As Pakistan celebrates its 78th Independence Day today with fanfare, high spirits, and much enthusiasm, many people, including children, take to the streets in large numbers, decorating their homes with flags, playing the national anthem on loudspeakers, and dancing with pride and hope.
As a child, I, too, was filled with pride, excitement, and spirit on this day. I would eagerly rise to the sound of the national anthem being played by my family or by the processions outside our home. We would decorate our entire home with flags the day before 14th August. However, as I grew older, this spirit and excitement evaporated like a puff of smoke. I’m not being sarcastic here, nor am I discouraging the celebration of this day, but I found myself asking multiple questions, like: Are we really an independent nation? Have we achieved the liberty to be ourselves without judgement or shame about our individual choices? Do we really have freedom of speech and expression? Do women have exclusive rights? Can they roam freely in the streets of Pakistan? I wondered why we are so focused on fluttering flags, playing national songs, dancing, and taking out processions without considering the multiple issues engulfing Pakistan.
As Pakistan turns 78, women in our nation continue to feel frightened both inside and outside their homes; our fundamental human rights remain unprotected and conspicuously infringed upon. So-called patriots bully and mutilate members of our minority groups and the marginalised in our polarised society. Sectarian violence is rife. National fundamentalism is at its peak, causing much woe for the country. Our economy, educational system, and political stability all continue to deteriorate. Apart from the declining legal system, other significant contributory factors, leading the country into chaos, include poverty, rising crime rates, corruption, increasing cases of rape, internet outages, and suppression of expression.
Over the past 70 years, Pakistan appears to have combined elements of fascism, classism, misogyny, feudalism, and nepotism with a radical religious mindset, contributing to our current wretched and depressing state. We are gullibly led by our elected political leaders and religious fanatics, which is another important reason why we have failed as a nation. The morality and wickedness of our society have become too great for us to understand, evaluate, and confront as a group. As a country, we have grown frighteningly numb and indifferent to the many catastrophes that have struck us over the years. When something unfortunate happens, we do not always react or think it through.
Furthermore, large-scale migration is the outcome of the unending and frequent issues facing the country. A number of Pakistanis are leaving their homeland to seek a better life elsewhere. Approximately 60% of the population is young, and they waste their best years in this aimless and directionless country because they are uninspired, pessimistic, and incredibly lost. They have given up all hope for a better future. Seventy-eight years later, we still haven’t achieved the nation of freedom that Jinnah envisioned, one in which individuals might freely practice their faith and beliefs. We witness, each passing day, that religious and sectarian strife over trivial issues and misunderstandings between various communities culminates in cold-blooded murders. Our intolerance for others has become unbearable. Lawlessness has been a major factor in facilitating this situation. As Jinnah quoted:
“You are free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed; that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
We have failed Jinnah, ourselves, and all the other freedom fighters who spent their lives fighting for the rights and liberties of Pakistanis over these seventy-eight years. Aside from numerous restrictions, the normalisation of abuse and violence on a larger scale, billions of dollars in debt from various nations, and a host of other issues Pakistan is struggling with, what have we achieved in recent years? The fact that we are so stagnant and immobile as a people is incredibly dishonourable and disgusting.
Let’s try to find some silver lining in our shortcomings and look on the brighter side. A few steps must be taken to lift our depressing condition. The first and most vital step is to be tolerant of other members of our society and accepting of people for who they are, in all their diversity. Second, to avoid becoming a group of sheep that blindly follow the shepherd, we must develop our political and social consciousness while simultaneously working to improve our educational institutions. Education has the power to alter and bring about unexpected changes in the youth population. It can raise awareness of our deficiencies and highlight the things our country lacks. Finding the underlying cause is crucial to quickly and effectively addressing the issue itself. Instead of sounding horns on this day, we must study Pakistan’s history to understand the underlying problems the country faces.
To conclude, I sincerely pray from the bottom of my heart to Almighty for a happy, prosperous, and thriving country. May we achieve what our founding father, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, dreamt of. May Pakistan rid itself of the black sheep polluting the country!
MUHAMMAD USAMA MUGHAL,
Sindh.
