Does Pakistan have a distinct culture?

[SpiritOf1903]

Does Pakistan have a distinct culture or is it simply a smorgasbord of existing ones more prevalent in India?.

 

[sweep_shot]

I would say yes.

Every country has a distinct culture.

Even regions within a country have distinct cultures.

 

[rockyboy2018]

It is a mixture of Indian and Arab culture but no local culture. Our cuisine is highly influenced by Indian cuisine, useless Indian traditions, and customs. Also, hygiene standards when it comes to cooking food in shops are again influenced by Indians. As for religion, Pakistan treats Saudiarabia as a Godsend country and people like to visit that country once in life in order to clean off their sins so that they can start doing them again. In a nutshell, that is Pakistan. Anything related to science, research, education, rules&laws, manners, respect is unheard of.

 

[Itachi]

It is a mixture of Indian and Arab culture but no local culture. Our cuisine is highly influenced by Indian cuisine, useless Indian traditions, and customs. Also, hygiene standards when it comes to cooking food in shops are again influenced by Indians. As for religion, Pakistan treats Saudiarabia as a Godsend country and people like to visit that country once in life in order to clean off their sins so that they can start doing them again. In a nutshell, that is Pakistan. Anything related to science, research, education, rules&laws, manners, respect is unheard of.

India itself has a distinct culture from state to state. So Pakistan is influenced by which states culture?

 

[rockyboy2018]

Delhi, Bihar, allahabad etc

 

[HappyWarsFan]

India itself has a distinct culture from state to state. So Pakistan is influenced by which states culture?

North Indian states.

 

[HappyWarsFan]

No we don't. Just basically Indian culture.

 

[gani999]

It is a mixture of Indian and Arab culture but no local culture. Our cuisine is highly influenced by Indian cuisine, useless Indian traditions, and customs. Also, hygiene standards when it comes to cooking food in shops are again influenced by Indians. As for religion, Pakistan treats Saudiarabia as a Godsend country and people like to visit that country once in life in order to clean off their sins so that they can start doing them again. In a nutshell, that is Pakistan. Anything related to science, research, education, rules&laws, manners, respect is unheard of.

Pakistan and India were one country not too long ago. My parents were born even before Pakistan came into being, and I'm not yet 50.

You are not influenced by Indians, you are one of them. Only the colour of the passport is different.

And as for science, technology and education, India isn't doing too badly for a developing country. One wonders why Pakistan has chosen not to be 'influenced' by this aspect?

 

[Gharib Aadmi]

I would say at a broad level Pakistani culture is most similar to the Muslim culture of North India. Punjab and Sindh where the majority of Pakistanis live can be seen as historically part of the same region as North India. However in this region the biggest divide is not ethnicity, its religion.

A Kashmiri Hindu will have more in common with a Sindhi Hindu than he will have in common with a Kashmiri Muslim. And vice versa. Same with Punjabis, Urdu/Hindi Speakers, etc, they will have more in common with some of their own religion from this region, than a person of another religion who speaks the same language as them.

And the reason for this divide is that Muslims and Hindus look at different events in subcontinent history for inspiration.

Hindu culture naturally takes more inspiration from the the pre-islamic heritage of the subcontinent. An example would be that so many Sanskrit phrases are used in India, whether its universities, courts, armed forces. And thats why even the most liberal Hindu such as Nehru choose the satyameva jayate as the national motto. Persian language was in the subcontinent for 1,000 years but most Hindus would not care about that.


On the other hand Muslim culture of this region is a mix of subcontinent culture with elements of Persian/Central Asian culture. From the architecture, cuisine, clothing, language its a mix of different cultures. They dont mind this mixing, and dont want to erase the last 1,000 years of their culture. As an example Urdu has its grammar from Sanskrit, but it takes so much of its vocabulary from Persian. Especially whats considered good Urdu. Which is why the Pakistani anthem uses so many Persian words.

With this said their is no need for Hindus and Muslims to be enemies. As Sir Syed said

India is a beautiful bride and Hindus and Muslims are her two eyes. ... If one of them is lost, this beautiful bride will become ugly.

