By Anwar syed
A FEW days ago I stumbled into a meeting where those present were trying to figure out their identity and, in that connection, they wanted to know what it meant to be a Pakistani. One of them, half facetiously, asked if Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen of Pakistani origin, who wanted to blow up the Times Square in New York, might offer the clue for which they were looking.
Another participant suggested that they might look to the Baroness Sayeeda Warsi of Pakistani extraction, a minister in David Cameron’s cabinet and the chairperson of Britain’s Conservative Party, as a symbol of Pakistani womanhood. But she could not be the model they wanted. She is a British woman who thinks of Shrewsbury, not Gujjar Khan, as her home. The discussion remained inconclusive. We cannot blame the participants, for the issue is exceedingly complex.

The subject of Pakistani identity could be studied as an aspiration, meaning what some people would like it to be. Alternatively, we could examine it with reference to the ground realities, meaning what it is actually like. I propose to do the latter in this presentation. Allow me first to say that the issue has remained muted all along except for the early years of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s rule when patriotic songs were composed and broadcast in the electronic media.

Under pressure from the Islamic parties and their supporters emphasis has, for the most part, been placed on the country’s Islamic identity, role and mission. There was a slight shift of emphasis back to the Pakistani nativity during Pervez Musharraf’s time, and that continues to be the case. In this connection I recall an observation made in the aforementioned meeting. A Pakhtun woman from Fata asserted that there was a lot more to her identity than the fact of her being a Muslim, and that the same was true of most other people in the country.

A constraint on the assertion of one’s national identity may be noted. A man does not normally have reason to state it except when he is travelling abroad, when, if asked about his nationality, he will say he is a Pakistani. But if a man in Karachi wants to know where he is from, he will not say he is a Pakistani, for so is everybody else. He will say he is a Punjabi from Lahore.

Another difficulty in pinning down the meaning of being a Pakistani is that the country is only 63 years old and its people’s identification with it is still in the making. That is not the case with the regions that compose Pakistan. The antecedents of the provinces go back many hundreds of years. A man who was born and raised in Lahore knows quite well what it means to be a Punjabi. It means, first of all, that he can and does speak Punjabi even if his parents spoke to him, and he to them, in Urdu when he was growing up.

If he is a farmer, his idiom, metaphor, maxims, proverbs and colourful vocabulary come for the most part from Punjabi. If he went to good schools and his cultural bearings are well endowed, he may enjoy reading Ghalib, Iqbal, Josh, Faiz, and Ahmad Faraz among others. His counterpart out in the rural hinterland recites verses from Waris Shah’s Heer and a version of the tale of Yusuf and Zuleikha. He dances the bhangra and plays kabaddi. Considering that Punjab accounts for the bulk of the country’s population, one may say that the meaning of being a Punjabi is a large part of the meaning of being a Pakistani.

Sindhis are justly proud of their history and culture. Of all the regional languages Sindhi is the richest in terms of the literature that its writers have produced. Educated Sindhis read the mystic poetry of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and Sachal Sarmast. Many of the common people visit the shrines of Shahbaz Qalandar and other Sufi saints where they pray, sing devotional songs and dance. Sindh has lagged behind economically and it is one of the country’s poorer regions. It is the stronghold of feudalism, which has kept it back from even a modest degree of modernisation.

The Sindhi counter elites allege that the central government of Pakistan, dominated by Punjabis, has taken away their resources and imposed a variety of other deprivations upon them. This grievance has become common among many educated Sindhis as a result of which they are alienated from Pakistan, some harbouring even secessionist thoughts. In their calculations the meaning of being a Sindhi is not a part of the meaning of being a Pakistani.

I do not have the space to go into the cultural heritage of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. I shall limit myself to saying that the Pakhtuns appear to feel comfortable being Pakistanis. Balochistan is the largest in area, the smallest in population, and economically the least developed province of Pakistan. The Baloch politicians who hold high posts, or are otherwise recipients of the government’s favours, may be content with being both Baloch and Pakistani at the same time.

However, many of the educated and modernised Baloch young people feel that the Punjabis dominating the central government have exploited their land and its resources for their own advantage and to the detriment of the local people. They are therefore alienated and have become the proponents of Baloch nationalism and self-determination. In their thinking also their Baloch identity and a Pakistani identity cannot go well together.

In conclusion it may be said that Pakistan as a polity is in a state of transition during which its component units must be persuaded that being Pakistani is advantageous to them. The adoption of the 18th Amendment to the constitution may have opened the way for them to develop this feeling. ¦ The author is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts.

during musharaf regime, media got freedom
but it is like a child who is left home alone and when he is alone he acts wild and wants to be free... similarly, our media is still immature and in aim of getting RAPID news and earn more and more (capitalistic in nature).
now musharaf was not just liberal in attitude but more of westernized in real..
so he gave freedom to media but left it naked...
now our media must take responsibility to project what is OURS.. our people must stop watching the STAR+ channels and similar other channels..
we must adapt what is OURS.. modernization is not bad but we are becoming westernized.. INDIA adapts west... we adapt indian style... urdu is getting rare is common people
must understand before we loose our identity