The Antidote to the Pakistani Identity Crisis
Critical Review on
Literature
Pakistan
came into being during the tragic partition of India. This country had demanded
Muslims living in Muslim-majority areas of North-Western and North-Eastern
parts of India. However, it soon became clear that the regions that came to
constitute Pakistan included many diverse people with varying beliefs,
languages, and cultural heritage.The Antidote to the Pakistani Identity Crisis
Despite this, the predominantly Punjabi
military-bureaucratic state forcefully tried to assert a particular strand of
identity on its people that revolved around Islam. This alone proved to be
insufficient in terms of a project of nation-building, evident in the rejection
of this massive project by people from Bengal, Baluchistan, Sindh, and Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa.
Pakistan’s ruling elites continue to
look towards other nations and cultures for a story of our own identity,
borrowing from Arabs to Turks. This project will continue to fail till such a
time when the Pakistani project of identity is rooted in its soil, history,
heritage, and diversity. The Antidote to the Pakistani Identity Crisis
Pakistani society remained a complete
platform over which the traditions of Sufism flourished. The moderate nature of
the society began to fumble when the Arabization was introduced in the 1980s.
The Arabization brought with it the segments of fundamentalism and “Salafism”
i.e. to return to the practices of forefathers. So, any new practice was termed
blasphemous, which bred sectarianism in the country. The formation of
sectarian groups, target killings, and the rise of Islamist parties were the
notable features of this process.
Pakistanis boast themselves as the
successors of the Arabian Culture but back of their minds, they have not forgotten
their Hindu roots. Their ancestors were Hindus is a harsh fact that a normal
Pakistani does not want to believe or remember. Societies that forget their
past become a subject of the past and so is the future of this Society. Writing
history some 200 to 300 years hence, historians while writing in the
context of Pakistan, will say “it was a temporary state established on
the identity of a religion disintegrated under the weight of its fallacies” This
is not a prophecy, but a glaring truth that can easily be decoded looking at
the state of affairs of that country.
All in all, Pakistan faces a serious
identity crisis. Indian Music, Art, Culture, Bollywood, Language, TV, sayings,
proverbs, Clothing, Food, etc have a heavy influence on Pakistani Society. The
surnames, titles like Chouhans, Bajwas, Chaudhary, Chawla, Rajputs, Raos,
Ranas, Memons, Randhawa's, and Authors to quote a few, define their Hindu
Ancestry. Pakistanis proudly inherited this name while feeling hostility toward
their fellow Hindus. This is a complex work of mind only psychologists could
explain. This is inherent double standards hating the very own people from whom
your line has inclined.
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