Pakistan / Edition 2

by Khavar Mumtaz, Yameema Mitha, Bilquis Tahira

Overview

This outstanding series provides concise and lively introductions to countries and the major development issues they face. Packed full of factual information, photographs and maps, the guides also focus on ordinary people and the impact that historical, economic and environmental issues have on their lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780855984960
Publisher:	Oxfam Publishing
Publication date:	06/28/2003
Series:	Oxfam Country Profiles Series
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	72
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.75(h) x 0.19(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The land

Pakistan is bordered by Iran and Afghanistan on the west, China on the north, India on the east, and the Arabian sea on the south. It is separated from Tajikistan, one of the Central Asian Republics of the former Soviet Union, by a thin strip of Afghan territory in the north-west. The land is geographically diverse, including snow-capped mountains, plateaux, rivers, flood and arid plains, a variety of forests, deserts, lakes, swamps and a stretch of coastline.

Mountains cover more than half of the country's surface area, with three of the highest mountain ranges in the world: the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and the Karakoram, which rise above 8000 metres. These formidable mountain barriers are broken by passes which have acted as gateways to invaders, armies, refugees, fugitives, and nomads, from time immemorial to the present day.

Climatic conditions throughout the country are very varied. While some parts of the regions get as little as 250mm of rain, others, such as north-east Punjab, receive as much as 1000mm when the monsoon winds blow from July to September. Temperatures are similarly wide-ranging, from -25°C at the highest elevations in winter, to over 50°C in parts of Sindh and Baluchistan during the' summer months.

The other prominent physical feature is the 3200km long Indus River, traversing the entire length of the country, rising in the northern Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountains, and fed by five major tributaries. The river supports the country's complex irrigation system, the largest in the world, providing silt-enriched waters to the agricultural plains of Punjab and Sindh, before finally emptying out into the Arabian Sea.

The Indus

The Indus, cradle of ancient civilisations, has shaped the lives of the people living on its banks. The Indus valley cultures (2500BC to 1700BC) represent the first organised urban settlements in the world. Culture, art, and architecture flowered. Sophisticated irrigation systems and the first forms of writing were part of these early civilisations.

The Indus delta, covering some 3000 square miles, used to be extremely fertile. Thick mangrove forests fringed the coastline, there was a vast variety of marine life, and fishing communities prospered. Much of the area has been affected by the construction of dams during the last 50 years designed to harness the waters of the Indus and its tributaries. Large tracts of desert lands became fertile, but at the same time the water flow to the sea was drastically reduced, changing the ecosystem and of the delta and destroying the livelihoods of the people that depended on it.

Deserts and plateaux

The Thar and Cholistan deserts in the Sindh and south of Punjab bordering India are marked by very low and erratic rainfall. But when the rains come, the deserts, particularly the Thar in Sindh, blossom into a veritable paradise.

There is a famous saying which is on every Thari's lips: 'Munjho muluk malir' ('My land is a paradise'). The phrase originated from a legend about Marvi, a beautiful woman from the Thar desert. She was kidnapped and carried off by Prince Omar, and during her long years of captivity and exile, he would taunt her about her continual longing to return to her desert land, and she would always reply 'Munjho muluk malir'.

The Potwar Plateau in northern Punjab and the arid, sparsely populated Baluchistan Plateau to the south-west, also suffer from acute water shortages. Various indigenous methods were developed to store water. The most successful was a system of underground irrigation tunnels, karez, used in Baluchistan, which minimised water loss through evaporation. Tradition relates that some of the tunnels still in use were functioning when Alexander the Great arrived in this area. Many of the karez are now in a bad state of repair, but engineers are examining the system with a view to renewing it.

CHAPTER 2

The four provinces

Pakistan now consists of four provinces: Punjab (63.9m people), Sindh (25.8m), Baluchistan (5.8m), and the North West Frontier Province (14.9m) In addition, there is the tribal belt (Federally Administered Tribal Areas, FATA), which for most purposes is treated as part of NWFP; and the disputed areas of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Agency (total 3.5m).

Punjab is traditionally the most prosperous and dominant province. It is the main recruiting ground for the army and home for most of the big financiers and industrialists. Punjab is also the agricultural heartland of the country and pioneer of the green revolution. Most of Punjab's farms are owner operated, although there is a feudal belt in the south of the province where tenant farmers are in the majority.

The feudal structure in Sindh remains much more intact than elsewhere in the country, with half of farms being run by tenants. The large landlords (vaderas) dominate their areas and can still command tributary labour. One consequence of feudalism is violence and insecurity, when vaderas give protection to robber bands (dacoits) that terrorise the area. Karachi, the largest conurbation in Pakistan, is in Sindh. It is now a city of about 9 million, and beset by all the problems of an overstretched urban infrastructure: pollution, overcrowding, poor services, ethnic violence, and crime.

