Never, except perhaps in the very initial years, has the fourteenth of August been without a sense of angst. Celebrate we must, but celebrate what? As Faiz describes in his couplet about the mottled dawn, this is not what we asked for.
Things didn’t go as were planned. Much confusion, though, on that front because it isn’t really clear what was planned. Three constitutions, four bouts of military rule and one dismemberment later, the nation is still wrestling with itself as to what the country was set out to mean. And it is as uneasy a debate as any.
Uneasy debates are the best kind. They are on the cusp of every major paradigm shift in history. Perhaps it is with some iconoclast thinking that we could finally begin to move forward. Perhaps it is good to ask uncomfortable questions.
There is a tapestry of opinions that have a take on what Pakistan should be. Not mutually exclusive, yes, but still, they can’t all be right. The only solution to a problem like this is democracy. After that, it is not an issue of solving arcane philosophical riddles but ensuring there are regular, free and fair elections in an enabling environment. Let the people decide what sort of state we should be. And let who the people elect not offend any group with lofty notions of greater national interest. No one coming from the people – no one – can be a ‘security threat.’
To segue into security threats of an international variety, it was symbolic how Nawaz Sharif, the chief of the country’s populist, nationalist party, the Muslim League, talked about how the idea that India had aggressive designs against Pakistan was nothing but a great misconception. That this is the man who commands the votes of the demographic that traditionally harbours the greatest animosity towards our eastern neighbour is quite illustrative. As illustrative as the 1997 statement of AB Vajpayee (whose party represents India’s nationalist right-wing demographic) in Lahore to the effect that a stable Pakistan was good for a stable India.
Is there a threat from India, any sort of it? Quite possibly; it is a large enough country with a large enough army with a large enough number of demagogues. There needs to be an efficient, professional standing army on our side of the border. But the threat is in no way as large as the one that is being painted by those who sell and buy guns. There is a groundswell realisation of that fact. Despite all the dreariness, there are still some things to be optimistic about.