A businessman evades income tax, but calls a politician corrupt. Why do we go for these double standards when the first thing we should do is to correct ourselves?
THE degradation of our nation and a perceptible and progressive degeneration of our national character has been variously imputed; to feudalism, to a corrupt bureaucracy, to the hegemonical role of the armed forces, to an incompetent civil leadership and so forth.
All these imputations may be correct, but they do not elucidate as to why these accused classes have come to acquire so mush ascendancy as to keep the entire nation hostage to their evil designs. Maybe we are committing the customary mistake of confounding the symptoms for the disease.
Another mistaken notion which this line of argument begets is that the virtues and vices of the members of these classes are divergent from those of the masses. On the contrary, viewed from a general perspective, all the classes in a society at a given time share more or less the same attributes, negative or positive, of that society. The mind set that the classes and masses possess different characteristics represents our colonial hang up, when the rulers were racially and ethnically different from the ruled.
The situation has changed hook line and sinker. But not our mental block. An indicted person roughly comes from the same ethnic, social, educational and cultural background as the indicter, and, given the prevalent social mobility, may in time join the former. So the primary postulate of this article is that it is an exercise in futility to appropriate the blame of the evils with which our society suffers to one class or group of classes to the exclusion of others. Each individual or class is a microcosm representing the society as a whole.
Our national character, like that of any other nations, is the aggregate of virtues, qualities, habits, inhibitions and motives. Ours has some positive traits: we are intelligent, hard-working, hospitable, friendly, ambitious and competitive people. However, lets delve into the causes of the ills of our society.
NECESSITY KNOWS NO LAW: Oliver Goldsmith’s remark that “laws grind the poor, and rich man rule the law” is largely correct. We Pakistanis have too often witnessed the oppression of the mighty like the gruesome spectacle of mutilation of the highest and most sacrosanct law of the land. This was done on the altar of necessity. Necessity indeed.
Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities. But the tendency to violate the law is not the exclusive domain of the privileged. Each one of us, mighty or modest, tends to break a law on the slightest aggravation. We all have our favourite laws to break and yet never fail to wonder why others breach the other laws. A businessman evades Income Tax because he thinks it robs him of his hard-earned income, but vociferously condemns a politician who rigs an election. Rationalization for breaking laws abound. Laws in respect of smuggling, drug trafficking, gun running, even murder are broken with impunity and full justification. Our roads present an irrefutable evidence of the disregard for traffic rules even by the common folk. They drive on the wrong side, over-speed, bully others on the road and spread noise pollution by constantly honking.
Remember, when a small offence like riding a bicycle in the night without a light was a cognizable offence? Now a dark-skinned bicyclist in dark colour clothes rides a black bicycle in the night without any light and without a whit of thought of his own peril. Apparently, our penchant for breaking law is so compelling that it can become life threatening. The disdain for the rule of law, in the long run, constitutes the involuntary act of collective suicide for a nation.
SCAPEGOATING: “Whenever anything goes wrong, it appear less important to find a remedy than to find a scapegoat”, observed a sage.
Our propensity to lay our sins at the door step of others has become so entrenched that we have ceased noticing it. We argue that we are poor because all others are exploiters, with no realization that factually it may be due to our shirking the work. Such arguments can be multiplied. Our low literacy rate is considered to be due to the negligence of the government. We accuse the government officials of being corrupt without realizing that we are the ones who bribe them to extract undue favours.
We argue that our cities are garbage dumps, not because we scatter litter, spit, even relieve ourselves all over the place, but because the municipal services are deficient. No municipal authority, howsoever efficient and rich, can fix the garbage problem if the entire citizenry decides to shed their refuse here, there and everywhere. This habit is not confined to the interaction between the government and the citizens. We obsessively shift the blame of our follies to our colleagues, friends and relations.
EXPLAINING AWAY: To cover our weak points and deficiencies of character, we have developed the proclivity of explaining them away. We never admit our mistakes, only offer explanations for them. No sooner the explanation is afforded, it is forgotten with no thought of ever rectifying the fault. The explanation is taken to be a cure in itself. Admonish a subordinate for his sloth and he will be out with a whole litany of explanations ranging from the non-cooperation of his colleagues to the non-availability of transport. Never will he admit his fault. Nor that a government, any government, has ever admitted its shortcomings, despite monumental failures in our national life. Either they are ascribed to the unfavourable international situation or thrown into the ever-yawning lap of RAW. Notwithstanding appalling national disasters, we never heard any national leader come out with a statement equivalent of mea culpa.
INTOLERANCE: We have not been able to determine either our goals or our direction or even our priorities. This indecision has given rise to insecurity which is the breeding ground for intolerance. We live in a Manichean world wherein dwells either good or evil. We have lost the capability of comprehending that an opposite point of view could exist, much less appreciating it. For us there is only for one valid point of view: ours.
If any other exists, it should be banished, if necessary, with force. We clamour for our right to free expression but only for ourselves, forgetting that freedom of expression presupposes tolerance of divergent views. Little do we realize that a person has as-much right to hold his opinion as we have to hold ours. So why abhor him, or worse, assault him. We are bitterly divided on ethnic, sectarian, religious, economic and political lines.
In undivided India, the election of 1946 saw the Indian Muslims emerge as a united entity, never fighting amongst themselves. Today, Shias and Sunnis kill each other. There have been fierce fights along the provincial divide. Minority communities do not feel safe. Workers of one party fight pitched battles with its own splinter group, resulting in casualties on both sides.
HYPOCRISY: Most of us falsely present ourselves more virtuous than we actually are and profess beliefs to which our character and conduct do not conform. We pretend to be honest, but habitually cheat. We claim to be efficient and hardworking, but actually shirk work. We profess to be democratic in our attitudes, yet, given the opportunity, the humblest amongst us becomes an autocrat. We consider ourselves the most religious people, yet the spirit of religion has barely touched us. We imagine our behaviour to be altruistic, yet it is a lesson in selfishness. We are greedy yet consider ourselves to be generous and self-denying.
Hypocrisy runs so deep in our psyche that we have made ourselves believe in its verity. How ironic that despite our profession of strong faith in our religion, a great majority of us never voted for the parties with an Islamic agenda in any of the seven general elections we have had. We weigh all the commandments and percepts of Islam in the balance of expediency adopting what suits us and abandoning what does not.
SEEKING SHORT CUTS TO SUCCESS: We, all the time, seek short cuts to overnight riches with minimal or no effort. Without any effort to make the size of the national cake bigger, we wish to have a whale of a slice for ourselves. We do not realize that it is not in the domain of possibility that each one of us can have a large slice out of a cake which has not grown bigger. In our impatience we forget that all the processes have a predetermined course to run and they cannot be abbreviated. Our impatience and exclusive worship of squalid cash has given rise to moral flabbiness.
We, in this country, have learnt only to demand and not to yield, to crave and not to bestow, to take and not to give, forgetting that every right has a corresponding duty and one’s liberty ends where the precincts of some one else’s liberty begin.
A businessman evades income tax, but calls a politician corrupt. Why do we go for these double standards when the first thing we should do is to correct ourselves? 