 

[HappyWarsFan]

Pakistan and India were one country not too long ago. My parents were born even before Pakistan came into being, and I'm not yet 50.

You are not influenced by Indians, you are one of them. Only the colour of the passport is different.

And as for science, technology and education, India isn't doing too badly for a developing country. One wonders why Pakistan has chosen not to be 'influenced' by this aspect?

This is kinda true. For example, my grandparents were born in Delhi and we have roots to Uttar Pradesh. Then just moved over to Pakistan when it was made. So in reality z basically Indian ethnicity but in a different nationality.

 

[amax]

Pakistan is land consisting of these regions

Punjab
Sindh
Khyber
Balochistan
Gilgit Baltistan

all people of these regions have folklore relation to land and many unique cultural attributes which are also shared to certain extent by neighbours

but things get complexed here

Urdu speaking elite , from india brought urban north indian mughal culture to pakistan , these are the people who dominated arts and culture aspect of pakistan , punjabis from lahore are also kinda similar. Domination of certain section of Karachi and Lahore histrorically give lopsided view of pakistani culture

 

[ARK Rafay]

What does the question even mean? All cultures are unique but at the same time they are influenced and derived from some other cultures in history.

 

[SpiritOf1903]

Pakistan is land consisting of these regions

Punjab
Sindh
Khyber
Balochistan
Gilgit Baltistan

all people of these regions have folklore relation to land and many unique cultural attributes which are also shared to certain extent by neighbours

but things get complexed here

Urdu speaking elite , from india brought urban north indian mughal culture to pakistan , these are the people who dominated arts and culture aspect of pakistan , punjabis from lahore are also kinda similar. Domination of certain section of Karachi and Lahore histrorically give lopsided view of pakistani culture

It is intriguing that the 'native' cultures of Balochistan, KP and Sindh to an extent are the most marginalised.

 

[PakLFC]

No Pak has it's own culture. There are hardly any Baloch, real Pathans and Sindhis is Pak. Only similarities we have is with their Punjabis otherwise it is all different.

 

[SpiritOf1903]

No Pak has it's own culture. There are hardly any Baloch, real Pathans and Sindhis is Pak. Only similarities we have is with their Punjabis otherwise it is all different.

Punjab itself isn't even a homogeneous culture for there are more historic subcultures like Saraiki and Potohari which are tied to their places of origin far more than the predominant 'Punjabi' of today which is a conflation of communities post-partition heavily influenced by relatively recent oppression by certain types of 'Punjabi' culture.

 

[PakLFC]

Punjab itself isn't even a homogeneous culture for there are more historic subcultures like Saraiki and Potohari which are tied to their places of origin far more than the predominant 'Punjabi' of today which is a conflation of communities post-partition heavily influenced by relatively recent oppression by certain types of 'Punjabi' culture.

Punjabiat is indeed diverse no doubt about that. They other Pak communities are mentioned are hardly seen in India. We can also argue that how much is Saraiki and Pothari spoken in Indian Punjab? They have their own Sikhism inspired Punjabi.

 

[Napa]

Does Pakistan have a distinct culture or is it simply a smorgasbord of existing ones more prevalent in India?.

Given that Punjabis are the large majority of Pakistanis, Punjabi culture has a large influence on Pakistan. I would say that Punjabi culture in India is different from the culture of other Indian states, but more similar to those cultures compared to foreign cultures.

Btw, what does your name "Spirit of 1903" mean? What happened in 1903?

 

[Gharib Aadmi]

You are not influenced by Indians, you are one of them. Only the colour of the passport is different.

I dont think you realize when alot of Pakistanis are saying Indians, they are referring to Hindus. So in that sense Pakistani culture has influence from Hindu culture but their is also influence from Islamic/Persian/Central Asian culture.

