Speaking and their Punjabi supporters, did not hold the promised elections. The constitution was not drafted, and the ruling elite continued to run Pakistan’s affairs provisionally on the 1935 constitutional package which the British had given to India as colonial rulers (Masud, 1978; Khan, 2005).
THE LANGUAGE PLANNING IN PAKISTAN Pakistan’s language planning can be likened to the fascist language planning in Italy in the first half of the 20th century. Throughout its history, the establishment has been interfering in the language issues and suppressed campaigns for linguistic rights of Balochi, Saraiki. Pashto and Sindhi in the name of national security, Islam, and the Pakistan ideology (Rahman, 1996). Writing about language planning in the Fascist Italy, Klein says, “in public education fascism attempted to create a policy of linguistic unification, which bordered on dialectophobia. . . the idea „one nation=one language‟ was created” (Klein, 1989: 39). This is what exactly happened when the government of newly created Pakistan claimed that Pakistan would be “one nation, one religion, and one language” (Zaidi, 2001), and “Islam is the raison d’être of Pakistan” (Husain, 2001: 9). Curiously, Pakistan’s language planning was done by no other person than the ruling Mohajir-Punjabi elite in order to sideline the Bengalis, Pashtoons, Sindhis and Saraikies to gain power through language.
THE PROBLEM OF PAKISTANI CULTURE Pakistan is multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual society like most of the developing countries in South Asia. From very first day of its inception, the aspirations of the people of Pakistan to live in peace and harmony and to have a modicum of material security have been unfulfilled. Much has been written about the history, facts and legitimacy of ethnic grievances and ethnic competition in Pakistan time and again. The relationship of ethnicity and political system is even more important in the social life of humans because ethnicity is essentially a continuous, dynamic. The identities formed on common language base (primordial) and taking political forms (instrumental), causing ethnic competition and conflict. The factors contributing are sense of belongingness and security; the fear of being deprived of the resources; being powerless; and the superiority of ones culture and language over the other language THE MINDSET OF RULIING ELITE TOWARDS CULTURAL DIVERSITY
For the highly centralized post colonial state of Pakistan that was in the process of creating a national identity, any talk of provincial rights and differences based on culture, language or ethnicity were anathema. These were considered as negating the very basis of Pakistani nationhood, which was based on religion and the Urdu language. The ruling elite , since the independence had tried to enforce the alien culture of the Urdu-speaking community by undermining and deliberately neglecting the local cultural diversity of West Pakistan There has been very little or no debate on indigenous cultures of Pakistan. Pleas for local indigenous cultures have never found a place in society (Ahmed, 1998). Only during the time of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1972-77), a great deal of debate was allowed on local cultures (Raza, 1997). However, due to the lack of mature democratic political culture, even the populist government of Zufikar Ali Bhutto did not or could not make much headway in actualizing the political/administrative expression of that diversity in any meaningful way,, but once General Zia overthrew and hanged him, the very notion of indigenous cultures disappeared under the watchful eyes of the military and mullahs.
The post colonial state of Pakistan characterized by long direct military rules, and continuous military control, lack of democratic political culture and an immature and weak civil society had been pursuing a policy of creating a unitary state national identity of Pakistan by negating the