میں نہیں جانتا کہ قائدِ اعظم اور علامہ اقبال نے کبھی اس موضوع پر بات کی ہو گی یا نہیں۔ یا ان میں سے کسی نے اس حقیقت پر دانستہ غور بھی کیا ہو گا کہ ان کی فکری اٹھان میں ایک بنیادی تضاد تھا۔ شاید علامہ کو اس کا ادراک ہو اور وقت کی ضرورت کے پیشَ نظر انہوں نے دانستہ اس تضاد کو مصلحت جان کر قائد کو مسلمانانِ ہند کی قیادت کے لیئے آمادہ کیا ہو۔ مجھے یقین ہے کہ علامہ اقبال جانتے تھے کہ وہ انگریز کی انگریزیت کے ساتھ اپنے دیسی مزاج کی وجہ سے وہ مقابلہ نہ کر سکیں گے جو قائد کے مغربی ادراک کی مدد سے ممکن ہے، چنانچہ انہوں نے قائد کو ہماری قیادت کے لیے آمادہ کیا۔ بہر حال، عملی طور پر اقبال ابتدا ہی سے مغربی تہذیب سے ایک حد تک بیگانہ رہے اور قائد، اس کی اعلیٰ ترین اقدار کے امین اور ان کا عملی نمونہ بنے۔ تحریک ِ پاکستان کے دوران ان کے یہ انداز ہمارے لیے انتہائی سودمند تھے کیونکہ ایک کے عمل و فکر سے قوم اس تحریک سے منسلک رہی اور ہوتی چلی گئ، جبکہ دوسرے کی انگریز شناسی نے سامراج کے ہر حربے کا معقول توڑ نکالا۔ اقبال نے قوم کو قائد کے اخلاص کا اعتماد دیا اور قائد نے قوم کو اقبال کا خواب پورا کرنے کی راہ دکھائی۔
البتہ، قیامِ پاکستان کے بعد اس حقیقت کی وجہ سے ایک عجیب سی دوعملی نے جنم لیا جس کے نتیجے میں پاکستانی قوم اور اس کی قیادت میں رابطہ کا بڑا فقدان پیدا ہو گیا۔ وقت کے ساتھ اس کیفیت سے پیدا ہونے والے مسائل نے پاکستانی مزاج میں کئی ترامیم کر دیں۔ چنانچہ کئی معاملات میں عوام، منتظمین، سیاستدانوں، حکومت، ریاست اور معاشی طبقوں نے ایک دوسرے کو سمجھنے اور اتفاقِ رائے قائم کرنے میں مدد دی ہے۔ تاہم، ابھی بھی کئی معاملات میں قوم اور اس کی قیادت کو ہم آہنگ کرنے میں مسائل موجود ہیں۔ آج کا مضمون ان مسائل کی بنیادی وجہ کی نشاندہی کرنے کی ایک کوشش ہے۔
معلوم یہ ہوتا ہے کہ سیاسی اور انتظامی سطح پر ہماری قیادت قائد کے تصورات اور ان کے مغربی انداز کو نمونہ سمجھ کر اس کے مطابق، برطانیہ اور امریکہ کی تہذیب کے عکس میں دھلنے کی کوشش کرتی ہے جو نہ ہمارے عوام کے مزاج سے ہم آہنگ ہے نہ ہی انہیں اسے بلا ترمیم قبول کرنے پر آمادہ کیا جا سکتا ہے۔ اس کے برعکس عوام کی سطح پر ہم علامہ اقبال کے تصور پاکستان کو اپنے لیے نصبالعین بناتے ہیں۔ یہ ایک دلچسپ حقیقت ہے جسے سمجھنے اور ماننے میں مجھے پچاس ساٹھ سال لگ گئے۔ چنانچہ اب، میں آپ کے سامنے اس کا وہ حل پیش کرنا چاہتا ہوں جو ایک عمر کے مشاہدے اور پاکستان کے مختلف علاقوں کے لوگوں سے ملنے کے بعد اور اپنے اس خطہ کی تاریخ پر کئی سال کی تحقیق کی روشنی میں مجھے مناسب لگا ہے۔
آپ مانیں یا نہ مانیں پاکستانی عوام نے نئی ریاست کے قیام کے بعد جو رویئے اختیار کیے ہیں وہ بڑی حد تک اقبال کی مصوری کا خاکہ لے کر اس میں رنگ بھرنے کا عمل ہے۔ ظاہر ہے کہ اس بیان کی تشریح کے لیے مجھے خاصہ وقت چاہیے اور وضاحت میں کئی باتیں کرنے کی ضرورت ہے۔ اس لئے بہتر یہی ہے کہ میں اس کو کسی اور وقت کے لیے اٹھا لوں، البتہ قوم اور قیادت کے رابطوں کا بے ربط ہونا اس وقت کے بیان میں میرا مرکزی خیال ہے۔ یہاں اس کی وجوحات کی نشاندہی کی کوشش کی گئی ہے اور ان کیفیتوں کی نشاندہی کی گئی ہے جن میں عام پاکستانی ایک حد تک قومی مفاد کو نظر انداز کرنے پر مجبور ہے۔
