As a child I read an Urdu series with a setting in ancient India about the intriguing travels of a child named Anusha, with his wise older guru. One particular story masterfully communicated the precarious state of a resident in an unjust state. Anusha and his guru, weary and emaciated from their long sojourn, entered a town, where food prices were too good to be true. Anusha, being a child, was thrilled. He decided to stay in the land, against the advice of his departing guru who considers this fact to be a dangerous omen. Over the next few weeks Anusha feasted on food, while, stationing himself in the main square of the town. One day an elephant runs amok in the town’s center, and amidst the chaos a man is crushed under a freshly constructed wall, which broke due to the stampede. The murder is instantly reported to the ruler by wailing townsmen. The ruler immediately announces that justice must be swift and the perpetrator must be caught and hanged till death. The search for the culprit was initiated. The mason was considered responsible for the man’s death but he blamed the supplier who gave him poor quality construction material. The supplier pleads that the freshly constructed wall needed time to dry out and strengthen. The supplier in turn blames the mahout of the elephant for failing to control the animal. The mahout, however, blames a trumpet player for startling the elephant, which caused him to flee. The ruler orders a public hanging of the trumpet player. However, the noose was too loose for the emaciated trumpet player’s skinny neck. Since a hanging was called for, the ruler announced that someone with a neck wide enough to fit the noose must be hanged till death. Violence is our nation’s the preferred way of handling things. Anusha who had packed on the pounds was immediately apprehended and to be hanged. Anusha’s days of bliss in the new town, thus, came to an abrupt and fatal end. Anusha’s guru knew that social justice was non-existent in the town where prices were artificially controlled to be kept ridiculously low. Wages were unjust and farmers were paid a pittance for their ceaseless toil. The chatter for justice was loud, because of the pent up grief from the ongoing injustices in their lives. To appease the people and to maintain a facade of being a competent ruler, he ordered punitive action by the state but not of the true culprit. Anusha lacked a support network and was one of the weakest members of society being a child with no guardian. The gullible Anusha, hence, became the scapegoat. As children’s fables have happy endings, Anusha escaped alive, thanks to his guru coming to his rescue. Truth is stronger than fiction. Anusha’s unjust town in ancient India reminds me of present day Islamic Pakistan. We are a country teeming with doctors, but lacking healthcare. A country with laws and a functional judiciary has no order or justice. A country with ubiquitous law enforcement officials has no security. Our urban towns have a mushroom growth of schools but no morals or ethics are learned from these schools. There are so many institutions but with zero service delivery. There is an abundance of clergy and their sermons, but religion is restricted to empty rituals. We are an agricultural country, but suffer from food insecurity. We are a democratic Republic but feudalism and tribalism thrives in the majority of the land. Violence is our nation’s the preferred way of handling things. Women and children are not safe even in their homes let alone outside. The youth that came in droves to support our Prime Minister in his dharnas, is unemployed and frustrated today. To put on track a train that derailed long ago, an iron fist is needed. Riyasat e Medina reached its zenith under the rule of Caliph Umar ibn Khattab. He was personally accessible for his subjects and he spared no one when it came to establishing justice. A man approached the caliph about his quarrelling wife, another sought permission to divorce his aging wife to marry a younger woman. These domestic matters were presented to the head of state out of fear of a complaint being launched against them. Men would thus self-regulate and tread with caution. On one occasion the son of Amar bin-Al As, the governor of Egypt (sometime during 640-644 AD) bullied and flogged a young man, who was bragging about being a governor’s son. Amar bin Al As was a warrior at par with Khalid bin Waleed. Amar bin Al Aas had conquered Palestine and Egypt from the Byzantines (Romans) for Islam and he was also an old companion of the caliph. Caliph Umar bin Khattab disregarded everything and summoned the governor and his son to Medina. He told the young man to flog both the father and son. He ordered the flogging of the father for failing to take his son to task. Such was the justice of Riyasat-e-Madina. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) had once said: “While (in a dream), I was standing by a well, drawing water from it. Abu Bakr and ‘Umar came to me. Abu Bakr took the bucket (from me) and drew one or two buckets of water, and there was some weakness in his drawing. May Allah forgive him, then Ibn Al-Khattab took the bucket from Abu Bakr, and the bucket turned into a very large one in his hands. I had never seen such a mighty person amongst the people as him in performing such hard work. He drew so much water that the people drank to their satisfaction and watered their camels.” (Sahih Bukhari 3676) This hadith tells us of the goodness of Caliph Abu Bakr which did not accomplish much as he was not stern. Robert Heinlein said, “But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required, too, for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil.” A ruler, which promises justice and evokes the memory of the bygone days of Islamic justice, but fails to establish measures to achieve it, does not only allow evil to thrive but also snuffs out any hope of ever seeing such a day. Such is the evil of goodness alone, without cold hard wisdom. Prime Minister Imran Khan must establish an etatist state like Riyasat-e-Madina as it was under the Caliph Umar bin Khattab. The writer has been an academic and has authored a book titled “Muslim Inventions in the Islamic Golden Age” and a novel “Saffron September: A Muslim Woman’s story.”