The Ethnic Groups of Pakistan.  Pakistan occupies the Indus River Valley and its hinterland, and it is culturally divided between north and south.   Cultural diversity in Pakistan focuses around ethnicity, language, social class, and gender, and ethnicity and language correlate and re-enforce each other.  It is a country fraught with ethnic differences that divide the country politically, and there are major areas of the country where the central government has little or no control.  Since Pakistan has only existed a few decades, it lacks the cultural identity and integration of India which has been built up over centuries.  The centrifugal pull of its powerful tribal groups works against the national identity of Pakistan.  Some Indians suggest that their threat as a giant neighbor is the only factor that keeps the fragmented Pakistan together as a country, a claim that engenders anger on the part of Pakistanis.  The principal ethnic groups are regionally based, and they are Punjabi, Pakhtun, Sindhi, and Balochi.  The Punjabis live in the northeast of the country along the border with India, and they control the government.  The Pakhtuns are more rural and live in the mountainous areas along the long western border with Afghanistan where the central government has little presence.  The Sindhi live in the south and east in the plains of Sindh which border India.  The Balochi live in the southwest hill country near the border with Iran and Afghanistan, and they are a more remote group.  Pakistanis also have strong social class divisions within their society, but they use the term qaum, rather than caste, to refer to it.  The Indian term caste is based in the Hindu religion which Pakistanis do not share, and the term qaum has a kinship overtone more in keeping with Muslim beliefs.  Qaum identity is also based on hereditary occupations like castes.
The major languages of Pakistan belong to the Indo-European language family, and they mostly coincide with the major ethnic groups.  Fifty-nine percent of  Pakistanis are Punjabi and speak that language or a variant of it, 14 percent are Pakhtuns, 12 percent Sindhis, 7.7 percent Muhajirs (Muslims immigrants from India at partition) and 4.3 percent Balochi.  The other 3 percent of the population come from smaller groups.  Each of these groups speak their own ethnic language.  Urdu is the official national language, and it is a language that developed during the Mughal Empire. Urdu symbolizes the great Muslim past in South Asia, and it is commonly used by educated Pakistanis regardless of their ethnic origin.  Urdu is the primary language spoken by Muhajirs.  English is the de facto national language, and it is also spoken by many of the elite.  The use of English is a carry over from the British colonial period on the subcontinent.  Although the Punjabis are the dominant group, the other groups are quite independent in their regional/ethnic strongholds.  The national government at times has only tenuous control of the outlying ethnic regions.
Religious differences also contribute to the cultural diversity of Pakistan although 97 percent of the people are Muslim, making it one of the most Muslim countries in the world.  While most Pakistanis are Sunnis (77 percent), a significant minority is Shi’ite (20 percent).  The mystical Sufi branch of Islam is also important, and it is known for using altered states of consciousness and achieve a unity with the supernatural.  One technique to produce an altered state of consciousness is a spinning meditative dance which they use to create a spiritual focus on God.  A small minority (3 percent) of Christians, Hindus, and others make up the remaining population.  Among the Muslims there are also subgroups like the Zikris among the Balochi who are considered to be heretics by the majority.  Violent Muslim groups are known for persecuting members of smaller religious groups whether they be Muslim, Hindu, or Christian.  Prominent leaders of the smaller groups are occasionally kidnaped and/or assassinated.  Bombings of churches, temples, or shrines of other groups are not unknown. 
Punjabi.  The Punjabi ethnic group is located in the east central part of Pakistan and is the dominant area of the country.  Punjabi identity is rooted in the networks of family and friendship that characterize their society.  The individual is a member of a corporate family network in which everything is shared, income, house, social and business connections, or political influence.  Punjabi society is a series of circles of sharing that bind it together.  Punjabis dominate the Pakistani government, civil service, and military, and that control causes tension with the other ethnic groups.  The sharpest ethnic conflict in the country is between the Punjabis and theSindhis.  Punjabis dominate in northern Pakistan, and the Sindhis in the south.  Punjabis are also an important group in India.  The original capital of Pakistan was Karachi, which is the largest city, and also located in the south in Sindhi territory.  Later, the Punjabis used their influence to move it to Islamabad in the north in their territory, a move that the Sindhis resented.

