Cultural Practices

1st Prompt: Consider carefully what cultural practices (you practice) that other cultures might find unusual or difficult to understand. Why do you do these things? What are the underlying beliefs and/or heritage that encourage people in your culture to do these things? Remember to consider these things from a ToK perspective, looking at a variety of perspectives and digging into how you know.

There are lots of unusual cultural practices in Pakistani culture; some of them can be related to other cultures around the world, but some of them are unknown and unaccepted by some, and most people don’t even practice them anymore. These practices are rooted in old tradition, and they can be thought of as a very extreme level of a lifestyle.

One such example of a practice goes by the name Karo Kari, an act of murder in which a person is killed for his/her immoral behavior. This is only practiced in one specific province of Pakistan call Sindh. In literal terms Karo means black man and Kari means black woman, but this is symbolic for the crime they have committed of dishonoring themselves and their families. This is usually performed for the acts such as marital infidelity, refusal to submit to an arranged marriage, demanding a divorce, perceived flirtatious behavior and being raped.

Some may say that this practice is one that emerged from extreme Islam, but in actuality this practice, along with a few others, goes back to the misinterpretation or reinterpretation of the Hindu scriptures. It dates back a long time ago in subcontinent, due to political influences.

At one point in time this practice was a major human right violation issue as it happened so frequently and ubiquitously in Sindh. Victims of this practice would accept their punishment and when security tried to stop it from happening they would secretly commit suicide. This is how blinded some people were by this practice, their morals were more important than their lives.

Even though this practice is thought of as inhumane or human abuse, this are what makes these people powerful from the heart with a strong moral belief system and through this they are aware of the consequences of doing wrong, or what they think is wrong. It shows how rooted some practices of Pakistan are in Indian culture and no matter how much division is brought to the countries the past cannot be changed and in a way these types of practices are what represent subcontinent with all differences apart, as one body rich with intertwining belief systems.