The First - Generation Pakistanis

By Amir Zia

August 2016

Monthly Hilal

As the nation marks its 70th Independence Day, Pakistan continues to swing between despair and hope. Yet, the grand idea of a stable, peaceful, prosperous and strong Pakistan still throbs and vibrates in the hearts of majority of Pakistanis. Despite many challenges and ups and downs in its history, Pakistan has come a long way, but the country has yet to achieve its full potential. Can we and the generation next be able to take the country to the next level?

First-generation Pakistanis are now a fast-dwindling minuscule group. Almost 69 years after the creation of Pakistan, elders, who witnessed the Freedom Movement, the Partition, its aftermath and the country’s formative years, are hard to find. Those of us born post-Independence – between ‘50s and the early ‘80s – may have learnt their first lessons of history not from Pakistan Studies’ textbooks but from these very elders, most of whom shared a few common traits.

For instance, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah ruled their hearts and minds. Those, who had the honour of meeting or even shaking hands with him, considered it the biggest event of their lives. Many others took pride in catching a mere glimpse of the ‘Great Leader’ in a rally, or a public meeting, at a railway platform or his visit to their educational institution. Those, who never saw Quaid-i-Azam in person – from near or from far – still lived under his spell because it was only he, who articulated their dreams and aspirations, and had the iron-will to transform them into reality.

Jinnah’s cold aloofness during political, social and public interactions, his overtly westernized demeanour and limitations in communicating with the masses in Urdu-language did not prevent him from being the undisputed leader of the majority of Muslims of the sub-continent. The reason; people had blind faith in his integrity, honesty, political acumen and sagacity. His followers knew that their ‘Great Leader’ could not betray them or compromise on principles. For Jinnah represented the ethos of a modern Muslim – current, forward-looking, yet rooted in history and tradition.

All of today’s corruption-tainted politicians need to learn and emulate the basics of leadership from Quaid-i-Azam, though it’s an altogether different debate whether they possess the capacity, ability or will to appreciate and absorb his politics, leadership qualities and principles.

Another collective love of those, who witnessed Pakistan Movement, remains Allama Muhammed Iqbal – the philosopher and the poet of the East. It was Iqbal, who first gave the outline of Pakistan. It was Iqbal who inspired Muslims to dream big to explore the world and to regain their lost position. It was Iqbal who challenged the orthodoxy, conservatism and narrow-mindedness of the clerics of his days. It was he, who questioned the slumbering Muslim mind and forced them to critically think on all issues – from religion to politics and from the eternal paradox of being to that of vastness of the universe. Iqbal was larger than life for his contemporaries. The passage of time only added to his stature. Children sang Iqbal’s works in schools and their elders punctuated discussions with his couplets. Iqbal and his thoughts were the idiom and diction of the educated-Pakistan all through the initial decades of its Independence.

But the organized and systematic degradation of Urdu – the national-language – by the country’s ruling elite, the mainstream media, centrifugal regional forces and private educational institutions have sidelined Iqbal. The national poet, his poetry and the message has been reduced to some of its sprinkling in textbooks. Barring the superfluous official lip-service given to Iqbal, he is no longer in the cultural mainstream. A vast number of Pakistan’s so-called elite schools do not focus on teaching the basics of the national language, let alone Iqbal and his poetry. The successive governments, rather than improving and modernizing Pakistan’s education system, allowed imported curriculum and examination system to hijack and capture the young Pakistani-mind. Students churned out of this borrowed system are often rootless. Pakistan’s muddled provincial governments’ run education, which allows rival systems to co-exist – from seminaries to substandard government education institutions and various types and layers of private systems – in itself has become a dividing force rather than help in building national cohesion.

Compare today’s rudderless educational system with that of the 19th century reformist and educationist Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s, who single-handedly brought a sea-change in the thinking and social and economic uplift of the Muslims through his educational movement. Sir Syed’s Aligarh Muslim University and its affiliated schools inspired the establishment of similar educational institutions for Muslims in the sub-continent and became the founding stone of Pakistan. The Aligarh University and its founder held a special place in the hearts of many first-generation Pakistanis whether they studied there or not. In his bid to educate Muslims, Sir Syed had to launch a crusade against myopic and narrow-minded mullahs as well as the feudal mindset, who wanted to cling to the old ways that brought the downfall of the Muslims. He promoted modern education, including science – long abandoned by the Muslims. Sir Syed’s ideas were rooted in tradition and he did not merrily ape the west. Students of Aligarh played a crucial role in advancing the idea of Pakistan. They fanned all across the sub-continent – from Muslim-minority to majority provinces creating awareness for a separate homeland. Wave after wave of ‘Aligarhians’ responded to their Quaid’s call in the freedom struggle and the formative years of Pakistan.

Almost all the elders could share the first-person impressions and accounts of the great historical events unfolding at the rapid pace in 1947. If some of them would endlessly lament on how the Muslim-majority districts of Gurdaspur and Ferozepur – where All India Muslim League flags fluttered – were handed over to India by the unjust Boundary Commission, other would give a blow-by-blow account the way Muslim-majority state of Kashmir was forcibly occupied by the Indian Army. The strong British bias favouring Congress and the annexation of the princely States of Hyderabad and Junagadh were also subjects of emotional debates and discussions as well as the way Indians tried to stifle Pakistan by blocking its share of funds after the Partition.

They articulated perhaps in much better terms than many so-called scholarly and biased books of history the fear in the hearts and minds of Muslims of permanently living under the rule of a hostile, vindictive and narrow-minded majority. They faced discrimination at every step – from separate water taps at railway stations to that of denial of jobs and economic and social uplift opportunities. The Hindu-majority Congress did not want to give any constitutional guarantees to Muslims to prevent the Partition. Those who question the justification of Pakistan need to look at the present day political and social landscape of India, where a vast number of Muslims remain oppressed, denied of basic social, political and economic rights. The continued occupation of the disputed region of Kashmir and atrocities committed by Indian forces there, is yet another manifestation of the extremist Hindu mindset.

The dawn of Independence on August 14, 1947 was soaked in blood and tears. There were organized massacres of Muslims in India, resulting into similar attacks on Hindus in Pakistan. An elder would tell you that he doesn’t know to-date the whereabouts of his sister kidnapped in some village near Jalandhar. Another one would narrate the hair-raising tale of the escape of his or her family from the slaughter grounds of Ludhiana. How the entire trains entered Lahore filled with blood and bodies. How Muslims were hounded, hunted and killed in cities including Delhi, Lucknow, Bombay and Calcutta. How Muslim women were abducted and raped. Those who saw Pakistan emerging on the world map have had countless of such sad and tragic stories, which oceans of ink cannot fully narrate.
The first-generation Pakistanis have played their innings. They had their share of triumphs and failures. And like them, Pakistan as a state had its high and many low points, which stemmed mainly from the poor-quality of leadership. A challenge that mars the country even today.

As the nation marks its 70th Independence Day, Pakistan continues to swing between despair and hope. Yet, the grand idea of a stable, peaceful, prosperous and strong Pakistan still throbs and vibrates in the hearts of majority of Pakistanis. Despite many challenges and ups and downs in its history, Pakistan has come a long way, but the country has yet to achieve its full potential. Can we and the generation next be able to take the country to the next level? Yes, given Pakistan’s enormous natural wealth and resources and resilient people, we can and we should. The starting point, however, remains empowering the people, cleaning the stables and ensuring that only the capable and honest get to the top slots. Doing this is not a tall order at all.