Pakistan under its Ethnic Shadows

Ok this will clearly provoke another match...

Dear Godot, for some reason this doom and gloom doesn`t appear to be the case in Pakistan itself... I have travelled around Pakistan, and I have found that people all over associate themselves with Pakistan and are proud to be Pakistani.

Pakistan ka matlab kiya doesn`t need to be answered. It was the result of a constitutional deadlock and like most nationstates in history was an accidental occurence. When you answer Pakistan ka matlab kiya, I am afraid you will create an exclusivist interpretation of that answer... indeed that is the problem we face now... we have tried to define what Pakistan means and we have done a pathetic job at it. Pakistan exists and if it is given a chance, it will continue to exist ... since it has real frontiers, it DOESN`T need ideological ones. If there was aberration it was the inclusion of East Bengal in Pakistan and that has since been corrected. Remember the founders of Pakistan were more than ready to concede an independent Bengali Republic... as Jinnah clearly said that Bengal without Calcutta would be a man without his heart... had that been the case we wouldn`t have to face defeat in 1971..


-YLH

Godot

~~Is Pakistan a viable nation? If one sees the country under the shadows of its ethnic restlessness, the answer cannot be in the affirmative~~

Maybe you are being too alarmist? Ethnic unrest in your nation has not reached the same level as say, religious or caste conflict has in India. If India is a viable nation, with ten times as many ethnicities and languages as Pakistan, so can your nation be. Off the top of my head I would suggest that the key would lie in devolving power to the regions. Often, when there has been ethnic/regional tension in India it has arisen as a result of an overbearing centre.

The problems of ethnic versus national identities is not specific to Pakistan. In most multiethnic societies, there are centrifugal forces that are counterbalanced by centripetal forces. The former define nationalism along ethnic, tribal lines whereas the latter define supra-ethnic basis for nationalism (such as religion, communism or secularism).

India itself is an artificial creation of centripetal forces in the sense that it never existed as an entity for most of its history. During the last 5,000 years of its history, India has been a patchwork of small kingdoms for 4,500 years and a state with central government for only 500 years (comprising the Asoka, Mughal and British periods). In fact, this lack of a national identity is the prime reason why RSS/VHP wants Dalits, adivasis, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Jains to subsume their identities into Hindu identity.

Ethnic nationalism is a relic of the past. Modern states are usually an amalgam of various ethnic groups and sub-nationalities. Afghan society comprises Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Arabs, Hazaras, Baluchis, Azaris, Turkmen, Kurds and Lurs forms a sizable portion of Iranian society. India is potpourri of Tamils, Punjabis, Marhattas, Bengalis, Biharis, Gujratis,etc. Morrocans, Algerians and Albanians form a sizable portion of Greek and French socities. South Africa itself is a mixture of Zulus and Afrikaaners, etc.

Centrifugal forces thrive in isolation. In a world without railways, TV, radio, roads, newspapers and Internet... it might be possible for an ethnic group to remain insulated from other groups. But this is becoming increasingly difficult in the modern age.

Centripetal forces have modern communications, roads, airliners, railways and media at their disposal. In addition, internal migration for economic reasons also facilitates a cross-pollination of cultures. IMHO, even if centrifugal forces are stronger than centripetal forces, they will eventually succumb in the face of modern technology, communications and economic migration.

In this regard, Pakistan is not different from India, Iran, South Africa, or any other multiethnic state. Centrifugal forces are already weaker than they were in 1947. In the next 50 years, perhaps they will disappear altogether. Identities evolve gradually as centrifugal forces recede. In this respect, India faces a greater identity crisis than Pakistan or France... since in India the fault lines are religious as well as ethnic.

#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.``

There is also the ideological facet to the issue. The following article published in Lahore (The Friday Times) hints strongly that it is Pakistan that has exhibited greater crisis than India (or France). Farrukh Saleem`s sentiments in the article seem to mirror those of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in ``If I Am Assassinated`` written when he was on death row. It was indeed quite touching to read Bhutto`s (no friend of India) tribute to democracy`s cacophony in India.

---

The Friday Times, Lahore, Pakistan
October 4 - 10, 2002

Why is India intact?
by Farrukh Saleem

[author wonders how India, more diverse than any other country in the world, has survived undivided]

Here are some statistics on India. More than a billion people spread over a land mass of nearly 3 million sq km (the size of four Pakistans); twenty-eight thousand dialects spoken across 28 states and 7 union territories; fourteen official languages including Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Bengali, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya and Assamese.

The population comprises 800 million Hindus, 120 million Muslims, .25 million Parsis, 23 million Christians, 19 million Sikhs, besides Buddhists and Jains. Hindus are further divided among 2,800 unique communities. The caste system has Brahman, Kshatriya, Vashya, Sudra, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.The Scheduled Castes are further divided into 450 distinct communities. The Scheduled Tribes have 461 distinct communities and Other Backward Classes are divided into 766 distinct communities.

This is a division like in no other country. All the possible fault-lines exist: religious, ethnic, linguistic, geographic and communal. And these divisions run deep. 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); 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``; Free Tamil Nadu that ``seeks independence for the Tamil people of south India and perhaps a union with the Tamils of Sri Lanka``; United Liberation Front of Assam that seeks independence of the State of Assam; National Socialist Council of Nagalim that seeks the independence of Nagaland and surrounding areas in the Northeast; Revolutionary People`s Front of Manipur (RPF) that seeks the independence of Manipur; People`s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK); eighth, there has been a Declaration of Independence of the Sikh Homeland; ninth, National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) in the state of Tripura.