پاکستانی سماج کے عنوان سے انگریزی اور اردو میں اب تک لکھے ہوے میرے مضمون اس یقین کا اظہار کرتے رہے ہیں کہ ہم لوگ، کئی ہزار سال کی تاریخ کے دوران، کبھی کسی رسمی ریاست کے ساتھ منسلک ہو کر، اور کبھی مختلف ریاستوں کا حصہ بن کر، دریائے سندھ اور اس کے آبی نظام کی وجہ سے ہمیشہ غیررسمی طور پر ہمآہنگ رہے ہیں۔ ان مضامین میں میں نے یہ موقف بھی اختیار کیا ہے کہ ہمارے بنیادی رشتے سماجی تو ہیں لیکن ہم میں سے ہر فرد بہ یک وقت کئی سماجوں کا فریق ہے اور اس وجہ سے اسے زندگی کے ہر مرحلہ پر انتخاب کرنا ہوتا ہے کہ اس معاملہ میں وہ کونسے سماجی رشتے کو اولیت دے گا۔ مزے کی بات یہ ہے کہ فرد اور معاشرہ دونوں اس اختیار کر جائز اور اس حق کو مسلم تسلیم کرتے ہیں۔ مزید یہ کہ ہر فرد بہ آسانی نہ صرف یہ فیصلہ موقع کی مناسبت سے موقع پر کر لیتا ہے، بلکہ اس کا فیصلہ عموماَ اس کے ماحول کو قبول ہوتا ہے۔
اس کے برعکس، جب کسی عام پاکستانی کو ریاست اور سیاست کے کسی ایسے پہلو سے واسطہ پڑتا ہے جس کی بنیاد جدید نظام کے تقاضوں میں ہو، تو اس کا عمل ضرور کسی قانونی اور اخلاقی شِقۤ کی خلاف ورزی کرتا ہے۔ یہاں سیاسی اور ریاستی زندگی میں ہونے والی ترامیم کا راج ہے اور اسی کیفیت کی وجہ سے پاکستانی ریاست آج تک مکمل طور پر فعال نہیں ہو سکی۔ عام فرد، اپنے عمل کے لیے ایسا طریقہ اختیار کرتا ہے جس میں ریاستی تقاضے کو پورا کرنے کے لیے وہ اپنے کسی سماجی رشتے کو استعمال کرے۔ دوسری طرف سرکاری اہلکار یا بہ خوشی اس متبادل طریقہ کو تسلیم کر لیتا ہے یا سرکاری حکم کی سختی سے پابندی کرتا ہے۔ دوسری صورت تب پیدا ہوتی ہے جب عام شہری کسی ایسے سماجی حوالے کو استعمال کرنے کی کوشش کرے جسے سرکاری اہلکار بے فکری سے نظرانداز کر سکتا ہے، یعنی اسے نظرانداز کرنے سے اس اہلکار کا کوئی نقصان نہ ہوتا ہو۔ لیکن جب خود کوئی سرکاری اہلکار کسی دوسرے دفتر میں کام کروانے جائے تو اس کے حالات بھی عام شہری کی طرح ہو جاتے ہیں۔ بلکہ اگر اس نے یا اس کے کسی ساتھی نے اس دفتر کے اہلکاروں کو کبھی خفا کیا ہو تو ان کے لیے مسائل بڑھ جاتے ہیں۔ ضرورت اس بات کی ہے کہ سرکار، یعنی انتظامیہ اور سیاستدان اس حقیقت کو سمجھیں
Some days ago, while we were all sitting at the dining table, one of us mentioned that after the earthquake in Turkey, their President made an appeal to Turkish people that they should bring all the foreign currency which they could spare for reconstruction purposes. It was said that before the banks opened, there were long lines of people who had come to deposit money for the state expenses on relief and rehabilitation. We were all very impressed and agreed that the Turks of Turkey were a great nation.