Hindus in North India were influenced by Persian/Central Asian culture as well however since 1947 they have choose to remove most of these elements and they want to go back to the culture that existed before Muslims came to the subcontinent. Which is why for Modi and other Hindu Nationalist the Muslim rule is no different than the British one. However Muslims dont want to remove those elements, which lead to a divergence of Hindu and Muslim culture.

From what I have seen, Muslims have no problem when Hindu and Muslim culture diverges. Their is no desire among Muslims for Hindus to assimilate into their culture, nor is their any intellectual curiosity about Hinduism. On the other hand I have seen even so called liberal Hindus have a problem when Muslim and Hindu culture diverges. They seem to think that any divergence is an "identity crisis". They also spend way more time talking about Islam than I have ever seen Muslims talk about Hinduism.

 

[moghul]

No, culture of corruption and nepotism is not limited to Pakistan but thanks to Zardari and Sharifs in particular, Pakistan has left our neighbor behind and has become more "cultural " lately.

IK is being blamed to ruin that culture and making many people , particularly people in my home province of Punjab very uncomfortable. Ah, the culture of muk mukao and sab chalta hey.

 

[sharmaji]

I dont think you realize when alot of Pakistanis are saying Indians, they are referring to Hindus. So in that sense Pakistani culture has influence from Hindu culture but their is also influence from Islamic/Persian/Central Asian culture.

Hindus in North India were influenced by Persian/Central Asian culture as well however since 1947 they have choose to remove most of these elements and they want to go back to the culture that existed before Muslims came to the subcontinent. Which is why for Modi and other Hindu Nationalist the Muslim rule is no different than the British one. However Muslims dont want to remove those elements, which lead to a divergence of Hindu and Muslim culture.

From what I have seen, Muslims have no problem when Hindu and Muslim culture diverges. Their is no desire among Muslims for Hindus to assimilate into their culture, nor is their any intellectual curiosity about Hinduism. On the other hand I have seen even so called liberal Hindus have a problem when Muslim and Hindu culture diverges. They seem to think that any divergence is an "identity crisis". They also spend way more time talking about Islam than I have ever seen Muslims talk about Hinduism.

That is because the so called liberal Hindus have to live and share a country with Muslims and Christians and many others. For all its flaws, India is a multi-cultural country with hundreds of languages and people with different cultures and faiths. One automatically becomes curious to know about the "other" side.

 

[Stewie]

I think our culture is on a very divergent path from India and in another 30/40 years we will have a significantly different culture. Yes we are a young nation so it’s quite natural those who migrated from India brought the culture of their respective states to Pakistan, but even before partition, the four provinces of Pakistan had a unique culture as did/do the Indian states.

In our case, since we are so heavily influenced by other Muslim countries, and now even the west, we are forging our own identity and constantly shifting away from the Indians. It’s quite an organic shift and naturally it’s taking on a different path and will continue to evolve as is expected of young nations/countries.

 

[Colorblind Genius]

After Pakistan came into being, we obviously inherited the Indian culture mostly on the eastern border.
On the Northern n Western side, we have mostly Afghan/Pukhtoon culture that we also inherited.

The question then is, where did we go from there?

Since we were/are a third world country, our culture was automatically bound to be dominated by the culture of those first world countries that are dominant and popular.

So as our culture evolved, we slowly started copying cultural stuff from the west, specially USA, that was borderline OK with our religious and social guidelines in the name of modernism.

IMO,
This actually reflects a sense of having an inferiority complex.

I mean, 25 years ago who would’ve thought that Pakistanis would be celebrating Halloween, and Valentine’s Day?

So I think this trend may continue and we will slowly reach to the level of India when it comes to copy cat the American Cultural stuff. For example, living as unmarried couple.
Since India’s threshold is more liberal, it wasn’t hard for them to copy this from the west.

In Pakistan, some are pushing it hard to break the barriers imposed by religious guidelines. Open kissing n hugging by young couples in the public will make its way. Unmarried couples, and children out of wedlock, short n skimpy western clothing and bikinis on the beach etc will all make their way.