Some of the above secessionist movements continue to allege that India is an example of ``Brahmanist Imperialism`` or that India is becoming a ``de facto Brahman state``. In 1947, many had predicted that India, because of its uncounted diversities, would not be able to survive as a sovereign state. India, it was said back then, would be divided up in several small perhaps more homogenous states. They have all been proven wrong.

The Pakistan the Quaid gave us was practically all Muslim. We had one official language. But, within 24 years of Independence, we managed to lose half of what the Quaid gave us. General Yahya violated the basic principles of democracy and Bangladesh now celebrates March 26 as Independence Day and December 16 as Victory Day.

India is pathetically poor and so is Pakistan. India is the 29th most corrupt country while Pakistan is the 25th most corrupt. India is marginally more literate than we are. India has had 14 prime ministers; Pakistan has had 20. India has had 12 presidents (three were Muslim); Pakistan has had 11. We have had four military governments. India has had none. Pakistan has been split into two. India should have been split into four.

Just what has really kept Brahmans, Sudras, Muslims, Christians, Tamils, Dalits and Assamese together? What has kept India united?

India is democratic we are not. Could that be it?

---

Referring to the example of Balochis, first off, its a Logical Fallacy. Judging the whole on a random, unweighted sample from the whole. That said, Yes, the ethinicity problem IS definitely present in Pakistan. Punjabi vs Sindi and in most cases, the Pathan vs everyone else. Heh. Jokes apart, the situation CAN get worse. But uptil now, if God forbid, Pakistan ever goes to war with any country, then provincial discrimination will cease to exist. Unfortunately, it is not hard to imagine any one of the province hestitating to `help` its neigboring province. E.g. Lahore is under attach, Sindh stays on the sideline, blaming the war/infiltration on bad diplomacy by `those bloody Punjabies`. I have a feeling that more people would be pouring in from other Muslim Nations to fight than from Pakistan`s own provinces. That IS bad. But things are looking up, I`d say -- we have a Balochi PM. How effective and how influential, that is a different story.

I completely agree with Mantolives. Most of our youth, despite disagreements and grievances, remain committed to the idea of Pakistan.

But, wait till our usual middle-aged suspects arrive at Chowk. They will, as usual, play victim or point out the fundamental flaws in the two nation theory. Most of these gentlemen have lived outside Pakistan for too long and are so far removed from the new generation that their cynicism reflects nothing more than their own deep rooted frustrations.

The new generation neither debates the merits of TNT or search for a justification for Pakistan`s existence. It has now become a moot point. For many, Pakistan just ``is``. Period.

Re Mantolives #1:

Matolives writes ``.... there was aberration it was the inclusion of East Bengal in Pakistan and that has since been corrected. Remember the founders of Pakistan were more than ready to concede an independent Bengali Republic... ``

The aberration that you refer to is entirely dellusional - It would be the other way around .... PAkistan would probable constitue the state of Bengal.... and what today constitutes Pakistan would be under the heel of Indian suzeranity... Bengal supplied over half the leadership of the League, not to mentrion a disproptionate amount of intellectual capital and muscle. Even today Bangladesh has a stronger sense of its Islamic identity and its roots than most in Pakistan do. Unfortunately the vast majority of Pakistani founders were of Bengali origin - it would be stupid to think that they would create Pakistan for pakistan`s sake...- The secondary and teritary ranks of Muslim League muslim was disproptionately from Bengal ( East/West).


The perception of the authors is correct that most Pakistanis ( and this is amply evident on the chowk ) tend to think myopically in terms of ethnic, linguistic or clannish spheres. This malaise is so common that even in official Government and military circles ethnicity plays a disproptoionately substantial role than in INdian officialdom......

You see the genesis of pakistan now taking places in multi-cultural cities of Islamabad and Karachi where migration and inter-marriage is breaking down old ethnic and linguistic molds particularly in the upwardly mobile classes.... The working classes still remain virtually segregrated into ethnic ghettos even in these multi-cultural cities.... Ironically the demagogery that permeates the fabric of Pakistani culture is evidenced in the microcasm of the only two cosmopolitan bastions of Pakistani society ...( A punjabi born in Karchi denigrates his more provinical rural counterparts with the same vigor as the Mohajir does to his Indian muslim cousins) .....

Conversely the regional identification and parochial attitudes are more pronounced in aristiocracy ( ie the feudals and their army/civilian minions ) in the provincial capitals of Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar and Karachi - ( Perhaps a legacy of the schizophrenic educational foundations) than it is in the hinterland of either one of the provinces - a poor Sindhi/PUnjabi/BAloh/Pathan farmer is more concerned about getting his next week`s meagre nourishment than he is with philosophical and idelogical dellusions......

Part of the Parochial attitiudes of Pakistani culture can be attributed to the earlier British administration which relied on ethnic and linguistic patronage to keep the peace. Even today some 50 + years after indepenedence the recruiting in the Army remains heavily parochial to the northern distyricts of Pindi, Jhang, Jhelum, Sheikupura etc etc ( ie teh Pindi -lahore belt). The Army Generals being the defacto cardinals of the `divine right` papacy hitherto known as CMLA etc etc ..... The parochial attitudes remain unabated ....

#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:

---

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. .....

---

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.``

---

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.

---

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.

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.

#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.

#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:

---

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.....

---

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. .....

---

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

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.

``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.