MYRIAD PROBLEMS OF PAKISTAN

AUM
MYRIAD PROBLEMS OF PAKISTAN
By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant,VSM

Pakistan has problems galore. Let the government and people of Pakistan go into causes and look for cure. As an Indian why should I be concerned? Doesn’t it amount to peeping into a neighbour’s bedroom to find out if their daily quarrels emanate from unfulfilled sexual desires. Well, the answer is yes and no. Without entering into the soul of Freud or Jung even a greenhorn marriage counsellor would say that a modern marriage is made or unmade in bed. Before doing the saptpadi of a Vedic Vivah or saying I Do and tying the nuptial knot both the bride and the groom have had an experiment with sex and know what the future augurs for them. Good and friendly neighbours should know more and more about each other, albeit without a peek into the bedroom. A piece of advice now and then on the matter and method of an all round development of personality should be welcome to both.

Unfortunately Pakistan, before birth, skipped too many phases of development before a people mature into a Nation and form a Nation-State. The birth of Pakistan was a direct result of a marriage of convenience between the then British rulers and their loyal Muslim subjects. The Royal rulers presented the state of Pakistan on a silver platter to their faithful Muslim servants who had always treated their wish like a command and carried them out like an obedient poodle. The original Muslim League of undivided India comprising feudal aristocracy and western thinkers of Indian origin became masters of vast territory and millions of Muslims with little in common to bind them into a relationship of Islamic crusaders for a common cause. Islam that the rulers and the ruled professed was of different hues and shades –liberal for the former and ultra-orthodox for the latter. The Great divide could never be bridged and made the foundations of a moth-eaten Pakistan much more unstable and shaky than it could take.

BISMILLAH WAS BAD

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was the motivating spirit behind the birth of a Muslim state born after vivisection of India. The mantra to unite Muslims was: Undivided India means enslavement of Muslim masses by Hindu masters. Fight for Pakistan and be rulers of a Muslim State. The mantra worked wonders and stalwarts like Mahatma Gandhi had no antidote to the communal poison of the Muslim League. What an irony that the man who headed a Muslim State, Jinnah, was not a true Muslim. He had married a Parsi girl, ate pork and spoke no Urdu nor ever went on a Hajj. He could not suffer the company of fools and was too much of an elitist to go anywhere near the toiling masses. His western education and western dress made him feel more at home in the company of occidentals than orientals. Thus from Day One Pakistan relied on support and sympathy of the British masters and did not have a desire or a capability to stand on its own feet. In due course of time, the waning power of the British made them play second fiddle to the Americans and the latter replaced the former eventually as a friend, philosopher and guide of the fledgling state of Pakistan. Thereafter Islamabad always looked askance to Washington DC .Thus the sovereignty of the Muslim dreamland became subservient to Christian overlordship once again. It was a repeat of post 1857 political scenario in India. The Muslim masses not only disliked it but hated it. The situation remains unchanged today. The Great Divide between the ruler and the ruled has thus weakened the structure of the State that had an unstable foundation.

The hydra-headed monster of corruption was not only nibbling but eating into the vitals of Pakistan. The landed aristocracy, the bureaucracy and political upstarts combined to loot their own nation. The economy worsened and the people were restive. The Military stepped in. Ostensibly their mission was to save Pakistan from political robbers but sooner than later the Military too had its share of the apple pie. One could buy or create large scale business establishments in the name of the Military just for a song. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the then Army Chief became the first Military Dictator of Pakistan. Since then the Army did not have to look back in creating wealth and property for self. Joining the Army as a commissioned officer became more prestigious than joining any other service or business establishment. The fate of the common man in Pakistan, however, went from bad to worse .For many farmers and labourers, especially in the tribal areas, it was difficult to make both ends meet.

