Democracy in a Diverse Society

An Enigma of Socio-Political Development in Pakistan

Abstract

Democracy is a system of the government in which things and affairs are shaped and run according to the general will. In this system, the will of majority matters and minorities’ rights are protected through a social contract agreed by all the stakeholders. In such a system, how much it is likely that the masses or the society should be homogenous, or it should be diversity controlling society? If the society is predominantly a diverse society, then how much are chances of development of democracy in such society and is it justified to say that diversity is a hurdle in the way of democracy if the latter is taken in lieu of majority’s will? These are some of the questions directly attached to the issue of national integration and the development of democracy in Pakistan. Pakistan is a very diverse country by all means. It has a colossal diversity of race, ethnicity, religion, culture and so on. With this huge diversity, it was created as a single separate country in 1947, with vivid ideas of democracy and federalism. However, since the time of its inception, these are the same ideals that suffered the most. The annals of history suggest that Pakistan is a democratically failed state with intermittent authoritarian rules, the secession of its one province in 1971, and multiple separatist movements still going on in various regions of the country. Deprivation and exploitation lie as the root cause of this failure which ultimately marked the very process of national integration. Historical accounts tell that whenever the question of national integration was raised, it was dealt with the rhetoric of ‘unity in uniformity’. This flawed notion of unity in uniformity itself suggests that among all the hurdles in the way of democracy, diversity is the biggest one. Is diversity really an obstacle in the way of development of democracy and national integration? This paper is intended to find out the answer to these questions and also aims to investigate the positive correlation between democracy and diversity for the cause of national integration and democratic development in Pakistan.