Hopes and fears for 2014

My major hope for 2014 is that Pakistan becomes a ‘people’s country’ — where people — have say in government of state.

There is an old Christmas carol — “O Little Town of Bethlehem” — where the poet says, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight,” referring to Christ’s birth in David’s city of Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. We just celebrated Christmas a week ago, where people sang this carol and not only remembered the ‘hopes and fears’ of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples under Roman occupation 2,000 years ago, but also the anguish brought about by the practical barricade of the town of Bethlehem today by the Israeli authorities. The birth of Jesus — the Messiah, as the Holy Quran notes — was to bring people a hope that even if times were tough, there was still a ray of light and that God had not abandoned His creation.

At the end of another year, the people of Pakistan are also contemplating their ‘hopes and fears’, and wondering what will happen to them in the coming year. While I cannot predict the future, I want to note a few things which might help us assess the passing year and welcome the new year.

First, we did achieve a democratic milestone last year. The May 2013 elections showed the first smooth transfer of power from an elected government which had completed its five-year tenure to another one. This belated first, which even Bangladesh, let alone India, achieved much earlier in its life, was a watershed. The anti-incumbency factor shown at the national level and in Khyber-Pakhtunkawa is also a positive sign and shows that to some extent, people are becoming aware of the power of the ballot box and are taking into consideration the performance of the outgoing government. Here, Sindh lags behind as there seems to be little change in the electoral success of the incumbent parties dominant in the province.

Secondly, the civil-military imbalance seems to have improved a little in favour of the civilian authorities in 2013. The last year saw a distinct effort on the part of the military to give more space to the civilian authorities in several matters, though its control of defence and foreign policies still remains decisive. That said, the smooth appointment of a new army chief and the military’s statements in favour of democracy are encouraging.

Thirdly, and this might seem counter-intuitive, Pakistan survived 2013. The scores of terrorist attacks, thousands of innocent deaths, coupled with a dire economic and health situation and with political instability are a recipe for disaster anywhere. Indeed, it is the resilience of the people, who have survived all this and continue to do so.

My major hope for 2014 is that Pakistan becomes a ‘people’s country’ — a country where the people — literally the common person on the street —have a say in the government of the state. My aspiration is that Pakistan becomes a country where the people of the country decide what kind of a country it should become, what principles it should be based upon and on which lines it should run. While it is of importance that we discuss ‘Jinnah’s Pakistan’, the more significant question is that what is the ‘Pakistanis’ Pakistan’? Jinnah was certainly the founder of the country, but he lived in a different world and died over six decades ago. A country should be cognisant of the past but not be held captive by it. A country can only develop if it looks forward and is not held back by the baggage of the past — but then, it needs to deal with that baggage too, something which Pakistan has yet to accomplish.

Sometime ago, I asked a senior Bangladeshi diplomat about the basic difference between Bangladesh and Pakistan and he answered that while in Bengal, every movement is people-led, in Pakistan, the country is led by the elite. Until and unless the feudal and elite stranglehold is broken, Pakistan will remain confused.

The land reforms in India and the then East Pakistan in the 1950s did change the political, social and economic landscape there and if properly implemented, can do the same in Pakistan.

So here’s hoping for a People’s Pakistan in 2014.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2014.

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