When Pakistan issued 75-rupee commemoration banknotes in 2022 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of its independence, the symbolism was hard to miss. The new note was meant to celebrate freedom from colonial rule as well as the birth of a nation carved out of South Asia’s tumult in 1947. Yet, holding it in my hand, I could not help but wonder: how different is it, really, from the banknotes once stamped with King George VI’s portrait or the five British monarchs before him?
As Pakistan nears its eighth decade of independence, the question grows sharper: is this the country that people imagined when they inherited the sacrifices of Partition–the largest mass migration in history?
Pakistani sociologist Hamza Alvi argued that Pakistan, like other post-colonial societies, inherited an “overdeveloped state structure”: institutions designed for imperial needs that outlived the empire. These habits still shape Pakistani society–its culture, education, power, consumerism, mannerisms, and collective psyche, fueling an inferiority complex and crises of self-perception.
My own journey into this subject began with a professor’s question in class: how do colonialism and Orientalism shape the subjectivity of people in post-colonial societies? Dr. Tahir Kamran maintains in his book, Chequered Past, Uncertain Future, that Pakistan bears neocolonial attitudes. In my exploration of this subject, one thing was clear: Pakistan still struggles to escape the shadows of its colonial inheritance, the echoes still reverberating. I thus questioned, is this independence or are we still carrying colonialism in our identity, our institutions, and even our everyday aspirations?
Reflecting on this, whereby the legacy of colonial rule is not only political or administrative, but deeply psychological as well, the result is a country that is formally sovereign yet still, in the words of postcolonial theorist Robert J. C. Young, living in a state of “in-dependence” rather than independence.
While this legacy is visible in many places, it is nowhere more stark than in the education system in Pakistan. Pakistan today has three parallel systems: elite private schools where English is the medium of instruction, underfunded public schools where most children study in Urdu, and religious madrasas where curricula often leave students disconnected from modern economic life.
A child educated in an English-medium private school is effortlessly on top of the hierarchy and their chances of a better future are bright. A child educated in a public school may never fully catch up, while a child educated in a madrasa faces an even steeper climb. These divisions are not merely economic, they are cultural and psychological.
English fluency, for instance, is a marker of status and accomplishment. Parents proudly boast when their child’s first words are in English, while speaking one’s mother tongue in elite circles can invite quiet shame and exclusion. Growing up, I could feel this divide. Educated in a private school, I could easily check the box on forms asking “K-12 medium of instruction in English?” That privilege, however, contrasted painfully with the millions of children for whom the question is irrelevant, locked out of opportunity not because of talent but because of socio-economic background and languages. For instance, the divide between O-levels and matriculation isn’t merely academic–it often creates social distance, where students on either side may look down on the other in condescending ways, reinforcing exclusion and existing hierarchies.
The divide has long been documented. For instance, a 2014 Dawn report noted how several scholars had pointed out Pakistan’s fragmented language policy. Another professor whose work and research nudged me to see how language policy perpetuates inequality in the country, linguistics scholar Dr. Tariq Rehman, observed that Pakistan had never had a uniform national language policy, with the state and provinces pursuing different goals. Education consultant John McGovern highlighted the gap between policy and classroom reality, warning that without coherence, reform would remain futile. The report also quoted British Council’s Punjab Director Richard Weyers, who said that only three per cent of students in Pakistan had access to private schools offering proper English instruction, while the remaining ninety-seven per cent were left to public schools unequipped to teach in English. So, all of this only deepens existing hierarchies and social divides, and leaves real learning stagnant.
But worse, it doesn’t start or end in classrooms—it spills into our screens, wardrobes, and everyday imagination. Pakistani media, through soap operas, advertisements, and popular narratives, reinforces these divides and entrenches the hierarchy in the collective psyche.Turn on a television drama: the modern, successful character is often shown in Western clothes, fluent in English; the naïve or uneducated character speaks Urdu or a regional language, wears traditional attire, and sits on the floor; modernity is dressed in a tie, while backwardness is wrapped in a dupatta; a person in a suit is seen as authoritative, while someone in traditional shalwar kameez may be dismissed as unsophisticated, rowdy, uneducated. This bias goes beyond personal perception—it reflects a deeper societal hierarchy. The danger is not only cultural amnesia but also deepening inequality. A society where opportunity is determined by language and dress will always reproduce its divides and continue to embrace colonial imports.
