Daily Times

While Pakistanis are known for never learning any lessons from the crinkly old pages of history, the frail bones of a 146-year-old resting in a grand mausoleum in Karachi are probably still hopeful of the 243-million-strong family waking up from its deep slumber; stretching arms and getting to work. It is for this reason alone that every year, December 25 comes around, adorned with the blueprint of his vision and punctuated with anecdotes from his titanic struggle.

Energised by how our founding father had managed to clutch this free homeland out of the tight-knuckled fist of the colonial masters, many among us will reaffirm our pledge to put our noses to the grindstone day in and day out but come tomorrow, the orphan country would again find itself at the mercy of fires burning in every corner. Clouds of doom and gloom would continue to hover on the perenially troubled western border. Militancy would still be here in all its glory and the money troubles, not even one bit better. However, far more troubling is the general disregard for the values he held so dear to his heart and wished to be enshrined in the very foundation of his masterpiece: religious freedom, constitutional sovereignty and supremacy of the will of the power.

A lot may have changed in the last seven decades but simply sitting at the pinnacle of nuclear enrichment and building mega-cities does not come close to ticking all the boxes. Are we living our lives in accordance with even a threadbare vestigial version of his ideals? Is the white in the crescent-star flag just as protected, just as cherished and just as involved as its Muslim brethren? From the crippling absence of a model democratic state to the raging bloodlust of sectarianism, there is a need to reform literally every nook of the land.

Many such questions hang heavy in the air as the piercing stare of the ubiquitous face of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah waits for the much-needed leap of faith. *