The idea of a single nation-State based exclusively on religion doesn’t work. It is not enough to define Pakistan as the opposite of India. Institutions and wealth belong to the military. The slavery of women. Five proposals to save ourselves.More than six decades after Partition, Pakistanis still struggle with the elemental question: who are we? Arabs or South Asians? Muslims first or Pakistanis first? Is there such a thing as Pakistani culture? Can Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Ahmadis, and other non-Muslims be equal Pakistanis? Or is Pakistan only for Muslims?
These questions beg the most fundamental one: is Pakistan the land and people inside a certain geographical boundary or, instead, is it a nation? By nation I mean a form of cultural or social community whose members share an identity, mental makeup, sense of history or common ancestry, parentage or descent.
By this definition, Pakistan is not a nation – at least as yet. Its peoples are too disparate and divided, have too little trust in those whom they perceive as outsiders, and identities of tribe and ethnicity are strong. This is painfully apparent in Karachi – Pakistan’s megacity of nearly 17 million – which is frequented by violent ethnic and religious clashes. And, while the flag is saluted with great fervor in Punjab, it does not fly at all on schools in Baluchistan where the national anthem is also not sung.
The lack of nationhood can be traced to the genesis of Pakistan and the single factor that drove it – religious identity. Carved out of Hindu-majority India, Pakistan resulted f
rom the competition and conflict between natives who had converted to Islam and those who had not. Converts often identified with Arab invaders of the last millennium. Shah Waliullah (1703-1762), a “purifier” of Islam on the subcontinent who despised local traditions, famously declared “We [Hindustanis] are an Arab people whose fathers have fallen in exile in the country of Hindustan, and Arabic genealogy and the Arabic language are our pride”.The founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, also echoed the separateness of Muslims and Hindus, basing the struggle for Pakistan on the premise that the two peoples could never live together peacefully within one nation state. But Jinnah was unrecognizably different from Waliullah, a bearded religious scholar. An impeccably dressed Westernized man with Victorian manners, secular outlook, and a connoisseur of fine foods and wines, Jinnah nevertheless eloquently articulated the fears and aspirations of an influential section of his co-religionists. Interestingly, he was opposed by a large section of the conservative ulema, such as Maulana Maudoodi of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who said that Islam cannot be confined to national borders. But Jinnah and his Muslim League won the day by insisting that Muslims constituted a distinct nation which would be overwhelmed in post-British India by a larger and better educated Hindu majority.
Thus Pakistan, in essence, was created as the Boolean negative of India – it was NOT India. But what was it beyond being a homeland for Muslims? Decades after the horrific bloodbath of partition, the idea of Pakistan remains hotly debated. It did not help that Mr. Jinnah died in 1948 – just a year after Pakistan was born – with his plans ambiguously stated. He left behind no substantive writings. Thus his speeches, which were often driven by political expediency, are freely cherry-picked. Some find in them a liberal and secular voice, others an embodiment of Islamic values. The confusion is irresolvable.
The basis in religious identity led to painful paradoxes. Jinnah’s Two-Nation theory was left in tatters after the separation of East Pakistan in 1971, and the defeat of the Pakistani military. An overbearing West Pakistan had run roughshod on East Pakistan and was despised as an external imperial power. The enthusiasm of Muslim Bengalis for Bangladesh – and their failure to repent even long after the separation – was a deadly blow against the very basis of Pakistan. Nevertheless, contrary to dire predictions, the Pakistani state survived. Its powerful military easily crushed emerging separatist movements in the provinces of Baluchistan and Sind.
For a while after 1971 the question of national ideology fell in limbo. Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto attempted to create a Pakistani identity around the notion of revenge for the loss of the East Wing. He promised “war of a thousand years” against India and started Pakistan’s quest for the atomic bomb in 1974. While this served temporarily as a rallying cry, the military coup of 1977 that removed him was to revive the identity issue.
Soon after he seized power, General Zia-ul-Haq sent Bhutto off to the gallows. Seeking a final resolution of Pakistan’s purpose and identity, he wanted to emulate Napoleon’s achievement of creating a nation from a nation-state. Indeed, Eric Hobsbawm, the influential Marxist British historian, has persuasively argued that the French state preceded the formation of the French people. In other words, the state of France made the French nation, not some pre-existing nationalism. Zia wanted the same for Pakistan.
