy over 200 years to achieve.

#3 His Excellency

``India faces a greater identity crisis than Pakistan or France... since in India the fault lines are religious as well as ethnic.``

Democracy is of essence in creating a nation or at least a harmonious union (like the EU) out of multi-religious and multi-ethnic groups. There is an ideological facet to what His Excellency has described as centrifugal and centripetel forces. The ideological angle has been succintly identified by NY Time`s A.M.Rosenthal:

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New York Times
15th October, 1999

Op-Ed Column

ON MY MIND / By A.M. ROSENTHAL
The Himalayan Error

..... Pakistan`s weakness as an American ally, though Washington never seemed to mind, was its leaders` refusal to create continuity of democratic governments long enough to convince Pakistanis that the military would not take over again tomorrow.

Across the border, India, for all its slowness of economic growth and its caste system, showed what the U.S. is supposed to want -- consistent faithfulness to elected democracy. Where Pakistan failed to maintain political democracy in a one-religion nation, India has kept it in a Hindu-majority country that has four other large religions and a garden of small ones. .....

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For historical reasons India has done a better job of strengthening the ``centripetal force`` on the ideological front. Below is a DAWN article that argues that ensuring the quick adoption of the Constitution and enforcing regular elections has democratized the political process in India to the point where:

`` majority of members in national and state legislatures are working politicians, who come from middle and working classes and even from lower castes. A substantial number of central and state ministers are from lower castes or working class. Many states have had low caste chief ministers while others being from middle class. The incumbent president [Narayanan] is from scheduled caste.``

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DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan
April 22, 2000

Why democracy didn`t take roots
By Ghulam Kibria

AN intensive debate is raging in the country about revival of democracy. What is missing in this debate is an indepth analysis to identify real reasons because of which democracy did not work in Pakistan but in India it did. .....

..... Democracy didn`t take roots in Pakistan due to a number of reasons ..... hardly any one of the national political leaders is, or ever was from among the people. They were, and still are, elites - top barristers, title holders, bureaucrats, waderas and now also crony capitalists.

Another reason for democracy not taking roots in Pakistan is the absence of democratic political process. .....

..... All India National Congress was more or less like Muslim League but inner party democracy was slightly more practised in it than in the League. Nonetheless, India does have a developing and evolving democracy. Why? Because after independence constitution was quickly formulated and enforced and national elections regularly held. That triggered a political process of sorts which went on taking roots because national elections have their own dynamics. In 1990s, India`s election commission ensured that only those political parties take part in national elections which follow democratic political process and hold regular party elections.

The result is that majority of members in national and state legislatures are working politicians, who come from middle and working classes and even from lower castes. A substantial number of central and state ministers are from lower castes or working class. Many states have had low caste chief ministers while others being from middle class. The incumbent president is from scheduled caste.

Had the constitution been quickly made and enforced in Pakistan and elections held regularly after independence the political process would have taken roots here as in India. That process was subverted first by Ghulam Mohammad by dissolving sovereign constituent assembly, then by Ayub Khan seizing power by ousting legal government, followed by Yahya and Zia, and the practice still continues.

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