Project Pakistan & Mirza Ghalib
By Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga , Canada
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
With reference to the lamentation of Syed Arif Hussaini’s Pakistan: Corruption Scenario, and Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry’s Pakistan in the Parables of Rumi (Pakistan Link of January 29), I have not to go as far as Iran and dash for the Persian literature to find the state of affairs. In our own backyard Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, whose hands are always on the pulse of life, has told us a lot about Pakistan right from its origin till the days of the future.
It is a good omen that we have started scrutiny of the self, knowing fully well that as humans we are all fallible. We continue to make mistakes, but those need to be corrected. Hussaini has ended his discourse with, “May Allah grant Pakistan sincere and honest leadership!” I sincerely add ‘Amen.’
For the love of Muslim brotherhood, we argued that the Muslims of the subcontinent constitute one nation. It was such an intense love that we planned to separate ourselves from the other nation of the Hindus, and to carve out a country of our own from the land of India where we were living for a thousand years.
We succeeded in 1947. We are proud of this achievement. But after six decades we are still facing a nightmare. We lost half of the country in twenty-five years, a good riddance! We are now crying over the state of affairs, the social condition, economy, politics, leaders, Legislature, Executive (civil and military), Judiciary, corruption, hatred of each other, religious fanaticism, turmoil, insurgency, killings, provincial prejudices, freedom movement, nationalities instead of a nation, imminent break-up, etc. You name an ill of a nation, and it is there.
As we conceive a project we first give careful thought to it, and being pragmatic, weigh various pros and cons before embarking on it. The project then passes through a number of phases during implementation. Though Ghalib had passed away about eight decades earlier to Pakistan ’s birth, the following verses explain well its various stages.
Conceptual stage:
Qaza nay tha mujhay chaha ‘kharab-e baday-e ulfat’
Faqat ‘kharab’ likha, bus na chal saka qalam agay.
Implementation stage:
Meri taameer main muzmer hai ek soorat kharabi ki
Hayula barq-e kirman ka hai, khoon-e garm dehqan ka
Execution stage:
Roa main hai rakhsh-e umar, kahan, dekhiay thamay
Nay hath bag par hai, na pa hai rikab main
Monitoring stage:
Yuhin gar rota raha Ghalib! To aye ahl-e jahan
Dekhna in bastiyou ko tum kay veeran ho gayeen.
Completion/Delivery stage
Na tha kuchh to Khuda tha, kuchh na hota to Khuda hota
Doboya mujh ko honay nay, no hota main, to kya hota
