Dear fellow Pakistanis,
I wrote an open letter recently to our neighbours in India,
which got a lot of attention – both from India and Pakistan. The letter was
written by a citizen of Pakistan to a citizen of India but it is only fair that
I write a similar letter to my own compatriots. Let me begin by thanking those
of you who wrote emails of praise and appreciation. At the time I wrote that
letter I genuinely could not conceive of a young boy from the remote village of
Faridkot, too small to be visible on the map of Pakistan, in Khanewal district,
to strike at the heart of India’s financial capital. Given the motive, timing
and the unfortunate demise and martyrdom of Hemant Karkare, a true hero for the
people of India, and the growing nexus of Hindu extremism with terrorism aimed
at the Muslim minority in India in recent years forced me to point a finger,
more speculative than accusatory, at Hindu fundamentalist groups in India.
There is now incontrovertible evidence however that we were
wrong. And while we have to face up to this skeleton in our closet, it pains me
to see so many of you still using my letter as some sort of defence to feed your
own denial that this was our own boy from our own Faridkot.
We must face up to certain facts. There are groups that will
prey on poverty, illiteracy and real grievances of ordinary Pakistanis and pluck
from them youth who will then be brainwashed into unleashing terror on hapless
populations. No matter how legitimate one’s grievance or cause, it does not
sanction violence aimed at unarmed civilian populations far removed from the
cause itself. This is the only real definition of terrorism if you ask me: every
time an unarmed non-combatant civilian population is attacked, be it by
insurgents or by a state force, it becomes terrorism. We must also accept that
our experiment with jihad in the 1980s has now become a Frankenstein monster.
I do not wish to belittle the sacrifices of the freedom fighters
who fought for the liberation of Afghanistan from expansionist Soviet
imperialism and totalitarianism. The American-led jihad against Soviet
expansionist tyranny was a bellum justum and we can be rightfully proud of it as
a people. After all, it was one of two such successful jihads in the 20th
century: the first was when the great Gazi Kemal Ataturk raised the banner of
jihad and Muslim solidarity in Anatolia to motivate the Turks i.e. Muslim
inhabitants of Anatolia to drive out the invading Greeks from Turkey. The major
difference there was that as a true patriot Ataturk knew when to switch the
jihad button off. The result was the first successful and modern secular nation
state of the Muslim world. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, our leaders and
policymakers never got around to switching off the button. Their only
countermove was to try and divert the jihad to Kashmir but that strategy was
only partially successful.
This strategy failed to liberate Kashmir but the jihadis
continued to be trained and funded by us. It has become a bad investment with no
likely future. In the post-September 11 world, these groups can only serve to
discredit what is a legitimate freedom movement of the Kashmiri people. We must
realise that we live in a dangerous world where, increasingly, borders are
irrelevant. Our days of waging proxy wars are behind us. The strategy of
bleeding India with a thousand cuts has backfired. Lal Masjid, violence all over
Pakistan and growing anger of militant movements outside the state’s control are
cuts that seep blood into Pakistan every day. We must pause, cry halt and ask
ourselves: Is this what we made Pakistan for?
The idea of Pakistan always had detractors – many across the
border but some here as well. We’ve given them a lot to be glad about. At the
heart of the Pakistan idea was Jinnah’s idea of political and economic
empowerment of the Muslim community. Decades of military rule have made the
former impossible and the latter is now becoming an ever elusive goal. Jinnah
spoke of a Pakistan committed to the "welfare of the masses" where "rule of law"
would prevail and "life, liberty and religious belief" of every citizen shall be
fully protected. Indeed it would be the first priority of the state, or so
Jinnah thought.
Today in Pakistan the life and liberty of every citizen is in
peril. Religious belief is not even an option any more. As more Pakistanis slip
under the poverty line, it is clear that Pakistan is not committed to the
welfare of the masses other than the ruling elite and the few hundred thousand
who make up its armed forces.
Instead of making a mess of things, had we honestly applied
ourselves to the fulfilment of Jinnah’s vision of Pakistan, we would not find
ourselves in the mess that we are in. Had we worked for the welfare of the
masses as the Quaid expected us to, Ajmal Amir Kasab would be an educated and
productive member of Pakistani society instead of causing havoc and chaos in a
neighbouring country which is inching towards respectability and whose success
would deliver a large portion of humanity from the misery and terror of poverty.
If we are too lazy, selfish and dishonourable to put things right for ourselves,
let’s at least not disrupt the lives of hundreds of millions in a country that
is making an effort.
In my letter to the Indians, I ranted about the Indian media and
its propaganda against Pakistan. Now I ask myself: Can we blame them? I don’t
blame them in the least. We deserved every single bit of what we got from the
Indian media. May this be the sledgehammer for us to finally wake up from our
deep slumber of ignorance and arrogance!
Jinnah’s Pakistan Zindabad! Humanity Paindabad!