A gap between any two consecutive generations is a reality the world has always recognised but the gap that separated my generation from the preceding one was unusually large. Those belonging to my father’s generation had spent a better part of their lives in a colony of the British crown; my generation -- in the 16-18 age bracket in 1947 -- came of age in an independent state. Truly a great leap. But independence, whatever its substance, did not affect the people’s day-to-day life as much as the events surrounding the end of the Raj did.

Partition caused a great upheaval. The communal riots, particularly in Punjab, left deep scars on the minds and hearts of hundreds of thousand of people, especially the young ones. But the loss of dear ones and dislocation from ancestral homes was forgotten before long in the struggle to build lives anew.

The millions of refugees who crossed over into Pakistan made a strong impact on life in the host society. While the agriculturalists among the refugees drifted towards areas where evacuees’ lands were available, the migrants from urban/semi-urban settlements chose to find shelter and work in main cities. In Punjab, not only Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, and Multan attracted a large number of settlers, mandi towns, like Okara, Vehari, Burewala, Khanewal, etc, too absorbed a large number of refugees.

Similar trends were visible in Sindh where Karachi, Hyderabad, and Sukkur soon became refugee-dominated cities. The cultural patterns these urban centres had evolved over centuries broke down under the pressure of semi-urban culture of the refugees from small towns and villages. The new generation had to find its way through a culture that was in a state of flux.

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The first result of the encounter between the refugees and the local populations was a clash between languages and cultures. While the Punjabi-speaking refugees had little language problem in the rural areas, though they took time to adjust themselves to the ways of the Lahori elite that preferred conversing in Urdu, the Urdu-speaking refugees caused considerable annoyance to the host populations by their love of chatter and airs of cultural superiority. The differences between the older generation and the upcoming one took shape in this clash.

The older generation stuck to its linguistic and cultural pride and for a time persevered in its sartorial preferences. Except for Karachi, the new generation found ways to converse with its age-group in a mixture of Punjabi-Urdu, replaced the pyjama with shalwar, and had no problem with the culture in the making.

The older generation had forgotten the tribulations of the depression years -- when jobs were scarce and wages low and farmers could not pay land revenue -- as the war had heavily reduced unemployment, and pushed up wages and farmers’ earnings. The 1940s had been a time of political ferment. These people had doubts about the survival of the new state that did not have the backing of the British Empire and could not produce the sewing needle even.

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But for this generation, Pakistan was a land of great promise. Government jobs were easily available, those in service received quick promotions; shopkeepers got better shops than they had left in India and for the enterprising locals as well as refugees evacuee property offered opportunities they had never dreamt of.

The new generation, too, found Pakistan a land of opportunities -- but they had to work for them. They rushed to fill the seats vacated in educational institutions by the non-Muslims’ departure for India. Muslim share of jobs in government offices also soared. The younger generation’s faith in the new state exceeded the older generation’s loyalty to it.

In Lahore, for instance, the younger people responded enthusiastically to the call to dig a canal when India began interfering with the flow of water in the Ravi. A large number of young men and boys joined training as civil defence volunteers. These was a great rush at right colleges where young people studied for degrees in Urdu, Persian and Arabic languages on their way to becoming graduates after passing a test in English.

In no time the public education system became inadequate to deal with the rush of young seekers of knowledge, boys outnumbering girls by a wide margin, and many young men opened private education centres. A very large number of young persons joined government offices or did odd jobs while they increased their educational qualifications. The daily grind was hard and back-breaking but there was laughter in the air and there was hope.

The generation gap was quite noticeable in the two generations’ attitude toward job preferences. The older generation had complete trust in state employment. The state had been the largest employer since long and in certain areas -- railways, ports, etc, -- the only employer. Therefore, the older generation preferred state employment -- it promised pension and stability -- to private service. The new generation began to look beyond the state umbrella and helped the private sector, especially new factories, to meet their demand for human resources.

One significant aspect of the youth’s attitude towards career-building was the desire to join the armed forces. The rural hold over jobs in these services, especially the army, had been broken during the war (1939-1945) when a large number of educated men from urban centres secured commission in the Indian army. The trend picked up after independence when the desire to defend the new state became an additional motivation for the urban youth and they were soon ready to change the military officer corps’ attitude towards the state; especially its politics.

Within four years of independence the people began experiencing a mini revolution in politics -- the introduction of adult franchise for women as well as men. The new generation had practically no role in the elections that were held in the Western wing in 1951. But it did play a significant part in bringing the old order down in the East Bengal election of 1954. At the national level, the new generation had to wait till 1970 to make political decisions.

The old generation people in the Western Wing of Pakistan had little in common with their counterparts in East Bengal and they made the capital mistake of increasing their differences, instead of building on the few points of agreement they had. Worse, the gap between the new generations of the two wings was even wider -- as they had no experience of working together that the older generation had had to some extent. That perhaps became the biggest single factor that led to the state’s disintegration only 24 years after its birth.

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Throughout the first decade of independence the older generation was largely concerned with making life for itself more comfortable within the colonial socio-political construct while the younger generation was full of hope and quite open to the winds of change blowing across the globe. The proof of this was the decline of political parties and the rise of student bodies and trade unions. Both were destroyed by the military rulers in 1958. Hope was replaced with despondency and the promise the new generation offered was sniffed.