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Same as it ever was
I’m positive Pakistani writers trot out more banal clichés in December than in any other month.
The writer is a journalist based in Karachi and has worked for Newsline and The Express Tribune Magazine
It’s doubtful a formal study has ever been conducted on the matter, but I’m positive Pakistani writers trot out more banal clichés in December than in any other month. There is the obligatory year end column that looks ruefully at wasted opportunities and ineffectually pleads for the heavens above to show greater mercy next time. Then we have a treasure trove of anniversaries that requires us to put on our most mournful faces. From Jinnah’s birth to the creation of Bangladesh and Benazir’s assassination, we have our phraseology for each occasion down pat.
Just try picking up a newspaper on December 25 without encountering the same Jinnah quote at least half a dozen times. You know which one I mean. That line about minorities and respecting their rights, always accompanied by a dirge about how steep our descent has been since those lofty days. Apart from the intellectual laziness — we could occasionally reference the Munir Report which was far more humorous in defending the rights of the persecuted — by pointing to a brighter yesterday, we mythologise our past. In doing so, we forget that the unravelling of Pakistan was a gradual process and that its historical roots stretch back to the founding of the country.
Take the favourite Jinnah quote. As the founding principle of the new state, “you may belong to any religion, caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State”, it had little effect on its recipients, the Constituent Assembly. Less than two years later, that same audience ratified the Objectives Resolution which, by stating that religion would be central to the constitution, provides the intellectual underpinnings of every retrograde statute in our law books.
The Objectives Resolution, if anything, was a more logical step for the nascent state to take than the vision outlined by Jinnah. A politician’s good intentions — and Jinnah, contrary to mythology, was a politician, not a divinely-inspired saint — are always unlikely to trump the structural problems inherent in the state. It is not surprising that a country that has its creation rooted in religion grappled with balancing the desires of its newly-empowered majority with individual liberty. Equally predictably, the majority was the victor in this barely-contested battle.
While in matters religious the majority has always won out, that has not been the case in ethnic disputes. We are belatedly coming to grips with the genocide that was perpetrated on the Bengali population but still haven’t accepted that the violence was an end-point that encompassed a) the language riots of the 1950s, b) Jinnah’s announcement that Urdu would be the lingua franca of the state and c) a host of other measures and grievances, both large and small, that served as warnings of the dangers of shabbily treating East Pakistan. When we wonder how Punjab came to dominate the federation, it is our collective amnesia of how power was structured in the state that allows us to claim ignorance.
Yes, 2010 was a terrible year for Pakistan but it was not an anomaly. The year that passed just showed how hard it can be to blow against the winds of history. Anyone who is shocked at how religion is used for political demagoguery, how Fata is so unlawful and how our elected representatives are so venal needs to expend less effort on working up moral outrage and use the spare time to study our history. After a period of grim resignation, we may finally realise that the quick-fix solutions we propose are like feeding aspirin to a cancer patient.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2010.
Reader Comments (12)
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exactly. pakistan is the most unnatural creation in the history of mankind. 1) if pakistan is to be secular liberal democracy why not merge with india? if she is to be islamic sharia why not merge (along with afghanistan) with arabia or iran ?Recommend
Pakistan is blessing,the people are making it good or bad because of their bad actions.Recommend
most bestRecommend
The article needs a thorough response because it seeks to monopolise several spaces, which just cannot be allowed to go without a response.Recommend
What in the world are you on about?Recommend
Pakistan was never to be a secular state. If it was, then there was or is no need for Pakistan but Pakistan is here. We have to develop the courage to face up to the mistakes made in the past and undo them by accepting they were mistakes. Otherwise we will always talk of Jinnah’s Pakistan and not make it our Pakistan.Recommend
A friend sent me an email today which I need to reproduce here:
The posture adopted by minority communities, specially when they begin to sense chauvinism towards them, naturally tends to reflect resilience. This resilience is not ego-generated, but rather a self-preservation reflex. In the history of nations, too, it is the chauvinistic attitudes of the majority that has more often than not contributed to political divisions.
The terms “Islamic State” and “Muslim State” should not be mutually confused. I do not believe, Jinnah ever, for even a moment envisaged an “Islamic State”, a state “to be ruled by priests with a divine mission”, a possibility he himself ruled out. His concept and understanding of the “Muslim State” was little beyond the nature of the Turkish State as modeled by Ataturk. He clearly had in mind, a secular and modern state, in which statecraft and religion would not be allowed to mingle. Yes, that state was intended to be comprised of the Muslim-majority states of India, and this intention too, took its final shape after the failure of the CMP of ’46.