Again, since we are not a dominant and a popular first world country, we will always copy from others to slowly lose our own culture and NEVER be able to fully copy others, or excepted by those who we copy.
(For example, a supposedly modern female in Pak may proudly brag that she has an “American kitchen” at home but she would not mention the embarrassment when she lands onto an American airport, she gets pulled out from the queue for additional checking and strip searching)

Yes, it’s a freedom of choice and folks should be allowed to exercise their freedom of choice. I got nothing against it.

However, we can’t argue much against the old sayin, “Kawwa chala hans ki chaal, apni bhi bhool gaya”

Think about it, why don’t American men wear a Dhoti as a symbol of fashion and modernism? Or why don’t American women wear a sari n loads of heavy 24K jewelry in an effort to look pretty?

To answer the OP, just like everything else, our culture is also evolving.
It’s a mix where we have bits n pieces of the original part that is left, and those bits n pieces are slowing decreasing in intensity n will die.
And we are copying others to make this process faster.

I do sometime laugh at us when it comes to copying west in the name of looking modern, looking fashionable and exercising our right to freedom.

When it comes to copying stuff from western culture, why don’t we copy stuff like,
Disposing our trash in the designated places?
Get to bed early and wake up early?
Obey the basic traffic rules by staying in our lane?
Keep our parks and our public places clean and trash free?
Automatically forming a line/queue wherever n when ever needed?
Avoid land encroachment in the business districts and in front of retail stores?
Care for environment and recycle stuff?

Could these traits become a part of our culture too?

The answer is probably no, and hence we have a general sense of inferiority complex.

 

[Giannis]

It does, Pakistan has its own vibe. I can usually tell Pakistanis apart from Indian just by their vibe and not necessarily by appearance, it's kinda like how you can tell a British person apart from an Australian or a Canadian apart from an American from the south.

 

[Stewie]

It does, Pakistan has its own vibe. I can usually tell Pakistanis apart from Indian just by their vibe and not necessarily by appearance, it's kinda like how you can tell a British person apart from an Australian or a Canadian apart from an American from the south.

25 years ago, as a student at an American university, I could see Americans could not differentiate between Pakistanis and Indians.

Now I feel most of them can.

 

[KB]

I wrote a post last year on how we might characterise some of the cultural influences on Muslims in South Asia and understand changes over the longer run. I re-post here:

Cultures are of course always interacting but in a very broad brush and highly select manner we note the following in relation to four models: Persian, Arab, Western and folk.

Though many increasingly turned to other models, traces of Persian culture have remained in parts of South Asia. Urdu of course draws heavily on Persian vocabulary. Urdu poetry in its images and style can be considered the offspring of Persian poetry. Two of the great Muslim poets of the twentieth century - Iqbal and Faiz - continued to value the ghazal. They did not abandon the tradition as some poets did but reworked it. For Faiz, for example, the suffering ashiq becomes the suffering citizen and the beloved now stands for justice or political revolution. Arguably remnants of the culture also survived in ideas of what it is to be cultured. The love of elevated expression and eloquence, the idea that to speak and behave in a certain way was in someway to convey levels of refinement perhaps owes something to the Persianate norms of comportment. Sufi traditions that draw on Persian culture have also been kept alive by the tradition of qawwali. In the world of painting, the work of the celebrated Pakistani artist, Abdul Rahman Chughtai, was infused by the spirit of Mughal reminiscence.

Seen however through the lens of the ‘moving film,’ Persianate influences have on the whole declined from the nineteenth century onwards. A slow democratisation of political culture brought an end to politics of the darbar. Popular sentiment became more important. The challenge of colonial rule was also significant. For Muslims of upper India, the shock of the aftermath of the Indian rebellion in 1857 prompted many to reconsider where inspiration was to come from.

Many turned to Arab models instead. In the realm of religious knowledge, the Deoband movement placed a greater emphasis on the revealed sciences and less on what had become associated with Persianate culture - rational sciences. Ahmad Raza Khan, the key spirit behind the rival ‘Barelvi’ movement, was a prolific writer of fatwa and on many occasions he presented his fatwa to certain ulama in Mecca and Medina seeking their validation.

