ALL states, like individuals, go through growing pains. But Pakistan seems to have had more than its share of these. Almost 60 years have passed since independence. Yet there seem to be serious differences about the very raison d'etre of the creation of Pakistan, its internal polity and its foreign policy.

Not surprisingly, there is periodic talk at home and abroad about Pakistan being a failed state. This bewilders friends and delights enemies, such as the dreamers of Akhand Bharat in neighbouring India.

Matters will not improve unless, as a people, we do some sober thinking and carry out a reasoned debate about fundamental issues. This necessitates shunning emotionalism, partisanship, and narrow-mindedness. A meaningful discussion must be based on facts and logic, and not on bias and distortions. Firstly, let us start with the origins, and the question as to why Pakistan came into being and what is the "ideology" of Pakistan.

It has to be kept in mind that the demand for a separate Muslim homeland in India was made as late as 1940, and then only as a last resort. No doubt, the Indian Muslims had a unique identity based on a thousand years of Muslim rule over India, during which they developed a distinct culture and way of life.

They were convinced that Muslims constituted a nation in India. When the era of modern politics began in British India, around 1860, Muslim political thinking revolved around securing their due political, economic and cultural rights in a united India. Their main political demand was that Muslim representation in various organs of government, in jobs and in other spheres, should be equivalent to their numbers in the Indian population, which was about one-third.

Since communal tensions were rife in India, the Muslim minority also sought security of life, honour and property. They were also keen to protect the Urdu language. It was not only seen as the lingua franca of the Muslim population of the whole of India, but also represented the best in Muslim cultural and literary traditions. However, the division of India was not on the basis of a Muslim political agenda, mainly because that entailed leaving behind great centres of Muslim culture in India.

The foregoing were the basic concerns around which Muslim politics revolved since the days of Sir Syed. When the first Indian political party, the Indian National Congress, was set up in 1885, he advised Muslims not to join it because he feared that Hindus would outnumber Muslims in this body that would function essentially as a Hindu party. The logical corollary was that the Muslims should form their own political party and the Muslim League came into being in 1906. It is notable that the demand for separate electorates was at the top of the Muslim agenda for over fifty years, since this alone could ensure dueMuslim representation in political institutions.

As prospects for independence from British colonial rule grew stronger, protracted political negotiations were held between Muslims and Hindus, starting from the Lucknow Pact of 1916 and ending with the failure of the Round Table Conferences of early 1930s, in which the Muslim demands revolved around the above-mentioned basic issues. Unfortunately, the Hindu-dominated Congress refused to accept the modest Muslim demands. Worse was to follow when real power was first exercised by the Congress from 1937 to 1939 when it formed ministries in eight out of 11 provinces of British India. It proceeded to impose Hindu hegemony in politics, culture and economy.

Muslim opinion was shocked. It was at this point of time that the Muslim League made the demand for the division of India and the establishment of Muslim sovereign states (the Lahore Resolution) in the two regions of India where the Muslims were in majority. Under the matchless leadership of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah this objective was secured in 1947.

However, it is noteworthy that even as late as 1946, when the Cabinet Mission Plan offered maximum Muslim autonomy within a united India, Muslim League accepted the proposal, which was actually torpedoed by the Congress. This clearly showed that division of India was still not the first preference of the Muslims.

Rather, it was the protection of Muslim rights in various fields. The demand for the division of India was made only when Muslims became convinced that the Hindu majority would never allow them to have their due political, economic and cultural rights. The Muslims were afraid that they would not even have the security of life, honour and property in a Hindu-dominated India.

In sum, Muslim demands since the 1860s were nationalistic and secular in character, seeking due representation in the political, economic and cultural fields. Establishment of an Islamic theocratic state based on the rule of Shariah was demanded neither by Sir Syed, nor by Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, nor by Allama Iqbal and most certainly not by the Quaid-i-Azam.

It is quite ironic that after the creation of Pakistan, the Islamic parties that had opposed the creation of Pakistan – the Jamaat Islami and the Jamiatul Ulema-i-Hind from which the JUPI is descended, have more or less hijacked the demand for the creation of Pakistan.

They pretend that the historic reason for the creation of Pakistan was to establish Shariah rule. This is nowhere to be found in the Lahore Resolution and negates the repeated assurances of the Quaid-i-Azam to the minorities that they would be treated as equal citizens of Pakistan.

The mullah parties have, moreover, distorted the meaning of secularism to suggest that it represents the abandonment of religion. Actually, nearly all countries in the world, including the overwhelming majority of the Muslim states, are secular. All that secularism means is that religion is a private matter for citizens and must not be imposed on matters of state.

Muslim countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Nigeria and Senegal are secular states. Does it mean that Muslims in these countries are not practising their religion or have abandoned Islam? They are both secular and Muslim.

Departure from this basic rationale for the creation of Pakistan has led to the rampant factionalism and sectarianism that plague Pakistani society today. There are sharp divisions on the interpretation of Islamic principles between the various religious groups as to how the state machinery should be organised, what should be the system of education and how the economy should be governed.

Unfortunately, things are getting worse as Islamic fundamentalism has grown and attempts are being made to dictate how individuals should dress and behave, that men must have beards of a certain size, that women should wear the Hijab, that music should be banned and television outlawed and sports curtailed – all because some religious group or the other thinks that its version of Islam should be imposed on Pakistani society.