Sindhi.  The area of the Sindhi is a largely agricultural region in the south of Pakistan, and it is the most conflictive zone in the country.  The conflicts are directed against the Punjabis from the north and the seven million Muhajirs who migrated into the region during the partition from India.  During the British colonial period, Hindus and Sikhs dominated the commercial life of this region, but they left during the partition returning to Hindu India.  The Urdu speaking Muhajirs soon took their places in business and the professions, especially in Kariachi which is Pakistan’s port and largest city.  Sindhi people remained the dominate force in other cities in the region, but the lines of conflict were drawn.  Sindh became an ethnic battlefield as kidnaping and violence spread.  The violence is directed not only against the Muhajirs but also against foreigners and religious minorities (the few remaining Hindus, minority Muslim groups, or Christians). 
Pakhtun.  The Pakhtuns live along the long mountainous border with Afghanistan and basically ignore the international boundaries.   They are one of the largest tribal groups in the Muslim world, and their identity is primarily tribal, not national.  In recent decades the Pakhtuns have joined the military and police force of Pakistan in large numbers, and many have become bus and truck drivers.  Much like pastoral peoples in other Asian countries, the horse loving Pakhtuns have taken to the steeds of the mechanical world, the bus and truck, for their new occupations. 
Pakhtun behavior is centered around a male code of conduct in which honor is the central value.  Family honor focuses on the strength of the men and the chastity of the women.  A man can have honor only if all of his women relatives are respected as pure, including mother, wife, sisters, and daughters.  If an illicit sexual relationship is discovered, both the man and woman must be killed to restore the honor of the male relatives of the woman.  Even if the man and woman flee, they are tracked down and killed.  Revenge killing is required to cleanse the contamination of sexual impropriety.  Murdering an individual normally leads to a vendetta, but killing in the case of a sexual affair does not require revenge.

Pakhtun society is egalitarian, and tribal leaders are said to be the first among equals.  All men must be given equal respect to avoid insult and the risk of a feud.  Men who are landowners have the right to sit in on the tribal council or jirga to decide matters of interest for the group, and the opinion of each man must be honored.  Related to this practice of equality is the principle of hospitality.  Pakhtuns are expected to offer food and lodging to any fellow tribal member who needs it, even if the person is an enemy.  Hospitality is an extension of the code of honor because a person gains honor by hosting others, and they take on the responsibility of protecting them while they are a guest. 
Balochi.  The Balochi are the smallest of the major ethnic groups in Pakistan, and they live in an arid inhospitable land bordering on Afghanistan and Iran.  Much like their Pakhtun cousins to the north, the Balochis have a strong code of personal honor and value hospitality shown toward others.  Balochi social and political organization is focused around a strong leader, a hakim, who holds people together in groups that depend on his protection.  The hakim rewards loyalty with his largess.  Although this was primarily a military organization in the past, it has become largely political today.  The dominance of a central strong leader is a theme that runs through politics and social organization in most of the Muslim world, and it is evident among the Balochi.
  This land is so harsh that no invading group ever successfully crossed it, and it even was the downfall of Alexander the Great.  The Pakhtuns say that this was where God dumped all of the garbage after the creation which is a comment not only on the land but on their neighbors who inhabit it.  Their life is organized around the few rivers in the area and the oases, and this has remained one of the poorest areas of Pakistan.  Living in such a remote arid area means that the Balochi have had considerable autonomy from the central government like the mountain dwelling Pakhtuns to the north.  It has also led on occasion to insurgency movements aimed at breaking away from Pakistan. 

