There is one major advantage of being born a Pakistani. Every time there is a discussion about the creation of Pakistan and whether it was the right thing to have happened, my response is simply that this is where I was born, this is where I grew up and this is where I have lived for much of my life. And that there is a Pakistan now and it will in all likelihood still be around for a long time.
And but for Pakistan, I would have never got the chance to study at Government College, Lahore or attend King Edward Medical College or have gone on eventually to serve as a professor and chairman of a department in that medical college. Also, most of our senior bureaucrats, successful professionals, businessmen and politicians reached their present status because they are Pakistanis. So, let us just count our blessings. That said, let us also not get ‘romantic’ about Pakistan and its creation. Pakistan emerged from a boiling cauldron of hate, murder, forced immigration and great misery.
When we look at Pakistan as it is today, things do seem a bit troublesome, and some might rightfully call it ‘Jinnah’s nightmare’. Most people will agree that the things that seem to be most threatening to the wellbeing of this country are sectarian violence, religious extremism, terrorism and corruption. Many however think that all these problems are of recent origin. That is incorrect.
Let me first address the question of corruption. Mohammad Ali Jinnah in his famous August 11, 1947 speech also dwelt a bit on this problem. This is what he had to say: “The second thing that occurs to me is this: One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering — I do not say that other countries are free from it, but, I think our condition is much worse — is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison. We must put that down with an iron hand and I hope that you will take adequate measures as soon as it is possible for this Assembly to do so.”
Now a bit about religious extremism and sectarian violence. My earliest memories of Lahore include street protests and something called a ‘curfew’. Curfew meant that I could not go to school and even go out of the house to play. The reason I found out when I was much older was the ‘Anti Ahmadiya’ movement, also referred to officially as the ‘Punjab Disturbances, 1953’. Religious parties had initiated a mass movement to declare the ‘Ahmedis’ as non-Muslims and this led to murder, mayhem and a complete loss of law and order in Punjab, resulting in the first martial law in the history of Pakistan and the dismissal of the elected Muslim League government of Punjab.
As far as the problem of violence based on ‘ethnicity’ is concerned, 1971 was the year when this became ‘the major’ problem ever in the history of Pakistan. Those of us living in what was then West Pakistan kept hearing and reading the stories of how Bengali servants would ‘massacre’ their West Pakistani employers and families as they slept and other such horrible stuff. All this of course led to the dismemberment of the country. Later when in the US, we also read the stories from the ‘other’ side that were equally if not more horrific. In short, Muslims killed Muslims because of linguistic and ethnic differences. And from an historical perspective it became clear that during the first two decades of the country’s existence, the dominant non-Bengali elite that ruled Pakistan did its best to prevent the Bengali majority from achieving power over the entire country.
The real question then that is worth pondering is why we have not learnt from the mistakes of our past. In Pakistan today it is quite fashionable to blame the ‘hidden hand’ for our misfortunes. It seems to me that we as a people and the leaders we have had are the ones really responsible for our problems. Sectarianism, religious extremism, corruption and ethnic hatred have been with us from the very beginning. Sadly after Jinnah, no other leader emerged who was strong enough or else had the courage to try and tamp down these unruly passions. Rather almost all our leaders, both at the national and the provincial levels, took advantage of these ‘tendencies’ to perpetuate their own power and in more recent times to also enrich themselves.
But then, is Pakistan falling apart? Not just yet it would seem. After all over the last 40 years, the Pakistan that emerged after the dismemberment of the country has a population that is now more than three times what it was then. Yet we have no mass starvation. Our cities are thriving, motorcycles and cars seem to multiply incessantly. Even the beggars on the roads carry cell phones. And we even managed to build a pretty impressive nuclear arsenal along the way. Just drive down any of our major cities in the morning and you will see hordes of boys and girls going off to school. We have a free and a quite vociferous mass media, a ‘finally’ free (perhaps too free) judiciary and we even had general elections without too much rigging followed by a peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected government to another.
So perhaps we should see what our new government can do. Much needs to be done, and much can be done. The charm of democracy is that we do not need ‘great’ leaders but just competent ones and that is what the entire country is waiting for.
Finally it is worth repeating the words of Carl Schurz, a German American who served as US Senator during the dark days in the US just after the Civil War: “My country right or wrong; if right to be kept right; if wrong to be set right.”
The writer has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at [email protected]