Pakistan is a country where a true sense of love for the country and interest in the origins of the people have failed.
Even over six decades after independence, any movement that tries to shine a true sense of pride in the nation fails. Weather this is a non-government organization or a political party that tries to promote unity.
All have failed and there are many but simple reasons behind all of them. Even nationalist or patriotic movements as mentioned in this post are repeating the same mistakes of the past which I will try to explain below.
Using religion as a substitute for national identity:
I found this to be the strongest reason of all. Not all Pakistanis are committed so strongly to religion weather on a political or ethical level. This is true especially for major ethnic groups living in Sindh and Balochistan who do not follow strict practices of Islam at all, but gentler Sufistic traditions.
However, the religious entities in Pakistan have had such a strong influence in the country's politics. Perhaps not as strong as more recent decades, but the fact is they have gained strong influence in the country and they have made Pakistan one of the few countries (perhaps the only country) where religion has been used as a substitute for national identity.
This has led to a great deal of confusion amongst Pakistanis. Many have been programmed to see themselves as Muslims first and part of the greater Islamic Ummah, nothing more, nothing less.
Often, there are other Pakistanis who see themselves as Muslims and only Muslims.
As just mentioned, Pakistan is probably the only country where religion is used as a substitute for national identity.
The closest comparison I can make are some eastern European countries where Orthodox Christianity has been used as a major identity marker amongst European nationalists.
But still, this has only been used as only an identity marker or better put a part of the European nationalist identity in Eastern Europe- never as a substitute.
In fact, Orthodox or protestant Christianity is not even followed amongst many European nationalists - just used as an identity marker!
Even in the Middle East where many Muslim countries have Islam dominating their politics and domestic laws (ie. dress code, ban of alcohol etc.), most people still do not put religion above national identity.
Even Arabs saw where they stood as Arab and where they stood as Muslims. The same can be said for Turks, Persians and other ethnic groups of Iran.
In Iran the Persians and other ethnicities celebrate their New Years, an event inherited from their pre-Islamic Zoroastrian traditions.
Even people I have met from these countries, all have a sense of identity and knowledge of their history, both pre and post Islamic.
This has not been the case for Pakistanis in particular people from outside the Sindh and Balochistan provinces which includes Muhajirs, Punjabis, Pakhtuns/Pathans and Kashmiris.
Most of these mentioned peoples I have noticed are strongly devoted to Islam. They have a great deal of knowledge on the history of Islam and the prophets that lived in the Middle East, but hardly any knowledge on the history of their people, culture or heritage.
Although I never attended a government school in Pakistan, the official recognition of Pakistani history in government schools begins in the seventh century when Muhammad Bin-Qasim, a young Arab general set foot into southern Pakistan and introduced Islam.
When I attended private school in Karachi during my childhood back in the 1990s, I noticed many of my classmates had strong religious views. There was prejudice amongst people against those of different faiths. Even Shias were thought of as non-Muslims by some.
When I once told a classmate that my family does not slaughter goats for Eid Al-Adha (known as Bakara Eid in Pakistan), it drew an interest from quite a few of the students, many asked are you even a Muslim?
Even during times that we were not taking regular lessons, we watched movies on Prophet Muhammad or heard many tales of Islam from story books read out by teachers.
I lived in the United Arab Emirates twice and during my second time period there, I attended a predominantly Arab school.
I found that all the Arabs of different faiths got on with each other on the basis of common Arab identity. They never saw non-Muslim Arabs as outsiders.
In fact, many Arab Muslims saw me as the outsider due to me being a Pakistani. Even in the most radical Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, most of the Arabs take deep pride in their Arab identity and the tribe they come from.
Arab nationalist movements from Palestine and other Arab countries stand for Arab self-determination and do not use religion as a substitute for this feeling of Arab nationalism.
All Arabs are included in these movements including non-Muslim Arabs.
Many of the Arabs I've met acknowledge themselves as Semites. Even the most Islamic Iranians and Turks I met, took deep pride in their nationalities and histories, but never have I seen the case with Pakistanis.
Even according to a friend of mine who studied at a university in Montreal, the Pakistani students association there exhibited Pakistani cultural events through Islamic holidays.
Even when I do join friends or newly met people to form patriotic groups of Pakistanis to spread awareness of Pakistan's history and identity- including prehistory- Islamists always try to breach in, insisting that Islam be made the equivalent of Pakistani patriotism and that Islamic history be the main and most important era in the history of Pakistan.
