Obstacles interposed in the way of national integration
PROBLEMS OF NATIONAL INTEGRATION IN PAKISTAN are complex. Countries inhabited by heterogeneous racial and linguistic groups and divided by natural geographical boundaries (mountains and rivers); generally, develop centrifugal tendencies among their cultural groups. Pakistan, incidentally, is placed in a similar position. We should not exaggerate the danger posed by these differences, on the one hand, and should not shut our eyes to the possible threat they may cause to our existence, on the other, if these tendencies are allowed to grow and flourish without restraint. In order to form a strong and coherent nation, we must be aware of the presence of the disintegrating forces of human society is neither possible nor desirable. In order to make a coherent and integrated society, we have to create a culture in which people are educated to live amicably, notwithstanding the differences they have. In a democratic society, human differences are not crushed with the brutal state authority but resolved through dialogue, compromise, and mutual understanding.
Following are the major obstacles interposed in the way of national integration in Pakistan:
- Provincialism and parochialism.
- Linguistic differences and laxity in the implementation of the national language Urdu.
- Racial and group differences.
- Poverty, inequitable distribution of wealth, the difference between the living standards of the people of different areas of the country.
- Long periods of undemocratic rule, which create discontentment among the deprived classes of the people.
- Autocratic behavior of bureaucracy. Especially because the beaurocracty is looked at by the people as the representative of some special classes and areas of the country.
- Feudal system.
- Illiteracy.
- Ignorance of religious and moral values.
- Negative role of the media.
- War culture, which is the root cause of poverty and economic and cultural instability, hence the mother of all evils.
