Essay on Pakistan: An Outstanding Essay on Pakistan

As a poor offspring of the subcontinent, Pakistan at independence in 1947 inherited a disproportionally small share of its assets, and a larger share of its liabilities; one-fifth of the area and the highways, about one- sixth of the population and railroads, one-seventh of the cultivated land, a tenth of the army, a small minority of the edu­cated middle class, relatively few of the shopkeepers, tradesmen and professional classes, hardly any industrial workers, very few of the known minerals, a small frac­tion of the industrial equipment, only a few mills for the cotton crop, and only one major port: Karachi.

The separation of the deficit area of Bangladesh in 1971 did strengthen the food situation of the truncated state and re­duced its population problem, but at the same time diminished the revenue base of the export of jute and tea. The two wings of Pakistan were linked by long and costly air-routes across northern India or by the slow sea route of nearly 3,000 miles (4,827 km) around southern India and Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh’s secession lifted the burdens imposed by this awkward political geogra­phy from the shoulders of Pakistan. Pakistan’s share of the subcontinent’s re­sources of coal, iron, and other basic materials is insignificant. It has some gas and oil (at Sui fields). Its position in fibers is comparatively strong, and in food grains it has normally good surpluses of wheat.

By geography and by history, Pakistan and India are complementary. Political separation based on the concentrations of Muslims and non-Muslims defy several facts of physical and economic geography. The international borders show little re­gard for the established networks of railroads, irrigation canals and manufactur­ing. India could, if it wishes, gain control over the water of Pakistan’s canals by di­verting water to its own territory, thus virtually choking off Pakistan’s agricul­tural base. (The two countries reached an agreement in 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty, regarding the distribution of wa­ters)

This example of Pakistani depend­ence on India, which controls the headwaters of the tributaries of the Indus River, critical to Pakistan’s irrigated agri­culture, illustrates the complementary nature of the two countries.

Physical Features:

The core area of this essentially desert country is traversed by the Indus and its tributaries, forming an alluvial lowland except in the north and west where mountains and plateaus flank its frontiers with Afghanistan and Iran. The country can be conveniently di­vided into four main topographic regions: the Northern and western Highlands, the Punjab-Sindh Plains, the Baluchistan Pla­teau, and the Thar Desert. The Northern and western Highlands cover much of northern and western parts of the country.

It is a typical Himalayan region with high, rugged mountains, and several glaciers. The second highest peak in the world, K2, is 28,250 feet (8,611 meters) in elevation and lies in the northernmost part in the Karakoram Range. The highlands in the western part include the Sulaiman Range and other hills containing much lower, ele­vation, of 4,000 to 10,000 feet (1,219 to 3,049 meters) in elevation but much less dissected than the lofty and rugged north­ern mountains, and are breached by several historic passes including the more notable Khyber, Gomal and Bolan that are the historic passageways between the Indo- Pakistan subcontinent and Afghanistan.

The Punjab and Sindh plains occupy most of the eastern part of the county, and are traversed by the Indus River and its four tributaries Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej. The plains are formed by the al­luvium of rivers, and very gradually rise from the Arabian Sea to nearly 1,000 feet (305 meters) in the north, a distance of nearly 700 miles (1,126 km).

Economically, culturally and politi­cally it is the country’s heartland. The non-alluvial portions of the region are mainly in the northwest, where a dissected upland between the Jhelum and Indus riv­ers averages between 1,500 to 2,000 feet (457 to 610 meters) in the form of a range overlooking the Punjab plains.

The Baluchistan Plateau is located in south­western Pakistan. It is a dry, rocky, and mostly barren plateau, inhabited by Baluchi tribesmen, nearly 4,000 to 7,000 feet (1,219 to 2,134 meters) in elevation that extends to the Makram coast, and is fringed by low, but rugged hills. The Thar Desert lies in southeastern Pakistan, and is an extension of the adjacent Great Indian Desert. Much of the desert region is a sandy wasteland, parts of which near the Indus River have been made suitable for farming by the irrigation schemes.

