Topsy-turvy

Waseem Altaf

Muslim League was created in Dacca, the movement for Pakistan took place in UP and Bihar but the country which later came into being was located on the West of the country where hardly anyone was interested in the new state.

The most vociferous support for Pakistan came from the Bengalis who after 23 years were all out to seek independence from Pakistan.

Our history books tell us that the Lahore resolution was adopted on 23rd March 1940; however, it was March 24,1940. Pakistan came into being on 15th August, however it was later deemed appropriate to make it 14th as India also had the same Independence Day. Although it is said that the resolution called for the establishment of a separate state, however there is no mention of a separate state in the resolution while the author of Lahore resolution, Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan openly supported the British during WW II when all political parties had refused. It is also interesting to note that the two main proponents of our “independence” Sir Mohammad Iqbal and Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, both knighted, were badly against women education and hence “women independence”.

The two-nation theory clearly stated that, Hindus and Muslims had a different history, culture, social customs, literature, heroes and symbols; so on and so forth, and hence they could not co-exist. However in the Aug 11 speech of Mr. Jinnah all these differences were set aside and the advice came for mutual co-existence. The father of the nation exploited “fake coins” and then branded them as such. Is it not unethical and illegal to keep “fake coins?”

The Pakistan Studies curriculum claims that Mohammad Bin Qasim who existed 1250 years before Pakistan came into being was the first Pakistani. However there were no Pakistanis in East Pakistan in 1971, no Pakistanis in Sindh in 1983 and hardly any Pakistani in Balochistan today. When All India Muslim League came into being in 1906 it was supposed to safeguard the interests of the Muslims, however the first clause of its manifesto was “Loyalty to the British”. Later, the same Muslim League proved its loyalty to Field Marshal Ayub Khan, General Zia-ul-Haq and General Pervez Musharraf.

While the country had come into being as a result of elections of 1946, the elected governments of the three provinces were sent home within three years of the birth of the state, while the fourth one namely Balochistan was forcibly annexed. Interestingly freedom fighters like Ghaffar Khan and Sheikh Mujeeb-ur-Rahman were labelled as traitors while British loyalists were elevated as national heroes.

While Liaqat Ali Khan was the head of the government, the governor general would chair the cabinet meetings as long as he remained alive. In a country which was created “in the name of Islam” the founder of Muslim League, Prince Agha Khan, and the first Prime Minister Nawabzada Liaqat Ali Khan preferred to marry Christian ladies, the one who dreamed of the “Islamic state” Sir Iqbal also fell in love with a Christian lady namely Emma Wagenast, while the “Quaid” preferred a Parsi.

The “founder” and the first Prime Minister died under mysterious circumstances and the nation does not know the facts. The second governor general would rule as a paralyzed man while several elected leaders were deposed, incarcerated and even murdered; either with a bullet in the head and through manipulation of the criminal justice system.

Almost every event in the history of the country is controversial. Whether Mustafa Ali Hamdani or Zahoor Azar made the first announcement “This is radio Pakistan”; or was it Fatima Sughra or Aapa Nisar Fatima who hoisted the Pakistan flag on Punjab Assembly building. This lady Nisar Fatima was behind death penalty for blasphemy which was later to impact millions.

The country which was created to secure the interests of the Muslims is now a country where Muslims are the most insecure.

We were Punjabis Sindhis, Balochis and Pakhtuns who were to adopt Urdu as the national language and English as the official while the national anthem was to be in Persian with a lifted German symphony as its composition and Arabic as the sacred language. We were to be born in South Asia with a superimposed desert culture with English leanings.

There was no constitution till 1956, and the first constitution survived only two years. A second came in 1962 and a third in 1973.Then there were three PCO’s promulgated in the years 1981, 1999 and 2007, two LFO’s enforced in 1970 and 2002 and twenty amendments. Presently what we have is difficult to distinguish as to how much is owed to the aspirations of the people and how much to the wishes of a dictator.

The only Nobel laureate form Pakistan was declared a non-Muslim not by a religious but a secular/progressive leader who was so “tolerant” that a bomb was arranged to be “discovered” from the house of the late “Ustad Daman” who was put behind the bars for writing a satire.

While it was propagated that in United India Muslims cannot flourish, countless Muslim artists both from India and Pakistan got ample opportunities to grow in the “enemy” state.
The “patriotic” generals have made huge properties abroad and some of them are permanently based in the West.

Islam is the state religion but the legal, educational, irrigation, postal, communication and all other systems are purely Western. There are three distinct educational systems; plus two legal systems; all poles apart.

While the common citizens are at the mercy of terrorists, those who are supposed to protect them reside in fortified garrisons. And the ones who should only be doing soldiering are doing everything except soldiering. Vice Chancellors of universities are retired infantry generals. Some of the Prime Ministers nobody knew in the country came all the way from nowhere and took the oath of office and then after sometime disappeared into thin air.

Judges of the Supreme Court perform executive functions while we also had a Deputy Prime Minister. What did he do? We don’t know. We also had ambassadors at large with the status of full Minister, for life; Mahmood Ali and Raja Tridev Roy. Who made them and why, we don’t know.

The premier intelligence agency created political alliances to manipulate elections, even disbursed funds out of public money and got away with it.

A country where 80% of the population does not have access to clean drinking water feels pride in having a nuclear weapon.

We are a state where murderers, plunderers and rapists are portrayed and glorified as national heroes while the real national heroes like Abdus Salam and Malala Yousafzai are degraded.
We are a country where a Canadian national can simply gate crash into the country and play havoc with routine life.

We are a country where the President knows who killed his wife and is helpless. The deceased wife while being a sitting Prime Minister knew who killed her brother and was equally helpless.

We are the only country where the Prime Minister orders the closure of YouTube simply on a telephone call from a journalist.

We love and we hate the West simultaneously. We want to regress and progress at the same time. We want women to cover themselves and want to stare at them too.

We want democracy and yet welcome dictators when they take over.

Question: What has been the only enduring feature of our history during the past several decades?

Answer: Topsy-turvy

(Facebook: 22 December 2020)

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Dec 27, 2020