The Cultural Profile of Pakistan

A culture is a set of shared values, emotions, attitudes, symbols and modes of thinking and evaluation that characterize people. Usually, the culture of people is expressed in a language and its dialects in oral and written forms. Sometimes, even the script used by the people comes to be associated with their cultural identity. The roots of culture are varied but a mixture of fact and fiction, history and folklore, song and music, romantic and heroic epics, the art of oral storytelling and fiction writing, and standards of beauty and aesthetics can broadly be described as the culture of people.

A culture takes a long time to evolve and, in the process, acquires distinctive traits; it is nearly always changing but may appear to be still and static to insiders as well as to casual observers. Moreover, notwithstanding its palpable presence in the lives of people, culture is nebulous and vague. Within a culture there are several sub-cultures and within them are different social classes and ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, there are some constant variables in a culture which define its peculiar traits and characteristics. Most centrally it is language which is considered the core factor in the identification, demarcation and classification of cultures. However, some writers may take an ideological stand on this issue and assert that religion is, and should be, the key determinant of culture.

It can be argued that intellectuals and the intelligentsia of a society enjoy great advantage in shaping and expressing the national culture associated with the modern state. The state and its institutions ensure that cultural production conforms to the official national identity and ideology. The entertainment industry which includes cinema and television channels is expected and advised to reflect a distinctive national culture.

However, beyond the purview of the state is folk culture of the masses which often contains a richer and more diverse collective historical memories. It is the vast reservoir in which customs and traditions handed down from the past generations can still be found in pristine, unadulterated form despite ongoing changes taking place because of rapid social mobility and urbanization.

One can argue that in Pakistan, there is a state-based official culture strongly emphasizing common religion and the Urdu language as the hallmarks of Pakistani identity. It is disseminated through government institutions, the educational system and the mass media. A host of other symbols and practices are cultivated to project the distinctive national cultural identity of Pakistan.

On the other hand, in the four provinces of Pakistan cultural identity is expressed spontaneously in the spoken form in the vernacular languages and their dialects in day-to-day life. Equally, the Urdu-speaking migrants who left India to settle in Pakistan represent another cultural variant. While Punjabi-speaking Pakistanis are rarely literate in written Punjabi, among Sindhis, a great literature is produced in the Sindhi language. Rates of literacy in Pashto, Balochi and Brauhi are not high but there is no doubt that the vast majority of Pakistanis converse with one another in their native languages. One can add that tribal, neo-feudal and urban types of cultural forms co-exist in Pakistan.

It means that beyond the state-level cultural identity, Pakistanis represent many other cultural identities. In one sense, such diversity has been given constitutional recognition by declaring Pakistan to be a federation. The federating units are not merely administrative entities but represent linguistic differences and the concomitant cultural diversity. Under the circumstances, the practical approach to appreciating Pakistani culture is to acknowledge that it is multifaceted and let people freely express their emotions and thoughts freely in whatever language and dialect they are comfortable in, while the state maintains channels for inducting them in the political community by conferring on them equal political rights to vote and contest public office. In other words, the state-based cultural identity must provide scope for people freely to enjoy their other cultural identities on the individual and community levels.