THE IDENTITY CRISIS OF ” BEING A PAKISTANI MUSLIM”

“I AM AN INDIAN BORN IN PAKISTAN”

                                                           - TAREK FATAH(PAKISTANI CANADIAN WRITER)

On  15^th august 1947 the new nation of Pakistan came into being .IT was supposedly a land of pure carved out for the Muslims of Indian sub-continent,whose interests  according to there self-appointed leader Muhammad ali Jinnah  was antagonistic to Hindus of Indian sub-continent.

Thus on the very  same land where once  Indus valley civilization flourished ,and which was once a great centre of Hindu and Buddhist studies ,A new  Islamic Republic was found. Ever since the great country of Pakistan was formed, it has been going through its ideological and identity crisis.The identity crisis of Pakistan started from 15^th August 1947.

A country which had a 5000 years of glorious history which was intermixed with Hindu India,it had to develop its own history,so that it could bolster its claim of being different from India. Thus started the process of glorifying Muslim invaders and completely ignoring pre Islamic history of Pakistan in the text-books of Pakistan.

Till the first 30 years Pakistani textbook still contained some historical references about the Mauryan and Guptas,however with Zia ul haq in power the  history books of India and Pakistan drifted apart.

Thus systematically in the text books of Pakistan its Islamic past was emphasized and its hindu past completely neglected. There was also efforts done by Pakistani establishment to link the history of Pakistan with Islam,s golden age.Thus accomplishment of Arab moors in AL Andalusia and Maghreb was presented in a way so as to create a perception that it was Pakistanis who ruled over Spain and the eastern Europe during the middle ages.It reminds me of an incident narrated by one of the most liberal and secular intellectual of Pakistan Hassan Nisar. According to him once he was attending  Pakistani dinner in Kuwait and 1 Pakistani women commented that when we ruled over Spain ,There was a arab who was sitting there and laughing over the women wondering how can these south Asian people who were ruled for 1000 years by central Asians and than 200 years by British ruled over Europe.He finally made the Pakistani women realize that it was not Pakistanis but Arab moors who ruled over Al Andalusia(Spain). Thus while Pakistanis want its share in Arab glorious history ,The arabs however do not want  inch of its glorious past to be appropriated by other nationalities in the name of Islam. This incident reflects the confused identity dilemma of average Pakistani.

The impression and impact of Indian culture on average Pakistani  household is simply impeccable.Be it marriage customs,food,dress,movies or even abusive words. No matter how much effort Pakistani ruling elite and mullahs do in shedding its Indian identity but they are least successful in eradicating (or even reducing )Indian influence over Pakistanis.

In the words of another great Pakistani-canadian Journalist and writer Tarek Fateh Pakistanis are most confused nationality in the world.They hate there own language Punjabi and Sindhi and try to pretend that language of Lucknow and Agra i.e urdu is there mother tongue.

Because of the nature of its creation- a secessionist state born in opposition to the Indian nationalist movement-Pakistan was lumped with an identity,defined in terms of what it was "NOT INDIA" than what it was India.

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Another aspect of this confused nationality syndrome is hailing those people who destroyed there cities and killed there own people.This hailing of invaders by the victims of those invasion is simply unprecedented in any other country of the world. Thus most of the missiles in Pakistan are named after Invaders like Ghauri ,ghazni  and Abdali (forgetting the fact that Abdali completely destroyed modern Pakistani cities like Lahore and dipalpur and killed and raped many of its inhabitant).Thus a trend has been developed in Pakistan to embrace foreign heroes as its own and neglecting local heroes like bulle shah and Bhagat Singh.

This feeling of Arab ism and Pan-Islamism got stronger in 80,s when Pakistan become the nerve centre of jehadis ,wahabi islam and Mujahideen in the fight against communist Afghanistan.It was during this time a reporter asked Zia ul haq why Pakistan is not secular state like India,the General replied because we do not want to become second-grade India.This reply actually stated why Pakistan chose to emphasize on its Islamic roots and Arabic roots and neglecting its south asian roots.

When Nehru became the leader of the third world,the only option left with Pakistani leaders was to become leader of Islamic world thus Zulfiqar ali Bhutto(who according to me is the greatest statesman and orator produced by Pakistan) organized Islamic conference in Lahore in 1970,s where artificial unity on the basis of Islamic faith was emphasized among countries that had nothing in common.

I do feel strongly that it is a nation which  was artificially carved out of India on the basis of religion and had no basis according to the modern concept of nation-state because When Pakistan was born there was hardly any Pakistani nationality or identity which could separate it from Indian identity thus it was quite natural to galvanize the nation on the basis of Islam to carve out distinct identity from Hindu INDIA. However this process resulted into more identity crisis for average Pakistani during the course of time because every effort was done by the ruling elites to impose Arabic culture over former Hindustanis, However it was not easy to eradicate 5000 years of Indian identity among Pakistanis and this syndrome finally led to confused Pakistani identity in modern times.

As a well wisher of Pakistan and Pakistanis who I consider are nothing but my estranged brothers I feel that a nation cannot sustain itself,neither it can flourish if continues to ignore and neglect its own native culture,language and traditions. The amount of Patriotism will always remain limited among average Pakistanis till they continue to accept foreign history as its own history.A fine balance needs to be established by Pakistanis between its Indian and Islamic identity. They should feel proud of there Islamic heritage and history but also should equally feel proud of its pre-islamic glory because we should not forget that it was only in Ancient Pakistan the Harappan culture flourished and Famous hindu educational centres like Taxila is very close to Modern Islamabad.. If this transformation happens it will be beneficial not only for Pakistan but also would decrease Anti-India and Anti-hindu feelings in Pakistan.This could significantly improve Indo-Pakistan relations in future.!!!!!!!!