What Is The Background Of The Cultural Heritage Of Pakistan?

Lane Stephens writes in his book "Pakistan was brought into being in 1947, to fulfil a religious of cultural aspiration. The idea was to provide a homeland for the Indian sub-continent's Muslims, or most of them; a place where after the British imperial power had gone, they could freely develop their way of life in an Islamic environment apart from the Hindus, who outnumbered them by 3:1."

Dr. Hassan Zaman points out in his essay on "The Genesis of Pakistan." that "the Muslims in the sub-continent present a distinct cultural entity. It was not assimilated in the Hindu body-social, first because, the Hindu social system was not only rigid, but also a closed one; secondly, because Hinduism is not a cohesive force in the social consciousness of the people.

Another writer points out that "the cultural distinctiveness which the Muslims came to acquire in India was the result of their centuries-old contacts with the indigenous Hindu population, for out of this contact was born a new culture-the Indo-Muslim culture which (when the Hindus finally broke away from it) made the Muslims conscious of their separate entity and led them to demand a national homeland.