Baluchistan is the largest yet most sparsely populated province, consisting predominantly of vast deserts and rough pastures. It is a largely tribal society, and the struggle between the Baloch and Pushtoon tribes for control periodically erupts into violence. The province is economically and socially underdeveloped. The arid conditions make sustainable agriculture difficult.

NWFP and FATA fall somewhere between Baluchistan and the rest of the country in terms of economic and social development, although their social structure is much closer to that of Baluchistan. The south of the province includes a canal-irrigated zone, dominated by small farmers, not unlike northern Punjab. The rest of the province is mainly mountainous, with rangelands and rain-fed agriculture, or small-scale irrigation. NWFP is also a tribal society, and 68 per cent of the farms are owner operated. There is a shortage of employment and resources for the expanding population. Deforestation is a serious environmental problem.

The people: an ethnic mix

The riverine plains are home to the majority of Pakistan's people, the Punjabis and the Sindhis; the Pathan tribes live in the north-western mountainous region; and the smaller but distinct nationalities (the Kalash and the people of Chitral, Gilgit, and Hunza) live in the extreme north. The Baluch and some Pathans live on the Baluchistan Plateau, and the Seraiki-speaking people in the south of Punjab. The Punjabis, including the Seraiki speakers, constitute roughly 55 per cent of the population, Sindhis 20 per cent, Pathans 10 per cent, muhajirs (those who migrated from India at the time of independence in 1947) 7 per cent, and the Baluch about 5 per cent. There are also several sub-groups, such as the Brohis of Sindh and Baluchistan, the Seraiki speakers of Punjab, the Hindko speakers of the Frontier, and the Persian speaking Hazaras of Baluchistan, who consider themselves ethnically distinct. All these distinct peoples represent a wide variety of culture, language, dress, art, and literature.

CHAPTER 3

A turbulent history

Pre-historic beginnings

Human history in Pakistan goes back to the stone age. Relics of the earliest stone-age man (500,000 to 100,000 years ago) have been found in northern Punjab. The Baluchistan Plateau culture, developing later (4000 BC to 2000 BC), extended to Iran. This was the precursor to the Indus valley civilisation (2,500 BC to 1700 BC), one of the earliest examples of organised urban settlement. This agrarian civilisation, the largest in the ancient world, stretched along the Indus river and its tributaries from the Himalayan foothills to the Arabian Sea. Excavations have revealed well-planned cities in Harappa (Punjab), Mohenjodaro (Sindh), and other sites in lower Sindh.

Since those first Dravidian settlers of the Indus Valley, successive waves of Aryan migrants from Central Asia came to this region. Alexander of Macedonia invaded with his armies in 327-326 BC, defeating local rulers on his journey from Gandhara, in the north of the region, to the south and west. Though Alexander stayed only for two years, the influence of Greek culture endured much longer. A Hindu dynasty, the Mauryans, succeeded Alexander (325 BC–185 BC) and founded the first Hindu Empire. Ashoka, a later Mauryan king, adopted Buddhism, the new religion flowering in the Indian sub-continent, and Gandhara became the centre of Buddhism. Traces of a fusion of Greek, Central Asian, Indian, and indigenous cultures can still be seen in the ruins of Taxila city, in the Kalash valley, Gilgit, and Peshawar.

By the seventh century AD, Buddhism declined completely and Hinduism became the dominant religion. Around this time the Arabs, who had trade and commerce links going back for centuries, came for the first time as conquerors (712 AD). By 724 AD they had established direct rule in Sindh. Muslim rule, finally consolidated under the Mughals, continued over most of India until 1761. By this time, European trading companies, Portuguese, British, French, and Dutch, had become well-established in the sub-continent and were spreading their political influence.

Colonial encounter

The land that is now Pakistan has always been a passage through which outsiders came and conquered the rest of India. The fertile plains of Punjab in particular were attractive to successive groups of invaders. In the period between 1798 and 1818, the British had managed not only to oust their fellow-European competitors, but to transform themselves from traders to an imperial power that had established indirect rule over most of the region. British power was challenged by many Indians – landlords, petty rulers, and nominal princes – in an organised resistance in 1857. This is known as the 'War of Independence' in Indian and Pakistani versions of history, and 'The Indian Mutiny' in the British version. The resistance was crushed, India was declared a colony of Britain, and direct rule imposed.

The impact of the British on the Indian sub-continent has been very deep. They brought with them a world-view based on their experience of the industrial revolution. They introduced changes in social and economic structures, and in systems of production, which served British interests and were not always in harmony with local needs: the shift to cash crops like cotton to provide for the British textile industry; the resettlement of large numbers of people from other areas; and the breakdown of subsistence agricultural systems. Railways were built, for moving agricultural raw material and other goods for the British markets, which made people more mobile than ever before.

