IDENTITY CRISIS AND POLITICS OF ETHNICITY IN PAKISTAN: A CASE STUDY OF HAZARA PROVINCE MOVEMENT

Abstract

There is hardly any state in the world, having cultural and lingual homogeneity. Pakistan is a culturally diverse country having multiple identity groups; therefore, after independence federalism was introduced as a mechanism to get unity in diversity, but ethno-lingual diversity among provinces and subnationalities within provinces hampered the process of national integration in the country. Generally, ethno-lingual groups come into conflict with each other when they receive economic disparities and political inequalities. Pakistan has been facing the consequences of ethnocentrism and crisis of identity since its independence. Despite adopting a sound federal structure after 18th constitutional amendment, the emergence of ethnic conflicts and identity crisis could not be minimized. All existing political parties are popular in their specific region and are represented by their respective nationalist groups and they always articulate economic and political powers around ethno-lingual basis. The main focus of present study is to examine the challenge of ethnicity and identity crisis in different regions of country and its impacts on state politics.