Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Leadership and Pakistan


This has been one of my favourite topic to discuss on. But the urge to write this came from a Urdu prose:
امیرِشہر غریبوں کو لوٹ لیتا ہے
کبھی بحیلِ مذیب، کبھی بانامِ وطن
"The Rich plunders the belongings of the poor
sometimes on the name of religion and sometime through nationalism"

If you look on the pages of history this is the simplest theory of Pakistani leadership. I would leave Liaquat Ali Khan. (I'm afraid I would be caught under the blasphemy act of the constitution of Pakistan!). After him the story is similar if not the same. Khwaja Nazimuddin, Chaudhri Mohammad Ali, Iskander Mirza, Malik Feroz Khan Noon and then towards martial law.

Field marshal Ayub Khan, the self-nominated field martial, was the first person who made the illusion that civilians can't give anything of good to the nation. He took on the country and his first action was to abrogate the constitution presented by the civil government. Just imagine, an army man saying that politicans don't know how to run a country but a solider knows this. Even Aristotle would be crying in the Limbo! Than Ayub Khan presented his own constitution where he gathered all powers in himself. No law would be passed even if the whole parliament has a consensus. The president(i.e. Ayub Khan) had the power to dissolve the whole parliament with a single stroke of a pen. Then Ayub Khan went on war with the Indians in 1965. The war was on the Kashmir dispute and war experts say that we were wining the war. But as I said, army man are not politicians, Ayub Khan took a wrong diplomatic move by signing a treaty at Taskant, USSR. Ayub Khan also signed the Indus water treaty with India, which was simply selling our rivers without calculating the future implications of the deal. 2012 is being seen as a doomsday for Pakistan as our country is facing severe water shortages. In the end Field Marshal Ayub labeled his 10 years, again self-labeling, as the golden era.

The reason for writing upon President Ayub was not that I have some enmity against him, but other Army chiefs were similar. Even there opening remarks are similar:
اسلام وعلیکم میرے عزیز ہم وطنوں۔۔۔۔۔ آج پاکستان ایک نازک موڑ پر ہے۔۔۔۔۔

And then the story goes on. Everyone brings his own democracy, Aristotle might be crying. General Zia ul Haq, The leader of the Muslims! brought in 'Islamic democracy' and General Musharraf brought in 'Sustainable democracy' . Everyone rules for 10 years on average. Everyone brings his own constitution. Everyone wants war with India. The similarities are endless.

In the end everybody gives his long list of economic figures which even Adam Simth can't understand.

Though the Army rule broke the nation and caused unrepairable on the nation's psychology, the civil rulers were as bad as they were.

Starting with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was in Ayub's convention league but later made up his own party, the PPP was the first civilian chief martial law administrator. Mr. Bhutto divided Pakistan in "West" and "East". His politics was in west only. It was the army which later finished the job of creating Bangladesh. Mr. Bhutto started an Army operation in Balochistan which continues till today. The Balochis were suppressed and alienated. His education reforms totally destroyed education in Sindh. Though he is remembered for creating the constitution but he himself brought in five amendments.

Than the ten year period between 1988-1999 was a shear misery. It was like a ping-pong ball match. Two years Nawaz and 2 years Benazir and so on. The power play caused a great rift between Sindh and Punjab. It caused economic turmoil, political turmoil and social turmoil. The facts of these year are deplorable. Just to present some, HRCP tagged Benazir's first term as the "Darkest year of Human Right", Nawaz Sharif in his second term started a military operation in Karachi killing thousands of teenagers.

Hasan Nisar, a prominent columnist in Jang, says that the future of any nation can be calculated from its immediate past. We have seen what Pakistani leadership has done with us. It is our time to understand this 'power - psychology' and to crush the feudalistic, centrist, autocratic and nepotism which is prevailing in this power class. What's the use of a nation in which you don't have a share. Is this what our founding fathers had dreamed of? Ending with a beautiful poetry, as that's the only thing which we are left with!
خدا کرئے میری ارضِ پاک پر اترے
وہ فصلِ گل جسے اندئیشہِ زوال نہ ہو

یہاں جو پھول کھلے، کھلے رہے صدیوں
یہاں سے خزاں کو گزرنے کی مجال نہ ہو


خدا کرئے کے میرے ایک بھی ہم وطن کے لیے
حیات جرم نہ ہو، زندگی وبال نہ ہو۔



Note: Pictures taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/abro/380285185/

3 comments:

  1. WHAT I CAN SAY RIGHT NOW IS EXCELLENT!... A VERY UNBIASED,THOUGHT PROVOKING, NEUTRALLY WRITTEN START... NICE WORK... YOU POSED HARSH FACTS AND EVERY HAS TO ACCEPT THOSE... WITHOUT ANY AMBIGUITY.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SORRY FOR THE ERROR: "AND EVERYONE HAS TO ACCEPT THOSE..."

    ReplyDelete
  3. شاباش۔۔۔ بہت خوبصورتی سے لکھا گیا مضمون ہے۔ تم نے واقعتا موضوع کا حق ادا کیا ہے۔ الفاظ کا انتخاب، حقائق، نتائج۔۔۔ سب کچھ ہی انتہائی زبرست تھا۔ تم مبارک باد کے مستحق ہو اتنا اچھا لکھنے پر۔۔۔

    میری دعا بھی ہے اور خواہش بھی۔۔۔ کہ تم اسی طرح لکھتے رہو۔۔۔!!۔

    ReplyDelete