A little after our blood-soaked independence, signs of our economic progress started to become visible–slowly at first, and then a bit rapidly. They manifested themselves in new infrastructure, dams, bridges, roads etc followed by high rises and factories etc. And these became cynosures of our hopes and fired our imaginations for what the future may hold for us.
But concurrently with this “progress”, decay began to attack and subvert our value system almost before the delirium of independence had subsided. Large scale irregularities and corruption in the allotment of “Evacuee Properties” laid the groundwork for mega corruption which, just 75 years later, would bankrupt the country and all but destroy it.
This degradation of the tenuous moral moorings of our people was led by the elite who were to provide us leadership. Imperceptible to begin with, corruption became a violent assertion of right of the elite to steal since about the last thirty years, becoming totally shameless in the following ten; while in the last six months it may only be described as stunning and catastrophic, leaving the country to writhe in agony, unsure of its very existence.
From the virulence of these ravages inflicted on the country it now appears reasonable to conclude that it was not just a case of satiation of greed that propelled our downfall, but among some of the “most elite” circles the motivation may have gone further– a willful drive seeking the destruction of our homeland. Nothing else can explain the sadistic brutality of the assault upon it.
The onset of democracy should have obstructed the spread of our ailment, but it accelerated it instead. The aspiring legislator needs to spend crores to win his election. And having won, he must “earn” back what he spent, and then make a large profit on the same. This he can only do illegally. So, our system has its foundation in corruption. And corruption, like anything left unaddressed, could only grow; and grow exponentially when money making became a competitive exercise and impediments in its way were progressively removed.
Thus the wages we have had to pay for democracy are the emasculation of all our institutions, a gutted treasury, a debased moral ethic, and a discredited faith in law.
And what of the army? For every foray of the army high command into the realm of government, cleaning up of corruption has been cited as its main motivation. But NEVER once has it exerted a muscle to clean it up. And now when it has finally stepped in front and center without the restraint of modesty, the scales have fallen from the eyes of 22 crore stunned citizens, and so have their hopes. Finally, they are beginning to see that whatever the civilians could do, their army could do better. The exposure of the sordidness of the army they once respected was a miracle. Truly egregious must be the sins of a people to have deserved a miracle as macabre as this!
Societies are dynamic structures. No society can remain static. It must either be moving imperceptibly towards improvement, or it must deteriorate. Central to a society’s improvement or deterioration is its ethos–its moral ballast–its moral core. No society can be entirely policed. It is self-policing, self- discipline, which creates stability in society and determines its direction. And ethos is central to this self-discipline, the glue which keeps society stable and together. As its ethos unravels, so does a society crumble.
A people’s historical experience through centuries forges its ethos. Some societies find themselves unequal to the tasks which historical forces impose on them. Such societies cease to exist. But those that combat the forces of history and emerge successful from this combat, build up a moral reserve during this contest. This forms their ethos. And this is the force which moves societies forward towards progress and improvement and sustains them through adversity.
But this improvement is not a constant. And unless continually mended and resuscitated by fresh infusion of energy, after a period of progress, like fruit, societies become ripe. Then they become over-ripe, and then they rot, and fall. And from their ashes, they may rise again.
The singular tragedy of the sub-continent, and most particularly of Pakistan is, that we have rotted before ever having ripened.
Our precipitous fall from aspiration to dust may only be explained by an ethos which refused to mature and blossom despite its interminable gestation and infancy through a long history, and its readiness to crumble in the face of the fainest of headwinds which were unleashed with its birth pangs as the nation.
There is no gadget which can measure the state of health of a national ethos, except perhaps language and metaphors in everyday usage.
In the early years of Pakistan, when integrity at least claimed a place at the table, it was not uncommon to hear it being extolled. Thus, in some locales, when a suitable match was being considered for a son or a daughter, and the probity of the other family was emphasized, this was often sworn to by a metaphor. The guarantor would swear that none in the family being considered had ever partaken of a “haram” morsel…. ” maen qasam kha ke keh sakta hoon keh is khandan mein kabhi kisi ne haram ka lukma nahin khaya”.
But by the 1980s this metaphor had been firmly stood on its head, and when the salary of a prospective bridgegroom was talked about, the girl’s family were often keen to find out how much the boy made over and above his pay–“ooper ki kamai”! And the more this “ooper ki kamai”, the better the prospects of the match being contemplated!
It took us just three decades to move from one moral pole to the other.
If this can be understood, it will also be easily understood how our “elite”, inhabiting the top perch of every section of society and ALL the institutions and organizations of the country, instead of providing leadership to the country, chose instead to join hands, and sell it off!
This sell-off was not accomplished in one grand auction. It was a case of a thousand thefts, reflected in Nawaz Sharif’s resplendent living quarters in London and Zardari’s luminous chateau in France. Our pain has therefore been a continuous process without any relief, and unhastened by a swift clean stroke of the blade. And this pain is made all the sharper by Nawaz Sharif’s look of stupified self-satisfaction, and the leer of contempt which Zardari now routinely wears instead of a smile. And what better justification can there be for the look of the one and the leer of the other, than that they have been catapulted back into power and made kosher and certified by none other than the “patriots” themselves!
In case of the British, they stole from India, bankrupted it, took the money home, and built up their own country.
Our elites stole from Pakistan, took the money abroad, built their palaces there, and bankrupted their own country. The “subtlety” of the difference should not be lost on anyone, least of all on our national protectors.
Except in the case of Quisling’s Norway, such brazen betrayal of a country has not taken place in recent history. For the nearest analogy, we shall need to go back to Mir Sadiq opening the gates of Seringapatam to the British, and Tipu’s being cut down, trying to beat back the enemy.
In our case the gate has been open a long time. The asphyxiation of the people has gone on for years. The cutting down is now to follow.