February 5, 2002

The ordinary citizens ask agonizing questions. Prof K.K. Aziz explains the reasons behind the contradictions in Pakistani society

A section of the Pakistani intelligentsia began to talk about a thing it called “the crisis of identity” in the late 1950s, that is within a decade of attaining freedom. Seminars on it were held under official auspices at which historians, ulema, politicians and generals expounded their views on the phenomenon. The proceedings were then issued as booklets. Since then there has been a spate of references to the malady in the hundreds of articles carried by the Urdu and English press. However, no one has addressed the issue seriously....

Those who raise the topic in their writings or in private conversations always consider it a problem which appeared with or after the creation of Pakistan. That is a grave mistake. The discussion begins on the wrong note, because they disregard history and literature as the determinants of the social framework, and concentrate on the existing political situation. The debate is aborted by the falsity and irrelevance of the first premiss.

The problem of self-identity began when Muslim imperial rule ended. Till 1857 the Indian Muslim who was capable of thinking seriously looked upon himself as a “ruler”, a member of the elite, a part (even a cog is a part) of the imperial machine. This feeling was indefinable, vaguely comprehended, imperfectly conceived, and not commonly expressed in writing or speech. But it formed a major dimension of his psyche. It also had great advantages. It brought self-confidence. It offered a sense of superiority. It gave stability to the society and a poise to the individual. It sustained an interest in Muslim, particularly Persian, tradition and literature. It acted as a shield against the fear of the Hindus. It was a source of self-satisfaction. It served as a balancing force in the welter of the complexities, character, nature, variety and tendencies of human relationships. It defined Islam in uncontroversial terms and thus retained it as the central pillar of the empire and the unifying element of the society.

The failure of the Mutiny destroyed for all times to come this comfortable, comforting, cosy, pleasurable, safe, exhilarant world (though, strictly speaking, the work of destruction had begun with Aurungzeb’s death a century and a half earlier; but illusions do not die a quick death). A new cycle of history began. Every old value, public and private, became either a problem or a burden. Standards of behaviour altered. The language of “national” discourse changed, literally and philosophically: Urdu and English replacing Persian, and politics supplanting imperial despotism. The unfamiliar British became the arbiters of our fate. The grandeur of Muslim sovereignty, which the Muslim had taken to be an eternal factor of his existence, was swept away and thrown into the dustbin of historical refuse (the inevitable end of empires throughout the length of time). The British had arrived. The Hindus had arisen. The Muslims had been dispossessed. The world had changed.

With this loss of the illusion of permanence came the search for new bearings. The crisis of identity was born. The Muslim lost his self-respect. That was a tragedy, but not a disaster. He did not know how to go about regaining it. That was the disaster. He was surrounded by a horde of advisers and teachers and leaders, each of them pointing to a different direction, each prescribing his own patent medicine which could cure all ailments (the Muslim amritdhara), each claiming to be the standard-bearer of true Islam, each asserting that he was the voice of the time, each presenting himself as the saviour, the good old Khizr leading to the elixir of eternal life. The poor Muslim was confused. He walked through a tunnel, narrow and long and unlit, the end of which he could not see. The Muslim Pakistani still walks the tunnel.

Look at the predicament of the post-1857 Indian Muslim standing amidst the plethora of guide posts and direction-finders, each promising the sure path to salvation. He was asked to learn English and adopt the British ways to enter the modern age. He was told to cooperate with the new rulers so that loyalty to the throne could protect him against the Hindu majority. He was warned that Westernization led to heresy, and a knowledge of the English language to Christianity. He was ordered to fight against the foreign imperial occupation in the interest of an Indian nationalism. He was instructed to follow the medieval Islamic curriculum and the classical religious decisions and precedents. He was directed to study science and European literature to reinterpret the Quran, and to reconcile the past and the present.

He was asked to live in the past, for that was the country of his glory. He was asked to live in the present, for that was the demand of dire necessity. He was asked to live both in the past and the present, for his religion was immutable and valid for all ages. He was told so many things that he learnt nothing. He found himself hanging from a rope stretched over an abyss whose two cliffs were his yesterdays and his todays, and he did not know whether to try to move towards his yesteryears or towards the current times. He could not distinguish between his yesterday and his today. How could he look forward to his tomorrow? His perplexity was complete.

The confusion created by the variety and divergence of the counsels offered was compounded by the diversities of his surroundings. He spoke many languages (notwithstanding, and refuting, the claim of Urdu as the language of Muslim India), belonged to many races, and lived in many provinces. He was the descendant of an Arab, Afghan, Central Asia, Iranian or some other Muslim migrant. He was the progeny of a local convert to Islam. He was a foreigner from distant lands. He was a native of long standing. He was a venerable member of the ashraf, the old aristocracy of a ruling and conquering race. He was a despicable timeserver, a low caste Hindu who had embraced Islam out of fear or lack of principle. He was so many things at the same time that he did not know what he was.

The wind which fanned the flame of these uncertainties and bafflements was ignorance. The Muslim had lost his way because he did not know his history, and because he did not know what his literature was. Without these two foundations he could not stand as an entity, a distinctive group, a people, or a nation. He was like a pile of bricks heaped on the roadside. The mortar to bond them and make a wall was not available. He could not identify himself because he had neither read his history (what he had done in the past) nor studied his traditions (what he had thought and written).

The coming of independence in 1947 made this confusion more confounded by adding a new depth to the mystery — politics. And the road travelled by this politics took the people into ravines and gullies and valleys covered with thick mists of doubt and incertitude. The nation (if that it ever was or now is) which had been innocent on the social level before 1947 was now made into a political simpleton.

The search for identity became even more pressing, more urgent, more desperate. A long line of episodes marking the post-Independence history made the task maddening. The failure of the politicians, long spells of military supremacy (even when there was a civilian government in office), many constitutions, political violence, three wars with India, governmental instability, sectarian bloodshed, and the secession of East Pakistan, raised so many issues that it was difficult to see where the nation and the State were going.

The quest was made more difficult by the ways in which individuals interacted with the society, and the state regimented the society. The mind of the ordinary citizens was crowded with searching and agonizing questions...