Daily Times

Pakistan’s birth is a matter of
great pride and gratitude for every Pakistani. August 14 signifies a day when this country revives its resolve to be the country its founding fathers envisioned. This year the festivity with which the day was celebrated all across the country was a moment of great satisfaction, as it was not marred by any incident that reminded us of the bitter reality that the country is still struggling to fight — the evils against which it has fought from the time of independence. But it only took a couple of days for the bitter reality to register, as the man fighting one of the major evils in the country i.e Shuja Khanzada, the home minister of Punjab, was killed in his village by a vicious attack by terrorists. This was a reminder of how the ability to feel free and independent has gone down over the past many decades.
The very purpose of independence from foreign occupation was to live a life in which we are not subjected to the discrimination and oppression of rulers who denied equal rights and status to Muslims and minorities. Quaid-e-Azam dreamt about a Pakistan that is sovereign and out of the clutches of the foreign powers; a Pakistan that gives equal opportunities and equity in the distribution of resources for all; a Pakistan that enables people to live a peaceful and meaningful life. This was the main purpose of having a separate homeland to live independently. The picture of the British governors living in palaces and treating Muslims like bonded slaves was what brought the Muslims together to demand freedom from this injustice. However, almost seven decades later, the same picture still prevails with the exception that the faces have changed. Instead of the British, it is our own Pakistanis acting on personal and foreign agendas, who have perpetuated the system of injustice to a level that for the first time not only are the poor and jobless people trying every fair and foul means of going overseas, but well placed businessmen and executives are also seeking citizenship in Canada, Australia and the UK etc. Why, if given a choice, are such a large number of Pakistanis willing to live in foreign countries rather than Pakistan? The answer is that this country has consistently failed to provide them with the basic rights of the citizen, i.e. food, education, health, security and opportunity.
The conditions of the masses have become increasingly miserable because they are deprived of these basic rights. They are trapped in the vicious circle of life, in which the bare task of surviving through the day is an exercise of extreme hardship. In the last 10 years, poverty in Pakistan has increased at one of the fastest rates in the world. Almost 60 percent of Pakistan’s population lives under $ two a day, which makes even one meal a day something to toil for. Their lives are in bonded slavery and they are dependent for their livelihood on the landlord or industrialist, who exploits their desperation by paying them pittance and keeping them in debt. Their children are also trapped in the vicious circle of poverty because the government will not abide by its Constitutional duty of providing decent free basic education. The fact that Bangladesh, which was once East Pakistan, has moved ahead of Pakistan in most economic and social indicators is evidence of how suppressed and deprived the people in this country are.
Is Pakistan really a sovereign and independent nation? A country that lives on debt and gets more debt to pay off the earlier debt can never be free. The country has been living off loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. As of March 2015, the total debt liabilities of the country stood at Rs 19,299.2 billion. Every Pakistani now owes a debt of about Rs 101,338. This figure was Rs 90,772 in 2013. It was estimated at Rs 80,894 in 2012 and was only Rs 37,170 in early 2008. If every new child is born with this burden, how can they ever be free to lead their lives the way they want to. Does the government of Pakistan make its economic policies independently? No, it is the World Bank and IMF that determine when the taxes and tariffs are to be imposed, regardless of the crushing burden on the poor masses. That is why, despite the oil prices nosediving in the world, the electricity prices have doubled in two years; that is why GST rates on petroleum products are increased without consulting the parliament; that is why industry, trading and foreign investment are dipping.
Is our foreign policy decided independently? No. The strange mystery behind government’s extreme reluctance to take on India in its constant belligerence is due to the US’s insistence on developing “cordial” relations with India. The World Bank had emphasised the regional trade relations with India. Without a foreign minister or a foreign policy, the US dictates South Asian policy and Saudi Arabia dictates the Middle East’s policy for Pakistan.
A country that is openly classified as being subject to Elite Capture is still governed by the feudal system and the rural masses are treated worse than chattel. The addition of the industrial landlords, developed by PML-N, has extended this system to the cities, where the land mafia has made the life and property of most citizens dependent on the beck and call of the local representatives.
Is independence defined by the line of control? Is it a geographical demarcation that makes us a sovereign state? Was the purpose of independence to replace the foreign oppressors with local oppressors? If not, then we are free just in letter and not in spirit — and when the spirit is caged then the real dependency starts. The British may have left but their plan of breaking the spirit and creating dependency is still being maintained by the leaders who have very obediently carried their agenda forward, which Lord Macaulay’s speech in the British Parliament on February 2, 1835 explained:
“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”

The writer is Secretary Information PTI Punjab, an analyst, a columnist and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com