To be sure, Zia’s goal was religious nationalism and not Napoleon’s secular nationalism. The word soon went out that henceforth Pakistan was not to be described as a Muslim state but, instead, as an Islamic state where Islamic law would reign supreme. To achieve this re-conceptualization, Zia knew that future generations of Pakistanis would have to be purged of liberal and secular values.
Thus began a massive decade-long state-sponsored project: democracy was demonized and declared un-Islamic, culture was purified of Hindu contamination, the Urdu language was cleansed of Hindi words to the extent possible, and religion was introduced into every aspect of public and private life.
Education was the key weapon for Zia’s strategy. In 1981, he ordered the education authorities to rewrite the history of Pakistan. All new school textbooks must now “induce pride for the nation’s past, enthusiasm for the present, and unshakeable faith in the stability and longevity of Pakistan”. Jinnah and other icons of the Pakistan Movement had to be portrayed as pious fundamentalists whether or not they had beards. Their lifestyles had to be hidden from public view. To eliminate possible ambiguities of approach, a presidential order was issued to the University Grants Commission that henceforth all Pakistan Studies textbooks must:
Demonstrate that the basis of Pakistan is not to be founded in racial, linguistic, or geographical factors, but, rather, in the shared experience of a common religion. To get students to know and appreciate the Ideology of Pakistan, and to popularize it with slogans. To guide students towards the ultimate goal of Pakistan - the creation of a completely Islamised State.
In a matter of years, Pakistani school children grew up learning a catchy but linguistically nonsensical jingle about the “ideology of Pakistan”: Pakistan ka matlab kya? La illaha illala! [What is the meaning of Pakistan? There is no god but Allah!]. Although the purported answer has nothing to do with the question, Zia’s strategy was showing signs of working well.
Barely a generation was needed for Pakistan’s transformation from a moderate Muslim majority country into one where the majority of citizens wanted Islam to play a key role in politics. The effect is clearly visible today. Even as the sharia-seeking Taliban were busy blowing up schools in Swat and elsewhere, a survey by the World Public Opinion.Org in 2008 found that 54% of Pakistanis wanted strict application of sharia while 25% wanted it in some more dilute form. Totaling 79%, this was the largest percentage in the four countries surveyed (Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia).
A more recent survey of 2000 young Pakistanis between 18-27 years of age was carried out across Pakistan by the British Council in 2009. It found that “three-quarters of all young people identify themselves primarily as Muslims. Just 14% chose to define themselves primarily as a citizen of Pakistan”. The youth are deeply worried by lack of employment, economic inflation, corruption, and violence. In this turbulent sea, it is not surprising that most see religion as their anchor. The common refrain of the post-Zia generation is that “every issue will be solved if we go back to the fundamentals of Islam.” But, while the “fundamentals of Islam” slogan has enormous rallying power, it is ambiguous and of ten carries diametrically opposite meaning. The interpretation depends hugely upon social class, education, ethnicity, and personal disposition.
For some, violent change is the answer to the country’s problems. This is precisely what Zaid Hamid, Pakistan’s emerging Hitler-clone, advocates. A fiery demagogue who claims to have fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, he builds on the insecurity of the youth. Enthralled college students throng to packed auditoriums to listen to this self-proclaimed jihadist. Millions watch him on various TV channels, as he lashes out against Pakistan’s corrupt rulers and other “traitors”. Hamid promises that those who betrayed the nation’s honor by joining America’s war on terror will hang from lampposts in Islamabad. In his promised Islamic utopia, speedy Taliban-style justice will replace the clumsy and corrupt courts established by the British.
Just as Hitler dwelt on Germany’s “wounded honour” in his famous beer hall oratory in Munich – where he promised that Germany would conquer the world – Hamid calls for the Pakistan Army to go to war against India and liberate Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya and Afghanistan. One day, he says, Pakistan’s flag shall fly from Delhi’s Red Fort. Inshallah, of course! The students applaud.
