Pakistan Turns 77: Have We Achieved Jinnah’s Dream? – OpEd
Pakistan for the last 77 years has been regularly celebrating its Independence on the 14th of August in a traditional way. The founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah envisioned a democratic, liberal, and modern Pakistan; free of religious bigotry, keeping theocracy away from functioning in the state of Pakistan, where all its citizens could be equal before the law, enabling them to reach the heights of economic empowerment. He gave constitutional advice for building up a government leading Pakistan to a modern, democratic, moderate, and prosperous Pakistani society where tolerance, love, brotherhood, social justice, the rule of law, delivery of fair justice as per international standards, non-amassment of wealth, terrorism, discrimination, corruption, and violence-free society based on co-existence.
On August 11, 1947, he gave his most important official speech — as the president of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, he said: “The Constituent Assembly has got two main functions to perform. The first is the very onerous and responsible task of framing our future constitution of Pakistan, and the second of functioning as a complete sovereign body as the Federal Legislature of Pakistan.”
Towards the end of his speech, he stated: “…you will find that the Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense, as citizens of the state.”
He reaffirmed his vision for the federal character of the state, where all federating units would have identical stakes, as was first mentioned in his fourteen points -“The form of the future constitution should be federal, with the residuary powers vested in the provinces. A uniform measure of autonomy shall be granted to all provinces coupled with the 1940 Lahore Resolution-“that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India, should be grouped to constitute “Independent States” in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign”.
This is unfortunate that the political history of Pakistan reveals that the country has not been run as dreamed by the founding father neither in his lifetime nor after his demise by the succeeding governments to change his dream into reality so far.
The present COAS, Syed Asim Munir, while addressing the Azadi Parade at Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in Kakul on the eve of Independence stated that, “Pakistan came into being to stand out among the comity of nations. Pakistan is a fait accompli and it cannot be undone,” He further said that the base of our national consciousness is the ideology of Pakistan, which stands on the two-nation theory.
He is right but the question arises why after standing at 77 years old, even upholding core Islamic values embedded in Pakistan’s Ideology as stated by COAS, did not become a strong and one nation based on our ideology.
From a historical perspective, the failure on this count started soon after the independence, when one of the elected Provincial Assembly was dissolved and the government of Khan Abdul Jabar Khan, the brother of Bacha Khan was dismissed in the former NWFP now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by the order of Governor General Jinnah himself and imposed notorious unelected non-Pashtoon Qayum khan Kashmiri as CM in the province. He sowed the seeds of hatred by not allowing Jinnah and Bacha Khan to meet and committed a genocide of innocent and unarmed protesters in Babra near Peshawar where more than 600 people were killed.
Likewise, in Jinnah’s lifetime, the Pakistan military launched its first operation in the state of Kalat in April 1948; the ‘elected’ Baloch parliament was dissolved, and the Khan of Kalat was arrested. On May 16, 1948, Prince Karim, the younger brother of Khan of Kalat, resisted the occupation and started the first Baloch national resistance movement. Since then Balochistan has been facing its fifth insurgency.
Further, Quaid e Azam’s untimely death pushed Pakistan far more from his vision, when the country, experimented against the spirit of the 1940 Lahore resolution, with a system since 1949 following the Objectives Resolution which has led Pakistan towards an intolerant society, sectarianism, a false and dictatorial form of democracy, extremism and religious bigotry, endless corruption, bad governance, and confrontational politics.
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, is most relevant in this regard, being an economist, in his book, The Road to Freedom, he has pleaded for an economic and political system based on equity, justice, and well-being. But contrary to that Pakistan’s governance structure is devoid of all those characteristics. Therefore Pakistan’s predicament, since then, has resulted in a series of failures due to feudal, bureaucratic, conservative, corrupt, and inefficient leadership with a lack of focus to deal with issues that have caused political uncertainty, judicial decay, crises in the economy, bad governance, disruption in rule of law, and futile foreign policy.