HATE HINDU HATE INDIA

The masses live on slogans and the leaders prosper on same slogans. The rulers of Pakistan, whenever in the thick of economic or political problems, have always found a scapegoat. Hindu India is to blame for all ills of Pakistan. Although there are more Muslims residing in India as citizens than there are in Pakistan, our adversary prefers the words – Hindu India. The rulers of Pakistan opine that in pre-independence days Hindus had conspired to enslave Muslims and in post-independence days , it is Hindu India once again that is not letting Pakistan survive, what to say of flourish. So, the Military rulers of Pakistan made a plan to attack Hindu India and punish the infidels. The ruling elite again led the ignorant and mostly illiterate Muslim masses up the garden path, rallied them in the name of Islam and just ignored their duty of bringing in land reform or economic prosperity. As a matter of fact such outlandish plans like land reforms or economic makeover of the poor never form the part of ruling elite’s agenda. The Muslim landed aristocracy had always treated their tillers of the soil as bonded labour even in the days of the British Empire. The undiluted tradition has been going on till today. The landed aristocracy always opposed land reforms as it hits them where it hurts.

General, later Field Marshal, Ayub Khan ordered his army to attack India to divert the attention of Pakistani masses from their daily bread. It was first in Kutch and later in Jammu and Kashmir. Under guidance of Prime Minister LalBahadur Shastri the Indian Army crossed the international borders and moved towards Lahore and Sialkot. That indeed halted the march of Pakistan Army in Jammu and Kashmir and turned tables on them. It is not the aim of this article to discuss the war situation. So suffice it to say that Pakistan lost the war in 1965.Pakistan had miscalculated the resolve of the Indian leadership under Lal Bahadur Shastri to fight back. The gallantry of Indian officers and Jawans had escaped the attention of military planners in Pakistan. Although the Pakistan armoured corps had new Patton tanks given by America but their soldiers did not put up a fight as they were afraid of being burnt alive in Pattons under the attack of the Indian armour. One can see the graveyard of Pakistan’s Patton tanks in area Khemkaran and Asal Uttar in the Punjab. The Hate Hindu and Hate India gamble of Pakistan failed once again. In fact it proved to be their Achilles’ heel. A military strategy based on hatred and anger never succeeds in battle, so said Yogeshwar Shri Krishna in Gita. It is a pity that the Pakistan Army officers and Jawans are bereft of these sagacious words otherwise they would not have chosen Hate Hindu Hate India as their motivation to attack a peaceful neighbour. “YUDHASWA VIGAT JWARAH’, so says Lord Krishna and it means that war should be fought without the burden of anger or hatred generated fever. It is sad but true that Pakistan does not want to learn from her own mistakes because of a sense of false pride. Pride goes before a fall, even an elementary class student knows that. Unfortunately, in the text books of schools in Pakistan the authorities teach the new generation that India is an enemy country and Hindus have always been hostile to Muslims. The truth lies elsewhere. It is Pakistan that makes promises to behave as a good boy after a defeat in war but like a villain goes back on its words. Thus even an ordinary citizen in India says – Never trust Pakistan.

Pakistan again took recourse to war in 1971 under General Yahya Khan who had replaced Field Marshal Ayub Khan as the Military dictator after a countrywide unrest because of economic reasons. Borrowing from Shakespeare I am tempted to say – not that Yahya loved Pakistan less but that he loved Scotch whisky more. He was all for Punjabi Pakistan and could not relish the idea of a Bengali, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan. The Islamic faith of that Bengali leader mattered little; what mattered most was his being a non-Punjabi. Thus Hate Bengali was an addition to the list of hatreds. Such myopic rulers encouraged their troops to rape Bengali women in the hope of creating a Punjabi population in East Pakistan. With a helping hand from India, the Bengali Hindus, Muslims and the people around including Hindus of the surrounding area like Sylhet, dismembered Pakistan. Pakistan has not yet recovered from that debacle. General Yahya Khan was forced to quit. A civil administration under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came to power but the power game played by the military carried on unabated.

