Am I too radical for Pakistan?

[Cent4]

Punjabi rude?
Maybe you did not heard bhulay shah or shah Hussain or sultan bahu.
I am a punjab. love to talk and heard songs in punjab.
How can you say rude the language of alif Allah and heer.

I love that sort of punjabi literature.
But everyday punjabi that we speak is not considered "Posh".
Hunders of thousands of families that moved to urban areas in punjab don't encourage children to speak punjabi and it is a fact

 

[shhh]

From none .. I'm a practising lawyer..

Unrelated, but how can you be a lawyer without a degree? Or am I missing something here?

There is a difference between lyaris sheedis/makranis and Baloch from Balochistan proper.

Hmmm.
Didn't know that.

 

[Kabira]

Punjabis and Sindh people could be resettled from crowded places in their home province to rural areas of Balochistan for the purpose of mixing up the different ethnicities like Turkey did after becoming a nation-state.

this alone will be disaster of epic proportion. @Oscar !!

This doesn't make sense. Rural Balochistan hardly can support people living there because so many reasons and main one being water and barren land. The only plan in early years of Pakistan was to settle some FATA population in thal region of punjab. It didn't go anywhere. Anyway this isn't medieval age where you forcefully or voluntarily resettle some people here and there. They will go wherever opportunities to earn money will be. You can expect many people from other parts of Pakistan to move to Gwadar once its developed with basic infrastructure in next 5-10 years.

Now days Pakistanis rarely move from one village to another to work in agriculture because this doesn't improve their quality of life much at all. They move to main urban centers. Also if what he said was true then why Turkey still have Kurdish insurgency?

 

[Pakistani E]

@KediKesenFare

I do apologise for simplifying your post but "Pakistani" is not an ethnic group. It is just a nationality and that too which is a mixture of dozens of different "ethnicities". I always give the example of Europe where you have different ethnic groups residing in lets say Belgium or Switzerland. To an outsider, it may look like they are all one people, but when you investigate the matter a little further you can see the identity splintering.

But even in individual provinces, there are different ethnicities living side by side. For example, someone stated that Punjabi Muslims and Indian Muslims have more in common. This may indeed be true for Eastern Pakistani Punjabis and Indian Punjabis, but if you move away to western part of Punjab, we have a more semi-tribal culture and customs and live side by side with Pushtun tribes and I am certain that an outsider to this area can simply not tell the different between an "Punjabi" Awan and a "Pushtun" Niazi just by their appearance or the manner in which they conduct themselves.

This is not to say I completely disregard your points, I do agree that there should be a trend in unifying the country around the identity of being a Pakistani. But I like prefer this to happen out it's own freewill and I do think this is happening, especially in Urban areas where mixed marriages are common and the adoption of Urdu and even English is more widespread. For example, I come from a family which has nearly all major ethnic groups of Pakistan. We speak to each other in Urdu but when away everyone will stick to their own language, however the younger ones only speak Urdu and English.

I prefer an evolutionary process over forced assimilation. We as a nation can be proud of our diversity, we are the sons and daughters of the Indus Valley and the surrounding areas. Those who joined us over the centuries are our brothers who share in our common heritage and our now tied to this land as us.

 

[Syed Asif Bukhari]

Pashtun
Imran Khan (famous politician and cricketer)

Kashmiris
Nawaz Sharif (PM of Pakistan . Although he is Kashmiri .But his family has long migrated to Punjab and fully integrated in its culture)

Punjabi
General retired Raheel Sharif ( ex Army Chief . He belomgs to a Rajput family of Punjab )

Baloch
Zafarullah Khan Jamali ( 15th Prime Minister of Pakistan)

Sindhi
Asif Ali Zardari ( ex President)

Gilgit Baltistani
Samina Baig (Samina Khayal Baig is a Pakistani high-altitude mountaineer. She is the only Pakistani woman and the third Pakistani to climb Mount Everest. She is also the youngest Muslim woman to climb Everest, having done so at the age of 21.)

