Pakistan's Punjab Problem
Ayaz Amir
Punjab
is more than half of Pakistan, in politics, culture and industry.
Whether anyone likes it or not, the task of governing Pakistan, of
getting Pakistan right, falls heaviest upon the land of the five
rivers (now three after the Indus Basin Waters Treaty).Call this
the burden of geography or the curse of history.
History,
however, left Punjab unprepared for the task of leading Pakistan.
Punjab had a long tradition in poetry, literature and culture. But
the one tradition it did not have, or did not possess in
abundance, was that of rulership. In all of recorded history, from
Alexander to the present, who are the Punjabi rulers that we know
of?
In
Alexander’s time Porus whose kingdom straddled the River Jhelum,
the battle between him and the Greeks commemorated in legend. Then
after a gap of two thousand years just one name: Maharaja Ranjit
Singh. A few Punjabi politicians attained prominence under the
British: Sir Fazal-e-Hussain, Sikander Hayat of Wah and Khizr
Hayat Tiwana. And then, after the horrors of Partition, the sorry
lot whose contribution has been second to none in mismanaging the
affairs of the new republic.
Our
historical memories were those of the Muslim conquest of India.
Our heroes were Mahmud of Ghazni and Muhammad of Ghaur, Babar and
Akbar. But these were transnational heroes, from beyond the high
mountains separating Hindustan from the lands to the west, of
little use to us, except as flickering memories, when Pakistan
came into being and we were very much on our own, having to manage
things ourselves.
In
any case, there were no infidels to fight and subjugate. There
were no more battles of Panipat to be fought except with our own
problems and, in many instances, our own demons.
The
choice before the new state of Pakistan was either to step into
the modern age or seek comfort in the past. With more visionary
leaders Pakistan could have reconciled Muslim nationhood, the
basis of Pakistan, with the demands of modernism. But this was not
to be.
What
constituted the Pakistani leadership? (1) Conservative Punjabi
landlords instinctively averse to anything calculated to upset the
established order of things; and (2) the Urdu-speaking elite
migrating from India which could not afford to forget or downplay
the passions behind the demand for Pakistan for that would have
meant laying open to question the wisdom of their great
pilgrimage. So we remained stuck in the past and this had fatal
consequences with which we are still grappling today.
The
two-nation theory was great for the quest of achieving Pakistan.
Indeed, it was a necessity in that the demand for Pakistan
dictated the emphasis on Muslim separateness. But once Pakistan
was achieved, and the boundaries of the new state were fixed on
the map, history should have moved on. Once Pakistan was achieved
the necessity was no longer there to keep raising the banner of
Islam. In a Muslim-majority country where the last thing under
threat was Islam, it was pointless to keep proclaiming that
Pakistan was a fortress of Islam. It just wasn’t necessary.
Jinnah
was the first to recognise this. Hence his great speech of August
11, 1947, in the Constituent Assembly in which he spelled out a
creed of secularism for the new state. In so doing he was not
repudiating the tenets of the Pakistan movements but he was
certainly modifying some of the messianic zeal which had animated
that movement.
Both
the Congress as personified by Gandhi and the Muslim League led by
Jinnah had stoked the fires of religion in order to advance their
political ends. In Nirad Chaudri’s Autobiography of an Unknown
Indian there is a haunting passage about where, in times to come,
the descent of politics into religion would lead. But it is
remarkable that once Partition was a done deed and freedom was
achieved for India and Pakistan, Gandhi’s was the strongest
voice raised in India for Hindu-Muslim tolerance and on this side
of the divide Jinnah the lone voice raised for secular tolerance.
But
Jinnah was ahead of his time. And most of the Muslim League
members of the Constituent Assembly could not understand what he
was saying. Jinnah would never have countenanced the Objectives
Resolution. We can’t seem to get out of its mesmerising orbit.
For
Punjab Partition brought other consequences too. Punjab had not a
single past but two. That of its Muslim conquerors, Mahmud and the
Mughals and so on, which was turned into a philosophy and made the
basis of Pakistan by the poet Iqbal; and that of its indigenous
culture as represented by Waris Shah, Bulley Shah, Guru Nanak and
Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Which past was it to accept? The virtues of
which past was it to proclaim? Here was a dilemma.
Punjab
post-1947 was no longer an Afghan or Turkish colony. It was the
most powerful portion of a new republic and running that republic,
and doing it well, depended heavily upon the kind of performance
Punjab delivered. Jinnah’s Aug 11 vision might have implied a
tolerant, all-including view of the past. But the requirements of
the Pakistan movement, and the horrors of Partition whose memory
was still fresh, dictated a heavy emphasis on the theme of
Pakistan being a fortress of Islam. This was enshrined later in
what we know as the ideology of Pakistan, a source of endless
befuddlement and confusion.
For
Punjab this meant an erasure of memory. We were the inheritors of
Mahmud and Babar, our spiritual axis went all the way from the
land of Hejaz to the mountains of Afghanistan and beyond, but it
had little to do with the cultural tradition honed over the
centuries in the historic doabs (the land between two rivers) of
Punjab.
It
would not have mattered if this selectivity had no practical
consequences. But it did. The choice our part of Punjab made led
to a closing of its mind, a shrinking of its mental horizons.
Punjab should have been large-minded and been in the forefront of
the struggle for a modern Pakistan, its mind liberated from myths
and shibboleths. Where Punjab should have led the rest of Pakistan
would have followed.
Our
creed should have been not the ideology of Pakistan as we know it
but the ideology of progress. We should have been a beacon of
light not only for our own selves but for the nations to our west.
India should have looked upon our progress and enlightenment with
envy and admiration. Instead of being a bedfellow of the military
and the bureaucracy the Punjabi elite should have sought a
partnership with the political elite of East Pakistan.
But
these are the might-have-beens of history. Instead of being an
engine of progress Punjab became a redoubt of reaction and
intolerance. The seeds of East Pakistan secession were planted not
in Bengal but Punjab. The true fathers of Bangladeshi independence
are the politicians, mandarins and generals of Punjab.
From
the Objectives Resolution to the ideology of Pakistan, from there
to Ziaul Haq’s Islam, and from jihad to the nightmares now
haunting us, this is the route we have traversed. One reason for
this is the closing of the Punjabi mind and since Punjab was in
the driver’s seat what it did or failed to do had consequences
for the rest of Pakistan. In the field of intellect, or what
passes for it with us, Punjab does service for the rest of
Pakistan. GHQ’s obsessions are Punjabi obsessions.
Are
we for the liberation of Pakistan, the sweeping away of the
cobwebs which are such a screen over its eyes? Then first of all
must be liberated the Punjabi mind. So let us think again and
reconstruct the Punjabi pantheon.
In
all of history who are the true heroes of Punjab? I hazard a few
names: Waris Shah, Bulley Shah, Khawaja Ghulam Farid (for Seraikis
are part of Punjab too), Ali Hajveri, Guru Nanak, Iqbal, Munir
Niazi (yes, we should include him), Kundan Lal Saigal and (all
right) Noor Jahan too. Let us honour their memory. (Bhagat Singh
Shaheed was hanged in Camp Jail, Lahore. Will there come a day
when Shadman Colony is named after him?)
Let
us then hope that from the mental depths Punjab is in today there
is a miraculous recovery. That will be the day Pakistan comes into
its own.
Email:
winlust@yahoo.com
The News: February 3, 2010