Cultural historiography of Pakistan

• Main Author: Malik, Rahat Zubair
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DS Asia
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/14500/1/17.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/14500/; http://www.iaha2014.uum.edu.my/

Culture is the unique human attribute which is result of a relation of humans with their environment for the sake of security to survive in this world.It is an integrated pattern of human knowledge, beliefs and behaviours. Culture, thus defined, consists of language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions, tools, techniques, works of art, rituals, ceremonies and other related components embracing all spheres of life.The development of culture depends, generally, upon human capacity to learn and to transmit knowledge to the succeeding generations. Every human society has its own particular culture or socio cultural system which overlaps other cultures to some extent.Variation in the cultural systems can be due to ground realities like physical existence of a particular region on the globe.Pakistan is no exception; growth and development of the Pakistani culture seems, somewhat, an amalgamation of the interaction of humans and their environment for centuries along with the impact of religious beliefs on their life.It also borrowed certain practices and traditions from Hindu Culture with which the people, now residing in Pakistan, have been sharing their lives for centuries.The other important feature is the local culture of different regions i.e. the Punjabi Culture, the Balochi Culture, the Sindhi Culture and the Pakhtoon Culture.Almost similar things attracted people to write about the culture and they opted to explain the culture of Pakistan with reference to religion, region and historical evolution.They also focused on the growth of culture with reference to previously existing cultures.In other words, the culture of this region has been studied with different ideological dimensions like religion (Islam), Modernism and the traditions prevailing in this region.Prioritization of the perspectives is according to the worldview of the writers.Keeping these perspectives in mind, the study of cultural historiography of Pakistan and comparative analysis of different writings will make it interesting to study the growth of diverse culture of this heterogeneous region.