In Balochistan, militants target the non-Baloch, picking on the Punjabis in particular, including the indigenised ones, as they are “external exploiters”. The Punjabi in Balochistan hardly fits the bill. Long ago, a publicist-orator of Lahore, Shorish Kashmiri, visited the red light area and asked the women there to categorise the various racial types among men from their sexual behaviour. The Punjabi man was described as “childlike”. Somehow, he also comes across in the folk classics as a laidback, passive person who would be coddled, letting the crucial moment pass.
Ustad Daman was a Punjabi poet of Lahore in our days of the 1970s. He was put off by the “absent” Punjabi hero and wanted to rewrite the classical Heer-Ranjha romance to reinstate Ranjha. Heer, he thought, was hogging the scenes. It is true that in Punjabi romances, all heroines have integrity of character, while the heroes are morally passive and nondescript.
Sohni and Mahiwal are lovers, but Mahiwal would not swim across the angry Chenab river to meet her. Not knowing how to swim, she gets across the river each day floating on a pitcher, and feeds a laid-back Mahiwal daily with cake. Sohni’s family finally replaces the pitcher with an unfired one, which melts in the water and she drowns. Why didn’t Mahiwal swim the Chenab?
Mirza loves Sahiban and shows unwonted aggression, lifting her from her wedding feast and fleeing with her on his legendary horse. On the way, while being chased by nine brothers of Sahiban, Mirza simply wants to sleep — from overeating? — and rejects Sahiban’s pleas not to rest under a “jand” tree, thereby allowing her brothers to catch up. Knowing that this was the end, wise Sahiban throws away the dozing Mirza’s arrows. She knew he would be killed but didn’t want any of her brothers killed as well. Stupid Mirza met his death protesting her “treachery”. As Sahiban was being taken home by her brother on horseback, she stabbed herself to death.
Today, Punjabis make up over 60 per cent of the population of Pakistan and two-thirds of the National Assembly. The Punjabi is also the guardian and spokesman of Pakistan’s ideology, its anachronistic two-nation theory, which helps persecute the minorities, and stokes its undying vendetta against India. People from the other provinces hate his guts. East Pakistan became Bangladesh protesting “Punzabi” brutality. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh get together to oppose the Kalabagh Dam, which has become associated with Punjabi chauvinism. Upper and lower riparian provinces doubt the Punjabi’s honesty in sharing the waters of the Indus equitably.
Yet, the Punjabis are a great race. They are talented, adaptable to change, gifted with a sense of humour, and possessed of an undying zest for life. They are good company, secure against bouts of suspicion about self-esteem, and generous in admitting the superiority of others. Yet their flaws constitute a kind of personality disorder that makes governance virtually impossible. The Punjabi man will sacrifice rules to benefit his own clan, will be excessive in conduct when in power, and quick to stampede when under siege.
Stereotyping is not in good taste but the world has always labelled nations and races. In Pakistan, the stereotyping goes like this. The Pakhtun is warlike but hampered by his inability to accept leadership. The Sindhi is wedded to his land, devoted to humanism, but limited by his lack of enterprise. The Baloch is completely submerged in the heroic persona of his sardar, the opposite of Pakhtun individualism. Pakhtuns think the Punjabis cowardly, the Sindhis call them merciless exploiters, and the Baloch want them out of Balochistan. Punjabis think the Sindhis lazy, but submit to the leadership quality of the Pakhtun.
The Punjabi is a good entrepreneur, but he tends to be “visceral” and “excessive”, which undermines his project. In comparison to the Hindu entrepreneur of the pre-1947 days, his weakness springs from this “anarchy of character”. His urge to succeed quickly sets him apart from the more “incremental” Hindu. His commerce was therefore tinged with high profit and low levels of trust. Today, the Gujarati businessman of Karachi beats him easily.
In 18th century Punjab, most Punjabi regional potentates undermined one another to stay in power. Delhi ruled over a divided and conspiratorial Punjab. No one was sure of his friends and was ready to parley with his enemies for political leverage. The Afghans in the west were seen as a makeweight to the rulers in Delhi. A weak Delhi often caused loyalties to shift westward. The governor in Lahore feared his own satraps more than he feared the Afghans. He flirted with the Afghans (Pakhtuns) and at times invited them to attack Lahore to “correct” the balance of power. Marauding armies left their soldiers behind as warlords. Punjab became an ethnic melting pot of tribes that looked outward to their original homelands.
The Punjabi man has been shaped by being “in the marches”. Invaders were cruel in keeping with their warrior creed. The Punjabi was cultured and was therefore seen as “soft”. A “masculine”, warlike, “conceptual” Pakistan has fallen foul of the world going “feminine” with “non-conceptual” trade. Can the Punjabi, with his “flexibility” to mend relations by ignoring concepts whose “purity” makes them irreconcilable, take Pakistan out of its current challenge of false “honour-through-war”?
The writer is consulting editor, ‘Newsweek Pakistan’
