Making Pakistan an exemplary state

Children rush back home from a nearby unsold or an unoccupied residential plot in a housing scheme in the evening the moment they hear call for Maghrib prayer. In fact, this is time to break their fast (roza) and, by the way, any heartening news.

Sometimes good news comes from Lahore by chance. For instance, chief minister Shahbaz Sharif disclosed 750 MW from a new power plant would be added to national grid within a week.

“If state run broadcasting and television channel come up with such news thrice a week the poor man’s life will get revolutionised,” says Baba ‘pakoray wala.’ He props many questions: What was the ideal for which we struggled and made sacrifices after March 23, 1940? Why our ideal hasn’t been achieved so far? What kind of state the Quaid had in mind for an overall improvement in standard of living. Why socio-economic justice is still foremost in our minds?

“Our great leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah and the man Chaudhry Rahmat Ali who coined the name Pakistan for the new homeland had never wanted the rule of landlords and capitalists who ostensibly flourish at the expense of masses by a vicious and wicked system which makes them selfish,” Baba stresses his point.

Many such Babas say what prevailed before August 14, 1947 has not yet come to an end. They argue the Quaid had rightly pointed out that greed and selfishness make such elements subordinate to the interests of others in order to fatten themselves. There were millions and millions of people who hardly got one meal a day then. So, the Quaid couldn’t help saying that “if that’s the idea of Pakistan I won’t have it.”

Unfortunately, the situation hasn’t changed for the better. Ordinary people are in search of Pakistan millions had dreamed, and that was an exploitation-free state with a government of the people, for the people and by the people.

How to evolve such a peaceful and prosperous entity? The task may look gigantic, but that’s certainly not beyond accomplishment. “For that, as true Muslims, we’ll have to zealously guard and preserve our unity. Also, we’ll have to think of ourselves as Pakistanis first, not Punjabis, Sindhis, Balochs and Pakhtuns and so on. And as such we must feel, behave and act in the collective interest,” say Babas of Rawalpindi.

—  zasarwar@hotmail.com