- Making sense of the ongoing saga between state’s power and resilience of society
State is power. Society is home. State is law. Society is refuge. State demands obedience. Society asks for respect. State is a Leviathan. Society is a mother who scolds. State is power politics, writ large. Society is a cobweb of rules, norms and values. In a nutshell, state aims to control ‘illegal’ acts of its citizens while society is shaped by deeds, utterances and acts of its members.
The dilemma of the good people of Pakistan is we have a strong society but a weak state. What exactly do we understand by this? Is Pakistani society with its centuries old practices and continuity a hindrance in creating a workable, strong state that delivers all that is needed from health, education to social security? Does society’s entrenched system of patriarchy; patronage-driven politics, archaic traditions and outdated practices pose a serious challenge to a state that strives to deliver through its institutions? Or is the dichotomy between state and society at the very root of our discontent?
Pakistani society with all its diverse ethnicities, languages, casts, clans, parochial identities, socio-economic differences, and varied sectarian outlooks is a hotchpotch that defies a single one-size fits-all definition. There are many ‘us’, dear reader. And all attempts to unite them under a single banner are destined to fail. One needs to look no further than past few decades to see how the idea of ‘One Nation, One People’ crashed and burned.
Issues and grievances are neither product of a day nor can be solved or wished away in a moment
Like every multi-ethnic, multilingual country, Pakistan too has its dominant groups and damned folks. Be it religious, lingual or ethnic, minorities have it tough. From grave dangers to their lives and livelihood to discrimination at all fronts, they brave them all. The very word minority, whether used for ethnic or religious minorities, gives an impression of insecurity, powerlessness and vulnerability.
The state of Pakistan’s quest for an equitable, just society continues. Rebellions have been quelled in the past, yet the sentiments simmer beneath the surface, insurgencies have been countered yet rebels continue to prop up, military operations have been undertaken yet their results are not what the state expected. The state’s attempts to address the ills and issues of society have remained futile, even counterproductive. Yet, the state aims to keep its march on tried and tested paths. The path that led to separation of East Pakistan, the path that resulted in Baloch insurgency, the path that made its way to alienation of Hazaras, the path that has disenchanted hundreds of thousands of Pashtuns from the very people they once revered.
Whether it is Pashtun Tahafuz Movement of today or Awami Party of East Pakistan from yesteryears, just by labelling them traitors, branding them as enemy agents, banning them, making use of ‘hand of law’ against them and condemning them for disturbing the ‘Greater Good of Fatherland’ won’t bring home the bacon. The husbands of our land never learn from the mistakes they’ve committed. The naked use of force and might of state surely works, but it has a very short shelf life. Issues and grievances are neither product of a day nor can be solved or wished away in a moment. They ask for patience and persistence, both of which seems missing at the moment.
I’ll end this piece with an insight from Eric Hoffer, an inimitable social and moral philosopher of 20th century whose observations about and analysis of what makes and breaks mass movements are time-tested and prophetic. ‘
‘It is startling to see how the oppressed almost invariably shape themselves in the image of their hated oppressors. That the evil men do lives after them is partly due to the fact that those who have reason to hate the evil most shape themselves after it and thus perpetuate it.’ he writes in his magnum opus The True Believer: Thoughts on the nature of Mass Movements, a must-read for everyone who is interested in making sense of populism, rampant nationalism, rabid patriotism, and what causes people to rebel against mighty powers that seemed invincible yet crumbled and are heard no more.
P.S: States are seasons that come and go. Society is soil we live, breath and laid to rest in it. We all know who’ll prevail. We all know who’ll perish.
