Pakistan’s present circumstances and challenges exert an enormous suffering for those who can differentiate between the good and the bad. The situation is abysmal. The economy is deteriorating. Poverty is chronic. The health system is feeble. The state of education is alarming. The population bomb is about to explode. Environmental disasters make features. Political parties worship persons, not the thought. The law and order situation is unsatisfactory. Morality is weakening. Our social institutions are abandoning their functions. The list is long. Almost all institutions show a gloomy picture, and problems are of an immense multitude.
So how to fix these issues? Before answering this question, I relate a short story that also contains an answer.
Once upon a time, a person was driving in his car. On his way to reach a set destination, his car stopped due to some technical fault. He tried to diagnose the issue. Since he was not an engineer, he tried to check every part. For instance, if the issue was in the engine, he also opened tyres thinking that maybe a tyre was punctured. During the opening of each unnecessary part, he made a further mess. His inexperienced handling of the car created additional problems. Being arrogant, he consulted no one. He wasted the most precious thing: time. When his clothes were dirty with stains of oil and he was entirely exhausted, an older person, wearing old clothes with visible stains, stopped after feeling sorry for a fellow human. The older person politely inquired about the matter. First denying, the suited-booted-now-exhausted person told the story. The old man checked the car and said, “The issue was minor in the beginning, but you have worsened it during your awful fixing. Anyway, please do not worry. We, together, do something to fix it.” The issue was fixed in the next half an hour.
Mr Jinnah declared: “I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any influence directly or indirectly brought to bear upon me”
Afterwards, the old man wisely suggested to the well-dressed man, “Do not try to handle anything if you lack the required skills and knowledge until you have no choice left. Experiments are good if the experienced ceased to exist, and if your experiments would not affect someone else’s life. Otherwise, you will face suffering and exert suffering.” The man thanked the older man, and realised that possessing something does not mean understanding something. A maker knows the product not just because he created it, but because he imagined, strategised and absorbed the pain of several failures that played a part during the making.
That is what we are doing with our country. If we genuinely want to fix its challenges, we need to consult the founder and what he envisioned about the country. Although he physically is no more among us, his legacy and his ideas are with us as the best guide to rule this country. Mohammad Ali Jinnah suffered tremendous pain while struggling for the creation of Pakistan. Ms Fatima Jinnah writes in her book My brother that when she begged her brother, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah not to work extensively and take care of his health, Mr Jinnah replied, What is the health of one individual when I am concerned with the very existence often crore Muslims of India? Do you realise how much is at stake?” The said sentences are a glimpse of the pain he felt about the citizens of his country. He extended and expressed his vision in multiple ways.
While addressing the constituent assembly in Karachi on August 11, 1947, Mr Jinnah emphasised: “The first duty of a government is to maintain law and order, so that the life, property and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State.” Afterwards, he diagnosed several curses like “bribery and corruption” that are a “poison” that needs to be “put down with an iron hand.” Other curses include “black-marketing, nepotism and jobbery.” Mr Jinnah declared: “I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any influence directly or indirectly brought to bear upon me.”
Furthermore, Mr Jinnah envisioned: “Now if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in cooperation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what his colour, caste, or creed, is first, second, and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make.”
Undeniably, the curses that the founder of this country identified still exist, and are significantly responsible for the currentcrises. For fixing them, we need to revisit his vision. Through implementinghis vision, we can not only resolve the issues butalso pay reverential homage to the architect of Pakistan on his 71stdeath anniversary.
The writer is a PhD Scholar at the University of Vienna, Austria