Punjabi culture
The culture of the Punjab encompasses the spoken language, written literature, cuisine, science, technology, military warfare, architecture, traditions, values and history of the Punjabi people native to the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term 'Punjabi' can mean both a person who lives in Punjab and also a speaker of the Punjabi language. This name originates from the Persian language 'panj', (five), and 'ab', (water). Combined together the word becomes Panjab or Punjab: land of the five rivers. Indus River (the largest river in this five river system), and the five other rivers to the south eventually join Indus or merge into it later in the downstream of the Punjab valley. All the rivers start and flow out of the Himalayas. These other five rivers are Jhelum River, Chenab River, Ravi River, Beas River and Sutlej River.
East Pakistan Renaissance Society
The Muslim League and most other advocates of Pakistan had demanded a single state of Pakistan consisting of the British Indian provinces of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (then Northwest Frontier Province), Sindh, Balochistan and Bengal, and sought the Urdu language to be the only official language and "lingua franca" of Muslims. However, the East Pakistan Renaissance Society not only argued that Muslims were a separate nation from Hindus, it also advocated that the Bengali Muslims were distinct from the Muslims of other parts of India, on an ethnic, cultural and geographical basis. Unlike religion, the society argued that ethnicity and cultural differences cannot cross geographic boundaries. The society and its supporters in the Bengal Muslim League asserted that Bengali Muslims should constitute an independent state, as an "Eastern Pakistan" rather than part of a single state of Pakistan. The society asserted the importance of the Bengali culture and language, which many advocates of Pakistan criticised as being "Hinduised" and "Sanskritised."