Fifty years ago, we inherited a state that was geared to the demands of an authoritarian colonial power. the task of our political leadership was to transform this state apparatus into one suited to the requirements of an independent, sovereign and democratic country. Our failure to do this has plunged the civil services, judiciary and army into a crisis of functional identity.
Fifty years ago, we also thought that religion would be a sufficient basis for nationhood. But the disintegration of Pakistan in 1971 and the rise of ethnic sub-nationalisms and militant sectarianisms had effectively put paid to the idea.
So what we have today is a crumbling state-nation instead of a vibrant nation-state. On the eve of the 21st century, Pakistan appears to be stretched on a historical rack — a leg is trapped in the 8th century while the other desperately stretches out for a toehold in the 21st; a hand clings to the Middle-East while the other claws at South Asia. the country’s heart is overwhelmed by the past even as its mind yearns for the future.
But all is not lost. The collective mood is one of deep reflection and anguished introspection. We have begun, finally, to ask the right questions. Some of these are, to be sure, deeply agonising. If religion was a necessary condition for independence, can it become a sufficient condition for future growth? If a national-security state based on rising defence expenditure was a sine qua non for survival in the early decades, can the same state meet the demands of a new era in which old notions of sovereignty and nationality are losing out to the imperatives of globalisation and economic prosperity? If the principle of “rights” in civil society was proper in the nascent stages of statehood, can the principle of “duties” in civil society be supplanted in the later stages of nationhood? If “electoral democracy” was an ideal to be nourished in the long years of authoritarianism, can present notions of “undiluted democracy” be sustained amidst signs of growing anarchy in society? If Urdu was the defining language of our halting federalism in the last five decades, can English become the “raison d’etre” of our quest for internationalism in the next five decades? And so on. But the end lies in the beginning. And the answers about our future depend on how we tackle questions like these from our past.
Mr Nawaz Sharif has now arrived on the scene, flushed with the belief that he alone can lead us to the promised land. Even if we think that he can’t, we can view the situation in two ways. We can mock his shortcomings, distrust his motives, and conspire to remove him from the citadels of power, hoping that someone with greater vision, integrity and ability will rise from somewhere and fill the void. Or can we treat his reincarnation, warts and all, as a small window in a desperate twilight zone in which all must shoulder the responsibility for leap-frogging into a new zone of opportunity? What will it be?
Mr Sharif is a conservative man. He is not culturally alienated from the people. He leads a party which can never forget the impulse for Pakistan. He belongs to the business community of the urban areas which holds the key to the country’s future. His personal instincts are reassuring even if his penchant for cronyism is not. His mandate can be channelled for much good even if it trespasses the limits of conventional authority. More to the point, there is no sign of anyone in the wings who can even remotely be entrusted to lead us into the new century.
Mr Sharif is impressed with the success stories of Singapore and Malaysia, so are most Pakistanis. Both countries are multi-lingual, multi-ethnic societies whose leaders have firmly cajoled them out of a divisive and unproductive past and confidently thrust them into the limelight of modernity. Both have a system of “democracy” with which the rest of the democratic world has no serious quarrels. Why can’t we emulate their example?
We can do so if we resolve to uproot some of the divisive legacies of our past. This means outlawing and crushing all sectarian and ethnic tendencies and purging the political system. This means reasserting our faith in a universal system of law and justice rather than in allowing a highly contentious, parallel system of Islamic laws to subvert order. This means elevating English to the status of “lingua-franca” for the middle classes. This means putting more effort and resources into education, health and population planning instead of into new weapon-systems. This means living and trading in peace with our neighbours. This means paying taxes and fulfilling our “duties” to state and society, instead of constantly baying for more and more dubious “rights”.
Mr Sharif seems to know the score. But, in the final analysis, much depends on whether we, the ruling classes, can bring ourselves, on our 50th birthday, to shed our vested interests and make Pakistan a true land of the pure.