Notwithstanding the enormous impetus given by Zia-ul-Haq, final success still eludes Pakistan’s Islamists. In spite of an explosion of religiosity, the goal of producing a new Pakistani identity and a sharia state has not been reached. Why?
Ethno-nationalism is part of the answer. This natural resistance against melding into some larger entity is the reflexive response of historically constituted groups that seek to preserve their distinctiveness, expressed in terms of dress, food, folklore, and shared history. Assimilation of Pakistan’s diverse people into a homogenized national culture is opposed by this force which, like gravity, always acts in one direction.
Ethno-nationalism is, of course, vulnerable. It can be overcome by integrative forces, which arise from the natural advantage of being part of a larger economy with correspondingly greater opportunities. But for these forces to be effective it is essential that the state machinery provide effective governance, demonstrate fairness, and be indif
ferent to ethnic origins.Here lies the problem: Pakistan’s ruling elite is widely perceived as ethnically biased as well as incompetent. Historically, the Pakistani state had quickly aligned with the powerful landed class. The army leadership and the economic elite joined forces to claim authority, but they were transparently self-serving and therefore lacked legitimacy.
Weak integration resulted. Today only a Punjabi – from Pakistan’s politically and economically dominant region – is likely to think of himself as Pakistani first and Punjabi second. Not so for Baluchis and Sindhis, whose principal identities are first Baluchis or Sindhis and then Pakistanis; the group identity dominates. So, for example, the physical fights between students in my university, as in other places, mostly occur between ethnic groups.
At a recent lecture that I gave to senior Pakistan civil service officers in Peshawar, I was taken back at the intensity of those from Baluchistan who said that wounds were too deep and the time for reconciliation had passed. A decade ago one would have expected this language from student radicals only; now it is the mainstream Baluch who articulates this.
Dangling the utopia of an Islamic state raised expectations but did little else. To the chagrin of the establishment, it backfired and became the cause of infinite division. This should have been easily predictable: religious groups are bitterly divided by sect. There is no way of avoiding the fundamentally unanswerable questions: which interpretation of Islam is the right Islam? Of the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence (Hanafi, Shafii, Maaliki, Hanbali), whose version of the sharia should be adopted? Will all, or most, Pakistanis accept any non-elected amir-ul-momineen (leader of the pious) or a caliph? And what about the Shia?
Religion cannot be the basis of Pakistan or move it towards integration. I say this categorically, although it was the reason for Pakistan’s formation. Indeed, any serious move in the direction of a sharia state could lead to civil war. Today, even those who loudly call for sharia are frightened by the emergence of the Pakistani Taliban, whose primary demand is the imposition of sharia. Their Wahabi-Deobandi-Salafi understanding of sharia calls for forbidding females to leave their houses, be educated, or to hold jobs. Men must have beards, wear shalwars rather than trousers, and never miss prayers. Taliban-inflicted decapitations, amputation of limbs, and floggings are defended only by fanatics. These constitute no more than perhaps ten percent of Pakistan’s population.
There is excellent reason for Pakistan to be: it must be because it is! The cost of disappearance or destruction of this nuclear weapon state, is too awful to contemplate. I contend that Pakistan can become a nation, and that it will almost certainly become one in the decades ahead. But this will require that it seeks new roots lying within its social reality rather than religion. One must also assume that some foolish adventurism of its leaders does not lead to a further breakup.
Look at it this way: rain inevitably grinds down stony mountains over centuries and ultimately creates fertile soil. Similarly, nations are inevitably formed when people experience a common environment and live together for long enough. How long is long? In Pakistan’s case the time scale could be fairly short. Its people are diverse but almost all understand Urdu. They watch the same television programs, hear the same radio stations, deal with the same irritating and inefficient bureaucracy, use the same badly written textbooks, buy similar products, and despise the same set of rulers.
The metamorphosis of Pakistan into a nation can be catalyzed by a suitable manifesto of change. What should that be?
First, Pakistan needs peace. This means that it must turn inwards and fix its own problems rather than attempt solving those around it such as Kashmir, Afghanistan, or Palestine. In particular, the Kashmir dispute must be shelved. Kashmiris must learn how to deal with India, an occupying power that has mistreated them. Attempts by Pakistan to liberate Kashmir have achieved nothing beyond creating a militarized Pakistani security state that is incapable of serving the interests of its people.
