Pakistan’s redemption lies in discovering its ethos
To say that people have been in a state of shock since the burning down of the Ziarat Residency in Balochistan would be an understatement. The pain, though palpable, is difficult to be expressed because, beyond a certain point, words become meaningless.
To quote Laurell K. Hamilton: “There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds”.
The tragedy is that while the burning down of the Ziarat Residency has been reported and talked about extensively, the scores of instances of the teachings of the Quaid concerning how Pakistan was to evolve into a liberal and progressive society having been distorted and disfigured beyond recognition have gone unnoticed. Either people, including from the independent media, are too scared to initiate a pragmatic, constructive and meaningful dialogue on the issue, or they are simply nonchalant about such rampant defiling. They also fail to mention in their excruciatingly painful monologues that it was from the same Ziarat that the Quaid was to return to Karachi to die unattended parked by the roadside in an ambulance.
I have written endlessly on the subject driving myself to the extremes of exhaustion. I believe that defiling the message of our creation is that one critical point that best defines the difference between Pakistan blossoming into a vibrant country or it tottering along in ceaseless pain and in perpetual conflict with itself. From a country that was conceived to house the Muslims of the subcontinent and everyone else in an all-embracing covenant of tolerance and peace, Pakistan has continued to slide inexorably towards becoming a theocratic state showing impatience even with the others’ right to be alive.
This has neither happened overnight nor does it carry the symptoms of a revelation. The phenomenon has been crudely manufactured by distorting history. Guidelines which were to shape the destiny of Pakistan have been systematically consigned to the dustbin and forgotten like they never existed. The Quaid’s saying “Unity, Faith, Discipline” becoming “Faith, Unity, Discipline” to emphasise the ascendency of the post-independence-discovered “faith” over everything else is a small matter undeserving of even a mention. Heinous efforts have been made to erase his August 11 speech from the state archives to perpetuate the shadows of obscurantism and theocracy. As a prologue of the constitution of Pakistan, his speech would have chartered a divergently different course for Pakistan – a course that the Quaid had envisioned for the yet-to-be born state. Does anyone remember what he said? Let me refresh your memory, yet again!
Addressing the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11 in Karachi, the Quaid outlined the contours of the charter of Pakistan. He said: “Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor… If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make.”
He banished the demons of division among the people along religious lines: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that, in course of time, Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.” The cause of Pakistan’s woes can be traced to the intellectual degradation that has symbolised our existence.
All this has been eroded from the record books. Cowardly attempts are underway to erase this from people’s memory also. Henceforth, what will be left of Pakistan is a ghost country caught in the putrid syrups of its own cooking that may eventually spell its painful demise. Do we understand that? Do we realise the fatal plunge that we have consigned the country into? Do we realise that there is no one to stop it from hurtling into meaninglessness? Do we see that the apparel of religion that we have forced the state to wear could be its undoing because a state is not supposed to nurture any discrimination on any basis whatsoever? The choice of religion remains the sole and inalienable right of its citizens.
We have gone wrong. In the process, we have put the state into a doomed orbit and no salvation is anywhere in sight. Above all, the political pontificating is painfully and ceaselessly emanating from leaders showing symptoms of dysfunction. They refuse to look into the mirror to gauge the damage they have done to the country. Instead, they are endlessly engaged in pointing fingers at others. The latest outburst has come from the newly-anointed interior minister in the wake of the Balochistan tragedy: “The legacy of Gen (Retd) Pasha and others like him is still alive in the military. We have to eliminate such legacies from Pakistan Army”.
Agreed that the interventionist mindset may have put the country back, but who is going to eliminate the “Pasha” legacy from the political arena – the inveterate couriers of corruption and abdication of governance? Who is going to handle the likes of the Zardaris, the Gilanis, the Sharifs, the Chaudhrys, the Altaf Hussains and a whole lot of wily operators who have taken Pakistan to the brink of bankruptcy and destruction? Who is going to cleanse the country of their humiliating surrender before the demons of lust and militancy? Beginning your odyssey closer at home may be a better option.
Pakistan’s redemption lies in discovering its ethos. We need to revisit the elevating principles of our creation and take the fight to the intellectually corrupt who are trying to defile and destroy them. There are no short-cuts. It is a long and arduous fight – and fight we must!
The writer is a political analyst. He can be reached at raoofhasan@hotmail.com