Pakistan on the verge of collapse
by Tanveer Jafri
December 16, 2014
Even though Pakistan came into existence in 1947 after partition from India on the basis of the so called ‘Two-nation
theory’, however the due credit needs to be given to the farsightedness of the majority of Muslims of undivided India
who did not support the partition on religious lines. Notwithstanding this, a large number of Muslims from Punjab
province as well as from Delhi and western UP decided to migrate to Pakistan, while the Muslims in many areas like
Malerkotla, Mewat, Kadiyan etc. preferred to stay back in India. Similarly, some Muslim families from Bihar and Bengal
too migrated to the East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). However, most of the Muslims of entire South India, Central India
and North Eastern India considered India their homeland and stayed back. These farsighted Muslims were probably well
aware of the future of the new ‘Islamic state’. A Pakistan (holy land), which was envisioned by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, has
today become a metaphor for everything irreligious. Pakistan is not only a problem for India; it is in fact counted
among one of the most dangerous places of the world.
Pakistan has gained its share of notoriety due to its continuous support to terrorism and fundamentalism by harboring
terrorists, training them, abetting the activities of Taliban, nurturing the extremist organizations, crimes against
ethnic minorities as well as implicating innocent people under anti-blasphemy law. However declin, the e of Pakistani
state started long ago when a tug of war started between the country’s civilian govt. and Army to grab power. Today, the
situation is that the world remains confused as to which is the responsible institution in Pakistan? Is it Parliament,
Army, Judiciary, ISI or the extremist forces? While the world witnessed the toppling of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s democratic
govt. and hanging of Bhutto by Zia ul Haq, it also witnessed the plane crash of Zia ul Haq along with senior army
officers onboard. We heard the news of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif being sent to exile. We also witnessed the
assassination of its former PM Benazir Bhutto in the hands of extremists. General Parvez Musharraf had to go behind the
bars. While the constitution was dissolved, the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Chaudhari was removed. Ever since its
inception, Pakistan has been witness to such instances of political turmoil and all of them have brought it a bad name.
These days Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Sayeed is doing his part in destabilizing Pakistan. Recently, I got to listen one
of his interviews, where he apparently looked in agreement with the two-nation theory of creation of Pakistan. According
to him, it was Jinnah’s dream to see Pakistan as the world’s biggest and strongest Islamic state. He also wanted to make
Pakistan one of the world’s most powerful nuclear armed countries. Interestingly, during the same interview, Hafiz
Sayeed blamed Indira Gandhi for the current state of affairs of Pakistan. He said that by engineering the split of
Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh in 1971, India made Pakistan much weaker. Here I want to ask all those, including
Sayeed, who think India was responsible for Pakistan’s partition, if the people of erstwhile East Pakistan did not
understand the two-nation theory of existence of Pakistan? Did they fail to understand the ambition of Jinnah to make
Pakistan a strong Muslim country? Is there any organization or political party in Bangladesh which still regrets the
separation from Pakistan? Had the people of East Pakistan not been willing to secede just because they were Muslims,
could Indira Gandhi have managed its secession from West Pakistan? Was Indira Gandhi or the Govt. of India responsible
for the step-motherly and oppressive treatment meted out by the West Pakistan to the people of East Pakistan from 1947
to 1971?
Not only Hafiz Sayeed, but also the politicians like Nawaz Sharif, Zardari, Musharraf and Bilawal Bhutto are in a
perennial state of denial vis-à-vis these realities of Pakistan. I would like to put a question to these guardians of
Pakistan: Which criteria of unity in the name of religion was being adopted in Pakistan after the creation of
Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim majority state. The Islam where there is universal acceptability of one Allah, one
Prophet, one Quran, and hundred and twenty four thousand messengers, why are the caste struggles so common among various
ideologies within Islam in Pakistan? Why is it that the followers of such a peaceful religion like Islam in Pakistan
have become so violent that the country has now been declared as the eighth most dangerous place on earth by
Washington-based think tank Intel Center? Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Kenya are other
countries on the list. If people like Hafiz Sayeed and Musharraf look at it dispassionately, they’ll find that India had
least role to play in bringing Pakistan at this stage. Rather, the rulers of Pakistan are themselves responsible for
this pathetic state of affairs of their country.
Recently, General Parvez Musharraf admitted in an interview that the infiltration bid in 1999 by Pakistan army into
Indian side via Kargil was absolutely correct from Pakistan’s viewpoint. According to him, this was done in response to
India’s alleged meddling into Pakistan’s internal affairs. He refused to admit Kargil fiasco as a mistake. Not only
Musharraf, all the military rulers of Pakistan see the creation of Bangladesh as an insult to Pakistan. Pakistan Army is
primarily involved in only two kinds of activities- either they are busy fighting with the terrorists once trained and
nurtured by themselves or they remain busy attempting infiltration into Indian borders. Therefore, it suits every Pak
general to keep on invoking Bangladesh issue so that they can justify their incessant anti-Indian activities.
Hafiz Sayeed is also a big sympathizer of the former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan. He is proud of the fact that
Pakistan was the first and the only country to recognize the then Taliban govt. in Afghanistan. He tends to approve the
violence perpetrated by the Taliban and its counterparts in Pakistan i.e. Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) upon the people of
Pakistan. The same Hafiz Sayeed has also warned India to launch Jehad against it in the name of Kashmiri people and
Indian Muslims. Unfortunately for Sayeed, despite being a witness to caste and communal violence, majority of Indians
are and will remain peaceful. While this strength of India helps it move forward leaps and bounds towards becoming a
powerful country of the world, Pakistan, on the other hand, has undertaken an entirely opposite course. It is the need
of the hour that the responsible people in Pakistan stop doing politics in the name of Kashmiris and Indian Muslims, and
start brooding over the ways to stop the collapse of Pakistani state and find ways to stabilize it.
ENDS