Consequently, the country has faced major national tragedies — like the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, the separation of East Pakistan, the military takeover in 1958, 1969, 1977, and 1999, the hanging of Bhutto, Ojhri camp, Zia death in air crash, disaster of April 1988, Kargil crisis of 1999, assassination of Benazir Bhutto, loss of J&K following the August 5, 2019 revocation of article 370 of the Indian constitution — means the leadership both civil and military which governed Pakistan since the death of founding father, lacked skills and strategic foresight to deal with issues causing harm to the national cohesion, integrity and interest.
The country is captured by small ruling elites, highly corrupt and self-centered, as Oxford philosopher Isaiah Berlin has drawn the true picture of our ruling leadership both civil and military, who said that “freedom for the wolves has often meant death to the sheep”. In Pakistan’s case, The wolves (the elite corporate sector, (IPPs), real estate tycoons, feudal class, and political sycophants have gained ‘freedom’ at the expense of the sheep (workers, the salaried class, and the poverty-stricken masses).
The corrupt political representatives and leadership, unelected military regimes, and unbridled, corrupt civil bureaucracy have perished the dream of integrating the various ethnic nationalities into one nation and introducing a soft and peaceful image and bright face of Pakistan in the world community.
Pakistan is experiencing its worst crisis since independence, with its 24th IMF program underway and its people facing all kinds of ills. Financial debt traps and dependence on foreign loans have created an atmosphere of slavish adherence. The current political, social, judicial, and economic environment is akin to a jungle in which only power matters, determining ‘who gets what and who does what’. We have been reduced to a nation of bootlickers (sycophants).
On the other hand countries of our age like China, India, Bangladesh, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, the UAE, and Turkey transformed their failures into successes by focusing on social harmony, inclusiveness, economic development, better governance, rule of law, quality education and political stability because of capable and visionary leadership.
Where We Stand At 77?
After 77 years of existence as a country, every successive government, both elected and military, has failed to provide good governance to Pakistan. A perfect storm has been created by chronic political instability, inconsistent economic policies, deviation from the constitution, weak institutions, pervasive corruption, lack of accountability, and immature political culture in which not a single PM has completed his tenure, which has hit the country in an unprecedented way. Millions of people have fallen below the poverty line. There is no social justice or equal opportunity. Nor are people’s basic needs being met or their human rights being respected.
Elite capture and establishment have pushed the Country to a failed state. Their primary objective is to maximize their benefits, but when faced with public anger, they pose as reformers. Religion in politics followed by the Weaponisation of faith over a long period created religious intolerance and mob justice in the society. In Pakistan, the mob is an extension of a semi-authoritarian, hyper-nationalist security state that has peddled religio-national narratives as a way to ensure political control. The entrenchment of these narratives has required the cultivation of proxies, including violent extremist groups.
Pakistan’s Structural Problems
Three pathologies defined Pakistan’s struggle with its political identity on the eve of her independence. These were. 1) Islam-Secularism confusion, 2) Presidential-parliamentary paradox 3) Civil-military imbalance.
Therefore, all efforts at drafting a new constitution were marred by differences over two opposite approaches to nation-building: ( unity in inclusive diversity as opposed to unity based on exclusion). The dominant Mohajir-Punjabi narrative consisted of (political Islam, Urdu, a strong center, and anti-Hindu nationalism) that was and is contested by a secular, constitutional, democratic, pluralistic, and federalist viewpoint.
These divergent views led the country into a constitutional dilemma. The first constitution 1954 was abrogated after two years-formation of infamous one unit-separation of Eastern wing. The second constitution of 1962 ended in 1968 and the third 1973 constitution faced the same fate three times in 43 years of its history.
Furthermore, the country is swinging from a parliamentary to a presidential form of governments and ultimately ending in military dictatorships. The civil-military imbalance has plunged the country into political chaos as no PM has completed its tenure in the last seventy-seven years.