Hazaras
View attachment 371495

Kalash Tribe

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u can see that Pakistan has many ethnic group . Every ethnicity has its own color , physical appearance , language , culture and tradition . How can u impose an alien culture and language on them? . They can and they are learning Urdu as secondary language but primary language will always be their naïve one . Last time , we tried to impose our culture and language on an ethnic group and a tragedy occurred in the form of Bangladesh . Bro , Turkey don't have many ethnic group . u may have got Turk , Kurds and may be one or two more groups . But Pakistan has many ethnic groups . Even I have skipped some here . so in short , Pakistan cant your model of Turkification of other groups because in your case overwhelming majority is turk . while in our case , we have many ethnic groups . But ethnic languages are dying slowly . Educated people are now adopting Urdu as mother tongue and situation will improve further in future .

 

[Kyoto]

I think more classical Urdu should be taught instead of the version more similar to informal Hindi. Apparently the ancestors of modern Pakistanis spoke mostly farsi before British colonisation and it would distance Pakistanis from foreign Indian culture.
At the same time the regional languages should be preserved. Yes Pakistan is a Muslim country and there is a sort of lacking of national identity in some ways but the loss of different cultures and histories would be sad and wouldnt be accepted by many rural Pakistanis. However if there was an enforced national language then it should be farsi or more persianized urdu.

 

[punit]

Not exactly, if carried out during the early formative years.

Now, it will be

obviously. early years when partition and resettlement of refugees were going on there was a chance.

 

[Imad.Khan]

Hey guys,

I have been here for some years now and still don't understand many highly complex structures and dynamics in Pakistan's siyaset and society even though I really try keeping an open mind towards anything political that comes from Pakistani users here. I even read a couple of Pakistani newspaper on a regularly basis.

There is one main issue that bothers me most. Couple weeks ago there was an article regarding the extinction of some regional languages in Pakistan: http://www.dawn.com/news/1306783

Many users here and in the Pakistani part of the internet criticized the government for not preventing this regional languages from disappearance. And I asked myself: Why should the government help preserving this languages?

This lead me to the question why Pakistan's politicians don't implement a Pakistanization policy in every corner of Pakistan. I know many of you guys are super proud to be a Punjabi, Baloche, Kashmiri, Pashtu, Sindhi etc. But, pardon my language, who cares about these regional sub-identities?

I know that many people will argue that Islam is the sole and exclusive social glue of Pakistan that keeps the country and society together. In my opinion, it is not acceptable (and not healthy for Pakistan) that Muslim Punjabis in Pakistan and India have more in common than a Pakistani citizen of Punjabi and Baloch origin in Pakistan.

That's why, in fact, there are three very important markers for national identity:

Language; Culture; Religion

Other markers are clothing, food, physical appearance, values, norms etc. Anyway, the most important points here are:

Language - Urdu

Religion - Islam

Culture - ???

When it comes to culture, I'm not so sure whether there is a "pan-Pakistani" culture. Can someone give me a major characteristic that a citizen from Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Sindh share apart from religion?

Why are people opposing the idea of a "one nation - one language - one religion" concept for Pakistan anyway? This is rather strange because typically religious people in the Islamic world don't care that much about their ethnic identity. Many Sunni Arabs and Kurds assimilated into the Turkish society. Secular Azeris in Iran are often fond of irredentist ideas whereas conservative Azeris tend to have a stronger Iranian identity.

Strangely enough, in case of Pakistan all of this assumptions are wrong. People are generally very religious, Islam plays a very important role in their lifes but yet people are sticking to their regional identities and traditions. But why? Can someone enlighten me, please?

Theoretically, as a Pakistani politician, I would try to systematically enforce Urdu in every part of the country. Only Urdu should be taught at schools, there should be a box "Pakistani" in the section about ethnicity in every census to strengthen a "pan-Pakistani" national identity. The children of Pakistan must learn that Pakistan is older than 70 years. The Indus Valley Civilisation must become a fixed part of school instruction, curricula and programs. The Pakistani civilization is thousands of years old. Educational school trips to archaeological sites would be a fine idea.