This fanaticism has now taken the shape of terrorism, suicide bombings and sectarian killings. The image of Islam is being gravely damaged and Pakistanis are being viewed with suspicion in many countries. Pakistanis residing abroad are often being harassed and discriminated against because of the notoriety given to them by the fanatic circles in our society.

In this environment, how do Pakistani non-Muslims feel? They are being shut out of the national mainstream and cannot make their full contribution to the country's welfare. International human rights organisations are criticizing Pakistan severely for its treatment of minorities. This is surely not the Pakistan that the Quaid-i-Azam had visualised.

To survive in the present-day world and to make progress, Pakistan must promote modern education and acquire technology. The country cannot shut itself out from the rest of the world. Religion must not be used as a taboo and a hammerlock that restricts all kinds of independent, innovative thinking. Pakistanis as a people will have to shun fanaticism and bigotry or else they will isolate themselves from the rest of the world.

The writer is a former ambassador

GENERAL Pervez Musharraf will be completing eight years in power in October. The president may genuinely be feeling that these years have been the best in the country’s history and may lament that they passed so quickly. In contrast to this view, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif calls these years the country’s worst.

History is the best judge of a number of things — even if it is often distorted in Pakistan. General Zia ruled the country for 11 years but even those closest to him now make it a point to distance themselves from his legacy. It would be difficult to find even a single Pakistani who has something positive to say about him. His son, Ejazul Haq, started out with immense ambitions, even forming his own faction of the PML. Now he is left with a religious ministry slot in the federal cabinet and a fleet of personally owned luxury vehicles but no one to support his father’s legacy.

This lack of support seems to characterise military dispensations not only in Pakistan, but throughout the world. The military junta in Burma has been ruling for years and Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s best-known pro-democracy leader, has been in detention for more than a decade with brief periods of freedom. But the junta, despite its military might, is unwilling to release this courageous woman as it is evident what its fate would be once she is liberated.

President Musharraf is at present surrounded by a coterie of generals, bureaucrats, politicians and friends who are scared to disagree with him publicly. They portray the present unrest in the country as limited in scope. This assessment is partly true but this coterie is either failing to appreciate the undercurrent of opposition to the rulers or simply concealing it from the general.

Few things in life are black and white and the rule of President Musharraf is no exception. The past eight years have not been ideal but cannot be classified as a total disaster either. Disastrous decisions took place but a few commendable steps were also taken which would be hard for successive governments to overturn. Musharraf’s era has not been brutal when compared to the Zia years, except for actions in the areas inhabited by tribes in Balochistan and Fata. The level of tolerance to bear opposition and criticism until recently has been commendable, although the steps to put curbs on the electronic media, goes to show that the threshold to accept criticism has finally been crossed.

There is, however, little doubt that despite the public’s hostility towards the government, exacerbated by its pro-American policies since 9/11, growing inflation and unemployment and corruption, the likelihood of a massive outpouring on the streets is unlikely in the months leading to general elections. The whole nation knows the outcome of the elections, that the ruling party will win.

The dilemma of the people of Pakistan is that they have been desperately searching for a leader and a saviour for the past six decades but have always ended up with a lemon. The country definitely has talent but its creativity and initiative has been destroyed to a large extent by decades of a military-intelligence axis. Competent civilians have been ridiculed and discredited in the public eye if they have been bold and honest enough to criticise the wrong policies of this axis, some having to pay dearly for their forthrightness. The result is that the political leadership has been left to the incompetent.

The present opposition in the country is one of the most ineffectual in its history. This is ironical keeping in mind the level of public resentment against the government. However, the opposition, led by a leadership that is abroad, is incapable of undertaking a strenuous struggle and unrealistic in expecting the intelligence agencies to hand it power on a platter or Islamic fundamentalists to do their job through non-political means.

Workers of opposition parties, when they look at their leaders living abroad or spending their summers in London or discussing the fall of the Musharraf set-up in their air-conditioned lounges and luxurious vehicles, follow in their leaders’ footsteps and are unwilling to come out on the streets to agitate.

The government is discredited but it is about time that the opposition realises that it is equally distrusted by the people. If the public had even an iota of expectation from the opposition, the government would have been toppled by now.

Throughout the agitation against the presidential reference and in the aftermath of the Supreme Court verdict, the nation has seen the Chief Justice in the role of a messiah. The problem is that he had a limited agenda: his fight, along with that of the lawyers pertained to his reinstatement and the withdrawal of the reference filed against him. The legal community did not fight for the president to give up his uniform or for the return of any politician from exile or for free and fair general elections.

The opposition’s performance since March has been so pathetic that it has so far been unable to take out a single joint procession or organise a single collective public meeting. It is held on to the black coattails of the lawyers, and its leaders looked at the Chief Justice with envy for the public adulation he received. It has been said that political agitations in Pakistan are launched over the bodies of the public killed during agitation. Past governments have been toppled by a few people shot to death by the police.

On May 12, almost 50 people were killed in Karachi when the Chief Justice arrived to address the Sindh High Court Bar Association. All that the opposition could do was to hurl threats. The lawyers remained aloof as none of the slain persons belonged to their community.