Structure:
- Intro
- Important incidents in 1st decade
- Their long lasting impacts we feel today
- Conclusion
Essay
The seeds sown in the independence of 1947, and those sown quickly after the formation of the first Parliament, the first constituent assembly, the first visit to another country and the during the migration of people across the Radcliff Line, have bore fruit.
In some cases, the fruit is sweet and much desirable. For example the strength with which both the people and the (elected) leaders defended the sovereignty of the new country is now manifested in Pakistan being the only Muslim Nuclear Armed State. Another example is that of the current foreign remittances brought in by expats working internationally. Back in 1947, our people were hardworking enough to create many a fundamental institutions of a newborn country. The generation since then has passed on this hardwork gene to us, wherein we see a major portion of our foreign remittances being brought in by Pakistani blue and white collar workers outside.
At this point, I am racking my brain to find out any more good examples but unfortunately besides the ones mentioned above, in which the second one is a bit fluke too, I can’t find any good roots from 1947. Given below is a breakdown now of what went wrong in the first decade and how it impacts our life today.
The country got its independence fighting on the basis of religion. Jinnah made it clear that Hindus and Muslims can’t live together. Therefore he demanded the Muslim majority areas to be split into a new country.
With that concession been made, one has to remember that Jinnah also explicitly stated on multiple occasions that the new country was secular in nature. There have been however, mistakes made, in keeping the country a secular state during the first decade.
Objective Resolution was Islamically enriched and thus politically, unsecular. The rejection of all amendments proposed by non-Muslim brethren of the parliament, for the Objective Resolution, is a staunch example of religious intolerance ideologically speaking. The Munir Report that followed highlighted the different of opinion between ulemas of different Islamic school of thoughts, within the very first decade of formation of motherland.
This meddling, and the permission of meddling of religion in politics has since continued. It has and continues to be used by propagandists, both national and international actors, to make the people of Pakistan dance on a certain tune. The “honour killing” of women that continue even today in some areas of Pakistan and the reaction faced by politicians from descendants of the same ulemas when they introduced minimum marriage age is a testament of my argument. Had religion been ousted of Parliament in 1947, in Objective Resolution, in 1956 constitution and so on, we can would be living in a secular environment, or at least a certain degree more tolerant society than in the one we live now.
Another problem started in the first decade, was the slow poisoning of people’s politics by personal interests of politicians. Malik Ghulam’s ascent to Gov. General is a proof of the almost-first such case. He was given power by business class people, meant to serve their interests. He plunged the country in chaos by dissolving the first constituent assembly then (headed by Molvi Tamizuddin) and the business class community took full benefits of the chaos. Civil establishment was formed in his era, and slowly the military joined it at the centre too; resulting in later a civil-military relationships imbalanced that has plagued the nation for decades. All this domino effect started with personal interests of a few people that led Malik Ghulam to power.
Although his sincerity towards Pakistan is impeccable, the choice of Liaquat Ali Khan to go halfway across the globe and make alleys with USA is another mistake. He chose a regional superpower over his regional powers like China, Russia, Saudi or India etc. The resulting USA-centric foreign policy has since acted as a double-edged sword. They gave weapons to Taliban recruited to fight Soveits through Pakistan, but once the war fell out and Soviet Union disintegrated, those weapons became violence in our streets. They breached foreign policy to get Usama bin Laden killed in Pakistan. Help didn’t arrive when help was needed in 1965 and we thus have been in this cold-hot relationship ever
[Essay ends here — unfinished]