Even resettlement programs should be discussed. Punjabis and Sindh people could be resettled from crowded places in their home province to rural areas of Balochistan for the purpose of mixing up the different ethnicities like Turkey did after becoming a nation-state.

Focusing on religion as the main commonality among the different ethnicities in Pakistan is very dangerous. In fact, it creates a false sense of security. India with the help of Afghanistan is already trying to disturb the peace in Pakistan. Kabul and New Delhi are trying to awake a Pashtu nationalism in Pakistan. And I'm totally against any kind of federalization in Pakistan.

This is another thing that I don't understand. Why are people constantly demanding more and more provinces? You can ask a secular or religious Pakistani - both will explain to you that the current administrational system of Pakistan is not working very well. Why do you want to implement even more not working administrational units in the first place? Why do you want to pay monthly salaries to thousands of new deputies? The majority of the Pakistani diaspora is right now living in Anglo-Saxon states with federal governing systems. This system may work in those countries but it isn't a working and reliable system for Pakistan. It does not fit. Federal systems are only productive in wealthy and homogeneous societies.

Last but not least: I know that only a military-led government can impose all of these ideas. Therefore the democratic electoral system should be suspended for at least 25 years; centralization (of power) is the key issue.

So, am I too radical for Pakistan? Am I missing or ignoring important points? Sorry for my bad English and I apologize in advance if some of you feel insulted or offended by my posting. I'm just trying to understand a little bit more because I care for Pakistan.

Here is my take on this, though i understand where you are coming from.

Language and Ethnicity.

Pakistan is a federation of different ethnic groups. There isn't a Pakistani ethnic group. All the groups overlap with other countries for example Punjabis and Sindhis are also found in India and Pathans and Hazaras are also found in Afghanistan and Balochis are also found in Afghanistan and Iran. All the ethnic groups have their own language but they all can speak or atleast understand Urdu. So Urdu is actually a uniting language than a dividing language. But on saying that the regional languages bring in a beautiful diversity, its just another flavour of our identity and i think we need to preserve this flavour.

Secondly religion, majority of Pakistanis are Muslims and it is a big uniting factor.

Finally culture, Pakistan even with all the different ethnic groups still has a culture that is uniquely Pakistani. I can spot a Pakistani punjabi/sindhi/pathan etc from a non-Pakistani punjabi/sindhi/pathan. I can't explain how i can but i can. Pakistanis will understand what i am talking about. Also Pakistani food even from all the different groups has now taken a unique flavour of its own. Pakistanis clothing/dresses are also now unique to Pakistani with the closest resemblance being Afghanistan than anyother country.

You also mentioned why Pakistanis keep asking for more provinces, the simple answer is that Pakistan is a massive country with a equally massive population, and having just 4 or 5 provinces is not really working. Turkey is a smaller country and has even smaller population but it has a total of 81 provinces.

hope that clears everything

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Imposing a certain language, culture and way of life on any society is bound to get negative repercussions.

Well yes, that is true, but that's how nations and civilizations were formed in the past.

Do you think everyone in Britain used to speak English? In fact English is an Anglo-Saxon language brought by invaders, after the Roman Empire had left. They had a vast array of native languages and cultures before that.

What about Germany? China? Japan? Same story.

The Han Chinese were originally just one tribe of people along the Yellow River, same with the original British and the original Germans.

Same with the Indus civilization, which (in a similar fashion to Anglo-Saxons) came from outside the country and managed to become the predominant civilization in the region.

If everyone kept their "native" culture, language and religion, then we would all still be tribals. In fact there are some places in the world (like the rainforests of Brazil) where tribes 1 km apart from each other have completely different cultures and languages. Which is how it was in the tribal era, and is a more "natural" state of affairs. But do we really want that? If people can't communicate+cooperate with the tribe next door, how can there be any progress?