All these people with Islamic mindsets are a product of programing political Islam into the brains of Pakistanis.
While it's true that one of the reasons of modern Pakistan not joining the British designed confederation of "India" as a means to secure the future of Muslims, many Pakistani leaders and their brainwashed puppets have exploited and twisted around this idea to suit their own agenda and self-satisfaction.
Until Pakistanis come face to face with reality and realize no other country (even Saudi Arabia) substitutes national identity with religion, no nationalistic or patriotic ideologies will succeed also given the fact that a significant number of Pakistanis in Sindh and Balochistan will never trade their identity over a religion.
In the long run, trying to embed religion into nationalism or patriotism will only backfire.
One is because not all Pakistanis are Muslim.
Secondly, even the Muslim majority is divided into mainly Shia and Sunni, which has triggered bitter violent conflicts between them inside Pakistan.
Thirdly because religious fundamentalism is not as strong in Sindhis and Balochis, who follow Sufistic traditions and take deep pride in their culture and heritage.
They have often resented the state's Islamitization practices and will never trade their ethnic identity for a religion.
Lack of education on the Pakistani identity:
Though religious extremists have not always succeeded in hijacking political or patriotic movements; the secular movements themselves have failed as well due to lack of understanding of the Pakistani identity; hence they have nothing to base their nationalistic movements on.
Take for example The Young Pakistan Flag Movement which was formed in 2009. Here is a video on them:
At about 0:50 the group's founder indicates a similar point: That many groups with similar ambitions have failed.
What the group and it's founder don't realize is that they are repeating the same mistakes of the past.
As seen in the video, they are trying to unite people on the basis of our flag in which the provinces of Pakistan united on to force out the British rulers.
But the problem is that today the Pakistani flag has different meanings to different people. To provincial nationalists (which shall be discussed in the next section below), the flag is a symbol of Punjabi imperialism.
To certain non-Muslims of Pakistan, the flag is a symbol of Islamic imperialism. These non-Muslim Pakistanis have most likely suffered discrimination, hence they feel as aliens in their own country.
And to some Pakistanis, the flag is just a flag, unless it carries a theme behind it. But this theme has been usually occupied by political Islam, which I pointed out in the above section of this post.
Unless a proper meaning can be placed behind a patriotic, flag waving movement, it will have little or no impact.
For example the Palestinian flag carries on it the colors of Arab revolt.
Other Arab countries have similar flags with the same colors and their themes have been the self-determination of Arabs without the interference of outside forces which were mainly the British, the French and the Ottomans.
Even Turkic-speaking countries such as Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan etc. have moons and stars on their national flags- the traditional pre-Islamic symbols of the Turko-Mongol peoples.
Pan-Turkic nationalist movements have themes behind their flags and the gray wolf symbols-which no Pakistani movement has behind since the flag itself has different or no meanings behind it as a pointed out.
Even celebrations of independence day in my school in Karachi was filled with flag waving, pictures of the Quide-i-Azam and traditional Pakistani patriotic songs-all of them in Urdu. None which sang of the provinces and cultures that Pakistan is consisted of.
None which speak of the history and heritage of the land or the people. All sang of the greatness of the nation, but not even why it is great.
And never during my school years in Pakistan, was there any proper insights to the history of Pakistan besides the events which led to independence in 1947.
We once went on a field trip to a world history museum, which had sections devoted to the Indus Valley Civilization, but I do not even recall even one teacher explaining it's significance to Pakistan or even classroom discussions devoted to Pakistani history.
Most of our history classes were dominated by Western and Islamic history. We even studied Egypt's pre-Islamic history, but not our own!
Even the national anthem of Pakistan is in an old form of Urdu which is mostly incomprehensible even to a speaker of modern day Urdu.
So even the national anthem of Pakistan has no meaning today to the average Pakistani, unless they read the English translation of the song.
But then again, most Pakistanis do not speak English.
But now with the age of the Internet, it is possible to research the history of Pakistani people and answer the critical questions such as who are we as Pakistanis? Where did we come from? Who were our ancestors? What were our land and people before 1947? How can knowing who we are help us work together and unite as a nation?
Many of these questions have been wrongly answered, again due to lack of knowledge and misinformation of our history.
There groups such as "paknationalists" who continue the same slogan that Pakistanis are an "element" of Arabs, Turks (or better Turko-Mongols), Persians and Aryans.