Bhutto signed the Simla agreement and vouched for peace with India and promised to abandon his Hate India Hate Hindu policy to fight “Ä thousand year war against Indian dogs”. Like his predecessors Bhutto proved to be as unreliable as ever. The Simla agreement is dead. It is not worth the paper it is written on. Others who followed were no better, be it General Zia or General Pervez Musharraf or for that matter even the present rulers, whoever they may be. One of the major problems with Pakistan is that no one knows who is in-charge in Islamabad. The infamous phrase of three As, that is America, Army and Allah – are the rulers of Pakistan and their importance in the corridors of power is in the same order as is written here is current today too. The Pakistan Army always pats itself on the back for coming to the rescue of Pakistan and saving the sovereignty many times since inception in 1947. How far removed from the truth they are. The Army is not a boon but a bane for Pakistan. The Army has been staging a coup every now and then and thus has been an impediment in the way of a mature civilian and democratic political power shaping up and guiding the destiny of the country. The foreign masters of Pakistan have always been backing the men in uniform as rulers as they are more obedient and loyal to their Financial Masters. It is the US dollar that buys air and sea power and new weapons for the army, not forgetting the help to rulers in buying estates in the West. How will Pakistan’s common man prosper – that is a million dollar question that remains unanswered. The power politics is a game of musical chairs; who gets the chair and who is ousted depends on America and Army alone. Thus it will be only proper to surmise that the Pakistan Army is a part of the problem and is far from finding a solution to the myriad problems of Pakistan.

CHINA AND PAKISTAN: WONDER OF WONDERS

China and Pakistan are friends. It makes news. The Chinese love to eat pork but for Pakistanis it is forbidden. And yet they coexist. China does not allow its male citizens to have more than one living wife at a time. There is no exception to those who profess Muslim faith. But Pakistan does not take cudgels on behalf of co-religionists with the Beijing regime. Indeed some sacrifice has to be made in the interest of co-existence. Adversity makes strange bedfellows and many a time one has to go through the rituals of a marriage of convenience. Pakistan is doing just the same in building, cementing and buttressing its relationship with China. Should America abandon Pakistan one fine morning and go in for friendship with India, world’s largest democracy, where will Pakistan go? She does not want to be left high and dry. In that adverse situation China will come to Pakistan’s rescue. When the Soviet Union had backed India, Pakistan fell into the lap of china. The friendship has stood the test of time and is going strong. The then President Pervez Musharraf was cut up with Taliban because those terrorists had kidnapped Chinese engineers working in Pakistan. Musharraf had then admitted that china was the only reliable ally of Pakistan and terrorists are destroying that trust. The Chinese engineers were released from the captivity by terrorists. Some surmise that the Taliban terrorists, the Al Quiada and the Pakistan establishment are hand in glove with each other. General Pervez kayani, the present Army Chief had once said that the Taliban terrorists are strategic partners of the Pakistan Army. Hasn’t he thus created an additional problem for Pakistan? Won’t the Americans reduce their economic and military aid to Pakistan as the latter are aiding and abetting Islamic terrorism?

Of late China has been having problems with its ethnic minority Uighur Muslims in the province of Xinjiang. A rough and tough handling of the Islamic militants by the Chinese security forces nipped the trouble in the bud. Many arrests were made and the situation is under control for the time being. When the Uighurs were out in the street and indulging in violence, a number of Han Chinese were killed and injured. Next day the Han Chinese also took out a procession baying for revenge but they were prevented by the police from harming Uighurs. However, during the investigations it came to light that some Pakistani Islamic terrorists were in the background as trouble makers. No further news came out what the final disposal of their case was. Pakistan is buying more problems for itself by meddling into the affairs of their time tested friend.

DIVORCE CULTURE OF HATRED

Pakistan would do well in reducing some of its myriad problems if it divorces culture of hatred, intolerance and persecution of religious minorities. Equality and fraternity , irrespective of caste and creed should be promoted as a State policy. Love for fellow human beings should be taught in schools so that the youth do not cultivate the culture of hatred. Such prayers in public and in private be made an offence where a citizen of Pakistan says , MAY ALLAH DESTROY HINDU INDIA; MAY ALLAH DESTROY ISRAEL; MAY ALLAH DESTROY AMERICA. It should be impressed upon one and all that God Almighty Himself discourages negative prayers. Negative thought and action lead to destruction and strife. We should pray for Peace and Prosperity of Mankind. A little sophistication in attitude comes when Nuclear Physics is taught along with soul touching music as a subject.

May we pray to Parmatma that people of Pakistan have Medhavi Buddhi – sagacious minds – so that myriad problems of Pakistan give way to Peace and Prosperity. May Pakistan and India live as good neighbours for ever.

Address. UPVAN 609, Sector 29, NOIDA – 201303 , INDIA 0091-9811173590
Email : sawantg.chitranjan@gmail.com. Phone > 0091-120-2454622.