 

[Imad.Khan]

I think more classical Urdu should be taught instead of the version more similar to informal Hindi. Apparently the ancestors of modern Pakistanis spoke mostly farsi before British colonisation and it would distance Pakistanis from foreign Indian culture.
At the same time the regional languages should be preserved. Yes Pakistan is a Muslim country and there is a sort of lacking of national identity in some ways but the loss of different cultures and histories would be sad and wouldnt be accepted by many rural Pakistanis. However if there was an enforced national language then it should be farsi or more persianized urdu.

Persianized Urdu is actually proper Urdu, not the Urdu that is now spoken in Karachi which is heavily influenced by bollywood gangster movies and it sounds so ugly. Proper Urdu sounds so classy.

Except us poor Mahajirs We dont know anything other than Urdu

But i am sure you can understand Punjabi, if not all atleast some of it.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Here is my take on this, though i understand where you are coming from.

Language and Ethnicity.

Pakistan is a federation of different ethnic groups. There isn't a Pakistani ethnic group. All the groups overlap with other countries for example Punjabis and Sindhis are also found in India and Pathans and Hazaras are also found in Afghanistan and Balochis are also found in Afghanistan and Iran. All the ethnic groups have their own language but they all can speak or atleast understand Urdu. So Urdu is actually a uniting language than a dividing language. But on saying that the regional languages bring in a beautiful diversity, its just another flavour of our identity and i think we need to preserve this flavour.

Secondly religion, majority of Pakistanis are Muslims and it is a big uniting factor.

Finally culture, Pakistan even with all the different ethnic groups still has a culture that is uniquely Pakistani. I can spot a Pakistani punjabi/sindhi/pathan etc from a non-Pakistani punjabi/sindhi/pathan. I can't explain how i can but i can. Pakistanis will understand what i am talking about. Also Pakistani food even from all the different groups has now taken a unique flavour of its own. Pakistanis clothing/dresses are also now unique to Pakistani with the closest resemblance being Afghanistan than anyother country.

You also mentioned why Pakistanis keep asking for more provinces, the simple answer is that Pakistan is a massive country with a equally massive population, and having just 4 or 5 provinces is not really working. Turkey is a smaller country and has even smaller population but it has a total of 81 provinces.

hope that clears everything

no sindhi in india.. except maybe like 10,000? or so sindhi immigrants...

Pak Panjab which itself is not homogenus is hardly similiar with indian panjab.. even the dialect spoken in central panjab (which is actually a minority) is different than somewhat similiar indian panjab..

Persianized Urdu is actually proper Urdu, not the Urdu that is now spoken in Karachi which is heavily influenced by bollywood gangster movies and it sounds so ugly. Proper Urdu sounds so classy.



But i am sure you can understand Punjabi, if not all atleast some of it.

lol true.. karanchi.. urdu is hardly urdu.

 

[Imad.Khan]

no sindhi in india.. except maybe like 10,000? or so sindhi immigrants...

Pak Panjab which itself is not homogenus is hardly similiar with indian panjab.. even the dialect spoken in central panjab (which is actually a minority) is different than somewhat similiar indian panjab..

I have meet alot of Indian Sindhi, they are all from Gujrat or Rajasthan areas, but you are right most of them migrated from Pakistani areas.

 

[shhh]

But i am sure you can understand Punjabi, if not all atleast some of it.

Yup, some of it.

 

[Imad.Khan]

Yup, some of it.

me too, even more than Pushto

 

[Mamluk]

Same with the Indus civilization, which (in a similar fashion to Anglo-Saxons) came from outside the country and managed to become the predominant civilization in the region.

Correction: you mean Vedic (not Indus) Civilization from Central Asia. Indus civilization was destroyed by Vedic invaders and is now extinct.

Anyways Indus people were also not really native. They came from West Asia and settled around the Indus valley.