THE Quaid-i-Azam, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, gave a motto to the Pakistani nation: unity, faith, discipline. When the Quaid gave us this legacy what he meant was ‘unity’ within our ranks; ‘faith’ in the destiny of this nation through ‘discipline’ and total commitment to Pakistan.

Immediately after the Quaid’s death the first blow to his legacy was inflicted by delaying the constitution on which the foundations of the modern democratic welfare state he envisioned were to be built.

Pakistan’s first Law Minister Jogendra Nath Mandal was appointed by the Quaid himself. Mr Mandal and 12 other parliamentarians of his group had supported independence struggle waged by the All-India Muslim League and opposed Congress.

He became the first victim of the seeds of disunity that were sown when religion was exploited by the introduction of the Objectives Resolution and the fundamental rights and assurances of equality promised were reneged after the Quaid’s demise. Mandal resigned in disgust and left for India.

The irony is that numerous Muslim religious parties and members of the Unionist Party who had opposed the creation of Pakistan became the custodians of its destiny. The seeds of discord were sown further by exploiting ethnicity, sectarian divide and language issues.

Dictator Ziaul Haq plunged this country into a proxy war in Afghanistan, sowing the seeds of terrorism, extremism and intolerance which haunt this country to this day even 29 years after his death. The moral decay that followed caused corruption to spread like a cancer epidemic in the country.

It is time we rekindled the values of our founding fathers and implemented the stringently.

Malik Tariq

Lahore

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2017