In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

THE MOST “UNFORTUNATE” NATION ON EARTH

[Shamim A Siddiqi, New York]

Pakistan was carved out of the Sub-continent of India as a laboratory for Islam. It was Pakistan’s goal and destination. Islam was to emerge there as a political entity. But it is nowhere near its goal and the objective of its creation. Since then fifty eight years have passed and it is fast drifting away daily from its “marked” and declared destiny. All the regimes that came to power during this period were selfish, fond of western culture and life-style and expressed only lip-sympathy to Islam and what it demands. None of them ever cared to transform its people to be practicing as conscious Muslims and Muslimah build their character individually and collectively as model Muslims and be its champions. No Pakistani government ever tried to promote the Islamic principle of justice and its basic human values from any world platform or through its foreign relations or through UN meetings and world parlies. They always resembled and behaved like a secular nationalistic state.

Contrary to the urges of an Islamic state, it made fun of Islamic provisions of Pakistan Constitution. The Governor General Sikandar Mirza appointed a one man commission at the dead of night just before few minutes of expiration of law to appoint a commission to judge the laws that were repugnant to the Qur’an and Sunnah. All the recommendations were superceded by rider clauses that the Provision of Qur’an and Sunnah will not be applicable on financial matters for a specific period that was always extended before its termination. The recommendations of Shariah Court to bring Islamic laws in the forefront were shelved. Interest that was recommended to be abolished has been challenged in the Supreme Court of Pakistan by the military regime of General Musharraf. None of the governments in Pakistan whether civil or military were ever sincere to Islam. Nawaz Sharif and his father personally went to meet Dr Israr Ahmad at his house after assuming power as the Prime Minister of Pakistan and promised to abolish Interest but did nothing afterward. Rather, he became the most despotic ruler in sequence, consolidating maximum power in his hands.

Out of 58 years of ill-fated Pakistan, more than 45 years were dominated by military coups and regimes. From General Ayub khan to General Musharraf all came to power with big promises but even they could not restore full democracy in Pakistan what to say of establishing the Islamic System of Life. They all acted like “thieves” and “dacoits”, “conquered” their own country form the backdoor, squandered away with its resources and left the people of Pakistan in utter despair and disappointed with little respect either at home or abroad. Each of them left the country in a mess, infested with increasing amount of modern vices, corruption of unprecedented nature at every level and people’s moral at its lowest ebb with no discipline in its ranks and files. Gradually, they demolished the very fundamentals of Pakistan’s foundation. The principle of two-nation theory was given up when they introduced the system of joint electorate. They surrendered their right to exist as a separate nation when they surrendered to Indian army in Dacca humiliatingly and became POW’s. The right to use the waters of Indus basin was lost when they accepted the construction of Fakhra Dam in India and gave up the Partition line of Kashmir when they withdrew from their post from Kargill.

The despotic regime of General Musharraf is putting the last nails to the “coffin”, the ideology of Pakistan – its morality, its fundamental values, its Islamic character, its championing of the rights of other Muslim states and oppressed people around the world, refusing the immigration right to Muslim countries including Afghanistan and denying the visa or legal status to students from different Muslim countries, all just to please the wishes of President Bush, the “Crusader”. General Musharraf is a very ambitious man, aspiring to become the “Ata-Turk” of Pakistan which he expressed immediately after usurping power illegally through a military coup that “might” have been orchestrated by the “inner circle” of CIA. He immediately surrendered to Bush’s ”threat and intimidation” and allowed the American forces to use Pakistan’s air bases and territory to destroy on flimsy ground the established Islamic government of a brother Muslim country in Afghanistan. Soon he became the full “partner” of President Bush in his false war against terrorism. There may be hundreds of innocent detainees in Guantanamo Bay Prison camp who were caught by Musharraf regime and handed over to the USA for no fault of their own except they were Muslims, fought at the behest of the USA against Russian occupation of Afghanistan and were taking shelter in the brotherly Muslim country in Pakistan. The recent “cordial” meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Israel is another blow to the declared ideology of Pakistan.

General Musharraf, in fact, is totally in the grip of President Bush who wants to see India dominating in South East Asia as a mini-superpower to counteract the emerging power of China. President Bush has forced Pakistan to pack up the issue of Kashmir in favor of India and is arming India with nuclear facilities upto its teeth that will nullify the nuclear gains of Pakistan very shortly. If Kashmir is lost to India and Pakistan’s nuclear gains are “belittled” in comparison to India, Pakistan is bound to become a satellite country of Indo-American hegemony soon. All the signs and symptoms, parlies and negotiations are clear indications to that position. It would be a death-knell to Pakistan and its very existence. And if Pakistan becomes a “market”, a satellite of India, it would have no justification to stay as an Independent country on its own merit. I never thought that a country which we snatched away from the clutches of would-be “Hindu Raj’ through our votes in March 1946 would one day, through our own blunders, fulfill the dream of “Akhand Bharat” of Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi, Pundit Nehru and RSS.

At this juncture, history will give its verdict that a nation that was carved out of Indian subcontinent as a laboratory for Islam after paying huge sacrifices of human life and loss of properties was lost by foolishness and short-sighted selfish game of its own leadership and the mockery of the Muslim masses that claimed to be called as Muslim but never tried to live, act and behave like conscious Muslims and Muslimah as a people. The leadership of Pakistan will be mostly responsible for this unprecedented failure as they could not create urge in the masses to live and demand to establish Islam as a way of life in their body politics. Both the secular and the religious political parties of Pakistan will have to bear the burnt of this historic blame. Pakistan will be remembered in the annals of human history as the most unfortunate nation who got a country of their own after a great sacrifice but they lost it out of their foolishness, personal feuds, mutual skirmishes, sectarian animosity and religious bigotry.

Only Allah can save it from this utterly gloomy catastrophic end. But He helps those who help themselves and apparently, there are no signs to sustain that hope. Wal Ilmu Indallah.

Shamim A Siddiqi

Dated: September 4, 2005