Last Hope
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It is very unfortunate that often we take freedom for granted and forget the pain that the generations before us had endured under the yoke of a foreign rule. Such was the pain and stigma of slavery that the great Muslim leader and freedom fighter Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar declared at the first Round Table Conference held in London in 1930, that he would not return to India alive unless the country was set free. "I would prefer to die in a foreign country so long as it is a free country," he addressed to the British, and went on, "and if you do not give us freedom in India you will have to give me a grave here." He died in London and was buried in Jerusalem. He had asked in his will that he be buried there because he did not want to return to a "slave country." It would take seventeen more tumultuous years before his namesake Muhammad Ali Jinnah would prise away freedom from the jaws of death. Jinnah would accept a moth eaten Pakistan at great personal cost (the premature death of his young wife and loss of his personal property in Bombay) and national loss (death and destruction in Punjab and Bengal) because time was running out for him. Jinnah, the Great Leader had defied all odds to win liberty for his countrymen. The great struggle had left him too weak and enfeebled to defy the grim reaper. His mission accomplished, Jinnah died almost a year later. A disconsolate but grateful nation buried him atop a hillock overlooking Karachi, his birthplace and the capital of his newly founded country.
I was born ten years after Pakistan became a free country. My children were born nearly forty years later. We all belong to the post-independence era. We are Pakistanis by birth. We have known no other nationality. We have not known slavery. We have savoured the fruits of freedom without having experienced the pangs of slavery. My late father, a student in Lahore's famous Government College, had campaigned for the Muslim League candidate before partition. He often explained that it was important for the sake of freedom that their election campaign was a success. My mother a young teenager, travelled on a military special train to Pakistan, huddled and petrified by the horrors of communal violence that ravaged the countryside. Pakistan meant safety and freedom from fear. It was the promised homeland for Muslims of India and all those who opted to stay here. A new nation state, where they were free to practice their faith and traditions irrespective of caste or creed, and fear or favour. The prominent white margin in the national flag symbolised their rights as minorities in a free state.
The question often asked is whether the dream has gone sour and if indeed it has. where have we erred? Admittedly our record as a free and independent nation has not been unblemished. As we have struggled to find an honourable place for ourselves among the comity of nations, we have committed grave sins. Some of our mistakes may have not been entirely of our own making but other more grievous and fatal wounds have been self-inflicted. In most cases we have suffered by sacrificing national interests at the altar of self-interest.
What we need to understand is that our struggle for freedom had cost our earlier generations dearly. Some had died yearning for a free homeland. Those, who could make a choice didn't even want an interment in a colonised country. Others, more fortunate ones left behind their native land to begin anew in a strange and alien surrounding. The choice of freedom was too great to forego and ignore. Most of them took the plunge without a second thought. Some succeeded in making a successful life for themselves, others could not prosper but none thought of going back. They had turned the leaf and they simply had to move on in life. Mercifully we are not presented with any stark choices that those before us had to contend with. True, some of us go through great deal of trouble to immigrate to more prosperous countries. There is no harm in seizing better opportunities and improving the quality of life. The only thing to remember is that we are blessed with a free country, where we can do our best to thrive and flourish and in the bargain add to our nation's wealth.
In these times of doom and gloom, we need to reflect on how bad it was before we became a free nation or how worse it could have been if we had continued to languish under colonial rule. See for example the misery of the Kashmiris, protesting against the cold blooded murder of their youth in the streets of Srinagar and chanting the slogans of AZADI (liberty) and Go India Go; and the plight of the Palestinians, who are hostages in their own country, where no freedom flotilla can reach them. Freedom is a cherished commodity for all who possess it and for those who strive for it.
