The Oversized Feudalism
Syed Osman Sher
Mississauga, Canada
This refers to Syed Arif Hussaini’s article in Pakistan Link of February 3, 2012 regarding Altaf Hussain’s call to the Army to stage a French-style revolution to rid Pakistan of the scourge of feudalism. On the face of it, a revolution is never a kind phenomenon; it spills a lot of blood. But when a body is diseased and needs surgery, spilling of blood has no meaning when it comes to saving life.
The ill of feudalism in the country goes back to the time it took birth. The leadership of the Muslim League which created Pakistan comprised mainly the landed aristocracy. In the early years it was not willing to make the Constitution or to hold elections so that power could be transferred to the people. This feudal mindset weakened the democratic process, which, on the way, became a prey additionally of civil, judiciary, and military bureaucracy.
Giving the example of a tree, it would not be wrong to say that the sapling, which was planted in 1947 with tiny roots of democracy, had already an oversized trunk of feudalism. With time the trunk got bigger and thicker and the roots even weaker, leaving the millions of leaves high and dry.
During the last sixty-five years of its existence this country has gone from good to bad to worse, with no ray of hope in sight. Surely, the time has come for a pruning lest the tree itself turns into a deadwood. But how Altaf Hussain could expect that the Army, the other type of parasite, which itself owes its growth to the disease of feudalism, can bring a revolution and kill its own source of getting fatter?
Mr. Hussain presumes that the people coming to power this way would be ruthless but not self-seekers. They would have only the interest of the country and the nation at heart. Sensing such a case as not to be, this call has rightly caused the least disturbance in the political and civil circles.
