A Burgeoning Society and its Challenges

Abstract

While celebrating seventy years of country’s independence, it can be interesting to look at the state of our society and to find out how it looks as compared to the point where Pakistan started its independent journey. There exists a view that Pakistani society by and large has remained static, that except for a few big cities the rest of the country is frozen in medieval times. The poverty as found in almost all of the regions of the country is also quite often viewed as reflecting the existence of an old social order. This view is held without realizing that poverty can be, and is, an attribute of the modern states as well. The fact of the matter is that Pakistani society has transformed quite significantly in the last seventy years. Of course, there are regions and sectors where this transformation has been slow yet, by and large, the society has changed both in terms of its quantitative growth as well as in terms of socio-cultural norms, practices and values. It can also be said that the social change has been all-encompassing, including biological (demographic), cultural and technological changes.