It also came up that the worthy but apparently not so wise Prime Minister of Pakistan had told the Turkish government that he could not help in the relief and rehabilitation process but would like to visit Turkey at a heavy cost in protocol. Another version states that the Turkish government itself had discouraged state visits and requested that even assistance should be managed by Turkish agencies. I DO NOT KNOW WHICH OF THESE IS CORRECT OR PART OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA MUTUAL RECRIMINATION IN PAKISTANI NATIONAL POLITICS TODAY. That we couldn’t help in financial terms is well known to the entire world because of the Pakistani USD reserves; but that we, as a nation, and some rich people and organizations in Pakistan couldn’t provide either material, physical or financial support is quite obviously absurd. It occurred to me, however, that even if our Prime Minister did not put his foot in his mouth this time, it is not impossible that a Pakistani statesman could take such an absurd stand even though states like Turkey have stood by us through thick and thin. Such absurd responses generally occur because on one level we respond to political issues on the basis of Eastern and Islamic cultural norms and at another level due to modern concepts of state. Whereas anomalies exist across the board they become idiocies in international affairs.
Regardless of the actual sequence of events in the case of the communication between Turkey and the Pakistani government at the time of the recent earthquake, the point of this essay is not to take the PM to task or to praise the Turks. The issue I am raising is “culture, society, politics, and leadership” in Pakistan and how a system which is dissonant and discordant with our national culture is responsible for follies of this kind which have been committed by Pakistani Governments in the past. This may or may not be the latest of a series of similar incidents which we may associate with virtually every Pakistani leadership. It has its origin in our colonial past, which unlike the Iranians and the Turks was a direct subservience and imposed foreign rule that has instilled a mentality contrary to our culture in the minds of our ruling classes.
Generally, wherever I have presented this point of view, I have met the response that but there are so many other nations and states today which have undergone a similar treatment, why are we so special. I have tried to answer this question by pointing out that at one level our experience is not unique, merely prominent; but at another level, there are some unique cultural features set Pakistan and Pakistani people apart. However I refrain from pursuing this debate here so as to remain focused. The focus of my essay is the Pakistani public person whom I brought into the discussion a little earlier and the urban Pakistani in particular. Even the rural Pakistani in the interface with state and society instead of community and family has to shift gear to suit a “modern” ethic; for the urban Pakistani, it is a virtually constant struggle.
I believe that the term “public person” as I have used it needs some elaboration. The smallest communal and social entity is the family; and within a family we lead a private life. In the modern west, for an average adult, even the family lies outside the “private self of the individual”; but this is not a valid assumption for the average Pakistani, whose private life is open to friends and extended family. Even though those of us who are “becoming modern” resist these practices, they often do not succeed in keeping people out of their “private lives”. Irrespective of personal and cultural limits, the work place, the market and places in which state laws operate are “public places” and people become “public persons” when operating there even if they remain quasi-private in their collective communal functions like weddings and funerals.
