Naya Pakistan – a search for lost identity
Realigning Pakistan with its Fundamental Ideology
Lost and rudderless for almost all of our ‘independent’ life as a nation, it is time we looked back at the fundamentals of our ideology and ponder upon why we needed an independent state in the first place!
Was it meant to be a hardcore theocracy, an outright secular state, or something in the middle of both these extremes?
The dichotomy that has held us hostage for seventy-five very long and tragic years is rooted deep in our history. It predates not only the movement for Pakistan but even the idea of its creation. In subcontinent such traces make themselves starkingly visible to the times of the two ‘Syed Ahmeds’. One, the sword wielding Islamic revivalist from UP, later celebrated as a great crusader of Islam and Muslims of the subcontinent – second, the famous champion of pen, celebrated as the founder of Aligarh movement, bestowed upon the suffix of ‘sir' by the Raj.
Legacies of both these stalwarts have lived at daggers drawn with each other to this day and have radicalised to an unbearable proportion - none being able to claim the other’s head.
Today, one extreme is touching the limits of moral and religious bigotry and the other, that of brazenly licentious debauchery. All our national debates and issues have revolved around these two legacies, leaving common Pakistanis awestruck and wondering what to believe and who to follow – as if the excruciating burden of making two ends meet wasn’t enough to keep them engaged twenty four/seven. While proponents of these are galore on both sides, there has hardly been any noteworthy effort or name that seriously tried to reconcile the two and create some semblance of homogeneity, sanity or harmony.
Is it so? Yes and no.
After the great philosopher of the east Allama Iqbal, whose thought provoking work presented a solution and genuine reconciliation of the two schools of thought, it was Quaid e Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah who proved that this goal could be practically accomplished too. Quaid's quick departure left the young state wondering for many decades to find its correct bearings. As it goes after the Quaid, the country plunges into chaos, oscillating between extremes, left at the mercy of ambitious dictators and political vultures, who keep on scavenging the corpse of that Pakistan which its makers had envisioned. It became a battleground for power hungry elite, clergy, powerful bureaucrats/generals and feudal lords. A few well-meaning individuals , who in their limited capacities tried to solve the riddle of this complex paradox, were also side-lined by the power induced hyenas.
Fast forward a few painful decades, appears at the political horizon, a man with zero political ambition – a world renowned star, a highly acclaimed philanthropist, but above all, a man known for his indefatigable spirit, passion and financial integrity. He is laughed at, ridiculed and disparaged. But true to every single attribute associated with his personality, here he stands today, a leader head and shoulders above all others - one who is cherished and envied at the same time by all the contemporary world leaders. The world acknowledged and witnessed the arrival of the greatest of all the leaders that Pakistan produced post independence – Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi.
Is he a wizard? Is he the blue-eyed of international or local establishment? The answer is a resounding no!
He, on the contrary, is a pariah to this elitist system, unacceptable to the ruling, privileged oligarchy of the status quo. The leftists brand him as Taliban Khan and the rightists as a Jewish agent. Yet he rules the political arena of Pakistan with unmatched historic popularity.
His personal attributes aside, what made it all possible is his vision, clarity of thought, goals and objectives, resoluteness of head and heart, his passion and unwavering conviction, his resolve and untiring effort, and of course his faith. Soon, he was to be seen as the only hope for Pakistan and millions who inhabit it. He, after Quaid and Iqbal, singlehandedly ignited that light and ray of hope that this nation was so desperately seeking.
His crowning achievement so far has been to reconcile the two opposing ideologies rooted in our history by giving Pakistanis the hope of a welfare state based on the principles of the state of Madina - a state where justice reigns supreme, where all humans are treated equally and where sanctity of human life and honour is guarded by the state. Fundamental in approach but modern and forward looking in practice - best of both the worlds - putting the lost nation back on the track of its founding fathers.
Ground reality, as they call it, a common misnomer used by detractors, obviously indicated otherwise. Clearly, he refused to accept ground realities as he had his own lens to see things.
As with most allusions of sight, the oft used term 'ground reality' too, is only what we make of it, what we perceive it to be! We all may have our own different realities to the very same and identical set of events and facts. Khan changed the way this nation would hereon look at the ground realities. He has moulded this nation of two hundred and twenty million people to create their own reality. He earned the ire of many powerful individuals and states who were hitherto used to unquestioning obedience and docility by refusing to budge under pressure for letting the corrupt go scot free, by refusing to compromise on national interest in his resounding words 'absolutely not' right in the face of the world’s sole super power.
Such display of national pride and self respect in addition to winning hearts of millions of Pakistanis has earned Khan an immortal attribute of being a fearless leader of this nation.
This remarkable transformation of a slumbering crowd into a vibrant, resilient, and egalitarian nation is no less than a miracle and we, as a nation, owe it to Imran Khan.
Naya Pakistan is nothing else but a revival of this state in accordance with our original ideology, an attempt to revert to our lost origin to realign our country with the vision of its founding fathers – a modern welfare state based on the model of our beloved Holy Prophet and greatest of all the statesmen, Mohammad’s ﷺ
state of Madina.
