Daily Times

I wish my readers a very Happy New Year. Let us renew our commitment to make Pakistan a better place to live, let us work together to help bring peace, stability, freedom, and dignity to human kind.

Let us bury rancour, vindictiveness, sectarianism and religious intolerance. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past. Our journey so far has not seen consolidation, it has moved from one crisis to another—rendering the lives of millions of innocent people nasty, brutish and short. We seem to have abdicated our moral responsibility by turning a blind eye to the vision of founding father Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (MAJ).

Only last month the nation observed the birthday anniversary of MAJ. It was more of a ritual than genuine stock-taking. Leaders big and small pledged themselves to bring ‘Tabdeeli’ in Pakistan without shedding a tear for half of the country lost in 1971 war with India. Not many were bothered about the alarming writings on the wall threatening the very survival of MAJ’s Pakistan. What is most alarming is that those at the helm of affairs when they spoke at various functions, were either hollow in substance or did not know much about MAJ’s raison d’etre for Pakistan without underscoring the fact that the Pakistan movement under MAJ’s leadership was essentially democratic, constitutional, peaceful and non-agitational.

MAJ wanted Pakistan to be a secular, progressive democracy. Why a democracy? MAJ’s understanding of Islam was that it was democratic in nature and he considered that when the Creator titled himself as Rab-ul-Alamein and His Last Prophet Rehmat-ul-Lil Alamein (PBUH)—the secular nature of both and not religious was unequivocally stressed. MAJ often declared that Muslims have democratic blood running in their arteries. Being a barrister he believed in Islam’s social justice and concept of equality. He wanted Pakistan to be an egalitarian society, where religion would have neither have anything to do with the business of the state, nor Pakistan would ever be a theocratic state.

At this critical juncture, the need of the hour as a nation is to rise collectively to save Pakistan from being hijacked ideologically and seek our correct pathway to survival as opposed to Imran Khan’s religious gurus like the late Dr Israr Ahmed or the late Maulana Samiul Haq who considered the Quaid a heretic

Indeed, Pakistan’s valiant fauji jawans have done the nation proud in their do and die fight against terrorists ‘nurtured and nourished’ in our backyard by the previous rulers as their proxies. No doubt our brave soldiers have upheld the impeccable reputation of their institution under threat of being maligned by the Bonapartist praetorians who have sporadically violated the constitution and subverted democracy without strengthening it.

We have had a third elected government since the day people’s power finally showed the door in 2008 to the military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf. No doubt the nation paid a heavy price in the shape of the murder of Pakistan’s most internationally and otherwise popular leader, the martyr Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto through an anti-people conspiracy by the dictator at a juncture when Pakistan needed her the most.

The third parliamentary elections in a row and smooth transfer of power were only tarnished by serious allegations of pre- and post-rigging and engineering in politics by the powers that be. Prime Minister Khan has taken the nation in confidence that Pakistani army stands behind him and his party’s manifesto. Previously the chief executive was always daggers drawn with the Establishment. Since the first parliamentary election in 1988, no Prime Minister, whether non-party or from the PPP or PML-N— has completed her or his tenure in office.

There are certain characteristics that are imperative for a viable state. It has to have a sound ideological edifice to build its socio-economic and political structure; an effective writ of the state in the four corners of the country without being challenged; a security apparatus to ensure implementation of that writ; and a professional army that can safeguard its territorial sovereignty.

Unfortunately we have neither this nor that. Overall, the state of law and order is most deplorable as reflected in the death of a lawyer/educationist in custody recently which suggests that we are fast sliding into become a police state.

Irrespective of the fact that our prime minister appears to be sincere and his promises to the nation seem to be too good to be transformed into reality, it is a national tragedy that except a few, most of those leaders comprising the military, political and judicial troika are either ignorant or confused about MAJ’s vision.

The fault does not lie with them for not knowing how we came to be what we are today. It rests with the systematic murder of our history so honestly exposed by eminent historian, the late K. K. Aziz in his thought provoking book The Murder of History. History, indeed, was murdered brutally during General Zia’s decade long dictatorship. We came to such a tragic pass that MAJ’s secular speeches that formed the basic of our ideological foundation for garnering a populist, non-theocratic Pakistan guaranteeing equality to all its citizens was shredded to pieces.

Prime Minister Imran Khan wants to convert Pakistan into what he naively calls Riyasat-e-Medina or to establish a caliphate without realising that his example does not provide any proper system of succession and even afterwards, Muslim rulers were either despatched to the Hereafter violently by their adversaries or family members in a contest for power.

At this critical juncture, the need of the hour as a nation is to rise collectively to save Pakistan from being hijacked ideologically and seek our correct pathway to survival as opposed to Imran Khan’s religious gurus like the late Dr Israr Ahmed or the late Maulana Samiul Haq who considered the Quaid a heretic.

The author is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to UK and a veteran journalist.

Published in Daily Times, January 2^nd 2019