Second, Pakistan needs economic justice and the working machinery of a welfare state. Economic justice is not the same as flinging coins at a beggar. Rather, it requires an organizational infrastructure that, at the very least, provides employment but also rewards appropriately according to ability and hard work. Incomes should be neither exorbitantly high nor miserably low. To be sure, “high” and “low” are not easily quantifiable, but an inner moral sense tells us that something is desperately wrong when rich Pakistanis fly off to vacation in Dubai while a mother commits suicide because she cannot feed her children.
Pakistan must learn from the fact that India abolished feudalism upon attaining independence. But the enormous pre-partition land holdings of Pakistan’s feudal lords remained safe and sound, protected by the authority of the state. The land reforms announced by Ayub Khan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were eyewash. In later years, with the consolidation of military rule in national politics, the army turned itself into a landlord and capitalist class.
The military owns assets that have no relation to national defense. Today, the private property of military officers includes vast amounts of farm lands and valuable urban real estate, commercial assets in manufacturing, transportation, banking, insurance, advertising companies, cement and sugar industries, banking and insurance, airlines and ground transportation, factories for making corn flakes and even bottled water. Most countries have armies but, as some have noted, only in Pakistan does an army have a country.
Third, Pakistan needs a federation agreement that gives its different peoples equal participation and the feeling that they are part of the same nation. Different historically constituted peoples must want to live together, not be forced. So this means Pakistan’s rulers must respect diversity and hand important powers over to the provinces, re- conceiving itself as a federation of autonomous states with defense and foreign affairs held in common. India serves as model. Above all, Islamabad’s conflict with Baluchistan urgently needs resolution using political sagacity and persuasion rather than military force.
Fourth, Pakistan needs freedom for its women. In much of rural Pakistan a woman is likely to be spat upon, beaten, or killed for being friendly to a man or even showing to him her face. Newspaper readers expect – and get – a steady daily diet of stories about women raped, mutilated, or strangled to death by their fathers, husbands, and brothers. Energetic proselytizers, like Farhat Hashmi, have made deep inroads even into the urban middle and upper classes, and the culture of female suppression spread without bound. Pakistan’s cities are becoming culturally backward villages. As the pious multiply their numbers, the horrific daily crimes against women become still less worthy of comment or discussion.
Fifth, and finally, Pakistan needs the rule of law and renewal of the social contract. Nearly three centuries earlier, philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau observed that each citizen of a state voluntarily places his person under the supreme direction of the “general will”. An unwritten compact between the individual and society requires that a citizen accept the rule of law and acknowledge certain basic responsibilities. In return the citizen receives certain rights from the larger entity. Without this voluntary submission by individuals, said Rousseau, humans would be no better than beasts.
The social contract is being ruthlessly violated. Citizens do not exhibit responsible social behavior. Most do not pay their fair share of income tax, respect basic environmental rules, heed traffic laws, and dispose off garbage as they should. Law-breaking occurs because ordinary people see the nation’s leaders openly flouting the very rules they were empowered to protect, and because they can see that enforcement of the law is no more than a perfunctory gesture. The problem is compounded by Pakistan’s fundamental confusion: is the citizen obligated to obey secular (or common) law or one of the many interpretations of Islamic law, or even the tribal law of jirgas? Surely a modern state has to set uniform rules for its citizens or else risk losing its legitimacy.
The path to creating a Pakistani nation is doubtlessly difficult. As the population explodes, oceans of poverty and misery deepen, limbless beggars in the streets multiply, water and clean air become scarce, education is stalemated, true democracy remains elusive, and the distance from a rapidly developing world increases. There is a strong temptation for one to step aside, give up, and admit helplessness. But no, surely that is wrong, for what we fear will then actually come to pass. I go along with Antonio Gramsci, the great Italian philosopher, who spoke of “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”. With the pessimism of the intellect we must calmly contemplate the yawning abyss up ahead. But then, after a period of reflection, one should move to prevent falling into it.
(Heartland)
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