Minority Groups and Fragmentation in Pakistan.  Although Pakistanis are mostly Sunnis, there are splinter groups, such as the Zikris and Ahmadis.  The later follow the teachings of Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, a rival prophet to Muhammad.  They believe that his teachings are a later and more complete revelation than those of Muhammad.  They live in the coastal area and in Karachi, and they are a tightly organized group who tend to marry among themselves.  They are considered heretics by the majority Sunni who persecute them with some regularity as reported by Amnesty International.   The Ahmadis are known for their high rates of literacy, and the first Nobel Prize winner from the Muslim world was an Ahmadi from Pakistan, Dr. Abdus Salam, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1979.
Pakistan is fragmented by ethnic and religious differences that make national unity difficult to attain.  Politics are organized around ethnic identities more than policy-based political parties which accentuate the pre-existing fault lines.  Since the Punjabis dominate the government, the other ethnic groups feel alienated from national politics.  Regional inequities in economic development further contribute to the differences.  Like many of the new Muslim countries around the world, the internal ethnic divisions in Pakistan are so strong that they have impeded the regular functioning of democratic institutions during its first half century of existence.  Although it was established as a parliamentary democracy, military rulers have governed as much as elected leaders have.  Many people in the military view the civilian politicians as corrupt and inept, so the rule of democracy is still unstable.
Ethnicity in Bangladesh.  Bangladesh is relatively homogeneous ethnically, in contrast to the fragmentation of Pakistan.   Ninety-eight percent of the people are Bengali, and of those 83 percent are Muslim and 16 percent Hindu.  Many Hindus remained in Bangladesh after independence, in contrast to Pakistan where almost all left.  Although the Islamic way of life is protected by the constitution, Muslims in Bangladesh have been accommodating to people of other faiths.  The Muslim way of life here had a unique development because Buddhist and Hindu cultural elements were retained after the conversion to Islam.  Although there are religious conflicts, they are less intense here than in Pakistan or the Indian border with Pakistan.

Bangladeshis are culturally related to Hindu Bengali people in cuisine, dress, and work patterns.  Three-quarters of the population is rural and agricultural, and life is organized around the family and village.  In contrast to the Hindu Bengalis, caste divisions are not important.  Social class distinctions have been increasingly functional and fluid in recent decades as the new political and commercial classes have emerged following independence.  As Hindus and Pakistanis left the country in successive waves, opportunities were presented for Bangladeshis in land ownership, government, and commerce.
The greatest cultural divide in Bangladesh follows gender lines.  This is a patrilineal society, but the links between women are also important and moderate male authority.  Marriages are normally arranged by the families, and only in the case of a woman from the educated elite can she participate in the marriage decision.  People know each other only slightly at the time of their marriage, and women normally go to live with the man’s family.  Purdah is still practiced, but the degree to which it is practiced varies according to social class and education.  The more conservative families still require full seclusion of women and use of the veil from the time of puberty, and women may even inhabit separate quarters within the house.  Those who follow purdah wear a veil or a burka (complete covering) outside of the house.  Rural women who work in the fields do not wear the veil in their home village, but they do when they travel.  The separation of men and women into separate work groups is common all though Bangladeshi society from rural farm workers to the internationally educated professional elite in the cities.  Bangladeshi women have been active in the international women’s movement to gain equal rights and participation in the national society.

Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia:
Muslim Axis in South Asia

One-half of all Muslims in the world live in these four countries.  Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia have been politically stable since their formation as nation-states in recent decades, but Pakistan has had a land in turmoil with ethnic, economic, and political strife.  Economic development between these four is uneven with Malaysia enjoying the industrial and services boom of the Southeast Asian countries while the Bangladesh economy is primarily limited to small-scale agriculture.
Pakistan and Bangladesh. These two countries were originally part of India, but when the region gained its independence from Great Britain in 1947, they split off.  Indian independence leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi and J. Nehru, wanted to create a united, pluralistic India, but the Muslim leaders, such as Rahmat Ali and Muhammad Jinnah, did not share that vision.  As independence approached in 1947, many Muslims left the Hindu provinces and migrated into Pakistan or Bangladesh, and Hindus migrated the other way.  Fighting ensued, and nearly 500,000 people were killed in the violence.  Three wars were fought in the first twenty-four years of independence, and the third war in 1971 led to Bangladesh breaking away from Pakistan and forming a separate country.   
Although most Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are Sunni Muslims, the two countries are quite different from each other in other aspects.  Pakistan is a wealthier country located to the west of India and culturally tied to Afghanistan and Iran.  On the other hand, Bangladesh is on the east of India occupying the delta of the Ganges River as it empties into the Bay of Bengal.  Bangladeshis have more cultural affinities with Bengalis in India.  Although their populations are similar in size (150 million and 140 million), Bangladesh has only 17 percent of the land area of Pakistan, and it has a serious problem of overcrowding.  These two countries have the second and third largest Muslim populations in the world.  Both are predominantly agricultural, but Pakistan is more arid and mountainous and Bangladesh flat and wet.