Readers who wish to learn about Pakistani history can get some basic information on my History of Pakistan blog and search the history of Indo-Iranic peoples, which most Pakistani people today consist of save for Brahuis, Baltistanis and the Hunza.
With this, I would like to move on to the next reasons on the failure of nationalism in Pakistan.
Provincialism and Pan-South Asianism:
Some readers might have already noticed that these two ideologies contradict each other, but sadly this has not been the case for blind provincial chauvinists and their Indian masters.
Though I do not advocate provincial nationalism and strongly despise it, I perfectly understand the viewpoints of provincial nationalists and place the blame directly on the governments reckless and selfish policies as well as the silence of the people.
Provincial nationalism has not only been bread due to the economic imbalances of Pakistan's provinces (thanks to the carelessness of the government and the military) but also due to the fact that their heritage and culture are being shut out in the name of "unity."
The provincial languages have been endangered due to Urdu domination. Though a multilingual country like Pakistan does need a Lingua Franca, this lingua franca has been used at the expense of Pakistan's other Indo-Iranic languages.
In the 60 years of Pakistan's post independence era, little or no attention is paid to Pakistan's various provinces which the country is composed of.
Many provincial nationalists (including those in my family) have ignorantly propagated that the people of Sindh, Balochistan, Kashmir, Punjab and the NWFP have "nothing in common."
But on the other hand they have strangely promoted Pan-South Asianism, propagating that the people of South Asia are "one" and that they were "'forcefully' separated by the British."
Many provincial nationalists who have promoted Pan-South Asianism see India as the friend of it's enemy, the Pakistani government.
The contradiction Pan-South Asianism is to provincial nationalism in Pakistan is that if provincial nationalists cannot tolerate a single Pakistani state, how will they live in a gigantic South Asian state of over a billion people?
Pan-South Asianism has also played a deep role in confusing Pakistanis about their history and identity.
Some Indians have also propagated that the people of Pakistan are simply "Indian Muslims" with a separate state. When I disproved this, these very same Indians emotionally reacted claiming there is no Pakistani and that Kashmiris, Sindhis, Punjabis, Balochis and Pathans (Pakhtuns) are all distinct.
By now all readers must see the contradiction between these two claims.
All this takes us back to my earlier points. Islamist Pakistanis that I've argued with have propagated the same that without Islam, Pakistan cannot stay united. I refuted their claims in this post.
This argument of theirs takes us back to the other points that there is lack of education on Pakistani culture, on how Kashmiris, Punjabis, Balochis, Pakhtuns, Sindhis and others are related to each other.
Lack of education on our common history has also lead us to ignorantly believe that we all share the same landmass coincidentally.
This brings us forward to provincialism and Pan-South Asianism. Islamists have long propagated that without Islam Pakistan would be different provinces or simply a "part of India."
Now anyone with brains and common sense can see the contradiction of these two claims.
Conclusion:
With the age of the Internet and availability of free knowledge, it is very easy to research the people of Pakistan, their history & origins and how closely they are related to one another.
All this is available and free to access in the age of the Internet without the mullah screaming in your ear there is Islam and nothing more to life.
When patriotic movements in Pakistan bring actual meaning to being Pakistani which is really the common history, culture, heritage, genetics and linguistics of the people, they are bound to succeed.
A patriotic or nationalistic movement must also be careful not to shut out the closely related, but distinct cultures and languages of Pakistan's various ethnic groups as the state has recklessly done over the past few decades in the name of "unity."
Patriotism MUST include and respect all the religious and cultural identities of Pakistan's populations.
It must be careful not to ask Balochis, Kashmiris, Pakhtuns, Sindhis and Punjabis that they and their identities are respected and won't be put aside when it comes to national unity.
Instead of telling them they are not Kashmiris or Sindhis or Balochis or Pakhtuns or Punjabis or any other ethnic groups, they should be told they are Pakistanis in the form of Kashmiris, Sindhis, Balochis, Pakhtuns, Punjabis and others.
A Pakistani nationalist movement should remind Balochis, Pakhtuns, Kashmiris, Punjabis, Sindhis and others that their identities are part of one larger Indo-Iranic identity.
Those who argue against this can maybe try to answer why any themeless patriotic movements or movements combined with religion have failed and brought only division amongst Pakistanis?