Pakistan’s judicial system since the beginning is in a state of chaos starting from the doctrine of necessity to the doctrine of facilitating. It is highly politicized and characterized by a lack of coherence, consistency, and predictability in legal decision-making.
The country appears to be quickly sliding into the category of a failing state, with no serious attempt being made to arrest the drift and revive the country on the pathway to a modern democratic and economically developed state as envisioned by Jinnah. With state power continuing to be dominated by the security establishment and a small power elite, left little space or hope for the country to achieve political and economic stability.
Our history of dictatorial military and autocratic civilian rules, coupled with corruption and bad governance, has crippled the state during the last seven decades. Favoritism and authoritarianism prevail in our political culture and governance. Our biggest failure is the perpetuation of the existing governance system which is based on an exploitative colonial structure run with a colonial mindset. Our Judicial and civil structures are not delivering at all and their decay is well-established. Judicial anarchy leads to economic instability. When a country’s judiciary goes into a state of chaos, investors lose confidence in the country’s legal system. Judicial anarchy discourages entrepreneurs from starting new businesses.
How To Get Out Of This Situation?
In Pakistan, we observe a perpetual downward slide, with diminishing hope. What is needed is a major intellectual and material transformation at the structural level.
In politics, there are no surgical solutions. The solution to having a bad surgeon is not to invite an engineer to perform surgery. The country is in dire need of evolving and restructuring the whole governance system at various levels.
At a societal level, it is necessary to establish social harmony and social cohesion based on social justice and fair play free from any discrimination.
At a political level, it is the responsibility of the state to remove any injustices faced by the diverse peoples of Pakistan, from Balochistan to khyber Pashtoonkhawa to Gilgit-Baltistan, from gender minorities — including transgender persons — to persons living with disabilities.
To resolve the political issues through political means rather than using force. The use of kinetic power has turned counterproductive, it may contain the insurgency but will do little to win the trust of an alienated population or effectively establish the state’s authority, Winning the confidence of the people and listening the voices of the people with patience is the only way to defeat the militancy and extremism in the country.
The country needs a new political order. To evolve a responsible and sustainable democratic system, all major political parties in the country must come to an understanding of a strategic framework for the introduction of a true federal Parliamentary system, for which national dialogue is necessary.
The main pillar of democracy is the sanctity of the ballot. Immediate measures should be taken to safeguard the independence of the Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections.
At the economic level: The country should be a welfare state. With millions of people straddling the poverty line, there is no other way forward. A conducive situation must be created to attract FDI, structural reforms should be introduced in the whole economic system. Economic justice should be done with all federating units and NFC must be implemented in its true spirit.
At the security level: security must be improved and a conducive environment be created with the consent of all stakeholders to cash the dividends of CEPEC, Gawader Sea Port, Reko Deck, and other resources of national importance.
At the educational level: Restructuring of the education and curriculum is prerequisite for a successful nation.The distortion of history in our textbooks through radical single national curriculum reform must be stopped. The country needs a single national education system, with access to all as embedded in the constitution.
At the constitutional level: Immediate practical steps will only mean adherence to the 1973 constitution and the respect it accords to the ideal of federalism, where all provinces (federating units) are equal, abiding by the trichotomy of power between legislature, judiciary, and executive. This means not abrogating but strengthening the 18th Amendment of the Constitution, which allocates due powers to the federating units/provinces.
It is also important to modify or rewrite the Constitution by making it a consensus document in which Human rights and individual freedom, liberty, and security of life and property must be the basis of the Constitution.
Further, In Pakistan, democracy has quickly become the tyranny of the majority and the constitution must address this matter. The House of Federation (Senate), must be equipped with powers to address the grievances of all provinces. The proportional representation must be included based on ethnicity, profession, and social order. All these measures will definitely determine the future of the nation envisioned by the founding father.