Pakistan was historically a part of India, and the earliest Indian civilization occurred in the Indus River valley which is now the backbone of Pakistan.  It broke away from India in 1947 at the time of Independence from the United Kingdom.  Since the British decided to withdraw suddenly from India, the separation of the two countries occurred violently rather than through negotiations.  The unsatisfactory split left largely Muslim Kashmir in India, and the two countries have fought three wars over territorial disputes since then.  Pakistan is divided between harsh, almost impassable deserts, remote, dense mountain areas, and the Indus River valley.  The country is sharply divided along ethnic lines between the Punjabi in the north, the Sindhi in the south, the Pakhtun and Balochi on the west, and the Muhajir who live scattered in urban areas.  Pakistan is 97 percent Muslim (77 percent Sunni and 20 percent Shi’ite), and the other 3 percent are Christians, Hindus, and others.  Literacy rates are low (55 percent men and 29 percent women) which limits both economic and political development.
Since Independence, there has been continuing political instability in Pakistan with a succession of military governments interspersed with elected ones.  The governments have swung from mostly secular ones to others leaning toward fundamentalist Islam.  The public schools are weak, and they have been replaced by 30,000 madrassahs, Islamic schools with the Quran as the basic curriculum and rote memory as the learning style.  As a result, even educated Pakistanis have limited access to the information of the larger world.  The influence of the Islamists parties seems to have been growing in Pakistan although historically they have not done well in elections.  Pakistan backed the Taliban in Afghanistan until the United States’ invasion of that country when it shifted to support the Americans, indicating the alternating nature of Pakistani politics.  Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, the same year as India, and many people fear that the continuing conflict between Pakistan and India may lead to a nuclear confrontation.

Bangladesh is a poor country struggling to change.  It is a located in the estuary of the Ganges River as it empties into the Bay of Bengal.  Each year nearly one-third of the country is inundated during the monsoon rains.  It is smaller than Iowa, but it has a population half that of the United States.  Bangladesh is a largely rural, agrarian country, and it is the poorest of the South Asian countries.  After breaking away from India in 1947, it remained a part of Pakistan until 1971 when it broke away from that country and declared itself a separate republic.  Literacy standards are in the middle range for Muslim countries with 63 percent of the men being literate and 49 percent of the women.  Bangala (Bengali) is the official language, but English is also used.  Two-thirds of the people work in agriculture with rice being the most common crop.  The service sector of the economy is also important, but industry is weak.
Indonesia and Malaysia. Indonesia and Malaysia are the other two important Muslim countries in South Asia.  Indonesia is an island nation of 235 million people, the fourth largest population in the world and the most populous Muslim nation.  These islands were known as the spice islands historically, and they were under the colonial control of the Netherlands until World War II.  Like most of the Muslim world this is a relatively new nation state, having existed for fifty years.  The people of Indonesia are Malays and are culturally close to the people of Malaysia and the Malay Peninsula.  Both countries were influenced by the Hindu culture before the arrival of Islam brought by traders during the time of Muslim dominance in India.  Throughout this region today culture is a synthesis of Muslim, Hindu, and local traditions.  The Balinese are famous for their music, refined theater and dance traditions, and visual arts. 
Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago and the world’s most populous Muslim nation.  It gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1949 and organized itself as a republic.   It has 17,000 islands of which 6,000 are occupied.  Indonesia is also one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries, partly the result of its insular nature.   Most Indonesians are Muslim (88 percent), and the largest ethnic group is Javanese (44 percent) although there are many smaller groups.   In this vast, polyglot nation, Bahasa Indonesian (a form of Malay) is the official language, but English and Dutch are also spoken along with many local languages.  Indonesia has one of the highest literacy rates in the Muslim world with 90 percent of the men and 78 percent of the women being literate.
Indonesia has strong Hindu influence culturally, and it has long formed part of the South Asian trading sphere traditionally dominated by India.  Hindu artistic and literary traditions, such as the Ramayana, continue to be important here.  Of all the peoples in the world, the Balinese stand out for their rich artistic heritage.  They are unsurpassed in traditional music and dance performance.  The soft, lyrical sounds of their marimba-like percussion instruments create a poetic cloud of music that infuses the listener with pleasure.  The graceful movements of the dancers with precise head, arm, and hand gestures bring alive a world of fantasy in dance.  The famous shadow puppets of Indonesia are also used to re-enact the classic literary tales of that world.  Indonesians are also extraordinary in the visual arts with wooden sculptures and tie-dyed images in silk that speak of the cultural milieu of South Asia. 
Indonesia and Malaysia have had very different experiences with global capitalism. Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest country, but its economy has historically served the role as a supplier of spices and natural resources to wealthier world areas, originally to China, later to Europe, and more recently to Japan and the United States.  Its wealth is based on agricultural production, oil, and its forests.  Although Indonesia is most famous for its spices, it is also a bread basket for the production of rice.  Along with its modest production of oil, it also has one of the world’s last stands of tropical hardwood forests, which it is now harvesting and exporting.  Indonesia has not become a wealthy society, and the projection for the near future is that it will continue to have an economy based on supplying natural resources to others.