I would like to end this post with the video below that discusses my solution to reforming Pakistani nationalism:
Even over six decades after independence, any movement that tries to shine a true sense of pride in the nation fails. Weather this is a non-government organization or a political party that tries to promote unity.
All have failed and there are many but simple reasons behind all of them. Even nationalist or patriotic movements as mentioned in this post are repeating the same mistakes of the past which I will try to explain below.
Using religion as a substitute for national identity:
I found this to be the strongest reason of all. Not all Pakistanis are committed so strongly to religion weather on a political or ethical level. This is true especially for major ethnic groups living in Sindh and Balochistan who do not follow strict practices of Islam at all, but gentler Sufistic traditions.
However, the religious entities in Pakistan have had such a strong influence in the country's politics. Perhaps not as strong as more recent decades, but the fact is they have gained strong influence in the country and they have made Pakistan one of the few countries (perhaps the only country) where religion has been used as a substitute for national identity.
This has led to a great deal of confusion amongst Pakistanis. Many have been programmed to see themselves as Muslims first and part of the greater Islamic Ummah, nothing more, nothing less.
Often, there are other Pakistanis who see themselves as Muslims and only Muslims.
As just mentioned, Pakistan is probably the only country where religion is used as a substitute for national identity.
The closest comparison I can make are some eastern European countries where Orthodox Christianity has been used as a major identity marker amongst European nationalists.
But still, this has only been used as only an identity marker or better put a part of the European nationalist identity in Eastern Europe- never as a substitute.
In fact, Orthodox or protestant Christianity is not even followed amongst many European nationalists - just used as an identity marker!
Even in the Middle East where many Muslim countries have Islam dominating their politics and domestic laws (ie. dress code, ban of alcohol etc.), most people still do not put religion above national identity.
Even Arabs saw where they stood as Arab and where they stood as Muslims. The same can be said for Turks, Persians and other ethnic groups of Iran.
In Iran the Persians and other ethnicities celebrate their New Years, an event inherited from their pre-Islamic Zoroastrian traditions.
Even people I have met from these countries, all have a sense of identity and knowledge of their history, both pre and post Islamic.
This has not been the case for Pakistanis in particular people from outside the Sindh and Balochistan provinces which includes Muhajirs, Punjabis, Pakhtuns/Pathans and Kashmiris.
Most of these mentioned peoples I have noticed are strongly devoted to Islam. They have a great deal of knowledge on the history of Islam and the prophets that lived in the Middle East, but hardly any knowledge on the history of their people, culture or heritage.
Although I never attended a government school in Pakistan, the official recognition of Pakistani history in government schools begins in the seventh century when Muhammad Bin-Qasim, a young Arab general set foot into southern Pakistan and introduced Islam.
When I attended private school in Karachi during my childhood back in the 1990s, I noticed many of my classmates had strong religious views. There was prejudice amongst people against those of different faiths. Even Shias were thought of as non-Muslims by some.
When I once told a classmate that my family does not slaughter goats for Eid Al-Adha (known as Bakara Eid in Pakistan), it drew an interest from quite a few of the students, many asked are you even a Muslim?
Even during times that we were not taking regular lessons, we watched movies on Prophet Muhammad or heard many tales of Islam from story books read out by teachers.
I lived in the United Arab Emirates twice and during my second time period there, I attended a predominantly Arab school.
I found that all the Arabs of different faiths got on with each other on the basis of common Arab identity. They never saw non-Muslim Arabs as outsiders.
In fact, many Arab Muslims saw me as the outsider due to me being a Pakistani. Even in the most radical Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, most of the Arabs take deep pride in their Arab identity and the tribe they come from.
Arab nationalist movements from Palestine and other Arab countries stand for Arab self-determination and do not use religion as a substitute for this feeling of Arab nationalism.
All Arabs are included in these movements including non-Muslim Arabs.
Many of the Arabs I've met acknowledge themselves as Semites. Even the most Islamic Iranians and Turks I met, took deep pride in their nationalities and histories, but never have I seen the case with Pakistanis.
Even according to a friend of mine who studied at a university in Montreal, the Pakistani students association there exhibited Pakistani cultural events through Islamic holidays.
Even when I do join friends or newly met people to form patriotic groups of Pakistanis to spread awareness of Pakistan's history and identity- including prehistory- Islamists always try to breach in, insisting that Islam be made the equivalent of Pakistani patriotism and that Islamic history be the main and most important era in the history of Pakistan.