Jinnah was a class in himself, an institution if I may say. His presidential address was about the best will he could possibly have left behind. The Objectives Resolution of 1948 tragically changed the course of the nation he founded. Subsequent leaderships shared neither his integrity nor his wisdom. That is why we are where we are today.
Regards.Recommend
Why blame the Objectives Resolution? Every one knows that the reason detre for establishing Pakitan is/was that the zMuslims of India would establish a state of their own to live as citzens, not in the thrall of majority of some other faith. The Objective Resolution only instituionalise this vision espoused during the struggle for Pakistan. That the Quaid i Azam’s statement in the first Constitutional Assembly that all citizens of the state would be enabled to live their lives according to their own faith does not detract from the principles enunciated in the Objectives Resolution.In fact the state showed its liberal posture by electing Jogendra Nath Mondal as the first pro tem President of the Constitutent Assembly even before the lection of the Quaid i Azam. Do we forget this gesture that established the fact that people of other faiths enjoy equality before the majority people, the phrase that is used to show the brute force of majority. Where does it state in the Resolution that people of other faiths should be denied their due, or their freedom, or they would be denied the right to their faith.If things turned out to the contrary the blames is on the populace which cast its votes wihout thinking who would be able to lead them in the best way after the death of Jinnah and Liaquat Ali. If things went wrong there after because a sizeable portion of US behave like a mob/herd, hailing zindabad to every other politician with yeasayings, not judging his performance. We do the same now- and today- on every occcasion at every public meetings. It is the singer we have to judge not his song.Recommend
Here is my response to the article: http://pakteahouse.net/2010/12/30/same-as-it-ever-was-indeed/Recommend
What Gandhi is to India, Jinnah is same to Pakistan. Both had a great vision for their respective countries. Whereas Gandhi’s philosphy is still accepted and overall practised in India but I am afraid Jinnah’s ideology was been hijacked by various rulers from time to time and its worst version was enforced by late Zia and since then everything in Pakistan is on the decline. Unfortunately, nobody seems to realise and admit in Pakistan that religion fundamentalism in all fields and discriminatory laws against minorities introduced by the General was to extend his rule and not love for Islam or progress of the country. Policies and indoctorine adopted by this dictator lead to intolerance and hatred, giving rise to terrorism and sectarian violence in Pakistan and religious parties donot want to reverse the same. Had the state adopted the Jinnah’s principle of separating state from religion and not used terror as state policy against India and elsewhere, Pakistan would have been progressive and leading economic state like India.Recommend
@YLH,
Jinnah’s intention doesn’t matter, but the product of his intentions do. He miserably failed at what he set out to achieve.
Muslims are distinguished from others on the basis of the Religion they follow. Muslim State and Islamic state for some people means essentially the same thing.Recommend
Regarding YHL’s comments, I would like to indicate here, that the Quaid was also influenced by Allama Iqbal. Keeping the whole thing in context, the 1930s and the Khilafat Movement that was nearly hijacked by Mahatma Gandhi, who introduced religion into Indian politics.despite the Quaid’s warning that he should abstain from doing this. But Gandhi who had been running from pillar to post to find a place for himself in Indian politics couldn’t throw away this God sent opportunity. The Khilafat Movement’s demise plays a part, hitherto unrecognized in the then Mr. JInnah’s political outlook. By this time Allama Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Religious thought in Islam” had appeared. I believe the Quaid cherished his exchange of letters with Allama Iqbal and was influenced in his way of thinking about the Muslim’s situation in India.
The Quaid had to use the Islamic card with an emphasis on Allama Iqbal’s thought. No one can deny the influence of Pasha Kemal Ataturk on the Quaid.
This then should explain the Lahore Resolution and the creation of Pakistan and why the foremost Ambassador of Indian unity became the Champion of Muslims as a nation and not as a minority ergo Pakistan. Most of Quaid’s followers in Pakistan were feudal and the same class of people along with the establishment rule Pakistan today.The years have seen that a Pakistani is not a citizen of Pakistan, he is a subject of he political setup and the establishment.in Pakistan, irrespective of the Assemblies, Constitutional Amendments etc.Recommend