Monthly Archives: August 1976

A nation in search of its culture

This article was sent to me by the writer’s daughter, Sarah Siddiqi. Zuhair Siddiqi was a senior journalist who died in a road accident in 1979

 By Zuhair Siddiqi

guest-contributorIt is not surprising that Pak­istan, which has now completed 29 years of her life, should still be involved in a debate on the roots and character, the substance and orientation, of her culture.

Perhaps, no other newly libera­ted nation has experienced cul­tural problems of such complexi­ty. The birth of Pakistan was not the mere emergence of a country from political slavery into sovereign independence. Nor was the partition that it in­volved a simple case of separa­tion, like that of Burma from British India ten years earlier. The new State came into being as the result of a three-way parti­tion — of the Indian sub-continent, of Muslim India, and of the two major Muslim provinces. Continue reading A nation in search of its culture