In the case of medical knowledge - Unani Tibb - Seema Alavi has argued that from the eighteenth century, medical texts in Arabic became increasingly prevalent. Such texts projected medicine as less of an ‘aristocratic virtue’ as Persian traditions had and more as a science.

In the field of poetry, in the late nineteenth century, Altaf Husayn Hali and Muhammad Husain Azad - amongst others - attacked the Persian heritage for producing poetry that was too ornate and effete, that ultimately failed to inspire action in the ‘real’ world. Hali looked to English and Arab models and it is striking that in his famous Musaddas, according to Christopher Shackle and Javed Majeed, he drew on an unusual Arabic metre.

In the 1970s and 1980s Arab influence became more visible in Pakistan. There was Saudi patronage of religious institutions. There were the growing economic connections as Pakistan sought expansion into new markets following the loss of its Eastern Wing. There were closer diplomatic ties which helped pave the way towards the possession of nuclear weapons. There was the great export of labour to the Gulf and all that meant for interaction with different Islamic cultures. Significant, too, was the orientation of the Zia regime. The impact, we might say, was heard: Regula Burckhardt Qureshi notes, that in the Zia era there was a proliferation of cassettes of Islamic recitation, particularly in the style developed in Egypt. Qureshi also points out that in this era, qawwali began to feature Arabic drum beats and was “recorded in a strongly Arabic pronunciation.”

The influence of the Western models have been no less profound. Colonial rule provided the example of British institutional models. Even the Deobandis who sought to provide an alternative education to Western examples set up their seminaries along the lines of the bureaucratic style of the colonists, as Barbara Metcalf has shown. Professional staff, students taking exams, the presence of a central library were signs of a more professional approach being adopted in place of the more traditionally informal and personal models of education.

Many of course went much further and actively sought to build bridges with the British. English had after all become the language of power. A pioneer of modernism in British India, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, expended considerable energy to argue that the divine message could be reconciled to science and that it was wholly within the ambit of reason. The college he founded at Aligarh, was in the words of Peter Hardy “to produce a class of Muslim leaders with a footing in both Western and Islamic culture, at ease both in British and Muslim society.”

Though modernists remained committed to Islam, many of their opponents criticised them as lacking authenticity and following their Western masters rather too closely. The satirical poet, Akbar Allahabadi, wrote bitingly in one poem:

Chhod literature ko apni history ko bhuul ja
shaikh-o-masjid se taalluq tark kar school ja
char-din ki zindagi hai koft se kya faeda
kha double roti clerki kar khushi se phuul ja

(Leave your literature, forget your history. Abandon the sheikh and the mosque, attend school. Life’s too short, so why vex yourself. Eat English bread, be a clerk, blossom with happiness)

More amorphous, and rooted in local languages are the folk models. To take just the Punjab as an example, the existence of tragic love tales - Heer Ranjha, Sohni Mahiwal, Mirza Sahiban, Sassi Punnhun - and the poetry of Sufis - such as Sultan Bahu and Bullhe Shah - provided a basis of shared cultural values within much of the region.

The Pakistani state searching for a focus for national unity, transcending the local and provincial, has often sought to down play or ignore folk cultures. Folk models have therefore sometimes been turned into a mode of protest. In the paintings of Zainul Abedin, an East Pakistani/Bangladeshi artist, art historian Iftikhar Dadi identified an “abiding concern for the local, the rural, and the folk.” Dadi notes, Abedin’s “choice of motifs” represented a “pointed bypassing of modernisation, protesting the continued underdevelopment and cultural marginalisation of East Pakistan throughout the 1950s and 1960s.”

This is not to say the state has always ignored folk culture. In the era of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, though not without its ambiguities it must be said, more space opened up for imagining Pakistan as a nation grounded in historic and regional cultures. The Bhuttos had themselves been regular visitors at the shrine of Lal Shabaz Qalandar, in Sehwan Sharif. And it was in the seventies that the Lok Virsa in Islamabad was founded. Folk artists - such as Allan Faqir and Mai Bhagi - were also given more airtime on TV.

