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Contact Info and HMD
Mun name: Kristen
Mun LJ: mouthofbrass
E-Mail: kristen[at]spectrumvoid.net
IM: MadMadPhineas
Feedback: Welcomed! Please comment on this entry with any comments or criticism concerning how I play Pakistan. Comments are screened and anonymous commenting is enabled.
Character Info
Character Name: Pakistan
Series: Afghanis-tan and Pakis-tan.
Timeline: Present day
At betrayedbyrpg
Room: 15
Stats:
→ Speed: 4
→ Might: 4
→ Sanity: 5
→ Knowledge: 4
Character Background
Pakistan's papa was the Mughal Empire, and she has two sisters, Indo (India) and Bangaru (Bangladesh). After their papa left the three of them under Briten's care, the sisters started to undergo some personal changes, and this precipitated a number of relationship problems for them. Nowadays, the three of them bicker quite a bit, though they are there for each other when they need it.
Pakistan likes to pull pranks and tends to brag about what she can do or the nice things she has. Although she has good intentions, she is often too enthusiastic and ends up scaring people, such as during her initial attempts to befriend Afghanistan. She often does things without thinking, such as eating too much of the food she is supposed to be sharing with Afghanistan, or playing too roughly. Consequently, she has a hard time making friends and is often lonely at her house, especially since Bangaru went to live on her own.
Even after she manages to make friends with Afghanistan, though, Pakistan sometimes gets caught up in her own thoughts and loses track of Afghanistan, or does things without thinking about how her actions affect her friend, such as when she fights with Uzbekistan or Tajikistan over who gets to play with Afghanistan, and ends up setting Afghanistan's house on fire. Despite her shortcomings, she is very loyal and hospitable, letting her new friend stay at her house while Afghanistan's house is being repaired.
Pakistan has a kitten named Azad, which she got from Kashmir. (This kitten was one of three originall given by Kashmir to Indo. Pakistan wanted them, however, and she and Indo ended up fighting, resulting in Pakistan taking custody of one of the kittens. The other two kittens, Jammu and Aksai Chin, were taken by Indo, though the latter was later given to China.) Her younger sister Bangaru used to live in her house with her, but recently left to live on her own because of cultural differences (specifically over Pakistan's refusal to recognize Bangaru's speech patterns as legitimate).
History of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
| History of Pakistan (Wikipedia) | map of the region |
Prior to the nineteenth century, the territory of modern Pakistan was either part of larger empires or home to one or more independent sultanates. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the area, along with most of South Asia, was ruled by the Mughal Empire, one of the major Islamic states of the time. When the kingdom of Afghanistan was established in 1747, it initially encompassed most of modern day Pakistan’s territory, though many areas were at least nominally under autonomous rule by local powers. From 1748 to 1799, a group of states in the Punjab region, called the Sikh Confederacy, managed to oust the Mughals from the area and repelled several Afghan invasions, but eventually fell due to political instability.
From 1799 to 1849, the Sikh empire ruled an area that extended from the Khyber Pass in the west, as far sound as Multan, and to Kashmir in the north. The empire successfully fought off two Afghan attempts to retake the territory surround Peshawar, but after two Anglo-Sikh wars, the British annexed the empire in 1849, and the territory was split up, though most of it came into the hands of the East India Company.
From 1849 to 1947, much of Pakistan's territory was under the control of British-controlled India. For the Muslim community of this region, the Hindu-domination of northern India, including the Indian National Congress, a nationalist movement that the Muslims would otherwise have championed, was difficult to swallow. The Muslim League was founded: their major goals were not only to gain independence from European control, but to gain independence from India, with the goal of establishing a “Muslim Homeland”. When World War II broke out, however, other nationalist movements within the Indian territory did not back the League, due to the fact that the Hindu majority considered India to be a single entity and would not agree to its partitioning.
Negotiations for the establishment of an independent state of Pakistan ran the gambit from attempts to legally vote for such a policy, mediation by the British, who could not afford to maintain their colonies in South Asia after the war, threats of secession and civil war, and promises by Muslim leaders for certain geographic concessions if independence was granted. Following this process, Pakistan became the Dominion of Pakistan on August 14, 1947.
The split involved the division of the provinces of Bengal and Punjab, and this controversial decision resulted in a disastrous outbreak of inter-religious violence between Muslims and Hindus, that resulted in around 100,000 deaths. The solution was the migration of nearly 2 million people across religious lines. Another result of Pakistan's independence was the debate over Kashmir, which resulted in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947.
Pakistan's post-independence history is characterized by disputes with India over the status of Kashmir, and with Afghanistan over whether or not the Pashtun-dominated territories of the two countries should become an independent state. Another characteristic was alternating periods of democratic and authoritarian rule that involved disputes over the national language, inter-religious violence, and political unrest. In 1956, the Dominion of Pakistan was replaced by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, but two years later the government was taken over by a military coup. The new military ruler attempted to establish a democratic and constitutional government, developed stronger relations with the United States and other Western powers, and entered into military pacts with other countries in the area (including Turkey, Iran and Iraq) with the intent of defending the region from the Soviet Union.
The period from 1947 to 1971 saw another war with India over Kashmir in 1965, and the existence of two distinct regions of Pakistan. In East Pakistan, a Bengali nationalist movement began to gain ground in a bid for independence. The result was Bangladesh Liberation War and the emergence of the nation of Bangladesh on December 20, 1971, following a period of military and civil unrest that resulted in the deaths of at least 26,000 Bengali civilians (although some sources say it was over a million) and the flight of another 10 million Bengali refugees to India.
Following this were six years of civilian government, followed by another military coup in 1977 after a disputed election. In 1978, strict Islamic law was introduced, and the military began to reverse the previous government's socialist policies. This is considered to have been a huge contributing factor in the current sectarianism in the country.
During the 1980's, Pakistan acted as a conduit for U.S. to supply and finance an anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan. The Afghan secret police responded with a number of terrorist attacks on Pakistan, which had also become victim to an influx of illegal drugs and weapons from Afghanistan. Pakistan received considerable aid from the United States during this period of the Cold War, and took in millions of Afghan refugees.
From 1988 to 1999 there was another period of civilian rule, ending in an economic decline due to the Asian financial crisis and economic sanctions that were imposed because of Pakistan's testing of nuclear devices. Pakistan also became one of three countries that recognized the Taliban government of Afghanistan, and was alleged to have provided economic and military aid to the Taliban. After the 1997 election, the new prime minister was able to change the constitution to eliminate the checks and balances that limited the power of the prime minister.
1999 saw another military coup that began the third period of military control of the country. There followed a period of attempted economic, political and social reforms, only some of which were successful. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan also sent troops into Afghanistan in 2002, looking for members of al-Qaeda. After two years of fighting with entrenched militants and local rebel supporters, Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire and general withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the region in 2006. Thereafter followed some bloodless political unrest, and the beginning of another era of civilian rule in 2008.