Abasyn Journal of Social Sciences. Special Issue: AiCTBM 2018

Managing Diversity: An Assessment of the National Question of Pakistan

Jamal Shah, Raza Ullah , Muhammad Farooq Malik

1 Assistant Professor, Government College Mardan
2 Assistant Professor, Department of Management Sciences, Islamia College Peshawar
3 Lecturer, Department of Management Sciences, Abasyn University, Peshawar


 



Abstract
Modern societies and businesses are confronted with the complexity of diversity with immense implications for the current organizational practices. The intricacies of diversity in organizations mainly stem from state policies, organizational practices or business needs. In Pakistan, instances of violence at organizational level have serious societal repercussions. Irrespective of the  form of accommodation or the violent outcome which a pluralist society may take, such societies face similar structures of conflict: the posing of a fundamental challenge to the idea of  developing a homogenous society. Where societies were not homogenous, attempts were made to promote official nationalist projects by unifying culturally and ethnically diverse population.  Though there cannot be a one-sizefits-all states solution to diversity, every state strives for contextual solution to face diversity. Pakistan, being dominantly a Muslim state, has religio-cultural and  ethnic diversity. Minority groups have always raised their voices against their unjust treatment in the form of underrepresentation, undue share in the national economic pool and  suppression of their identity by the state and organizations. This study searches the answer to this organizational challenge evolved in the last over seventy years of Pakistan’s history in  different forms. The paper attempts to assess the dimensions of grievances of the diverse groups and tries to answer the question ‘why plurality has gone unmanageable in Pakistan?’ The  results demonstrates that it were the high degree of centralization of authority; the adoption of Urdu as a national language; a sense of domination of the central institutions by the dominant  social and ethnic groups, underrepresentation in state institutions; and controlled and radicalized society which have aggravated the position of diverse groups in Pakistan and have colossal  consequences to national economy and social harmony.
Keywords: Plurality, Ethno-religious minorities, Organizations, Underrepresentation, and Nationbuilding

Received

Received Revised

Accepted

Available Online


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