 

[KB]

The Pakistani state searching for a focus for national unity, transcending the local and provincial, has often sought to down play or ignore folk cultures. Folk models have therefore sometimes been turned into a mode of protest. In the paintings of Zainul Abedin, an East Pakistani/Bangladeshi artist, art historian Iftikhar Dadi identified an “abiding concern for the local, the rural, and the folk.” Dadi notes, Abedin’s “choice of motifs” represented a “pointed bypassing of modernisation, protesting the continued underdevelopment and cultural marginalisation of East Pakistan throughout the 1950s and 1960s.”

This is not to say the state has always ignored folk culture. In the era of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, though not without its ambiguities it must be said, more space opened up for imagining Pakistan as a nation grounded in historic and regional cultures. The Bhuttos had themselves been regular visitors at the shrine of Lal Shabaz Qalandar, in Sehwan Sharif. And it was in the seventies that the Lok Virsa in Islamabad was founded. Folk artists - such as Allan Faqir and Mai Bhagi - were also given more airtime on TV.

In this regard we might also point to the film Maula Jatt (1979), and the rural Punjabi folk genre it represented and shaped. Maula Jatt, the peasant-warrior, wielding a gandasa, talking in a rustic manner, was a very different icon to what appeared in Urdu films and was represented by actors like Nadeem Baig.

 

[Colorblind Genius]

I wrote a post last year on how we might characterise some of the cultural influences on Muslims in South Asia and understand changes over the longer run. I re-post here:

Cultures are of course always interacting but in a very broad brush and highly select manner we note the following in relation to four models: Persian, Arab, Western and folk.

Though many increasingly turned to other models, traces of Persian culture have remained in parts of South Asia. Urdu of course draws heavily on Persian vocabulary. Urdu poetry in its images and style can be considered the offspring of Persian poetry. Two of the great Muslim poets of the twentieth century - Iqbal and Faiz - continued to value the ghazal. They did not abandon the tradition as some poets did but reworked it. For Faiz, for example, the suffering ashiq becomes the suffering citizen and the beloved now stands for justice or political revolution. Arguably remnants of the culture also survived in ideas of what it is to be cultured. The love of elevated expression and eloquence, the idea that to speak and behave in a certain way was in someway to convey levels of refinement perhaps owes something to the Persianate norms of comportment. Sufi traditions that draw on Persian culture have also been kept alive by the tradition of qawwali. In the world of painting, the work of the celebrated Pakistani artist, Abdul Rahman Chughtai, was infused by the spirit of Mughal reminiscence.

Seen however through the lens of the ‘moving film,’ Persianate influences have on the whole declined from the nineteenth century onwards. A slow democratisation of political culture brought an end to politics of the darbar. Popular sentiment became more important. The challenge of colonial rule was also significant. For Muslims of upper India, the shock of the aftermath of the Indian rebellion in 1857 prompted many to reconsider where inspiration was to come from.

Many turned to Arab models instead. In the realm of religious knowledge, the Deoband movement placed a greater emphasis on the revealed sciences and less on what had become associated with Persianate culture - rational sciences. Ahmad Raza Khan, the key spirit behind the rival ‘Barelvi’ movement, was a prolific writer of fatwa and on many occasions he presented his fatwa to certain ulama in Mecca and Medina seeking their validation.

In the case of medical knowledge - Unani Tibb - Seema Alavi has argued that from the eighteenth century, medical texts in Arabic became increasingly prevalent. Such texts projected medicine as less of an ‘aristocratic virtue’ as Persian traditions had and more as a science.

In the field of poetry, in the late nineteenth century, Altaf Husayn Hali and Muhammad Husain Azad - amongst others - attacked the Persian heritage for producing poetry that was too ornate and effete, that ultimately failed to inspire action in the ‘real’ world. Hali looked to English and Arab models and it is striking that in his famous Musaddas, according to Christopher Shackle and Javed Majeed, he drew on an unusual Arabic metre.

