In the exceptionally harsh winter of 1838, the Cherokee, an American Indian tribe, were forcibly driven out of their homes in Georgia and relocated to Oklahoma. In the three months it took to cover the 800 miles, thousands of men women and children dropped onto the snow and died along the way.
Historians are debating whether this was a genocide. But they do concede that among the sad chapters in U.S history, this was among the saddest. Because of the tears that fell along the way, this forced relocation is called the Trail of Tears.
As the ‘civilized’ white settlers variously killed and massacred the Indian ‘savages’ and drove them westwards, some did so with the feigned regret that had the Indians been more civilized, the whites would not have needed to exercise their brutality.
To escape this brutality some Indian tribes tried to take on the ways of the whites and assimilate. None covered more ground in this assimilation than the Cherokees in Georgia. They took to farming, and made land as cultivable and productive as any of the white settlers, and many took to wearing the attire of the whites. They created a script and spread learning, and soon had nearly a hundred percent literacy. They also drafted a written constitution. And copying faithfully the civilized whites, some even had black African slaves! Now what could be more American than that!
But the more assimilated they became, so more fresh waves of European settlers landed on the east coast, hungry for land. And because Cherokee lands were close to the east coast, fully developed and very productive, these could not escape notice nor fail to excite avarice of new emigrants. And the more this happened, the more the Cherokees hastened their efforts to assimilate which, they thought, was insurance against being wiped out or driven out.
But then in 1828 gold was discovered on Cherokee land in Georgia. No amount of assimilation by the Cherokees could be equal to the enthusiasm of the rising greed among the whites to get at the gold. The Cherokees stood condemned by good fortune.
President Andrew Jackson press ganged the minority faction among the Cherokees to sign an agreement whereby they agreed to voluntarily vacate their homes and trudge west. The majority faction appealed against this to the Supreme Court headed by Justice John Marshall, whose judgement upheld the right of the Cherokees to retain their lands and property. But Georgia mobilized its state militia to drive them out. The Supreme Court order could have been carried out only if the U.S army was deployed to ensure that Georgia would not be able to use its militia to drive the Cherokees out. This could only be done if the President had so ordered the U. S army.
But the President “set aside” the Supreme Court judgement by declaring: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”
And with that, instead of ordering the army to enforce the order of the Supreme Court, he ordered Gen Winfield Scott to mobilize the army and drive out the Cherokees!
In short, the government of U.S.A and the state of Georgia joined hands to nullify and physically subvert the judgement of the Supreme Court! And this led to the Trail of Tears. Of late the people of Pakistan had belatedly begun to assimilate themselves to the idea, the demands, and the lure of a new democracy. In the case of the Cherokees, gold had merely been discovered on their land. It had yet to be mined. In case of Pakistan gold had not merely been discovered, it had already been mined and stolen, and stored [for the most part] abroad by its “elites”. The people, whose gold it was, were clamouring for a new democracy which, they hoped, would give back to them their gold, and much else besides.
As the danger of this possibility increased, so did fear among the thugs who had done the looting. And so they decided to drive the people and lock them inside their homes. But unlike the U.S where it was the President who ordered the army to drive Cherokees OUT, in our case it was the Army Chief who assembled all the thugs and, in sordid partnership with them, attempted to lock the people IN, and deny them movement.
And when this matter was taken up by our Supreme Court, and it seemed most likely that the court would rule in favour of the Constitution and the rehabilitation of Democracy, a thug effort, orchestrated by our army, PREEMPTED the Supreme Court by setting in motion events on 9nth of May, which set fire to Pakistan.
Our Trail of dashed Hopes had begun in August 1947. And what promises to be our Trail of Tears, began on 9 May 2023.
How many will fall along its way and how many tears will be shed, remains to be seen. What also remains to be seen is how those will fare, whose arrogance has led Pakistan to be set on fire, and whose nervousness has compelled them now to get astride a tiger.
The longer they remain riding the tiger, to defer the moment of getting off, the more atrocities they shall be forced to commit along the way. But the longer they stay there, the more will they improve their chances of dangling by the rope of Article 6, or having their heads removed by the people.
And if it is the people who are to do the honours, the wave will rise in the former Frontier Province and a demoralized army will be found unequal to the task of restoring order. The consequences will be horrible for Pakistan and even worse for the generals. Only those of them will get away as will reach the airports on time.
But this may be averted if they can gather the courage they may have left, and use it to speak truth to themselves, see the seriousness of the situation, acknowledge that this was primarily of their own making, and then move to remedy it.
So far only their cowardice has matched their incompetence.