A Pakistani generally operates at the communal level form a cultural platform. Naturally, this includes a religious component; but quite unlike the “Protestant work ethic”, religious here does not mean an Islamic ethic alone. The “faith” of Pakistanis is conglomerated. It has some components from pre-Islamic religious and social practices [especially in our work ethic] in the region, even going back to Harappan times. I have tried to highlight features of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization and Gandhara Civilization in another blog. Most important of the pre-Muslim influences, however is the Buddhist world view and beliefs that have evolved over the millennia, coloured by many ethnic inputs; and this faith often subsumes religious sects.
When an individual is a part of a collective existence [the normal condition for most human beings today], some compromises have to be made between personal desire and the interests of the collective entity, be it a state or society. The nature and form of this conflict of interest are pinned, on one side, by culture and on the other by politics and administration which are also derived indirectly from culture via history. Now, if we were to take the components of such conflict in the Pakistani experience, we would find at the top, the administrative system and political culture of the “modern, liberal, democratic West” in its “post-modern” manifestation. This is the public side of the life of all Pakistani people when they step out of their communal construct; even when they merely reach out on a social level to another community. When the interaction involves, state, government or administration, the complexity increases.
The modern/post-modern value system is based on nationalism and materialism and embraces, physical wellbeing of the body, economic development and progress. It encourages increase in physical/material possessions, comforts, status and wealth. It focuses on the self of the individual as their primary concern, somehow embedded in the nation and national interest for the state. The individual, in pursuit of personal gain is expected to contribute to the collective national gain and thereby serve national interest. However, in times of crisis, say an economic slump, individuals are expected to sacrifice public good for self-interest. The state mechanism, administrative and legal procedure are systemically constructed to defend the state interest and society is culturally driven to protect itself from damage caused by individuals at such times.
In Pakistani culture, the state and society take third place, community and faith are an individual’s prime concerns. While theoretically the state is oriented towards modernity, government and political culture are sensitive to the ground reality because they can’t be functional without this empathy towards citizens. Thus, when government makes policies, some element of cultural and communal interest is kept in mind. Over the years, the quantum of empathy has increased in many areas. At the same time, years of ‘modern’ administration and governance have altered the form and nature of association within communities, it has also added many new links across communities to lay a fabric of urban and parochial society patterns.
The conflict of interest on the cultural/communal side may lead to two kinds of issues, one on the side of state and government, the other on the side of society and the newly emerging links and cross currents. Here, all parties resort to cultural traditions ranging from ancient to modern. Naturally consensus is slow to emerge and generally innocuous but the individual is always safe within some communal cultural shell. Communal constructs could be at risk but are often protected by the core cultural values of collective life.
The faith related conflict of interest which challenges the individual does not have an authority outside the spiritual high-ground voluntarily accepted by an individual in embracing a religion. A large portion of the manifestations of faith in Pakistan have common practices as mentioned above. Some derive from the religions other than Islam which are practiced in Pakistan and to which our minorities belong. This is also true of many of the values adopted by their communities. Spiritualism is a personal quest for salvation and a moral life, frequently based on humanity as defined by a cosmology, often through a Divine agency. For Islam, the community is Muslim but is divided as sects through historic experience. Nonetheless, the target is almost universally providing relief to humans and dutifulness to Allah. The core areas of sect and maslak, such as Deobandi/Berailvi, along with sub-articles of religious hierarchy are set in the voluntary acceptance of a leadership association which may be changed with impunity except for the apostate.
Whereas the conflict of interest with state and society, is a clear binary for the public life of a Pakistani, it is a circular condition in the case of a cultural, communal conflict of interest. With an at least three way fallout, the cultural conflicts of interest never leave the individual entirely vulnerable, as argued above. It is the community that has to reorient itself over time while its component individuals select options from some tradition in search of temporary relief. These in turn, by a kind ballot through public practice, yields a new genre of communal form to function better in the changing world.