All these people with Islamic mindsets are a product of programing political Islam into the brains of Pakistanis.
While it's true that one of the reasons of modern Pakistan not joining the British designed confederation of "India" as a means to secure the future of Muslims, many Pakistani leaders and their brainwashed puppets have exploited and twisted around this idea to suit their own agenda and self-satisfaction.
Until Pakistanis come face to face with reality and realize no other country (even Saudi Arabia) substitutes national identity with religion, no nationalistic or patriotic ideologies will succeed also given the fact that a significant number of Pakistanis in Sindh and Balochistan will never trade their identity over a religion.
In the long run, trying to embed religion into nationalism or patriotism will only backfire.
One is because not all Pakistanis are Muslim.
Secondly, even the Muslim majority is divided into mainly Shia and Sunni, which has triggered bitter violent conflicts between them inside Pakistan.
Thirdly because religious fundamentalism is not as strong in Sindhis and Balochis, who follow Sufistic traditions and take deep pride in their culture and heritage.
They have often resented the state's Islamitization practices and will never trade their ethnic identity for a religion.
Lack of education on the Pakistani identity:
Though religious extremists have not always succeeded in hijacking political or patriotic movements; the secular movements themselves have failed as well due to lack of understanding of the Pakistani identity; hence they have nothing to base their nationalistic movements on.
Take for example The Young Pakistan Flag Movement which was formed in 2009. Here is a video on them:
At about 0:50 the group's founder indicates a similar point: That many groups with similar ambitions have failed.
What the group and it's founder don't realize is that they are repeating the same mistakes of the past.
As seen in the video, they are trying to unite people on the basis of our flag in which the provinces of Pakistan united on to force out the British rulers.
But the problem is that today the Pakistani flag has different meanings to different people. To provincial nationalists (which shall be discussed in the next section below), the flag is a symbol of Punjabi imperialism.
To certain non-Muslims of Pakistan, the flag is a symbol of Islamic imperialism. These non-Muslim Pakistanis have most likely suffered discrimination, hence they feel as aliens in their own country.
And to some Pakistanis, the flag is just a flag, unless it carries a theme behind it. But this theme has been usually occupied by political Islam, which I pointed out in the above section of this post.
Unless a proper meaning can be placed behind a patriotic, flag waving movement, it will have little or no impact.
For example the Palestinian flag carries on it the colors of Arab revolt.
Other Arab countries have similar flags with the same colors and their themes have been the self-determination of Arabs without the interference of outside forces which were mainly the British, the French and the Ottomans.
Even Turkic-speaking countries such as Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan etc. have moons and stars on their national flags- the traditional pre-Islamic symbols of the Turko-Mongol peoples.
Pan-Turkic nationalist movements have themes behind their flags and the gray wolf symbols-which no Pakistani movement has behind since the flag itself has different or no meanings behind it as a pointed out.
Even celebrations of independence day in my school in Karachi was filled with flag waving, pictures of the Quide-i-Azam and traditional Pakistani patriotic songs-all of them in Urdu. None which sang of the provinces and cultures that Pakistan is consisted of.
None which speak of the history and heritage of the land or the people. All sang of the greatness of the nation, but not even why it is great.
And never during my school years in Pakistan, was there any proper insights to the history of Pakistan besides the events which led to independence in 1947.
We once went on a field trip to a world history museum, which had sections devoted to the Indus Valley Civilization, but I do not even recall even one teacher explaining it's significance to Pakistan or even classroom discussions devoted to Pakistani history.
Most of our history classes were dominated by Western and Islamic history. We even studied Egypt's pre-Islamic history, but not our own!
Even the national anthem of Pakistan is in an old form of Urdu which is mostly incomprehensible even to a speaker of modern day Urdu.
So even the national anthem of Pakistan has no meaning today to the average Pakistani, unless they read the English translation of the song.
But then again, most Pakistanis do not speak English.
But now with the age of the Internet, it is possible to research the history of Pakistani people and answer the critical questions such as who are we as Pakistanis? Where did we come from? Who were our ancestors? What were our land and people before 1947? How can knowing who we are help us work together and unite as a nation?
Many of these questions have been wrongly answered, again due to lack of knowledge and misinformation of our history.
There groups such as "paknationalists" who continue the same slogan that Pakistanis are an "element" of Arabs, Turks (or better Turko-Mongols), Persians and Aryans.
