On this Moment in Pakistan

Lights around Shah Chan Chiragh Mazar, Androon RAWALPINDI. Many migrant families from Punjab came to settle here after Partition.

It is Eid Al-Adha, and a time of celebration across Pakistan and the wider Islamic world. However, as one made the traditional rounds of visits to friends and family this time, the mood was distinctly subdued. Pakistan, everyone says, is not on the right track.

Well, people have been saying this for as far back as memory serves. Ever since it came into being, Pakistan has been passing through “dire straits,” or so we are told. What’s different this time? It is a question worth pondering over.

The palpable disillusionment on display has some distinct features. This time around, three crises - political, security, and economic have all arrived simultaneously. Layered on top is a deep sense that the disease is chronic, and no amount of traditional medicine is going to cure it. In fact, a visible helplessness, far above what even this society is used to, has set in. How are we going to get out of it? Will things always remain this way? These are the two questions most commonly being asked across class divides.

Somewhat intriguingly, the situation has brought previously disparate sections of society onto the same page. A wider section of society has come to realize that they lack the right to voice, to political choice, and to economic freedom. Throughout the last few years, all manner of pundits had been clogging the airwaves, telling Pakistan’s middle class and its hapless masses that a “takeoff” was “just around the corner.” In reality, nothing seems to have taken off, except the personal fortunes of a choice few. Today, many political conservatives can be found empathising with those on the left of centre. Some recognize that all along, they have in fact been in the same tent. Perhaps there is yet something good than can come out of this, though it hardly seems likely.

For much of the middle class, debates over the future have now become a moot point. People are voting with their feet. Last year, a record 700,000 departed Pakistan for greener pastures. Or even for ones without vegetation - just look at the numbers rushing to settle the Canadian wilderness. Its a sign of sheer lack of trust in the system and a rejection of the snake-oil peddled by the overlords that take decisions about the fate of Pakistan.

For most decent people who make an income from their jobs, the maths simply doesn’t work anymore. They are reeling under taxes, paying out of pocket for every single social good, and are increasingly unable to imagine how they can give their children a shot at a decent future. Around them, they witness loot and plunder in an economy straightjacketed by crony capitalism. The only ones seemingly getting ahead are the ones dodging the rules. The times are suffocating, and there is a certain aura of deja vu about it.

This makes sense. Wiser observers, and in fact our own elders frequently tell us they have seen it all before. Cataclysms that repeat themselves every few years. In particular, we are reminded of the loss of an entire wing of the country in 1971. An episode which too contains traces of the same defects which continue to plague us. Yahya, Bhutto, and Mujib all played with fire till the house burned down. Why don’t the egos of those that lead allow them to pull back before it’s too late? Questions such as these hang in the heavy air of the subcontinent.

What we are now required to face is the gaping hole between our hopes and reality.

The pain is greatest for our elders who saw Pakistan begin with so much hope. Nearly eight decades ago, our forefathers put everything at stake and made the long march to this promised land. By land, sea, and air, and whatever means possible, they arrived to found a new state which was the embodiment of centuries old hopes and prayers - Pakistan. Led by an able and sure footed leader who commanded complete trust, millions would leave their homes and cross the dividing line in perhaps the largest human exodus since the Biblical age. For the leadership of the Muslim League, the goal was a state which would inject modernity into the Muslim body-politic and thereby unleash a new era of progress and prosperity. Pakistan was to be the homeland of Muslim Modernism. Progressive in outlook, it would do away will all those historical forms of oppression - caste, class structures, and economic and social injustice in a fresh project which would bring forward the true genius of the people . “You are made of sterling material, and second to none,” Jinnah had once exhorted at a public rally. And, even if the theory was not yet empirically tested, the idea was innovative and backed with resolve. The goal was not merely economic progress, but a new social compact, with a shared dream at its heart

And yet, here we are. Not shipwrecked, but certainly lost at sea.

There is so much that Pakistan requires, but if one were compelled to ask, it would be a leadership which can re-inject hope into the fifth largest country in the world, rid it of its fears and prejudices, and galvanize it with a spirit of progress. Mired in conspiracy and an increasing sense of victimhood, what mainstream narrative in Pakistan normally fails to see is that everyone isn’t out to get it. On the contrary, major states around Pakistan are keen to see a stable and progressive country open to trade and on a reasonably fast track to progress. And why not? We are living in one of the greatest spurts of economic and technological progress in history. Others too want to invest and partake in shared prosperity. The spirit of the age isn’t conflict, but interconnectivity, trade, and economic progress. While insular discourse and infighting has bogged Pakistan down, entire regions have moved forward n front of our own yes during just the last twenty years. East Asia was already ahead. Now our fellow-travelers in South Asia too are on the move, and there has been a historic opening in the Gulf.

The world around Pakistan is changing. And ironically, some of the most talented leaders and business executives driving it are, Pakistani. You will find them amongst that annual cohort of departures. When one looks around at the abundance of talent that Pakistan has, the hopes of its average family, and the foundational aspirations of this country, one can only come to the conclusion that Pakistanis deserve to be doing much better.

For this to happen though, someone needs to relocate the compass.