Pakistan: A Nation Divided

Pakistan's political situation is an ever-changing landscape. Despite sharing the same religion, the population is divided into many different ethnicities, sects of Islam, and languages. Its long, complex history includes invasions since 5000 BC and a variety of governments in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Which is its location? What countries does it border with?
Pakistan is located in South Asia and its borders are Central Asia and the Middle East.

What does the geography say about the country? There are different types of natural features range from the sandy beaches, lagoons, and mangrove swamps of the southern coast to preserved beautiful moist temperate forests and the icy peaks of the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountains in the north. Most areas of Punjab and parts of Sindh are fertile plains where agriculture is of great importance. Climate cold winters and hot summers in the north and a mild climate in the south, moderated by the influence of the ocean.

What is the dominant religion? Which other exist?
Muslims (97%), Sunni Muslims constitute 77 percent of the population and that devotees of Shia Islam make up an additional 20 percent. Christians, Hindus, and members of other religions each account for about 1 percent of the population.

What are the different ethnic groups?
Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtun, Baloch, and Muhajir.

Which ones are the main customs and traditions? Pakistan has a rich and unique culture that has preserved established traditions throughout history. Many cultural practices, foods, monuments, and shrines were inherited from the rule of Muslim Mughal and Afghan emperors. The national dress of shalwar qamiz is originally of Central Asian origin derived from Turko-Iranian nomadic invaders and is today worn in all parts of Pakistan. Women wear brightly coloured shalwar qamiz, while men often wear solid-coloured ones. In cities western dress is also popular among the youth and the business sector.

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How is this his life different from yours?
It is different because I have friends of the opposite sex and there is no problem. I go to parties and I don’t know much about politics as Minhaj does, because when he doesn’t go out with friends he stays in his dorm reading.

Which custom caught your attention?
The custom that caught my attention was that he couldn’t be with girls, even with friends. He also couldn’t be near a friend that had a girlfriend.

How does his religion affect his way of acting?
People know that he is very intelligent, he reads a lot and he is part of the football team, but he goes to parties just to say hello and he leaves. He can’t get along with girls and obviously he can’t have girlfriend. He even describes himself as a geek when he doesn’t go out with friends, and on weekends he goes home.

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Aabharana Dalaja

Religion: Hindu
Ethnicity: Sindhi

How often do you go to a religious service? Where? What happens there?
The vast majority of Hindus engage in religious rituals on a daily basis, most Hindus observe religious rituals at home, but rituals greatly vary among regions, villages, and individuals.
We meditate, but also one of the most important and typical religious action is purification, which is done usually with water.

Do you know anyone of a different religion? How do you get along? I know people from other religions, but I mostly spend time in rituals with hindus.

Do boys and girls hang out socially? Do you go to parties? No. We are not permitted to go out with boys. We have to cover ourselves up. The only parties that we go to are religious and ritual ones.

How many people live in your house? How do you interact?
My dad, my brother and my mother live in my house. My dad and my brother are together most of the time, well when my brother is home from school. My mom and I stay at home doing daily chores.

Who goes to school in your family?
Only my dad went to school. My brother does too, and when I ask my dad why, he tells me that Pakistan has never had a systematic, nationally coordinated effort to improve female primary education, although its poor standing.

How do you dress?
I dress mainly with a sari. Saris come in a whole range of regional styles, and are made from cotton, silk or nylon. There are different regional ways of wearing a sari, although the "nivi" style has become very popular recently. Most women still dress like this. I also wear Shalwar Qameez (dress with trousers) and a Chador on their heads.

Which ones are your daily chores?
Devout Hindus perform daily chores such as worshiping at the dawn after bathing (usually at a family temple, and typically includes lighting a lamp and offering foodstuffs before the images of divinity), recitation from religious scripts, singing devotional hymns, meditation, chanting mantras, reciting scriptures etc.

What does it mean to be belong to your ethnic group? Sindhis are a Sindhi speaking socio-ethnic group of people originating from Sindh, now a province of Pakistan. Sindhis living in Pakistan are predominantly Muslim but there is a significant number of Hindus Sindhis, and a small minority of Christians. Most Hindu Sindhis migrated to India in 1948, following creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan in 1947. These Hindu Sindhis are presently a small but visible minority in India.

Where are your relatives from? From Pakistan, but most of them migrated to India.

Do you hang out with people of other ethnicities? How do you get along? I know a few people. I dont get along with them because I spend more time with Sindhis.

Do you have to marry someone of your same ethnicity? Yes, its a tradition to marry someone from our same ethnicity.

Describe a typical tradition.
An important part of ritual purification in Hinduism is the bathing of the entire body, particularly in rivers considered holy such as the Ganges; it is is considered auspicious to perform this form of purification before any festival, and it is also practised after the death of someone, in order to maintain purity. Although water pollution means that in modern times there is a need for care during bathing in such rivers, the physical impurities within the river do not diminish the attributed power they have to bring ritual purity. Lesser aspects of Hindu purification ritual includeachama achamana - the touching and sipping of pure water while reciting specific mantras - and the application of a tilaka on the forehead.