Blame it on them!

State might not be functioning as it should be, but laissez faire attitude of people is making our security nightmare

On Tuesday, May 12, 2015 while discussing the Constitution of Pakistan in my Pakistan Studies class, I remarked at one point that shouldn’t Pakistan have appointed a caliph in August 1947, in order to be a ‘proper’ Islamic state? An eager student in the first row vigorously nodded his head and so I asked him about his views. “I fully agree,” he replied. “But what about the Shias? They might have a different idea about who should be a caliph,” I further asked. “Then the Quaid-e-Azam should have done something else for the Shias,” the confident student retorted. “But then where would the Quaid have gone as he himself was a Shia,” I asked. “Oh,” said the student...

After what has happened at Safoora Chowrangi I feel almost stupid to point out that the founder and first president of the All-India Muslim League — the party which created Pakistan — was an Ismaili. It was His Highness Sir Aga Khan III. The founder of the country, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, also belonged to the same sect. All this is true, but so what? No one is going to read these lines and stop killing either Ismailis, other Shias, or any other human being in Pakistan. We habitually point out the irony in Pakistan, feel good, feel sad, and then move on.

The mention of such statements, I think, gives us a feel-good effect and allows us to become passive observers while our country continues to make a nosedive into a mess of its own creation. Yes Pakistan totters on, but what continues and will continue is only a shell of what it used to be or should have been, its core got rotten and has been systematically eaten up over the last couple of decades. If we continue like this then this is the reality we are going to live.

The only way in which we can change the reality we now seem destined to live is if we do two simple, yet difficult, things: one, admit that we have royally screwed up, and two, actually take action to change things. Any half-heartedness on either of these two will simply perpetuate our current state. It is ridiculous that we were very quick to blame the Indian intelligence agency for the attack on the Ismailis in Karachi. It is as if had RAW not been there, the Ismailis would have been safe since, of course, except for RAW-supported terrorists, there are no terrorists in Pakistan. This assertion, repeated by our Foreign Office, came despite the fact that an organisation associated with the Islamic State had already taken responsibility for the attacks. While there is no denying that foreign intelligence agencies do take an active interest in destabilising their enemies, but always seeing their hand without the collaborating local hand, misses the point. Take for example the Baloch insurgency: it is the oldest nationalist insurgency in South Asia and started in June 1948. Doesn’t this imply that there is another, more local, reason for this insurgency rather than simply foreign support? I need not recount the trajectory of the Kashmir ‘jihad’ there.

There is also another element in taking responsibility and charge and action: that of personal vigilance. I have lived abroad for almost a decade where I routinely saw people reporting anything suspicious to the authorities for investigation. This sense of civic responsibility is completely lacking in Pakistan. If common people — indeed the man on the street — begin to report untoward incidents, suspicious activity, etc., to the authorities, then we might be able to thwart several terrorist attacks. The state might not be functioning as it should be, but the laissez faire attitude of the common man is making our security a further nightmare. It is impossible for the state — here or anywhere else — to provide personal security to every citizen, and expecting that (as some do in Pakistan) is ridiculous in the least. Personal vigilance, neighbourhood watches, reporting anything suspicious are critical elements of any counterterrorism strategy.

Let us please wake up and smell the coffee (while we have the ability to wake up!), and not, personally and collectively, pass the buck.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2015.

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