Readers who wish to learn about Pakistani history can get some basic information on my History of Pakistan blog and search the history of Indo-Iranic peoples, which most Pakistani people today consist of save for Brahuis, Baltistanis and the Hunza.
With this, I would like to move on to the next reasons on the failure of nationalism in Pakistan.
Provincialism and Pan-South Asianism:
Some readers might have already noticed that these two ideologies contradict each other, but sadly this has not been the case for blind provincial chauvinists and their Indian masters.
Though I do not advocate provincial nationalism and strongly despise it, I perfectly understand the viewpoints of provincial nationalists and place the blame directly on the governments reckless and selfish policies as well as the silence of the people.
Provincial nationalism has not only been bread due to the economic imbalances of Pakistan's provinces (thanks to the carelessness of the government and the military) but also due to the fact that their heritage and culture are being shut out in the name of "unity."
The provincial languages have been endangered due to Urdu domination. Though a multilingual country like Pakistan does need a Lingua Franca, this lingua franca has been used at the expense of Pakistan's other Indo-Iranic languages.
In the 60 years of Pakistan's post independence era, little or no attention is paid to Pakistan's various provinces which the country is composed of.
Many provincial nationalists (including those in my family) have ignorantly propagated that the people of Sindh, Balochistan, Kashmir, Punjab and the NWFP have "nothing in common."
But on the other hand they have strangely promoted Pan-South Asianism, propagating that the people of South Asia are "one" and that they were "'forcefully' separated by the British."
Many provincial nationalists who have promoted Pan-South Asianism see India as the friend of it's enemy, the Pakistani government.
The contradiction Pan-South Asianism is to provincial nationalism in Pakistan is that if provincial nationalists cannot tolerate a single Pakistani state, how will they live in a gigantic South Asian state of over a billion people?
Pan-South Asianism has also played a deep role in confusing Pakistanis about their history and identity.
Some Indians have also propagated that the people of Pakistan are simply "Indian Muslims" with a separate state. When I disproved this, these very same Indians emotionally reacted claiming there is no Pakistani and that Kashmiris, Sindhis, Punjabis, Balochis and Pathans (Pakhtuns) are all distinct.
By now all readers must see the contradiction between these two claims.
All this takes us back to my earlier points. Islamist Pakistanis that I've argued with have propagated the same that without Islam, Pakistan cannot stay united. I refuted their claims in this post.
This argument of theirs takes us back to the other points that there is lack of education on Pakistani culture, on how Kashmiris, Punjabis, Balochis, Pakhtuns, Sindhis and others are related to each other.
Lack of education on our common history has also lead us to ignorantly believe that we all share the same landmass coincidentally.
This brings us forward to provincialism and Pan-South Asianism. Islamists have long propagated that without Islam Pakistan would be different provinces or simply a "part of India."
Now anyone with brains and common sense can see the contradiction of these two claims.
Conclusion:
With the age of the Internet and availability of free knowledge, it is very easy to research the people of Pakistan, their history & origins and how closely they are related to one another.
All this is available and free to access in the age of the Internet without the mullah screaming in your ear there is Islam and nothing more to life.
When patriotic movements in Pakistan bring actual meaning to being Pakistani which is really the common history, culture, heritage, genetics and linguistics of the people, they are bound to succeed.
A patriotic or nationalistic movement must also be careful not to shut out the closely related, but distinct cultures and languages of Pakistan's various ethnic groups as the state has recklessly done over the past few decades in the name of "unity."
Patriotism MUST include and respect all the religious and cultural identities of Pakistan's populations.
It must be careful not to ask Balochis, Kashmiris, Pakhtuns, Sindhis and Punjabis that they and their identities are respected and won't be put aside when it comes to national unity.
Instead of telling them they are not Kashmiris or Sindhis or Balochis or Pakhtuns or Punjabis or any other ethnic groups, they should be told they are Pakistanis in the form of Kashmiris, Sindhis, Balochis, Pakhtuns, Punjabis and others.
A Pakistani nationalist movement should remind Balochis, Pakhtuns, Kashmiris, Punjabis, Sindhis and others that their identities are part of one larger Indo-Iranic identity.
Those who argue against this can maybe try to answer why any themeless patriotic movements or movements combined with religion have failed and brought only division amongst Pakistanis?
I would like to end this post with the video below that discusses my solution to reforming Pakistani nationalism:
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