Re: Ancestors of Pakistanis were NOT Hindu!
LastOfTheDinosaurs,
Like I said before I do support changing Pakistan’s national language from Urdu to Dari/Farsi… and of course the fair contract, local govt autonomy, and genuine federation is also vital !
No doubt, a Pakistani Pashtun will have more commonality with an Afghan Pashtun… but as we discussed previously, boundaries for all countries that exist today in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia were drawn by the European colonialists… and ethnic groups are divided/separated in almost all of these countries. So your concern should not single out Pakistan… its a region-wide problem. Perhaps one day when the socio-econo-political conditions improve these countries will open borders for free movement of the same ethnic groups divided/separated.
By the way, Punjabis/Sindhis are not Hindustanis, as they have their own culture, language, history, identity, etc.
Pakistan as a post-colonial successor state (just like all other countries in the region) is blessed to have a common Indo-Iranian identity. Your dividing of Indo-Iranian into sub-branches of Iranian, Indo-Aryan, and Dardic would be similar to dividing Germanic into North Germanic and South Germanic sub-branches (reference: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90017 ). Also, all ethnic groups of pakistan have a common heritage under the Harappans, Rig Vedic Aryans, Scythians, Kushans, Greco-Bactrians, Hephthalites, Turks, etc. Then there are other factors that are common already discussed in previous posts such as race, culture, economics, geography, defence, etc.