Such modernisation brought tremendous social changes in a very short period of time. The British introduced new systems of revenue collection, legal procedures, forms of education, civil services, and politics, which in turn affected social relationships. The powers of traditionally dominant groups were reduced, and a new class of professionals (doctors, lawyers, and teachers) emerged that modelled itself on the British.

During the political struggles that took place under British rule, new ideas of democracy, freedom, and nationalism developed, which were to provide models for the systems and institutions of governance after Independence that continue to be followed to this day.

CHAPTER 4

Pakistan's cultural heritage

As an area with a turbulent history k the meeting place of many cultures, Pakistan's traditions are rich and varied. The constant influx of settlers, traders, and invaders from Persia, India, China, Turkey, Greece and Afghanistan, have all left their mark on the art, crafts, architecture, dance, music, and literature of Pakistan.

Language

Linguistically Pakistan is a heterogeneous country, although all the languages now share variants of the Arabic-Persian script and alphabet. Urdu is the official language, developed during the Mughal times to serve as a common language for their eclectic army. Because it was primarily the language of the educated Muslims of northern India at the time of Independence, Urdu became strongly associated with Muslim nationalism. English is used along with Urdu for official business and in some parts of the education system. In most of Pakistan, it is the language of the elite and upwardly mobile.

Urdu has become politicised over the years. Mother tongue to the migrants from northern India (muhajirs), it has become their symbol of identity. Despite some resentment against it, Urdu has developed, and remains the language of literature and poetry. Some of the most sophisticated as well as popular poetry is written in Urdu, and the majority of newspapers, magazines, and books are published in that language.

While Punjabi, the mother tongue of the majority of the population, is not read by many people, due to difficulties with the script, Sindhi, written in a variant of Arabic, is the most developed among the regional languages of the country. It is rich in both language and literature, although Sindhi culture in Pakistan suffered considerably at Independence, when most of the educated, middle-class Sindhis, who were Hindus, migrated to India. Since a large number of Urdu-speaking migrants from India settled in the cities of Sindh, the movement for the promotion of Sindhi language and culture has been expressed in opposition to Urdu. This has led to conflict, in 1972 when language riots occurred after the government decision to grant special status to Sindhi language in the province.

Pashto, the dominant language of the NWFP, has a rich oral tradition. In the province of Baluchistan the prominent languages are Balochi and Brahui. One of the main dialects of Balochi is called Makrani, from the city of Makran near the border of Iran. Brahui is the only Pakistani language of Dravidian origin.

CHAPTER 5

A land of poetry

Every Pakistani is a poet. Man, woman or child, literate or illiterate, Brahui or Urdu speaking, nearly everyone has composed a few verses some time in their lives. A Pakistani poet may be an old Baluch out grazing her animals in the desolation of majestic mountains, a fisherman singing in the starry night in a boat far out at sea, a Pashtun with his gun slung over his shoulder, a brick-kiln worker at a union meeting, a young college girl serious and romantic, a clerk in a musty office, a rickshaw driver painting his verses on his vehicle, village women at a wedding party, a devotee at a saint's shrine, a Sindhi farmer at a kutcheri (talking together in the evening), a villager at a tanzeem meeting, or a poet at a mushaira (a poetry reading session where a candle is passed from person to person as they read their verse).

Some people may be too shy to recite their own poetry to you, but everyone will launch into verses by the well-known poets in the course of ordinary conversation. Poetry is set to music in the form of the ghazal, where the music is subservient to the words. In a mushaira, or a ghazal concert, the audience will applaud the verses they like best, and the poet or performer will repeat them. Mushairas, formal or informal, impromptu sessions with friends, are a favourite activity for Pakistanis.

There is a national festival to celebrate the birthday of the late Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Pakistan's greatest poet. After the death of a young woman poet, Parveen Shakir, in a car accident recently, a national day of mourning was declared.

Pakistani poets have been in the political forefront of the fight against oppression, and even those who do not agree with them politically will savour the flavour and quality of their poetry.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Pakistan"
by .
Copyright © 2003 Oxfam GB.
Excerpted by permission of Oxfam Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Introduction, 3,
The land, 4,
The four provinces, 8,
A turbulent history, 12,
Pakistan's cultural heritage, 14,
A land of poetry, 16,
The birth of Pakistan, 22,
Pakistan and its neighbours, 27,
Islam and Islamisation, 32,
Economy and development, 38,
Women in a changing society, 45,
Bounding population, 49,
Health services in Pakistan, 51,
Pakistan's environmental problems, 53,
NGOs in Pakistan, 59,
Up-date: events in Pakistan since 1996, 60,
Facts and figures, 69,
Further reading, 70,
Oxfam in Pakistan, 71,