Let us think big

Let me loosely use the legal term pro-bono action to denote steps taken for the public good which are in short supply in our society today. Altruism has gone and what we are left with is a perfunctory smile whose shallowness becomes even more visible as it turns into a chuckle: self-denial in action.

Our laughter is devoid of happiness, our pledges are dodgy, our commitments are capricious and our actions are dubious. What justifies our moralising tirades, proselytising truth, honesty and infallible faith? We have become so frivolous and complacent in our intellectual assertions that it does not need logic or reason anymore to establish the truth. We deem it our birthright to play down the authenticity of all human knowledge and, indeed, all intellectual traditions to establish our claim over the ultimate truth – no matter how unfounded it may.

We the self-proclaimed keepers of the universal truth – from philosophy to science – do not feel the need to explore the mysteries of the universe. When ‘others’ – and we term these ‘others’ as infidels who are impure and without truth – carry out scientific breakthroughs, we simply dismiss their achievements, bringing religion into the discussion and claiming that the path to those breakthroughs had been there all along, having been predicted and hinted at in our holy books. When an inquisitive soul wonders what, then, stopped us from becoming world leaders in research and technology if that been the case all along, the response comes in the form of allegations of being an infidel. In today’s context, what is implicit here is a threat to life and liberty. Intellectual curiosity, honesty and uprightness may cost you your religion and your life. The mind thus is caught in a labyrinth of terror and unreason.

The attitudes that evolved over the years have now fully grown and penetrated deep into our imagining of the self and our collective social persona. This is the cumulative impact of the centuries-old systems of the Subcontinent – from the Mughal era to British colonialism and, subsequently, the post-colonial strands of colonialism. The Mughals invested in monuments for self-aggrandisement and during their long rule in India, did not establish a single university. Then came the British whose utmost interest was to control the riches of India – ie, its potential of cheap human labour and raw materials to supplement the growing British industry.

The post-colonial Subcontinent was divided into two states whose boundaries were demarcated by a commission led by Sir Cyril Radcliffe almost like a scramble on an empty slate. Cyril Radcliffe had never been to India before and the dividing line drawn between people of the same culture and history proved to be the line of death – the source of unabated conflicts and wars. The newly-emerged ideology of religious nationalism, which provided the political basis for the creation of two nations, is a contested subject of history for which there must be a separate article.

Suffice it to say that the freedom movement could not be translated into a nation-building project – particularly in the case of Pakistan. The fear of a crisis of ideological legitimacy led to bigotry and narrow-mindedness promoted by and under the state. The icons of a democratic and secular Pakistan, including Mohmmad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, died a few years after Partition. This may be one of the factors contributing to an undemocratic political trajectory.

However, Jinnah’s speeches in April 1946 clearly indicate the need for a confederation in united India with full autonomy to areas with a Muslim majority. Even Muslim religious scholars of pre-Partition India opposed a separate country – including Shaykh Syed Hussain Ahmad Madani’s movement, the predecessor of today’s Jamaat-e-Islami. It was the same Jamaat-e-Islami that was among the first religious parties to show political expediency to carve out an ideology of territorial Islam for Pakistan.

The ideals of Jinnah and his contemporary secular and democratic leadership were trampled following Pakistan’s creation. From then on, democracy could not evolve and flourish and the culture of free expression did not take root in Pakistan. The tragedy did not stop there. The country was led into chaos, wars and conflicts through the internalisation of an ideology of hatred, obscurantism and bigotry.

Both national development priorities and the nation-building project evolved in a narrowly defined national security framework. The political forces that could bring in wisdom and statesmanship towards establishing a democratic country gradually vanished and the vacuum was filled by the non-political actors. The state promoted an ‘uncivil society’ as the political policy to attain strategic depth on the north-western borders. With the patronage of the state, the uncivil society started to act as a guardian of faith and ideology and as a proxy of the state on the campuses of public universities.

Today, the Frankenstein monster of our own political creation has turned against us with vengeance. It is because the state has repeatedly failed to deliver the basic social services. This has resulted in the youth gravitating from the lower socioeconomic strata towards extremist ideologies. Terrorism is no longer an external threat as it now resides within our midst. It is in our schools that impart bad education, our corrupt economic system that perpetuates poverty and our exclusionary political system that breeds a sense of deprivation.

How would you convince an ambitious but poor man in Balochistan to remain calm and satisfied when an MPA of his poverty-stricken province leads a lavish life with an annual budget of Rs350 million? How would you convince a lad from a poor family to stay away from a religious seminary when it promises free education, food and shelter? Except for the hollow slogans of child protection, what alternative do we have for a child who sells his/her labour to make a living?

The purveyors of terror have turned this wretchedness and hopelessness of the poor into a lucrative business by using the deprived and disgruntled youth as a pawn in their political chessboard. The menace of terrorism will not go away unless we show commitment and political will to address our deep-rooted political, economic and social problems that we have accumulated over the years. Military operations on their own will not be adequate to eradicate terrorism. They can only bust a few networks of terror. The war on terror will be effective only if we address the issues of poverty, exclusion, deprivation, disparity and marginalisation through a consistent social policy of transformation.

This will only happen in a vibrant, accountable and well-governed democratic system – quite contrary to what we have today as democracy in Pakistan. With the advent of Trump and his far-right political coterie, the war economy will thrive as a strategy of economic growth for the revival of a crisis-ridden global economy.

The xenophobic ruling class of the US will strive to lodge proxy wars against an expanding China. And Pakistan – which is at the gateway of this westward expansion – will bear the brunt of these proxy wars. It is, therefore, of utmost importance for Pakistan to invest in human development, democratic governance and inclusive prosperity so that our youth do not become the fodder for the cannon of this new war.

Let us think big for the greater good of the people of Pakistan since they are the ones who have suffered the most because of the myopic, short-lived and exclusionary politics of our ruling class.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com