Daily Times

Like it or not but the national narrative that the official syllabus of Pakistan Studies pushes is grossly inaccurate. I am myself a victim of this standard narrative that pushes most Pakistanis to see Pakistan as ‘one nation’ whose majority follows ‘one religion’ — making Pakistan appear like a big green rock. No; it isn’t that at all!

Rather, Pakistan is a rainbow made of different linguistic and ethnic colours. But the ideas of diversity have never been promoted because of an incomprehensible paranoia of the powerful Pakistani establishment. Diversity was, and is still, seen as a weakening agent, cracking the huge imaginary rock that Pakistan has always been considered.

According to the world renowned publication Ethnologue, Pakistan has 73 spoken languages of which 27 are endangered at the moment. Though Dr. Tariq Rahman, a true rationalist, puts the number of spoken languages in the country at 74, and Dr Aatish Durrani’s figure is 76. But let’s stick to the smallest number ie 73. Of these, 30 languages are spoken in the Gilgit-Baltistan region only. Most languages among them belong to the Indo-Aryan family, while some are Indo-Iranian and Sino-Tibetan in nature. In most cases, these languages are spoken by indigenous tribes, and are not spoken and understood outside their hamlets.

In the same vein, the ‘Pakistani Nation’ is essentially an amalgam of nearly the same number of ethnic communities — that have probably an equal number of similarities and differences. National and provincial identities are at best political and geographic identities. That is perfectly alright as this is a right of the modern state to have a unified national political and a few sub-national political identities. These political and geographic identities are needed to run the business of the state, internally and externally. But this cannot overshadow the jaw dropping ethnic and linguistic diversity that Pakistan has.

There are 11 big or small ethnic communities living in Balochistan. The number in Sindh, KP and Punjab is nine. These communities have interacted with each other for thousands of years and their languages have evolved ever since, but these communities have also preserved their ways of life. In Balochistan, for example, people who speak Dari are entirely different than those who speak Makrani. In Sindh, those who speak urban-Sindhi are way different than those whose language is Marwari. Seraiki culture is different than the Pothohari in Punjab while, Pashto is entirely a different set of culture than the Hindko in KP.

Pakistan, and its federating units are a political arrangement that were created by the collective wisdom of the state institutions. As said earlier: that is the right of a political state, but simultaneously, this is also right of the people to practice and promote their subnational linguistic and ethnic identities.

Likewise, Pakistan is predominantly Muslim, but is not completely Muslim. There are Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and people of other pagan and indigenous religions. There are even two Jews that live in the Land of the Pure. The official data says that 95 percent of the population is Muslim — but again this Muslim population practices different sects of Islam. There is diversity within Islam. The leaders of the non-Muslim communities dispute the five percent figure — but even at five percent the number of non-Muslim Pakistanis reaches 10 million or roughly equal to the population of Lahore — the second largest city in the country in terms of population share.

Modern democracies and states get stronger when ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity is not only recognised, but also appreciated and promoted. The political state may take another 70 years to do so, but Pakistanis need to understand and celebrate the diversity that their homeland offers. We, as people, must respect the differences that exist among us. Pakistan has never been a monolith. It has rather always been a wonderful work of art with hundreds of small big colourful chips that are firmly joined together. The lines where the chips bond are not cracks — as the state sees them. These lines are the very cement that joins us all together as Pakistan. Give in to diversity, and diversity shall never give up on you.

The writer is a social entrepreneur and a student of Pakistan’s social and political challenges. Twitter: @mkw72