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A wounded land
Quantum note
Friday, August 06, 2010
Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
Most Pakistanis do not have an experiential memory of the blood-soaked birth of their country; their fathers and mothers did, but that generation is almost non-existent now. Likewise, the later-day viceroys of the erstwhile Empire, who deliver inflammatory speeches against Pakistan on Indian soil, either do not know their own bloody history in India or simply wish to obliterate from memory the horrendous deeds of their leaders who partitioned India in August 1947 in a manner that was bound to leave behind violent currents which would perpetuate wars and violence on this land for generations to come.
In any case, Pakistan is, was, and will remain a wounded land for the foreseeable future. Soacking in blood, this unfortunate land is now a victim of foreign aggressions and homemade, unrelenting disasters, not to speak of the wrath of natural forces which have been increasingly unkind.
Earthquakes, floods, sectarian violence, targeted killings, drone attacks and suicide bombings today define Pakistan -- a country that came into existence through a unique historic synthesis in which Islam was the most active agent. The country is a unique phenomenon in modern era because it emerged on the world map in the middle of the twentieth century only because the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent insisted that they were a nation different from all other nations present in United India then being ruled by Britain. The argument was that because of their religion, Muslims were fundamentally -- and not incidentally -- different from all other polities in the Indian Subcontinent.
Tracing their roots back to the early 7th century, when Islam arrived in India as a result of the social and economic activities of Arab traders in the Malabar region, Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent were able to win independence by forcing the overweening British rulers to depart from their land and by compelling the Hindu majority to accept Pakistan as the only viable alternative to bloodbath that threatened the lives of millions of human beings then living in India. The coming into existence of Pakistan was supposed to provide a safe haven to all. What happened after Partition was, however, utterly different from what was hoped for.
No one thought that Pakistan would become what it has over the last 63 years. No one could have predicted in 1947 that the trail of blood which started at Partition would linger on and intensify to such an extent that in 2010 no one would be assured of returning home safely every evening. Death now hangs low over Pakistani skies. It comes in the form of suicide bombers, it descends from the skies in the form of indiscriminating missiles which instantaneously extinguish the lives of babies in the arms of their mothers. No one is counting the dead. No one is interested in recording for history these crimes against humanity. No one even protests against this continuous violation of international law. Death has become the most abundant crop of this wounded land. How? Why?
It is not difficult to see the red bloodline going back to the 1947 Partition of India. There was a built-in wound which has never healed: the leaders of the Pakistan Movement could not fathom the impossibility of forging unity between two wings of the country separated by 1,000 miles of hostile land. This resulted in the separation of East Pakistan in 1971 through a bloody war. Likewise, those leaders did not forestall the issue of the so-called princely states. Instead of demanding their inclusion in the two new states on the basis of the same formula which was used for the division of Punjab and Bengal, namely the per cent of Muslim and non-Muslim population, the leaders of the Pakistan Movement agreed on a new formula to determine the future of the princely states of India. In this they ignored the well-known ill-intensions of the Hindu leadership which would never hold a plebiscite in Kashmir even after the passage of UN Resolution 80 of 1950, which demanded that the governments of India and Pakistan "hold a free and impartial plebiscite".
What happened shortly after 1947 was also not helpful in securing peace in Pakistan: the political party which led the struggle for independence had no leadership ranks below the top level; for all practical purposes, it was a one-man party. Thus there was no possibility of a genuine political culture to emerge. The vacuum was filled, as all vacuums are filled, by the only organised institution which was present at that time: military.
The intervention of the military was inevitable due to the lack of any other organised entity that could lead the country. The political failure was compounded by social and intellectual failures of the highest order. There was no process through which any new organised political force could come into existence. The only alternate to brute military force was a charismatic leader and a charismatic leader did appear: Z A Bhutto.
The Bhutto phenomenon led to a pseudo-dynastic rule which pitched politicians against the military. A fluke political entity called the N-League also emerged through the same subversive merging of military and political interests. The N-League was, and remains, a one-man party. The rest, as they say, is history.
Thus devoid of any solid political culture, bleeding through a torn social fabric and mismanaged for six decades, Pakistan today has no way to cope with multiple crises it faces. It is not just the failure of one person; it is a compound failure which has no possibility of finding a solution except through a very fundamental revolution. Such a change is not visible on the horizon. Pakistan is not ready for any revolution. In the absence of such fundamental change, the only thing that can happen to this wounded land is continuous bleeding. This is not a doomsday forecast; it is an analytical conclusion based on an awareness of Pakistan's history and forces which are now operating in the country.