In such a context, English and Western dress have therefore become shorthand for being “modern” and “intelligent” thereby a ticket to mobility, respect and authority. While this condition is not unique to Pakistan; this cultural and linguistic hierarchy no doubt masks a deeper loss: the erosion of heritage. Pakistan is heir to one of the world’s oldest civilizations, from Mehargarh to the Indus Valley, and to centuries of rich traditions in poetry, music, and art across its many languages and ethnicities.
Yet too often these traditions are sidelined or commodified without context. Urban elites spend lavishly on clothes and ornaments inspired by “ethnic” patterns, but cannot name the region or history they come from. A Sindhi ajrak or a Balochi Doch embroidery becomes a fashion accessory stripped of its meaning. Similarly, Punjabi, Pashto, or Siraiki proverbs that once carried deep wisdom are now dismissed or forgotten. TikTok trends, ethnic fashion shows, and diversity campaigns celebrate surface-level aesthetics while hollowing out the substance beneath. Songs in traditional languages or rooted in folklore are often sung by artists who have no connection to the ethnicity they represent; they may not even know the history of the songs they perform. Listeners, meanwhile, “vibe” to the music without paying attention to the lyrics or the stories behind them.
Worse still, local accents and identities are mocked—Punjabi speech is linked with illiteracy, while Pashtun and other ethnicities are caricatured as crude or unintelligent in films, dramas, and jokes. Even many music platforms may profit from new covers and remixes of traditional songs, and people may listen, but this too is a form of consumerism and commodification. What happened to orature; to the living oral archives of stories and songs passed down from generation to generation?
Moreover, the same pattern repeats beyond songs and symbols. What is sold as “heritage”; from architecture to historic sites and site visits, sadly, becomes another product to consume. In tourism, hotels rise on historic remnants where the wealthy ‘buy’ culture at high prices, and ordinary visitors, often unaware of its significance, deface walls with graffiti, trample fragile areas, and sometimes remove or damage artifacts, still contribute to the site’s erosion. In the end, both play a role in its destruction. Lahore’s Walled city is one such example.
So, when heritage becomes a commodity, identity becomes hollow. Reclaiming it is not nostalgia, it’s survival. This struggle to protect living heritage from erasure is not Pakistan’s alone; across the world, others have wrestled with how to reclaim what colonialism once fractured.
African poets, for instance, have written powerfully against cultural erasure, and they haven’t rejected English rather refused it to define their worth. South African poet Mazisi Kunene once wrote, “We are not driftwood of distant oceans, our kinsmen are thousand centuries old.” For Pakistanis, this means remembering that their civilizational roots long predate the empire. Similarly, Nigerian-British poet Ben Okri laments the loss of cultural heritage and destruction by colonial powers. He writes in the poem Lament of the Images, “They took the masks … They burned what they could not / Understand.” Writers like Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie remind us of the danger of reducing identity to “a single story.”
The words of African writers remind us that decolonization is not unique to us, it’s a shared struggle to reclaim one’s story. They warn of a familiar trap: mistaking political freedom for psychological or cultural liberation. Pakistan must avoid the same trap and combat it by finding its voice, for true independence lies not in sovereignty alone, but in self-belief. Reviving local languages, celebrating our own art forms, and teaching children to take pride in their history can help them see their true selves and tell their own story. Colonialism’s legacies are stubborn, but not immutable.
Pakistan can move beyond its neo-colonial attitudes—when freedom is felt, not just declared; when even the newest currency notes carry the imprint of confidence and memory. Because true independence is not what we print or perform; it is what we practice and internalize.
Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Pakistani Schoolgirls, Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons | CC License, no changes made
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