Climatically, Pakistan has dry, hot summers in general, and cool winters, with very cold winters in the northernmost Hi­malayan regions. Most of the Punjab plains receive on the average 15 inches (375 mm) of rain annually, which progres­sively decreases to the west from the Indian summer monsoons.

Much of Baluchistan and the Thar Desert receive on the average, less than 5 inches (127 mm) of rainfall in a year. Mean temperatures for the summer range from 66°F (18°C) in winter to 86°F (38°C) in summer. Winters are mostly dry, although a slight amount of rainfall is experienced in the plains re­gion, brought by the cyclones emanating from the Mediterranean.

Cultural Patterns:

Although Islam is a cementing force in Pakistan (its official name is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and 95 percent of the population is com­posed of Muslims), several divisive elements—linguistic and cultural—have been a serious threat to the central admini­stration. The Pakistani people are a mixture of many ethnic groups, a result of the occupation of the region by groups passing through on their way to India.

The major and politically the most dominant group is that of Punjabi-speakers who pre­dominate, the administration and form nearly 48 percent of the population. Pashtu and Sindhi are other major lan­guages. Ethnic plurality is given rise to demands for territorial secession from Pakistan or the creation of autonomous states.

Urdu, adopted as the national lan­guage, was essentially brought by the immigrants from India at the time of parti­tion and grafted on the new nation, although it claims only 7.6 percent of the population. Sindhi-speakers (nearly 12 per­cent of the population) do not hold positions in government commensurable with their numerical strength, and have al­ways resented Punjabi dominance.

Among the Pashtu speaking tribesmen forming 13 percent of Pakistan’s population and in­habiting mostly the Northwest Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, a large in­digenous group, inhabiting areas on both sides of the international border, many would like to establish an autonomous or independent state, to be called Pushtunistan.

The Baluchi tribesmen, inhabiting plateaus southwest of the Northwest Fron­tier Province adjacent to Iran and Afghanistan and covering nearly one-third of the national territory, speak Baluchi lan­guage which, like Pushtu, is more related to Persian than to the Indo-European Pun­jabi speech (one group, the Brahui speakers belong to the Dravidian language family of Southern India). Some of these people have also pressed for the creation of a state that would incorporate parts of Iran and Afghanistan.

The Urdu-speaking Mujahir, who migrated from India at the time of partition have been involved in bloody ethnic riots in the province of Sindhi- speaking province of Sindh, demanding a greater recognition for them. In the moun­tainous areas of Kashmir certain tribes speak markedly different languages, related to the Indo-European or Iranian language family. Thus, the entire western flank of Pakistan is a politically sensitive region of divided loyalties. Internally, Pakistan has had several military coups during the four decades of its existence. Predictably, re­gional demands will likely to grow stronger in the future.

Resources and Economy:

Agriculture, fishing and forestry are the major sources of livelihood, for the people. Close to one- half of the labor-force is engaged in these activities, but these account for less than one-quarter of the gross domestic produc­tion. During the British occupation of the Indian subcontinent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the land was trans­formed by canal irrigation in the Punjab Sindh plains. In addition to wheat, rice, cotton, and sugarcane which became the important crops raised, on the “canal colo­nies,” a variety of other crops like tobacco, oilseeds, chickpeas, millets (jowar, bajra), legumes, and vegetables, pulses were intro­duced.

During the late 1960s (along with In­dia, and Sri Lanka) Pakistan experienced a “green revolution.” Introduction of high- yielding varieties of rice and wheat, and extension of the existing irrigation system by the construction of tube wells and ca­nals into the arid lands in the Punjab and Sind increased crop productions substan­tially. By the end of the 1970s Pakistan had achieved self-sufficiency in food and by 1980’s it had become an important ex­porter of rice, particularly the fine basmati variety. Cotton production has also in­creased significantly since the 1960s.

Pakistan is, in general, poor in mineral and energy resources. Except for petro­leum and gas, which provide four-fifths of all energy consumed, few other minerals are extracted. Shortage of energy is a major concern for the country’s economic devel­opment.