The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com
Quantum note
Friday, August 06, 2010
Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
Most Pakistanis do not have an experiential memory of the blood-soaked birth of their country; their fathers and mothers did, but that generation is almost non-existent now. Likewise, the later-day viceroys of the erstwhile Empire, who deliver inflammatory speeches against Pakistan on Indian soil, either do not know their own bloody history in India or simply wish to obliterate from memory the horrendous deeds of their leaders who partitioned India in August 1947 in a manner that was bound to leave behind violent currents which would perpetuate wars and violence on this land for generations to come.
In any case, Pakistan is, was, and will remain a wounded land for the foreseeable future. Soacking in blood, this unfortunate land is now a victim of foreign aggressions and homemade, unrelenting disasters, not to speak of the wrath of natural forces which have been increasingly unkind.
Earthquakes, floods, sectarian violence, targeted killings, drone attacks and suicide bombings today define Pakistan -- a country that came into existence through a unique historic synthesis in which Islam was the most active agent. The country is a unique phenomenon in modern era because it emerged on the world map in the middle of the twentieth century only because the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent insisted that they were a nation different from all other nations present in United India then being ruled by Britain. The argument was that because of their religion, Muslims were fundamentally -- and not incidentally -- different from all other polities in the Indian Subcontinent.
Tracing their roots back to the early 7th century, when Islam arrived in India as a result of the social and economic activities of Arab traders in the Malabar region, Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent were able to win independence by forcing the overweening British rulers to depart from their land and by compelling the Hindu majority to accept Pakistan as the only viable alternative to bloodbath that threatened the lives of millions of human beings then living in India. The coming into existence of Pakistan was supposed to provide a safe haven to all. What happened after Partition was, however, utterly different from what was hoped for.
No one thought that Pakistan would become what it has over the last 63 years. No one could have predicted in 1947 that the trail of blood which started at Partition would linger on and intensify to such an extent that in 2010 no one would be assured of returning home safely every evening. Death now hangs low over Pakistani skies. It comes in the form of suicide bombers, it descends from the skies in the form of indiscriminating missiles which instantaneously extinguish the lives of babies in the arms of their mothers. No one is counting the dead. No one is interested in recording for history these crimes against humanity. No one even protests against this continuous violation of international law. Death has become the most abundant crop of this wounded land. How? Why?
It is not difficult to see the red bloodline going back to the 1947 Partition of India. There was a built-in wound which has never healed: the leaders of the Pakistan Movement could not fathom the impossibility of forging unity between two wings of the country separated by 1,000 miles of hostile land. This resulted in the separation of East Pakistan in 1971 through a bloody war. Likewise, those leaders did not forestall the issue of the so-called princely states. Instead of demanding their inclusion in the two new states on the basis of the same formula which was used for the division of Punjab and Bengal, namely the per cent of Muslim and non-Muslim population, the leaders of the Pakistan Movement agreed on a new formula to determine the future of the princely states of India. In this they ignored the well-known ill-intensions of the Hindu leadership which would never hold a plebiscite in Kashmir even after the passage of UN Resolution 80 of 1950, which demanded that the governments of India and Pakistan "hold a free and impartial plebiscite".
What happened shortly after 1947 was also not helpful in securing peace in Pakistan: the political party which led the struggle for independence had no leadership ranks below the top level; for all practical purposes, it was a one-man party. Thus there was no possibility of a genuine political culture to emerge. The vacuum was filled, as all vacuums are filled, by the only organised institution which was present at that time: military.
The intervention of the military was inevitable due to the lack of any other organised entity that could lead the country. The political failure was compounded by social and intellectual failures of the highest order. There was no process through which any new organised political force could come into existence. The only alternate to brute military force was a charismatic leader and a charismatic leader did appear: Z A Bhutto.
The Bhutto phenomenon led to a pseudo-dynastic rule which pitched politicians against the military. A fluke political entity called the N-League also emerged through the same subversive merging of military and political interests. The N-League was, and remains, a one-man party. The rest, as they say, is history.
Thus devoid of any solid political culture, bleeding through a torn social fabric and mismanaged for six decades, Pakistan today has no way to cope with multiple crises it faces. It is not just the failure of one person; it is a compound failure which has no possibility of finding a solution except through a very fundamental revolution. Such a change is not visible on the horizon. Pakistan is not ready for any revolution. In the absence of such fundamental change, the only thing that can happen to this wounded land is continuous bleeding. This is not a doomsday forecast; it is an analytical conclusion based on an awareness of Pakistan's history and forces which are now operating in the country.
The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com
