I ended my last post with a hint at the variety of Pakistan’s ecologies and ethnicities and its unique multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society with a history of communal life. While I will address challenges and opportunities that I visualize in this situation at another time, I think I should clarify what I mean by our “unique multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society”.
Pakistan is blessed with almost every conceivable ecology from glacier clad mountains to a great deep-sea port, in between lie flat plains, plateaus, scenic valleys and sizzling deserts with forests of every kind and a great range of wild life; but then so many other states have as large a variety. What makes Pakistan unique is the space within which this great variety is arranged and the small ecological units that lie close to one another. If India or China or the USA can compete with Pakistan in terms of the variety of ecologies, all of those countries have their variety of ecologies distributed over a space many times larger than that of Pakistan. Also, in no other country are you likely to find such a variety of ecologies of small size that are located at short distances from one another.
An ecology is an ideal catalyst for ethnic variety since it enforces a lifestyle; this in turn enforces a culture. An ecological change enforces a restriction on mobility which is ideal for a change of dialect if not a language because it brings into play a range of different identities and experiences from that of its neighbor. The territory that comprises Pakistan since 1971 has seen the settlement of many races in its history over more than five millennia, a variety of people have come to these regions over thousands of years and have chosen to settle in various ecologies. They brought their stock of words, because of which our languages are varied and complex. As a result, China’s ecologies do not provide a comparable ethnic variety. The USA has a very short history. Only India has a comparable variety of ecology but it has fewer ethnic groups; thus, the ratio is not the same.
This common denominator places us in the orbit of South Asia but scale of operations for this variety is still a vital difference. I will sidestep the issue of cultural or historical differences between India and Pakistan for the time being in order to retain focus and perspective. Though the number of inputs to Pakistan’s demography is far greater than that of India, merely adjusting all the common ethnic inputs within the much smaller space of Pakistan should give my readers an idea of the implications. A common Pakistani can go to a bus-station or train station near his home and not be able to follow half or two thirds of the conversations taking place there. Yet most Pakistanis can speak two and understand three or four languages: mother tongue, and the language of a neighboring ecology + Urdu and even some words of English if they are urban people.
A rough and ready assessment of the ‘nation in action’ will be worthwhile. Roughly 30% of people are minors, not of voting age, for whose actions their parents and guardians may be held responsible. About as many are domestic women in Pakistan, who do not appear in the public domain; thus, their attitudes are represented or not represented by their men who live in the public domain. Apart from these, categories already excluded, are rural or nomadic men whose public life is local and restricted to the non-urban domain. The urban, male, adult, proactive population of Pakistan is about 10 to 15% of our total demography. These are the people whose actions are taken to denote our ‘national character’ but they are not the only ones whose activities determine our destiny. Perhaps far more important are the masses whom they are supposed to represent. Because, if the masses are not being represented, we have only a head but no body.
In any society, there is a small segment of people who determine what is ‘good’ and what is to be classified as bad. A small segment of society always decides to be ‘bad’; while a small segment abides by moral codes because of a sense of commitment and conviction. Another portion of the population [perhaps the largest segment of society] remains within its moral and legal limits when forced by social, political or administrative enforcement. Thus, the bulk of society is governed by self-interest and therefore has a partial/conditional commitment to society. It is important to bear in mind that it is easier for human nature to succumb to temptation than to control desires. Probably the real test is whether people subscribe to the morality that is advocated by the arbiters of ethics.
The battle for Pakistan is a battle for culture. It relies on communal and personal guarantees; it bases itself on appeal to the goodness of human nature, not to enforcement of a timetable for work, as the criterion for having earned one’s daily bread. Modernity expects us to abide by a fixed set of working hours, after which the employee/owner is free to leave the work place even if someone needs their services. Most Pakistanis do not commit themselves to a strict interpretation of Islam, as envisioned by any specific sectarian orthodoxy even if they subscribe to a specific religious denomination. However, when battle lines are drawn and a religious issue takes center-stage, the proportion of hardliners seems to increase in every denomination. I am tempted to group the elite as two broad categories: religious and secular or traditional and modern, but this representation is misleading. Not only are each of these denominations divided within themselves but a common, ordinary Pakistani has values and attitudes that mix and match traditions. Actually, elite are also in the same boat but believe that they belong exclusively to a specific category and are its authentic representatives.
Given these conditions, it is difficult to designate any group of people as “representative” of Pakistan’s demography. Even when we go down to the smallest administrative unit, we cannot find a single group of citizens to represent the entire locality or community. This is the source of challenges that all our administrators have faced; so, where is the “opportunity”?
The key question that anybody who wants to involve the Pakistanis in the business of promoting our national welfare is: What are the values which a common Pakistani citizen willingly abides by, and which of these values are the majority Pakistani citizens willing to struggle to maintain?