Because a conflict of interest in matters of faith does not confront the actual force behind the faith but rather deals with an agency, voluntarily accepted by the individual, it must be resolved through dogma, belief and a cosmological construct. Here, we are always in an “otherworldly” condition and some kind of altruism must always be paramount. Individuals must choose which tenet of faith they are going to accept as primary or which arbiter of faith from among scholars of various sects/schools is to be accepted as final. In the case of the urban Pakistani this may potentially involve a change of sect or school but more often than not, the issue may be resolved by taking another scholar of the same sect/school as final authority.
In the interface with state and government, however, the Pakistani’s public life is either a challenge or an exploitation of power and privilege, depending on the position of the individual in a situation of conflict. Virtually all state procedures are in conflict with some aspect of cultural and faith related mores, values and norms of almost every community in Pakistan. Ironically, this extends to the bureaucracy, the military, and the politicians; all three cadres which theoretically have the power and duty to change procedures in the interest of national progress and state efficiency. However, because of the “modern system” of checks and balances embedded in the constitution, legislative functions, judicial procedures and political culture, they keep each other’s hands tied whenever any of them tries to exercise their ability and political will to force the issue. Consequently we always have an impasse, which is only partially resolved in each crisis.
In the public domain, there is always a locus of power which is obliged to guard public interest. In Pakistan this locus of power is vested in the community holding that power [bureaucratic arm or political entity]. As a member of the state or government machinery, administrator or manager, the person holding office exercises the power vested in him/her with the caveat that the various communal claims on the person have not [and cannot] be set aside in the exercise of power and office. Consequently, there is a tendency to use the power as a private person holding independent power instead of the proxy of state power. The claims of other colleagues may perhaps be admitted to a certain extent in other states as well but those of family, clan, friends or other social/communal contacts is considered unacceptable, at least in principle. In Pakistan, to the contrary, denying them is a social, communal, ethical and cultural solecism.
Whereas the functionary is in a position of power in his/her own domain, he/she is at par with a common citizen in another office unless he/she can offer a tradeoff, find a common friend or approach some higher authority to negate the potential disadvantage that has come about. Even the apparently un-empowered know of socio-political levers to counterbalance the scales in their favour as was beautifully illustrated in the case of a politician’s son who stabbed a girl on her wedding night in a beauty parlour some years ago. The incident and condition was excellently portrayed in a play entitled “Inkar”.
I have concluded from my observations that when individuals are confronted with a situation in the public domain in Pakistan, they begin a maneuvering process to gain a position of power in relation to the other protagonists instead of relying on a culturally alien rule of law. In doing so, they use all other equipment available to them before recourse of rule of law if nothing else works. The same person will complain of the absence of rule of law in Pakistan in case of failure in such an encounter but will ignore legal limits so long as he/she can succeed by relying on social and communal networks for manipulating decisions.
THIS MEANS THAT A PAKISTANI IS ALWAYS AN ALIEN IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN WHEN NOT IN POWER, AND ALMOST INVARIABLY OVERSTEPPING ENTITLEMENTS WHEN ACTING AS A GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONARY. This disorientation can extend itself to our foreign relations as well; and I believe that is what happened to our current Prime Minister in his beleaguered political condition within our present crisis of state.It is fascinating to see how swiftly and effortlessly people are able to shift from a “pro-law” to “ignore law” position in Pakistani public life. What is even more wonderful is that the more “empowered” a person is, the greater the facility of contradictory word and deed, at times virtually in the same breath. My friend Shahid Malik first brought this to my notice with respect to “Punjab police” but the malady is universal.
Unless the intellectual community of Pakistan can see this reality and advert to a solution which will cut across the vicious circle of the vested interests of the communities wielding power, we cannot hope to solve this problem. The Pakistani intellectual must first recognize this reality and find a way to align our cultural values and communal structures in such a way that it is possible to legislate in accordance with their needs. Only then will it be possible for the Civil Society to act as a national conscience which can hold the balance of adjudication as arbiter of social and political rights and wrongs to suit Pakistanis.