August 14 – Independence Day in Pakistan

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nPostednon August 14, 2016

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nGreatnBritain colonized – and ruled over – a lot of portions of thenworld. One of these British-ruled regions is sometimes referred to asn“Southern Asia” or “the Indian subcontinent.” While the Britsnruled that area, it was called the British Raj.

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nAfternWorld War II, many former colonies broke away from their Europeannrulers, and that includes the people of the Indian subcontinent. Butnnot all of the people of the British Raj wanted to be part of thennew, independent India. So Britain’s Indian Independence Act 1947ncarved away from India two parts that were dominated by people whonfollowed Islam. Those two parts were West Pakistan (now present-daynPakistan) and East Pakistan (which eventually broke away into thenindependent nation of Bangladesh).

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nInfound it a bit interesting that the Act of Parliament that made bothnPakistan and India independent timed the transfer of power atnmidnight of August 14/15. because of the midnight timing, the IndiannIndependence Act 1947 recognized August 15 as the birthday of bothnnations, and Pakistan’s first commemorative stamp, released in Julynof 1948, were printed with “15 August 1947” as Pakistan’snindependence day. But later August 14 was adopted as the officialnIndependence Day. I wonder if that decision was made partly tondifferentiate Pakistan even more from India (which kept August 15 asnIndependence Day).

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nHerenare a few things that make Pakistan particularly special:

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nIt’sn craggy, rugged mountains feature the second-highest peak in then world AND four out of seven of the world’s longest non-polarn glaciers.

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nBecausen of those craggy, rugged mountains, some areas of Pakistan are prettyn much cut off from most of the rest of the world. The Hunza Valleyn was very isolated until the Karakorum Highway connected it to then rest of Pakistan in 1986; the people of that valley speak what isn called a “language isolate.” This is a language that is notn related to any other spoken language in the world!

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nThe Hunza Valley is really lovely!

nAnothern isolated group of people is the Kalash. This tribe kept its pre-Islamic polytheistic religion even though it was surrounded by Muslim believers. (Islam is a monotheist religion that teaches that there is one god, and polytheistic religions teach that there are two or more — sometimes way more — gods.)

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Didn I mention the craggy, rugged mountains of Pakistan? Well, some ofn these mountains include some world record holders. For example,n Nanga Parbat is, by some definitions at least, the site of then world’s biggest mountain face and the world’s deepest gorge.

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Trango Towers offers the world’s longest nearly-vertical drop.

Somen people call the Karakorum Highway the “Eighth Wonder of then World.” It is the highest-altitude paved border crossing (fromn Pakistan to China), and it is one of the most popular touristn attractions in the region.

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Some of Pakistan’s mountains provide the second largest salt mine and the largest source of salt in the world: Khewara Salt Mine. This mine produces about 350,000 tons of salt per year, but estimates of the salt reserves still waiting to be mined are about 600 MILLION tons!
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These electric lamps (above),
the the brick mosque(below),
and the sphere (even more below)
are all made of pink rock salt!

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