Page 6 - Pakistan Link - March 23, 2018

P6 – PAKISTAN LINK – MARCH 23, 2018 OPINION
Faiz on the Dream of Pakistan

n By Faiz Ahmed Faiz
The Pakistan Times There is nothing to be erything that was retrograde and undesir-
Lahore discouraged about. Individuals, able in our social and economic existence
(March 23, 1949) and to stifle everything that was progres-
many of them distinguished sive and radically beneficent. Once we get
lmost exactly nine years ago the in rank and tested in previous rid of this destructive combine, the people
Muslim people of undivided In- said, we shall be able to sweep all minor
Adia adopted Pakistan as their goal struggles, failed us miserably obstructions aside – the stupid, vain-
of political endeavor. As the late Quaid-i- in the fight for Pakistan. The glorious feudal grandee, tub-thumping
Azam repeatedly explained, the Muslim obscurantist demagogue, the tyrannous
declaration for Pakistan was not a dec- failures that we have witnessed policeman, the grasping rent-racketeer,
laration of war against the non-Muslim and shall continue to witness the incompetent corrupt official, the cen-
majority in the sub-continent. It was, on sor and the CID. We shall march forward,
the other hand, a declaration of peace. It in the fight to realize the the people said, led by the best among us,
was merely intended to end the vertical dream that Pakistan stands and on pukka roads running straight to
division that separated the two major various well-defined destinations and not
peoples of the sub-continent wherever for have also been and will be flounder among dim jungle-paths criss-
they resided, by a horizontal division so failures of individuals. Pakistan crossing in bewildered confusion and lead-
that the divided halves could each de- ing nowhere; we shall build hospitals and
velop an internal harmony that the un- came in spite of Khizar, and schools and playgrounds, and ships and
divided whole lacked. It was hoped that its people will progress in aeroplanes; we shall set up factories and
once this harmony had been attained the laboratories and theatres and concert halls,
two halves would live happily ever after. spite of his successors write poetry and listen to music and work
The dream is as yet unfulfilled. The like the devil.
division has come but neither half is as This dream, too, is as yet unfulfilled. It
yet completely at peace, either with itself horribly annoyed in both inter-communal ple; it meant freedom from the economic would be stupid petulance to insist that it
or with its neighbor. Internal harmony and inter-Dominion relations. Therefore, stranglehold of a ruthless class of exploiters should have been fulfilled within the short
was made impossible because neither the ideals implicit in the Lahore Resolution whose class antagonism to the victims was number of days we have spent since we
side chalked out or planned a pattern of have yet to be realized, although unfortu- reinforced by differences of culture, creed achieved freedom, but it is certainly right
free and secure existence for the minori- nately this realization depends as much and outlook; it meant freedom from the to examine the progress we have made to-
ties left in its care, a pattern similar to the and more on the good sense of our neigh- tyranny of officials big and small who de- wards it.
one that each majority has managed to ob- bors as on our own rectitude. rived their authority from a foreign source; The examination reveals much that
tain for itself. The fair visage of freedom, The common man, however, was fasci- it also meant freedom to speak one’s lan- should have been done but has not been
therefore, was daubed and besmeared with nated not by this but by other components guage without feeling abashed. It means done and much that has been done but
blood and bitter tears. External harmony of the dream. The devotion and fervor that freedom from perpetual affront and insult should not have been done. There is noth-
was made impossible because each side felt he so plentifully offered to the national at the hands of men not as good as oneself; ing to be discouraged about. Individuals,
that the division had not been fairly done cause sprung from other connotations of it meant freedom from the constant vio- many of them distinguished in rank and
and it had been deprived of much that was the term Pakistan and it connoted above lence that one’s integrity and intelligence tested in previous struggles, failed us mis-
morally its due. Under the circumstances, all, freedom and independence. No one was subjected to, by men who had risen erably in the fight for Pakistan. The failures
the more powerful side naturally sought precisely knew what the nature of the new to power through fraud and treachery or that we have witnessed and shall continue
to exploit its advantage by holding back order would be and what sort of freedom birth and riches. to witness in the fight to realize the dream
what it should have given and by grabbing it should bring, and no one cared to ex- The people wanted freedom from the that Pakistan stands for have also been and
what did not belong to it. The weaker side plain. Everyone felt, however, that Pakistan British and the Bania, not because these will be failures of individuals. Pakistan
retaliated when it could, and when retalia- meant freedom from the poignant humili- two were personally undesirable but be- came in spite of Khizar, and its people will
tion was not possible it just sulked, and felt ation of being governed by an alien peo- cause they were committed to support ev- progress in spite of his successors.

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