August 15, 2025
ISLAMABAD – The creation of Pakistan represents the first-ever realisation of Muslim nationalism achieving independent statehood anywhere, not just in South Asia.
AS Pakistan begins its 79th year of independence, it is evident that both torment and triumph in multiple manifestations have persisted throughout.
First, the torment. Embedded in genesis. Because with cheers for freedom came tears. In torrents. Rivers of blood, when about 800,000 humans crossed borders created overnight. Ten million persons migrated within months to seek refuge in severely strained infrastructure. A hugely botched, arbitrarily advanced transition arrogantly imposed by the departing British. Grossly disadvantaged areas that became Pakistani territory given only 10 weeks to become part of the new state.
Callous withholding by India of Pakistan’s pre-agreed share of the undivided region’s resources. Unrivalled crises in binding two halves of a population 1,000 miles distant from each other with a hostile neighbour in between. And two neighbours — India and Afghanistan — wishing us ill. Forced to attempt fair play for the people of Kashmir within weeks of August 14 when India and Mountbatten fabricated a fake accession. The far too early demise — only 13 months after its birth — of the giant who crafted the new nation-state. Just three years later, his valiant deputy also departed, through an assassin’s bullet.
Civil politicians and bureaucrats invited the armed forces to participate in political decision-making — PM Bogra’s disastrous error in 1954 appointing a serving army chief, General Ayub Khan, to become his own boss as defence minister. Incursion of the military into the political domain expanded in successive decades. Torment intensified up to the trauma of 1971, largely due to our own missteps, but also covertly promoted by India in East Pakistan.
The Hydra-headed monster
The attempted cure becoming worse than the malady brings to mind the multi-headed monster of Greek myth— the Lernaean Hydra that Hercules challenged. Each of the serpent’s nine heads would regenerate into even more heads whenever cut off.
In 2025, our own Pakistani version of the Hydra legend shows how trumpeted relief for workers and farmers actually spurs rocketing inequality. Disconnect is starkly evident when shares owned by a few thousand in the stock exchange reach spectacular heights of billions of rupees, just as mass poverty of millions rises to 44.7 per cent, or about 120 million people, almost half the total population.
Engineered elections
Engineered February 2024 elections deprived those securing the largest number of votes from office at the federal level and in the largest province — with KP a diversionary façade. The collusion between state institutions and political parties creating a crude new scenario enacted every day. Mass arrests, prolonged imprisonments, rejection of bail for the PTI leader, frenetically fast disqualifications even before legal appeals are completed, manipulated parliamentary proceedings in which lack of quorum occurs frequently — except when certain bills are adopted post-haste. The 26th Constitutional Amendment, rushed like an express train through both Houses, inflicted grievous havoc. Moreover, there has been a deliberately mixed approach to coercion of news media permitting some candour, preventing much else.
Small coteries, big effects
Persistence of savage practices against women and girl-children on the pretext of family honour are reported almost every day. Though the numerosity of such incidents in 250m is relatively low, the very fact of recurrence is appalling. Especially so in the very same country that, 37 years ago, produced the world’s first Muslim woman prime minister. Fortunately, no person convicted of blasphemy has ever been executed, thanks to superior judicial review. But dozens have been lynched by mobs. Many others suffer long jail terms pending review hearings. Small, vociferous coteries of extremists are permitted to intimidate lawyers, judges, citizens and to influence laws, policies and actions.
Criminalisation of society & state
Criminalisation of large segments of both society and the state proceeds apace. Officials appearing before a parliamentary committee recently investigating the sugar sector committed contempt of parliament by declining to reveal the names of sugar mills’ owners — far too many are in power. Transparency becomes foggier. The Benazir Income Support Programme was obliged in recent months to remind a provincial government that, in one department alone, reportedly hundreds of government employees were detected for making false claims for compensation — and received plentiful sums.
Painful perceptions
Perhaps the unkindest cut is a recent global index of passports’ ranking placing my favourite travel document among the three least-respected at overseas entry points. Governments make no long-term investment to correct the unjust negative global image. A second painful cut is for the state to be a perennial borrower, a perpetual seeker of aid and grants. Bloated bureaucracies, ravenous elites, and long-sterile state-owned enterprises suck billions from the public exchequer every year. Meanwhile, illegal transfer of big money to overseas caches carries on.
Though the PM belatedly presided over a meeting on imbalanced population growth, cross-sectoral, sustained, practically visible actions still remain inadequate to reduce the ominous 2.5pc annual growth rate. Instead of basic change in Balochistan and KP that would prevent poll rigging and end enforced disappearances, futile arrests of activists and the use of force instead of dialogue exacerbate alienation.
Over 23m children are already out-of-school — projected to grow to 40m in a few years. Grim prospects in a new era driven by artificial intelligence and radical change.
First-ever Muslim nation-state
Just as genesis was marked by torment, so too was triumph present with birth. The first element is a hard fact: the creation of Pakistan represents the first-ever realisation of Muslim nationalism achieving independent statehood anywhere, not just in South Asia. Everywhere else, Asia and Africa, when Muslim-majority communities secured independence from colonialism, formative factors were ethnic, or linguistic, or other affinities. The remarkable facet of Pakistan’s formation was the recognition that religion-based factors alone could also become the foundation for an entirely new nation-state.