Malaysia is both the smallest and the richest of the Muslim countries of South Asia.  Although it has only twenty-three million people, it has developed a diversified economy with industry, services, agriculture, and tourism.  Its economy puts it among the emerging countries with a capacity to continue growth in the future.  It is a pluralistic society with a cosmopolitan capital, Kuala Lumpur.  Although most of the people are Malays (58 percent), another 24 percent are Chinese, and there are also Indians.  Most of the Malays are Muslim, but many of the Chinese practice Daoism and the Indians Hinduism.  There is an 83 percent literacy rate with a 10 percent difference between men and women.  The official language is Bahasa Melayu, but the various languages of China and India are also spoken in addition to English.  The city-state of Singapore which lies at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula between Malaysia and Indonesia is the international financial and commercial center for this part of the world. 

Economics of the Muslim States of South Asia

The Muslim states of South Asia have modest economies which are heavily agricultural.  The larger agricultural countries are difficult to move toward economic growth.  Although the five have solid growth rates, only Malaysia has a strong economy.  Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh rank low among world nations.

Table 12.1
Economic Indicators for the Muslim States of South Asia

Malaysia is the smallest country and the wealthiest of the region.  It has been quite successful in growing its economy.  Its unemployment rate is the lowest, and it is the only industrialized country in the group.  The percentage of its work force in agriculture is closer to that of wealthy capitalist nations than its neighbors in the region.  Malaysia also stands out for its high Gini ranking, which indicates the high level of inequality in income distribution, perhaps resulting from its rapid economic growth of recent years.

Indicators of Well-Being in Muslim South Asia

The four countries of this region split into two groups.  Indonesia and Malaysia have more mature populations, no out-migration rate, better life expectancy, somewhat lower fertility rates, and higher rates of literacy, especially for women.  Pakistan and Bangladesh are the two poorer countries, and their indicators of well-being are lower on every count.

Table 12.2.
Indicators of Well-Being in India and Muslim South Asia

The median age, fertility rates, and literacy of Indonesia and Malysia indicate their higher socio-economic status, and the stronger position of women.  In contrast, Pakistan and Bangladesh rank low in literacy among countries of the world, and the literacy of women is disastrously low.  Countries with levels of literacy this low do not have the educated people to manage a complex economy.  Discrimination against women in education eliminates an important sector of the society from full participation in it.

Conclusions

The largest concentration of Muslims in the world is in South Asia, and some of the most severe tensions are buried within the tribal and ethnic differences of these populations.  The most dangerous of the divisions is that between Hindus and Muslims within India and between India and Pakistan, and here like in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ethnic identity, religion, and politics are fused.  The flashpoint is Kashmir which the Indians are determined to hold, and the Pakistanis are determined to annex.  The ethno-religious hostilities in this part of the world are more intense than anywhere else.  The threat from these nuclear armed adversaries makes this one of the most dangerous regions of the world.