Moving beyond Jinnah’s Pakistan

The article appeared in Daily Times on August 30, 2011 http://bit.ly/nTMemN

What exists right now in the name of the Pakistani state is an institution that oppresses its citizens, discriminates against them on the basis of religion, usurps their rights, and rewards the coterie of a few, which consists of the civil-military bureaucracy and politicians

Pakistan just celebrated its 64th Independence Day. As usual the day was marked with promises to make Pakistan the greatest nation (and country) the world has ever witnessed. It is ironic that nobody paused for a second to reflect that the country is, at present, struggling to be even a mediocre one. I guess birthdays are a reason for drunken optimism, however unrealistic it may be. Each year August is also the month when both the conservatives and liberals in Pakistan invoke Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan to suit their (respective) ideological aspirations.

It is indeed an interesting crossing where both liberal and conservative minds meet — only to move apart. Jinnah’s vision is invoked by each side to lament the current state of the country and discuss the potential this nation possesses. But before I muse any further on this, let me ask a (seemingly rhetorical) question. What is Jinnah’s Pakistan? If we were to only look at geography then Jinnah’s Pakistan came into existence with eastern and western wings. That Pakistan ceased to exist in December 1971. What we have now is a Pakistan that was left over from that war. This current Pakistan’s 60 percent population is under the age of 30, which means that they were born in 1980 and after. None of these people were born in Jinnah’s Pakistan, which makes them the citizens of what was left over from the war in 1971. But since the idea of Jinnah’s Pakistan is invoked so frequently it must be something that goes beyond geography. For this piece I will just stick to the vision that liberals in the country present.

In that vein, by Jinnah’s Pakistan liberals mostly mean a secular and pluralistic Pakistan (which is also capitalistic but then that is something that everybody takes for granted). And the most cited instance of this vision is Jinnah’s speech of August 11, 1947 made to the then Constituent Assembly. It is quite interesting that a friend recently pointed out a section of the speech that hardly ever gets a mention in mainstream media. Jinnah’s suggestion to the members of the assembly is to forget the past and cooperate with each other in order to succeed. In the next sentence he tells them to change their past so that “there will be no end to the progress you will make” (http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/legislation/constituent_address_11aug1947.html).

It is that part where Jinnah asks the members to forget their past in order to start afresh that I find quite telling. A question that arises immediately: is it even possible to forget our past? In some ways perhaps Jinnah’s statement reflects the enormity of the burden that he felt by creating a nation-state that he accepted only half-heartedly. Ironically, by making that statement Jinnah was attempting to do away with the communal politics that had brought him (and the rest of the country) to that point. Some would find that intellectually dishonest but maybe Jinnah was not really concerned with intellectual dishonesty at that time since he could see the Pandora’s Box that he had opened up through a decade and a half of communal politics. So, in a way, Jinnah’s statement signifies his attempt to escape from the reality (and consequences) of his own politics.

My attempt here is not to present this argument in order to eventually decide whether Pakistan was a mistake. Pakistan was the result of forces unleashed by a number of actors (foremost among them was Jinnah) — forces that nobody was eventually able to control. Hence, passing judgement on the creation of Pakistan is an exercise in futility for me. It is inconsequential and 64 years down the road it does not really matter. And neither does Jinnah’s Pakistan! Do not get me wrong when I make this argument. I am not arguing against a secular and progressive Pakistan. I am only arguing that there is no need to justify such a vision by invoking Jinnah. In fact, I personally do not agree with Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan. We only tend to highlight the secularist aspects of it but tend to ignore that Jinnah strongly believed in a capitalist Pakistan firmly allied with the US. The present day Pakistan seems to, at least, have achieved the latter part of Jinnah’s vision.

As I mentioned above, the state that Jinnah founded disappeared from the world map in 1971. What we have left is definitely not Jinnah’s Pakistan. What exists right now in the name of the Pakistani state is an institution that oppresses its citizens, discriminates against them on the basis of religion, usurps their rights, and rewards the coterie of a few, which consists of the civil-military bureaucracy and politicians. I know that the particular state that exists right now has to be dismantled. Brick by brick, institution by institution, law by law — this structure needs to be razed so that we can make the space to construct a new and better Pakistan. I do not have to invoke Jinnah (or his vision) to work towards a pluralistic polity in Pakistan. So yes, I also want a secular, progressive, and democratic Pakistan. But I also want a Pakistan where democracy is not limited to casting votes but is also practiced at the workplace, where production is not appropriated by a few but is shared and enjoyed by society. If that is also Jinnah’s vision, well then, great!

The writer is studying towards his doctorate in Economics at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He blogs at http://darumallah.blogspot.com and can be reached at fahdali@gmail.com