Dynamism of Diversity: Pakistan is a land of many ethnicities and multiple inter pretations of Islam By: Nadeem F.

Paracha January 1, 2012 Two of the most common comments I receive through emails are: If only Pakistan im poses a true Islamic system, well be able to get rid of the hypocrisies committed in its name. Of course, such suggestions are proposed by fellow Pakistanis. The other comment is usually from readers in India or the West. Its a simple question : Why are Pakistanis always so engrossed in religion? I am no scholar (religious or otherwise), but a student of history with a keen i nterest in understanding it through the lens of cultural anthropology. You see, most of us living in Pakistan have always been advised to look at cultural studi es with suspicion. It has been embedded in us that this sort of enquiry leads on e to question the very foundations of the countrys ideology. But the problem is, the less equipped or inclined we are to question what weve be en told is our ideology, the more one-dimensional remains our understanding of t he diverse range of people that reside in Pakistan; and also, we become more ven erable to the continuous volley of half-truths and glorified delusions that have been coming our way from dictators, textbooks and the usual media crackpots. The whole notion of being a country buzzing with ethnic, sectarian and religious diversity becomes something to be afraid of, or something to be repressed with the help of an ideology that has, over the decades, been imposed upon this diver sity by a curious nexus of so-called modernist Muslims and their puritanical cou nterparts. At the centre of this all is an ever-weakening state, which, from 194 7 till 1977, shunned recognising the dynamics of Pakistans diversity by imposing a nationalistic, Muslim identity. It didnt work. In the absence of the kind of rigorous democracy that a diverse nation requires, this all-encompassing Muslim nationalism only ended up alienating the centuries -old cultural moorings of a number of ethnicities in Pakistan. So, as the Baloch , the Sindhis and the Pashtuns rose up in anger, as had done the Bengalis in the former East Pakistan, who eventually decided to rip themselves away from Pakist ans ideological equation. Though the anti-diversity dynamics of Muslim nationalism was by and large succes sful in keeping this ideologys more radical advocates at bay, the 1971 East Pakis tan debacle left this ideology vulnerable to the influence of what was once dism issed as the Islamist fringe. Gradually, especially with the arrival of the dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq, the ideologys early modernist Islam was turned on its head when the new ideologu es wanted to Islamise the modern. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan gave way to Abul Ala Maudu di. The kind of theological, political and cultural damage this long-winded attitude has inflicted in the past three decades has made the state and governments of P akistan willing hostages to the abrasive and reactionary ways of the puritanical ideologues. Whats more, today, even some of the most educated young Pakistanis h ave lost the capacity to question what is dished out to them as Islamic/ Pakista ni history and ideology. We are still not prepared to face an obvious truth that may call the very essence and foundation of our so-called ideology into questio n. Has not this ideology irst of the modernist One Unit Islam variety, and then the e xhibitionistic and militarist version of it completely failed to achieve what it wanted to? That is, to turn a diverse Pakistan into a united, ideological whole based on religion. It was always an over-ambitious and Utopian task. We were never one people. The ma jority of us were Muslims (and still are), but our understanding of faith is int ricately linked to and informed by the cultural moorings of our own distinct eth nicities and sects. Laws and policies cannot be made to succeed based upon the simple idea that all Muslims believe in the same God and the same book. What passes as Islamic law in certain Muslim countries would be an anachronism in Pakistan. Same way, what ma

y be a success (as an Islamic law) in certain areas of the Deobandi dominated Kh yber Pakhtunkhwa could be offensive to the Barelvi or Shia of Punjab and Sindh. There has never been a wide-ranging consensus among the sects and ethnicities of Pakistan about the ideology of Pakistan. How can there be? Shouldnt the consensus be sought more on recognising the ethnic and sectarian div ersity of this country, giving all democratic participants of this diversity as much autonomy as possible (through a fair democratic process) to take responsibi lity of just how much religion, or what sort of religion (if at all), would ever y ethnicity and sect want to use in their respective communities politics and soc iety? The states role should be to make sure that such a national consensus holds and that none of the states institutions is allowed to identify with any one eth nic or sectarian group or ideology. We have to finally recognise (on an official level) that we live in a land of ma ny ethnicities and multiple interpretations of Islam. This phenomenon has to be harnessed and celebrated, not repressed or be afraid of. This very repression ha s produced nothing but an ideological neurosis that we suffer from today. Source: The Dawn, Karachi URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamIslamAndPluralism_1.aspx?ArticleID=62 92

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COMMENTS 1/7/2012 1:39:16 AM satwa gunam Majority of Indians rise above religion. That is the reason so many Hindu are ag ainst Modi. This does not happen in Pakistan and hence it has been destroyed in the religious hatred nothing else. Moderate Muslims do not bother about eliminat ion of the minorities. After extinction of minority fundamentalist are trying to destroy the moderate and hence they make noise.

1/6/2012 7:04:29 PM Aiman Reyaz For any nation to succeed, it is very importannt for them to have among themselv es a strong feeling of oneness. I do not think Pakistan has still got that feeli ng, but India, inspite of numerous communal violence, has got the feeling of one ness, this is not the words of a blind patriot, which I am, but of an observer a nd reader. Pakistan is torn between two poles i.e., God and men, between Heaven and earth, between Islam and secularism. There is no third thing. In India, although we too have these two poles to stretch us to extremes, but there is also a third pole of cultural unity, which is a mixture of our ancient, medieval and modern civili zations. This soothes us, Indians. There is a need in Pakistan for a rope that will unite them all, but to be able to find it, Pakistanis must search, and as the phrase goes: If you will search you will find it .

1/4/2012 11:50:47 PM Syed Rizvi The way things are I don t think we (Pakistanis) have hit the bottom yet. Only then the nation will be awakened ---- maybe.

1/4/2012 10:03:16 AM Ghulam Mohiyuddin A thoughtful article which poses some difficult questions for Pakistan. Neither Islam nor Urdu by themselves have proved to be strong unifying factors. A respec tful cognizance of ethnic and sectarian diversity needs to be added to the mix.

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