That, while ethnic, linguistic, cultural factors are potent, by its own pristine self, Muslim nationalism is an inescapable reality. Muslims were not just a large religious minority alongside a large Hindu majority: Muslims constitute a nation, as enunciated by Iqbal, Rahmat Ali, and finally M.A. Jinnah, endorsed on a mass level through the Muslim League. Pre-1947 Muslim religious political parties, several of which strongly opposed the creation of Pakistan — till its actual creation — were all roundly rejected by the Muslim masses of South Asia who, while being motivated by their religious faith, were equally determined not to create a theocratic state but a moderate, balanced Muslim-majority state. Which is why in 11 general elections since 1970, religious parties never received a real majority vote.
Two-Nation reality alive & well
The separation of East Pakistan in 1971 was a rejection of the original state structure: undue influence of the western wing on the eastern wing. But it was not a rejection of Muslim nationalism. Indeed, the very opposite. Bangladesh 1971-72 and today in 2025 remains irrevocably committed to being a Bangladeshi Muslim-majority nation-state which, laudably, acknowledges the sanctity of other faiths but has no wish to merge with Indian West Bengal or India — where Muslims today, though themselves a nation comprising enormous diversity, are nevertheless willing to remain loyal citizens of India as a religious minority — now facing daily persecution by Hindutva.
Fusion of history with today
The second triumph is the fusion of bringing together ancient heritage with contemporary sensibility. The 8,000-year-old Mehrgarh site in Balochistan and the 5,000-year-old Indus Valley civilisation in KP, Sindh, Punjab, as also the influences of Greece, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Christianity, culminating in the advent of Islam 1,300 years ago — which brought the impact of Turkic, Persian, Central Asian and Arab characteristics: the new nation-state blends pioneering stages of humanity’s history with regional cultures, and with numerous successive centuries of advancement as well as regression, of unequalled egalitarianism and inherent, irrepressible preference for participatory and democratic practices, notwithstanding the feudalism, tribalism and despotism that have ruled these past decades.
Mohenjodaro provides a stellar instance of Pakistan’s unique proletarian heritage. Whereas other concurrent civilisations like the Egyptian and Mesopotamian, in which individual rulers deployed thousands to build giant statues and pyramids for self-glorification, there are virtually no signs yet in Harappa or Mohenjodaro of similar ruler-centric monumental obsessions. Instead, open architectural layouts without huge edifices signal that the way of life was notably equitable.
Renewal, rebuilding post-1971
The third triumph is the way, after 1971, the residual Pakistan renewed, rebuilt, reaffirmed itself from 1972 to 2025. Despite all the many setbacks and blunders of both civil and military leaders over the past five decades, innate resilience demonstrated so readily in the first two decades (1947-1965) helped sustain the country through many travails.
A fourth triumph came when the state was obliged to develop nuclear weapons in response to India’s ill-considered introduction of the menace into South Asia. Pakistan showed extraordinary technological capability, both in acquiring nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems — apart from little-publicised yet invaluable applications of nuclear power for peaceful, productive purposes.
Though their leadership’s appetite for political control distracts from fair appraisal, the rank and file of the armed forces embody features of a merit-based system, unflinching courage, selfless sacrifice of life and, in the war on terrorism and the May 2025 conflict with India, grit, phenomenal dexterity, and technical ability to make this a fifth triumph.
The people’s ingenuity & creativity
The people’s ingenuity with mastering technology and innovating new sources of income are apparent in differing fields. Be it a semi-literate motor mechanic who fixes a sophisticated but malfunctioning Mercedes-Benz or the myriad ways by which men and women, in cities or small towns do freelance work to make Pakistan’s gig economy (estimated at about $500m) one of the five largest in the world — basic ingenuity makes for a fine sixth triumph.
Aptly juxtaposed are the seventh and eighth shining seals: abundant talent in vocal and instrumental music, painting, traditional crafts, modern design, performing arts, poetry, literature, film-making. And a passion for bold adventure inspires women to climb the highest mountains of the world. Or in recent decades, produces world champions in the most challenging mental game of bridge, and the most strenuous sport of squash.
Generous, hospitable, friendly
The ninth triumph is almost as heart-warming as the tenth. Pakistan ranks 17th in 101 countries in “Giving” — generously, frequently sharing wealth with the poorest and those in most need. Even the poor give more frequently than the rich who, of course, give more. When cognisance is taken of the fulsome contribution of voluntary time, skills and money by thousands of citizens to public service institutions like hospitals, free food centres, orphanages, educational institutions, etc Pakistani philanthropy deserves a rank higher than no. 17. India makes it to only no. 26.
Pakistanis are possibly the friendliest, most hospitable people on earth. They open hearts and homes — even to strangers just met — to serve food and fraternity in unrivalled measure. Overseas visitors make special mention of this trait.
Pakistani women
The eleventh triumph is the dignity and beauty, devotion and love with which women in particular, be they in remote villages or in big cities, work to care for their families, combining household labour increasingly with jobs in fields, factories, offices, as nurses, petrol pump attendants, doctors, bankers, engineers, aeroplane pilots.
The identity of Pakistan
The World Happiness Index ranks Pakistanis happier than Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, and Indians. Most fittingly, over the previous 78 years there has evolved a distinct sense of Pakistaniat in which coexist multiple positive features as well as some negative traits: the crystallisation of an exclusive identity that never existed in history before 1947.
To amend the adage which states “Life begins at 40”: for Pakistan, the best is yet to come — because now, “Life begins at 80”. Coming soon.
The writer is an author, recipient of the Hilal-i-Imtiaz for literature, and a former senator and federal minister.