Daily Times

Religion had been the raison de etre in the genesis of Pakistan. The founding fathers believed that religion could have been an adhesive force for the disparate and diverse populations of the regions constituting the new country declared as the homeland of the Muslims of India.

The demographic diversity made it quite a task to forge unity between the federating units and also to minimize the differences within them. The most glaring example of the former project had been the creation of One Unit and for the latter we saw sometimes denial and sometimes non-recognition of the linguistic and ethnic differences like treating Siraiki as a variant of Punjabi; lack of recognition of Hindko speaking people in the KPK etc. So often the quest for unity came at the cost of ethnic or linguistic minorities by letting them fall into oblivion or insignificance by willfully neglecting them.

We as a nation did not learn to celebrate diversity or some may argue that we did not afford so historically. Perhaps, language riots within first year of the birth this country still festered in the memory of the fathers of the Constitution when they deliberated the features of the federation. They recognized either federating units or the religious minorities only and no reference to the ethnicities or the indigenous peoples which had been termed as tribals at the most. Admittedly, these constituting regions had an uncomfortable relationship with the centre; former basing their claim of sovereignty (limited or absolute) on the ethnicity, right from the times of the Mughals, who unified the whole of Indian sub-continent. Thus religion was made the material for the genesis of a nation, a very unique idea at the time (though after Pakistan Israel was another country which based the claim of nationhood on religion, “homeland of the Jewish people”). It did not take long for the ethnic fault lines to become visible after the initial euphoria of independence wore away. Military and paramilitary operations to tackle the centrifugal ethnic forces; ethnic/linguistic riots; militancy by the ethnic groups; perceived enemy support of certain ethnic groups further lend credence to the self-fulfilling prophecy of basing the idea of nationhood on anything other than religion or the recognition of ethnicities or the linguistic identities as disintegrating. It was with the Eighteenth Amendment that for the first time steps were taken in the direction of a real federation instead of an imposing and overbearing centre. It may not be out of place to quote from the Lahore Resolution of 1940,

“Resolved that …. geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India, should be grouped o constitute “Independent States” in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.

That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards should be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in these units and in these regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them; and in other parts of India where the Mussalmans are in a minority, adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specially provided in the constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.” (Italics provided by the author).

Thus the original idea on which the representatives of proposed units agreed was not of an absolutist centre.

The fear and suspicion of the Other has resulted in the shrinking spaces for the ethnic and linguistic minorities

As for the international obligations of Pakistan, it has chosen NOT to adopt the ILO Convention 169 (Indigenous and Tribal People’s Convention, 1989) which removed “the assimilationist orientation of the earlier standards” and called attention to the “distinctive contributions of indigenous and tribal peoples to the cultural diversity and social and ecological harmony of humankind”, whereas on the same hand it adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) 2007 as it was expressly legally non binding. It is noteworthy that the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan does not define “minority” despite several mentions of this term. Gradually, the word minority has come to be understood religious minority only. Despite the fact that the international human rights laws address the issues very vaguely and leave a lot of room for interpretation in order to become acceptable to the majority of nations, and same is the case with the resolutions for the Indigenous peoples that its affirmation and recognition of the rights to equality, non-discrimination, equitable development, land and mineral resources etc would not bother anyone as they are unjusticeable in the absence of a forum for the purpose. But the article 3 which gives them the right to self determination, something which is hard for any state to agree as it may mean cessation or separation, though equally legally non-binding, so we already had an easy way out available to us from the moral pressure too and that was by not recognizing any group as indigenous peoples as such.

The fear and suspicion of the Other has resulted in the shrinking spaces for the ethnic and linguistic minorities. Pluralism has never been cultivated as a value over all these years. For decades narrow interpretations of history, culture and faith has been pushed down the throats of the gullible people. As United Nations has marked August 9th of every year to raise awareness of the contribution of the indigenous peoples to the humankind and also of the systemic injustices they face, we may integrate the awareness regarding the rich cultural heritage of the indigenous peoples enroute Gandhara Trail in our latest tourism plan as the tourists and pilgrims would be tracing the Gandhara Civilizations footsteps through the erstwhile tribal regions (FATA) and the still surviving tribal areas (PATA) too. But the question remains if we are ready to recognize them as such.

The author specializes in gender and human rightsTwitter:@SaimaAhad3