Daily Times

Just scratch the surface and paradoxes, contradictions and discontent pop up, compounded by mistrust and apathy. Instead of alleviating with the passage of time by turning into pragmatism, they were perpetuated as the ultimate truth!

As Professor Christophe Jaffrelot in his recent book, ‘The Pakistan Paradox’ summed it aptly, ‘a state created by the minority to rule that is continuing in one or other form’.

This mind-set got so much entrenched that after 24 years of the existence of the state, the majority was kicked out by the minority. Currently, minorities, whether ethnic, cultural or religious are misfit in its scheme of power game of domination.

Punjab, a Muslim majority province was at ease with the new rulers in the form of British imperialists and got favours from them in kind in the form of development, particularly, in the words of Jaffrelot, ‘the creation of sophisticated irrigation system’ that boasted its economy in lieu of their help in what the imperialist called the Mutiny.

The Pakhtun and Baloch were up in arms against the British colonialists, politically which later took the form of Khudai Khidmatgar led by Bacha Khan in the erstwhile NWFP and Anjuman-i-Wattan of Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai in the British Balochistan. Chief among those carrying out armed struggle were Sartor Faqir of Swat Haji Sahib of Torrangzo and Mirza Ali Khan, alias Faqir of Appi.

The discontent was increasing in the Central Provinces (UPs) when Muslims began to lose their ruling status of the Mughal era. Their decline began particularly after the Mutiny of 1857. And as Jaffrelot put it, ‘the population of Ganges Plain Muslims formed 14 percent but in 1882 their share in the civil service in the UPs was 35 percent’.

Politicization of religion not only exacerbated the existing paradoxes but polarised the polity and injected hypocrisies in polity as well as society

This increasing challenge to their status forced them to use the Muslim card in new confidence building measures and negotiations with the British by banking on their high rate of education and literacy as compared to Muslims of other parts of the subcontinent.

With the changing international scenario in the wake of World War I and beginning of World War II, which resulted into ushering a new bipolar world and military alliances system, the option of the partition of the subcontinent gained momentum.

The Punjabi elites jumped the bandwagon when partition was no longer an enigma to share power with the migrants especially from the UPs.

However, it is still a mystery what the justification was of the triggering of such unprecedented violence after the passage of the Independence Act of June 1947. The bloody partition left many ugly marks on the history of the subcontinent.

Much of the migration from both sides of the Punjab was forced by violence which buried overnight centuries of common history and culture. The suffering incurred by the bloody partition perpetuated the fear psychosis in the mind of common Punjabi who accepted the exploitation by the elites in the name of security and ideology. Instead of political history, they tend to rewrite the entire socio-cultural history to break up with their South Asian roots. Punjabi even gave up speaking their own language ‘Punjabi’ as a symbol of patriotism and wanted the others to do so too.   Such fear psychosis in the common person and exploitative attitude of the elite nurtured inclination toward disequilibrium, quest for centralisation and domination.

After the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971 and getting rid of the East wing or Bengal, the Punjabi elite dominated state power through civil and military bureaucracy. The reliance of Punjabi elite, unlike the migrants, was more on military than civil bureaucracy which resulted in a partnership, recently to relegate the civilians to second tier. This created deep aversion for federation, provincial autonomy and supremacy of the Constitution.

The most intolerant were those migrants turned elite from the East Punjab, who had left their homes behind and suffered through the mysteriously ignited violence. But they also benefited from the system.

If anyone questions the officially encrypted discourse regarding the partition, militarisation and centralisation of the state, they quickly respond by stating that if you people are not happy why are you living in Pakistan?

They forget that not everyone like them migrated to Pakistan after the partition but was living here for thousands of years. They were not conquered to be subjugated but became citizens of the new state due to a change in the geo-political reality and geography. Ironically, majority of them are currently dual national living with families in the West but still earning in Pakistan currency thanks to the intimacy with the military. They eulogise Jinnah but turn scornful towards Fatima Jinnah who as a democrat challenged a dictator.

Therefore, if ends are evil, justification should look holy. Thus religious ideology was readily employed to cover hypocrisy. Pakistan, a geo-political entity had been equated with the divine phenomenon wherein unconditional loyalty and sacrifices were sine qua none of patriotism, particularly for the disempowered. Any voice or demand for political, cultural and economic rights was equated as a threat not only to the state but to the grand ideology. This mindset reduced the Constitution to merely a shred of paper notwithstanding that it set the ambit and parameters of the institutions. The institutions assumed the role to fix the limits of the Constitution to fit into their sectional and institutional interests.

Instead of egalitarianism, an essential element of Islam or democratic principles, colonial tools were not only retained but further sharpened to run the state as a fiefdom. Every dissenting voice was and is being resonated as treason. Dialogue, discourse and discussion have been replaced with blaming, naming and maligning.   The allegation of blasphemy is a new addition against political dissenters and those espousing radical points of view.

Religion, employed to respond to mundane political questions and to justify the power domination by certain sections and institution, not only exacerbated the existing paradoxes but polarised the polity and injected hypocrisies in polity as well as society.  Instead of genuine faith everyone tries to look a good Muslim by applying the religious rhetoric. It is preferred to be seen patriotic than adhering to patriotism because that opens opportunities of extracting and plundering state resources without offering any sacrifice.

Initially, these tactics were reserved for political dissenters coming from small provinces. But now they have turned against the Punjabis who dare to speak against these paradoxes.

The only silver lining are voices from Punjab who realise that state cannot be run like a fiefdom, dominated either by a group or institutions. State is a geo-political and constitutional entity and requires to justify its existence through service delivery by adhering to the social contract not banking on the sacrosanctity of divinity and illusive fears. Such paradoxes and infused fear psychosis need incisive surgery.

The writer is a political analyst hailing from Swat. Tweets @MirSwat

Published in Daily Times, April 5^th 2018.