Pakistan — a country with boundless culture, heritage

Islamabad : The history of mankind is rich with countless occurrences, wars, conquests, rise and fall of dynasties renaissance, revolutions, bloodshed, religious or social extremism, attire, food and festivals evolving specific civilisations.

Each era had its own dynamics, gains and losses, intolerance and rigidity, customs and traditions as well as religious practices. People in those eras used to abide by different, norms, laws and the religious practices in vogue then, strictly gluing to their traditions and verdicts of tribal rulers, kings or sultans.

After the long eras of traditions, religion or creed based empires like Romans, Greeks, Babylon’s, Ommiad’s and Abbasids caliphates -- the emergence of new codes transformed ancient system to pluralist societies. Ottoman Empire could be perhaps the last broader and diverse mention worthy empire, existing on basis of religion but housing people from different communities, caste and creeds.

With its dismantling during early 20th century, a wave of nationalism emerged wherein people from different religion, caste, creed and races learnt to live together in one state. Then, the binding force among them was nationalism - over and above their caste, creed or religion.

Pakistan is also a unique country, boasting of its decade long struggle to get independence purely on a religious slogan and sustain thereon as a separate nation with slight tinge of boundless cultures and heritage mingled with the tints of pluralism.

Here the people of different caste, creed, customs and language live together and for them being Pakistani is the foremost recognition and a binding force as for them motherland comes first.

“Every nation dreams of national strength and prosperity and for this, it needs rule of law, social justice and a peaceful society,” remarked MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani. Countries or nations with discriminatory policies ultimately lose their identity as United They Stand and Divided They Fall.

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah materialised the dream of great, poet and philosopher Allam Dr Muhammad Iqbal for an independent homeland for Muslims of sub-continent where people following different caste and creed could live together with harmony. “For us Pakistan is our mainstay. No matter to which religion, caste or creed we belong to. Our foremost identity and our top priority is, and must be, Pakistan,” Vankwani said.

Seeing from the religious or historic perspective, we see the followers of different religions. But, once they travel outside Pakistan they are Pakistanis over and above their religion, caste, or creed. For them, becoming a Pakistani comes first and above all.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Indus River Valley Institute (IRVI), Zain Mustafa said, The present land we call Pakistan, its ancient people of different places and the River Indus, have always been a space of inclusivity, diversity and tolerance.

That is what makes Pakistan unique, its cultural heritage so colorful, rich and diverse and its traditions a unique asset to be celebrated.

“From one outer border to the other edge - Nagarparkar to Kalash - Pakistan has 9,000 years history where Muslims have been living together with Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and followers of other religions,” Zain stated. About unique cultural heritage, he said, as we are the gateway to East, we are also melange of all the fluid knowledge brought here through ancient Silk Road and before.

Siblings to Sumeria and Egypt, there is more to celebrate than not. These are cultural roots embedded in our land that bind us as one nation and one people. CEO, Centre for Culture and Development (C2D), Dr Nadeem Omar Tarar also see Pakistan as a unique state in terms of geography, culture and ethnic diversity.

“We can see Pakistan as a country that has not been carved out of an ethnic or linguistic group but almost from a geological space providing separate homeland for Muslims of the sub-continent.”

He said the ethnic and cultural variations are beauty of our country integrating people from different caste, creed and languages together. Being diverse in culture, Pakistanis adopted Urdu as a shared language to be spoken by the entire nation along with other regional languages spoken in different regions of the country.

He mentioned that archaeological sites are the signposts of history that predate Pakistan. Although, Pakistan as a territorial unit came into existence in 1947 but its geography is archaic having sites like Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, Mehargarh and Taxila. We have lots of archaeological sites to explain our heritage.

There are traces of ancient civilizations into our contemporary life, Dr Tarar noted. Utensils present in Taxila Museum used 3000 years ago are still used by the people in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The material culture of archaeological sites still resonates in our daily life.

There is a sense of unity and Pakistan can employ these archaeological sites to promote tourism and boost its prehistoric heritage. Anybody visiting here can clearly see a Muslim country, responsibly custodian of Bhuddist, Hindu, Jain, Christian religious sites and monuments, he said. Just to conclude, we have a lot to promote our cultural diversity and image across the globe as a peace loving society and to erase the imprints of an extremist society and nail nefarious propaganda of our enemies.