Hydroelectricity accounts for only 18 percent of the energy produced, obtained primarily from large dams in the northern mountainous parts of the coun­try, principally at Tarbela and at Mangla Dam on the Jhelum Range. Natural gas re­serves are more abundant, located mainly in Baluchistan near Sui and in the Potwar Plateau and in Sindh production is limited. There is one operating nuclear power sta­tion near Karachi.

Nearly one-eighth of the labor force is employed in manufacturing, although it accounts for a little less than one-fifth of the country’s gross domestic product. Since independence Pakistan made special effort to develop its industries, since most of the manufacturing plants were located in areas that went to India at the time of partitioning of the subcontinent.

Initially, most manufacturing activity consisted of the processing of agricultural raw materi­als, like establishment of cotton textile mills, and production of sugar, paper, to­bacco and leather. After the 1960s greater efforts were devoted to the development of heavy industry, and production of inter­mediate and capital goods including
chemicals, fertilizers, and light engineering equipment.

In the 1970s and 1980s an inte­grated iron and steel mill was developed at Pimpri near Karachi. Most of the develop­ment was made possible through the use of international aid, particularly by the World Bank. Karachi, the largest city (5.3 million), and country’s only major sea­port, was the first capital of Pakistan.

As a result of a huge influx of refugees from In­dia at partition, the establishment of new industries, and expanded regional and in­ternational connections, it grew rapidly into a large metropolis, one of Asia’s great “boom towns.” It has attracted several manufacturing industries such as cotton textiles, chemicals, food products, cement, and fertilizers, because of the advantages for assembly of raw materials and for dis­tribution of finished goods.

However, an isolated location away from the nation’s cultural and economic heartland prompted the government to move its administrative functions in the early 1970s to a new loca­tion at Islamabad, near the existing city of Rawalpindi where a planned city was con­structed. Islamabad (population now nearing 250,000) is a well-designed, pleas­ant, and modern city, symbolic of Pakistani determination to build a better future.

Lahore (3.1 million) an old center of Islamic culture also grew rapidly follow­ing independence as a result of increased regional and administrative functions. The city has numerous magnificent buildings, gardens, palaces, and mosques built during medieval times, and retain its importance as a premier headquarters of Islamic cul­ture.

Lahore and its metropolitan area gained enormously during the late 1960s and early 1970s and began to industrialize rapidly when Karachi’s ethnic problems stemming from the Mujahirs—the Urdu- speaking refugees from India after the sub­continent’s partition—who demanded greater recognition—became increasingly strident.

In the early 1990s the process was accelerated and Lahore (and Punjab) be­came Karachi’s competitor in industrial output. Faisalabad (1.2 million), an impor­tant regional commercial center in the heartland of the Punjab plains, owes its origin to the development of the “canal colonies” established in the early 20th cen­tury by the British. Since independence it has grown enormously and now contains manufacturing plants such as textile mills, and sugar processing.

Petroleum products, machinery, chemi­cals and fertilizers are the main imports of the nation, ready-made garments, cotton, rice, leather goods, dried fish, and petro­leum products are the chief exports. The U.S., Germany, Japan, the United King­dom, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia are the major trading partners.

Prospects:

Blessed potentially with a sound economic base that can supply most of the country’s needs in consumer goods, Pakistan’s natural resources provide mate­rials for such industries as textiles (the largest foreign exchange earner), oil refin­ing, metal processing and fertilizer production.

But the nation’s current popu­lation of 152 million, growing at an annual rate of 2.5 percent, is a serious problem. A large influx of Afghani refugees (nearly 3 million), and an interminable hostility with neighboring India puts an enormous burden on Pakistan’s faltering economy.

Politically, Pakistan’s democratic framework remains shaky. Since inception there have been several coups, and military rule has often been imposed over the coun­try. Additionally, ethnic problems particularly in the provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan have recently assumed dangerous proportions. There is considerable illegal trafficking in narcotics. These tendencies have tended to sap the already fragile democracy.