We have just celebrated yet another anniversary of the father of the nation and, paying tributes to his leadership, thanked him for his untiring labour to create this country for us and our generations. We thanked him for employing matchless perseverance of his character, acumen and wisdom, his sincerity of purpose and deep commitment to integrity, solidarity, sovereignty and independence. We thanked him for creating a country for free flow of our faculties, for an advancement and improvement in the lives: We teaming, wreathing, swelling and shrivelling millions in this part of the world.

We, however, need to ask ourselves whether we have lived up to our Quaid’ s vision of a new country. On-the-ground situation betrays any optimism. We may have moved ahead a little in certain areas, but our overall performance as a nation, at best, is dismal. More than half a century after the departure of the Quaid, we have very less to boast about and much more to feel ashamed of.

We have unscrupulous politicians who can go to any length to serve themselves; we have the most corrupt and undisciplined police force that cannot maintain law and order in the country; we have aimless crumbling educational system that has in the last fifty years failed to create a nation; we even have problem with a religion that claims to have brought peace and tolerance to the world and preaches equality and egalitarianism by ridding the society of 
tribalism, ethnicity and sectarianism.

Instead, we have created a battalion of firebrand mullahs who have no regard to human life; we have a military whose generals have become politicians and are destroying its professionalism and preparedness at times of need; we have rising inflation, unemploy-ment, corruption, immorality, disregard to family life and social and political discontent; we have economy that is shabby, whereas, politicians will not tire themselves claiming windfalls as millions of people are living below the poverty line.

The most pathetic segment of our national life is that we have made the very ideology of Pakistan acutely controversial for us. Islamists and secularists have remained at loggerheads with each other right from the beginning regarding Jinnah’s objectives for creating Pakistan. Off and on a new concept of Pakistan on behalf of the Quaid is brought forward to compound the situation. Speeches of the Quaid are quoted out of context and sometimes unscrupulous zealots would even audaciously appropriate Quaid’s hitherto unknown intentions to substantiate their point of view.

In the name of Pakistan ideology we have wrecked Pakistan. We simply forgot that whatever source the ideology of Pakistan may have sprung from (secular or Islamic), it meant peace, prosperity, security, stability and dignity for its people. Every national ideology must contribute to these ends: we needed to be more perceptive.

We have ignored what the Quaid said at Lahore on October 24, 1947: “I would like to impress upon every Mussalman who has at heart the welfare and the prosperity of Pakistan, to avoid retaliation and to exercise restraint … Do your duty and have faith in God. There is no power on earth that can undo Pakistan.”

Even six years before this, addressing the Punjab Muslim Students Federation in 1941, the Quaid highlighted the nation’s future course of action in crystal clear terms. He said, “There are at least three main pillars which go to make a nation worthy of possessing a territory and running a government.

One is education. Next, no nation and no people can ever do anything very much without making themselves economically powerful in commerce, trade and industry. And lastly, you must prepare yourselves for your defence, defence against external aggression and to maintain internal security.” If it were not our 
nuclear baggage we have faltered on all counts.

Our Islamists claim that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam so that Muslims should live according to the precepts of Islam; therefore, there should be ‘Nizam-e-Mustafa’ in the land of the pure, thereby according a lesser status to the non-Muslim segments of society.

Our secularists, on the other hand, fearing the tyranny of the mullah, demand abandoning Islam altogether from public life, making it a private affair of each citizen. Both have done a great disservice to Islam by not recognising Islam’s absolute regard for an individual’s right to personal freedom and his choice of religion. We simply tend to forget that Holy Prophet (PBUH) has said, “All men are equal in the eyes of God. And your lives and your properties are all sacred; in no case should you attack each other’s life and property. Today I trample under my feet all distinctions of caste, colour and nationa-lity.” The Holy Quran says: “There is no compulsion in religion.”

However, our fanatic mullah, has promoted despotism, bigotry, fanaticism and intolerance for fellow human beings so much so that the west as well as fellow citizens have begun to fear Islam. One wonders why we have just enough Islam to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another: if we can live peacefully we would rather be accomplishing the very purpose of Islam.

Rising above the politics of secularists, nationalists and Islamists, as it was the most crucial period of Pakistan life, the Quaid made the most important speech of his life. While addressing the first constituent assembly of Pakistan on August 11 1947, in a true spirit of Islam, the Quaid said: “You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other 
place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State .We are starting with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State.”

There is nothing in Islam that is incompatible with human dignity, individual freedom and liberty of choice in religion, only we need to maintain a distinction between Islamic democracy and plain stupid, stolid theocracy.

Intelligent people foresee a change and adjust to it constructively; average people experience it when it has happened and then try to adjust themselves to it to make the best of the situation; below-average people first bear with the consequences of the change, weather it through and when there is time for yet another adjustment they begin to accommodate the earlier one; whereas the dumb and fools weather through all the changes without adjusting themselves to an, the change withers itself out and passes on in history leaving behind a few unshapely traces, like the remnants of a strong storm; such people have no mark on history. Where do we fit ourselves into the slot as a nation?

This is high time our leaders realised the gravity of the situation and adjusted our priorities to raise the nation. However, they cannot do so until they have delivered themselves from their own petty, myopic and biased ‘self’ with a sense of sacrifice to their nation.



Information

We have unscrupulous politicians who can go to any length to serve  themselves; we have the most corrupt and undis-ciplined police  force that cannot maintain law and order in the country; we have aimless crumbling educational system that has in the last fifty years failed to create a nation 



First appeared in The News on January 8, 2007