Why is Pakistan generally so unhappy, and, therefore, always on edge? Why is socio-economic and politico-religious strife eating away at the daily lives of its 200 million people?

Pakistan is a multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-linguist, multi-cultural, multi-faith and multi-sectarian state. Without a political vision that acknowledges this broad-based pluralism unpinned by an effective and efficient governance framework that accommodates their competing interests, socio-political tensions will always fester.

Without acknowledging and underwriting, through constitutional guarantees, unqualified equal rights for everyone, tolerance becomes the first casualty in a polity. And in Pakistan’s case it has.

Without creating adequate and appropriate basic political frameworks, legal instruments and governance processes to implement unequal fundamental rights, this has resulted in disparities that have become institutionalised and have harvested a critical mass of discontent that has all but paralysed statecraft. A vicious circle has been engendered that has committed the state into a state of unceasing firefighting of symptoms, instead of addressing causes. This has bred intolerance.

Instead of diversity investing into the Pakistani spirit a sense of innovation, strength and reward, failure to embrace pluralisms as the bedrock of unity -- instead of imagined differences -- has prompted a dilution of the average citizen’s stake in the state, bred socio-economic disparities and birthed crippling development deficits that are tearing the country apart.

Rights are being trampled, everyone is fighting everyone else and the citizens and whole communities are finding the state unresponsive or incapacitated in protecting their interests. Punjab and its political, military, and bureaucratic establishments are seen by the other provinces as usurpers of their rights through sheer size and numbers and a sense of greedy self-entitlement that fans intolerance for equal rights for others.

Then there are territories where equal rights are not allowed by law and constitution. Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Provincially Administered Tribal Areas, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir. And the rest of Pakistan. One country five systems -- a sure recipe for trampling of each other’s rights. Of legalising some rights as being more equal for some than others.

Pakistan’s constitution institutionalises discrimination among citizens based on their faith. Non-Muslims are not equal to Muslims. The former cannot aspire to the highest offices of the country like the presidency or the prime ministership. You cannot get a passport without abusing, in writing the leaders of Ahmedis already ostracised by the state. Marriages of Hindus and Sikhs cannot be registered. Radio stations in Jacobabad cannot play bhajans and religious hymns despite the fact that the local majority is Hindu. The Pakistani state not only has a religion, it has undeclared adopted a sect within Islam as well. Shias are kosher targets and their killings are seen as ‘ordinary’ murders.

Freedom of expression under Article 19? You can criticise all religions except Islam. Criticism of political parties and people’s representatives are kosher but criticism of the armed forces is criminalised. Media groups have been charged, convicted, and fined for it. When the state doesn’t intercede on behalf of an aggrieved citizen, exploitation and violence -- be it political, economic, social, religious, cultural, ethnic, linguist or geographic -- replace justice and tolerance.

When the state constitutionalises discrimination, then vested interests acquire legal power to exercise that discrimination and the state can’t take action against it because it is the author of this resultant intolerance.

Preventing people and communities from acting out their pluralisms institutionalises intolerance. It negates the very pluralisms whose acknowledgement guarantees tolerance. The state either agrees every citizen and all their attendant pluralisms are equal or there’s no future.