Pakistan: withering or blooming?

Pakistan turned 77 just last week. The moment was celebrated by some with the usual patriotic songs from time past. Others were more cautious and muted in their tones as they saw mounting challenges and less to celebrate.

Yet another class was in their own words reflective and sober, but many would say they were sad and almost repentant for the creation of the country and perhaps nostalgic for colonial times.

These three classes of Pakistanis in many ways reflect the current social cleavages in Pakistan that play out in all streams of life including politics. All three groups are equally Pakistani and have a right to not only hold their views but to express them too. However, as a social analysis, it is worthwhile to understand the merits and demerits of their respective position and more importantly what these positions mean for a collective Pakistan.

I believe the questions reflect a coming of age of the idea of Pakistan. For decades after 1947, the idea of Pakistan was emerging and evolving into a reality. There was a blueprint in the mind of the few but no practical execution. The state was being formed, and the political bargain between various ethnic, social, political and religious groups was being shaped and reshaped through both coercive and discursive measures. The shock of 1971 eventually culminated in the first constitution that was popularly believed to be a guiding document. Post the 1973 constitution, for decades society and politics was in constant flux and in many ways what was in the writing of the constitution was becoming a norm among not just the political players but also the citizens.

The post-Musharraf era, starting in 2008 in many ways through movements like the Lawyers’ Movement; the post-2013 election popular dharnas; the 2018 election; and then the no-confidence move; and eventually the 2024 elections all reflect the idea of not just reaching maturity but also in many ways the quick beginning of disenchantment as well. For the past many decades, the state and the elite narrative of why Pakistan was formed, the role of Islam in politics, the role of the military and Pakistan’s identity as being anti-India and pro-Muslim world are now being challenged.

During the maturing period of the idea of Pakistan, much was achieved. Pakistan became truly one: the ethnic divides of the earlier years which culminated in various ethno-national violence – for example, the Mohajir nationalists – ended up in national identities. Karachi for example after decades of choosing to vote for an ethno-national party, voted consistently in 2013, 2018 and 2024 for a national party rather than an ethnic party.

The Pashtun nationalism of the 1950s, continuing into the 1970s, transformed such that the Pashtuns are now the greatest advocates and beneficiaries of a united Pakistan that allows the mobility of people from Khyber to Karachi. The collapse of the ANP and the lacklustre electoral appeal of the PTM is symptomatic of Pashtun nationalism losing its sting and the Pakistani identity being triumphant. It is the same story with other planks of the Great Pakistani narrative.

Over the past decades, as the Partition generation dies, Pakistan’s identity in opposition to India is also losing steam. In many Gallup polls in past decades, there is a greater desire for peace with India especially in terms of trade, a significant cozying up to the idea that Kashmir may never join Pakistan, and also a hard-earned reality check that the comparison between India and Pakistan is no longer viable and therefore it’s a lost battle to compete with India (the rise of Bangladesh as an economic hub in the past decade further bolstered this realization).

Another plank of Pakistani identity was Islam and its link with the state. Central to these was the idea of jihad. Pakistan was imagined and dreamed of as a fortress for the Muslim Ummah. Though the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 was a blow to this idea, the Afghan Jihad kept the idea flourishing and gave many a reason to be proud of Pakistan leading the great jihad of the Muslim world. The rise of the Gulf countries, the oil money and the prominence of the Saudi identity as the leaders of the Muslim world in the 1980s and 1990s led to the decline of Pakistan as a leader of the Muslim world.

Pakistan was stagnant, but other Muslim countries were thriving – and that led to a feeling of mass decline in our international stature. The final blow to Pakistan mixing politics and religion for the betterment of society came in the wake of 9/11 through the ‘war on terror’. Pakistan first abandoned the Taliban project and then went against its own proxies. For decades, we had raised a generation of not just madrassah men on the idea of jihad but inculcated it in schools and universities as well.

During the ‘war on terror’, we destroyed this identity piece by piece. By the end of the war, through shocking events like the APS attack where children were massacred, citizens had clearly had enough of the cocktail of religion combined with the state.

In other words, as we stand in 2024, there is a widespread crack in the Pakistani narrative. Why was Pakistan created, what role do we have in the international arena, what unites us together and where are we to go forward from here? These are some of the questions that are now being asked not just in elite circles but openly debated in bazaars and on social media platforms.

I believe that all of this is a positive reflection of Pakistani society and the blooming of the idea of Pakistan. In many ways, the widespread development that created 10 million undergraduates, put nearly all children in school, reduced the poverty rate to half, gave cheap internet, and placed no limitation on the mobility of people not just within Pakistan but across the world to greener pastures has enabled Pakistanis to have the leisure to be political and to ask for their rights and also question the narratives that have been taught to them.

In many ways, I argue that Pakistan’s current turmoil emerges from our success and not from our failure. Our success in becoming one nation, in overcoming ethnic conflicts, our maturing of democratic aspiration among the youth which came at the back of significantly improved educational outcomes, as well as a society that has become independent of the state due to the privatization of not just telecom or education but also of security. This independence from the state allows citizens to question and block the state in ways one could not expect in the past.

The question, however, is what we do with this relative prosperity. In the 1960s, Samuel Huntington argued that the developing world has an underdeveloped state and an overdeveloped society and that is the source of conflict. His prescription was military rule so that the state could control these voices that asked for more share in the political and economic pie.

Pakistan stands at that same juncture now. I argue that military rule is a tried and failed method, and we need to be more creative in finding a solution to this crisis. A creative solution will not come unless we identify that our predicament comes not from our failure but from our success. The misdiagnosis of our current quandary will only aggravate the situation as we try to address the fire with more fuel.

Society's true strength is to be able to find solutions in tough times. Will we prove to be a strong society? I have all the reasons to believe we will rise to the occasion. As we begin the concerted and right-hearted debate about the way forward, a local government that is empowered, effective and a tax centre as well as tax spender and the idea of a limited federal government would be my starting point.

The writer is executive director of Gallup Pakistan and holds a Masters degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.