State against people

Highlighting the growing trust deficit between the state and the people, I tweeted a few days ago: “A country unwilling to engage with itself to debate and find credible solutions to its recurring problems becomes a country that others talk about. Such a country remains caught up in a perpetual (cycle of) regression with hardly a clue to tackle the threats to its existence”.

I went on to say that “oppression of its people and suppression of problems it faces today only perpetuate the crisis further. Pakistan needs to carry its people along to tackle its challenges, not hold them hostage. They should be given their voice back”.

Viewed from whatever angle one may, the existent distance that separates the state from its people is unprecedented and constitutes the biggest challenge it faces. Worse still, instead of taking measures to address the issue, steps have been initiated to enhance the estrangement and create doubts whether the state cares about its people. The brutal and indiscriminate use of power since the unfortunate happenings of May 9 has further aggravated the existing trust gap between them which can potentially lead to a violent upsurge.

Ever since the creation of Pakistan, its rulers in uniform and those masquerading as democratic free wheelers, never took up the cause of the people as a principal consideration. Instead, their own survival and advancement as well as inventing ever new methods to pillage the state and fill up their coffers remained the priority items on their agendas. Consequently, while a select beneficiary elite continued to prosper, the state was defrauded of its resources and people of their right to advance in life through provision of opportunities.

A perpetual continuum of this strategy has pitted the people against the state. This called for a revision of approach and devising a mechanism whereby people would figure in the calculations of the rulers as key stakeholders. This could be accomplished by adopting a compassionate and caring course with impoverished and downtrodden people becoming the pivotal focus of state policies and programmes. Unfortunately, with time, we have drifted away from that objective with people suffering the wrath of the state in a brutal and indiscriminate manner.

What can we attribute this phenomenon to? Is it that the rulers are so engrossed in satiating their lust for power and pelf that people don’t figure in their calculations, or is it that depriving them consciously of opportunities to move on in life is a well-orchestrated mechanism to keep them hostage and feed them as fodder to run the system for their personal aggrandisement? Rather than one or the other, it is probably a combination of both factors that has driven the state juggernaut to the utter deprivation of the common people who are its most important and relevant stakeholders.

This system survived as long as it did, but it now seems to have run its course. The injustice which is so deeply embedded is not tenable and must give in. In reality, this process has already commenced and there are widening cracks appearing in the state edifice, making it shakier with time. This is a reality that is visible to everyone who cares, but those who have orchestrated this criminal demolition programme prefer to keep their eyes shut.

This is not going to alter the reality unfolding in front of us with devastating effects. Is there enough left in the system to sustain it till a mending process could be undertaken, or must it collapse completely for a new structure to be raised in its place? Both these possibilities are built upon the understanding that the system can neither survive the ravages of the ruling elite who are not able and fit to take care of a new reality which is likely to emerge from the ruins of the one that is crumbling, nor the people who have perpetually suffered the injustice of deprivation and cruelties of a myriad kind are willing to continue enduring this phenomenon any longer.

While the internal factors that have contributed to this collapse have been a known reality through a succession of leaderships which have been artificially hoisted upon the state, there are also external influencers who have meddled indiscriminately in Pakistan’s affairs or, more correctly, who have been allowed to do so. It is a process that started early on after Pakistan came into existence as an independent country which has since continued under one garb or the other.

This coming together of internal and external factors has contributed to the forming of a mindset which is inflexible as also deficient in assimilating the consequences of making the state subservient to unnatural and unsustainable curbs. A narration of the most recent of such interventions is contained in the cipher story which has now been put in the public domain through The Intercept leaks.

At this critical juncture, we are confronted with a twin menace: a crumbling system and a mindset that sees nothing wrong in its conduct. Both are equally menacing in their impact. The principal challenge is to address this malaise in a manner that saves the state from incurring unbearable damage that may pull it down. This is no exaggeration. It is a reality which is stark, casting dark shadows spreading with time.

Then there are factors which are potentially blocking the initiation of a remedial process. The constitution on which the edifice of the state stands is rubbished, the courts have been rendered irrelevant as their injunctions are considered fit only for the bin, and the executive arm of the state has crumbled because of being infected with corruption and excessive manipulation. The entire system is being artificially moulded to serve preconceived interests and goals. Hardly any space is left for one to breathe freely. The environment is indescribably suffocating. But such are the times that are ripe for change.

The state should never be pitted against its people. Like a mother, it should care and guide them through the pitfalls of life. The fact that no genuine effort ever went into implementing the customary social contract, it may be time to redraft it with the people as the harbingers of their fate and the state as their facilitator.

At this moment, going forth may be replete with daunting challenges, but turning back is no longer an option. As the state lumbers on, people are seething in anger with their focus firmly on fomenting a change that would mean their deliverance from the shackles of slavery at the hands of the beneficiary elite who continue to manipulate a morbid system to their advantage. They firmly believe that they have lived their share of the dark night as they look to witness the morning rays rising in the east.

The writer is the information secretary of the PTI, and a

fellow at King’s College London. He tweets/posts @RaoofHasan