In the 1970s and 1980s Arab influence became more visible in Pakistan. There was Saudi patronage of religious institutions. There were the growing economic connections as Pakistan sought expansion into new markets following the loss of its Eastern Wing. There were closer diplomatic ties which helped pave the way towards the possession of nuclear weapons. There was the great export of labour to the Gulf and all that meant for interaction with different Islamic cultures. Significant, too, was the orientation of the Zia regime. The impact, we might say, was heard: Regula Burckhardt Qureshi notes, that in the Zia era there was a proliferation of cassettes of Islamic recitation, particularly in the style developed in Egypt. Qureshi also points out that in this era, qawwali began to feature Arabic drum beats and was “recorded in a strongly Arabic pronunciation.”

The influence of the Western models have been no less profound. Colonial rule provided the example of British institutional models. Even the Deobandis who sought to provide an alternative education to Western examples set up their seminaries along the lines of the bureaucratic style of the colonists, as Barbara Metcalf has shown. Professional staff, students taking exams, the presence of a central library were signs of a more professional approach being adopted in place of the more traditionally informal and personal models of education.

Many of course went much further and actively sought to build bridges with the British. English had after all become the language of power. A pioneer of modernism in British India, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, expended considerable energy to argue that the divine message could be reconciled to science and that it was wholly within the ambit of reason. The college he founded at Aligarh, was in the words of Peter Hardy “to produce a class of Muslim leaders with a footing in both Western and Islamic culture, at ease both in British and Muslim society.”

Though modernists remained committed to Islam, many of their opponents criticised them as lacking authenticity and following their Western masters rather too closely. The satirical poet, Akbar Allahabadi, wrote bitingly in one poem:

Chhod literature ko apni history ko bhuul ja
shaikh-o-masjid se taalluq tark kar school ja
char-din ki zindagi hai koft se kya faeda
kha double roti clerki kar khushi se phuul ja

(Leave your literature, forget your history. Abandon the sheikh and the mosque, attend school. Life’s too short, so why vex yourself. Eat English bread, be a clerk, blossom with happiness)

More amorphous, and rooted in local languages are the folk models. To take just the Punjab as an example, the existence of tragic love tales - Heer Ranjha, Sohni Mahiwal, Mirza Sahiban, Sassi Punnhun - and the poetry of Sufis - such as Sultan Bahu and Bullhe Shah - provided a basis of shared cultural values within much of the region.

The Pakistani state searching for a focus for national unity, transcending the local and provincial, has often sought to down play or ignore folk cultures. Folk models have therefore sometimes been turned into a mode of protest. In the paintings of Zainul Abedin, an East Pakistani/Bangladeshi artist, art historian Iftikhar Dadi identified an “abiding concern for the local, the rural, and the folk.” Dadi notes, Abedin’s “choice of motifs” represented a “pointed bypassing of modernisation, protesting the continued underdevelopment and cultural marginalisation of East Pakistan throughout the 1950s and 1960s.”

This is not to say the state has always ignored folk culture. In the era of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, though not without its ambiguities it must be said, more space opened up for imagining Pakistan as a nation grounded in historic and regional cultures. The Bhuttos had themselves been regular visitors at the shrine of Lal Shabaz Qalandar, in Sehwan Sharif. And it was in the seventies that the Lok Virsa in Islamabad was founded. Folk artists - such as Allan Faqir and Mai Bhagi - were also given more airtime on TV.

With social media and everyone being on the information highway, the transition has been faster than ever before.

In my childhood, we as family, all used to sit together and watch PTV as an awesome form family entertainment.
Now, I feel embarrassed watching Pak TV with family. I can't!

The story and themes of many Pakistani dramas are all about, crush on bhabi, hitting on someone else's wife, secret love affairs with friend's sister, a jealous ex trying to create a rift between a couple leading to divorce ....

I guess perhaps that's the new way to catching the viewers attention, now that everyone has an easy access to free porn on their smart phones.