ON August 14 2023 the nation celebrated76 years of independence with joy, glee and fanfare across the length and breadth of the country. This year’s celebration was also a celebration of the change of Govt. and the hope of fresh general elections in the country. Do we really have something to celebrate? The country has faced many trials and tribulations during the last 76 years. We have lost half the country in 1971 and faced the humiliation of surrender in East Pakistan. Pakistan has lived under dictatorships for over 35 years and the very existence of the nation has repeatedly been under threat. All the previous threats and dangers to the country have been mostly self-created. The totally unwanted Operation Gibraltar, Operation Grand slam and the war of 1965 was a tactical mistake, a strategic blunder and a political disaster and all this was our own doing. The tragic happenings in the Eastern wing and the crackdown on the Bengalis in the form of a military operation called Operation Searchlight was the last nail in the coffin of a united Pakistan and this tragic incident was also the doing of the powers that be. The Kargill adventure was a replay of operation Gibraltar and again this was the brainchild of a small clique of generals who could not see beyond the tip of their noses. The death of General Zia brought in the age of democracy and we witnessed the game of political musical chairs with Nawaz Sharif and Benazir coming into power repeatedly but never completing their tenure. Ironically no elected Prime Minister has ever completed his tenure and perhaps Raja Pervez Musharraf is the only Prime Minister who has not been behind bars. The first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated in 1951 while Z.A. Bhutto met his end by the process of a judicial murder and another Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was also assassinated in Rawalpindi.The much trumpeted choice of the military establishment Imran Khan met an inglorious end when the establishment ended their support to his hybrid regime. Today the country’s economy leaves a lot to be desired and the common man is groaning under the weight of rising prices, unemployment and a bleak future.
The nation has every right to celebrate Independence Day but certain bitter realities should also be remembered. The national economy is totally dependent on foreign loans and at the mercy of international finance agencies such as the IMF and the WorldBank. We are stiing on a population bomb consisting of over 240 million people and increasing at a staggering rate of 2.55 percent per year, we are placed at 99th out of 220 countries on the 2022 Global Hunger Index. We have about 22.8 million children out of school between the age of 5-16 according to UNICEF and we are among the top ten countries most vulnerable to climate change. Our ranking is 140th out of 180 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index; 150th out of 180 on the World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF); 129th out of 140 in the Rule of Law index; and 145th out of 146 countries on the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Index.
The Pakistani Passport is placed at the very bottom of the list of 204 countries above Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan only. The youth of the country does not complain or protest they just hope for divine help and pray for their work visas to some western country so that they can set sail for greener pastures. We can only take pride in having one of the most beautiful capitals in the world and or according to the Govt. Minister 6 trillion dollars of mineral wealth waiting to be discovered and that is supposed to be more than the total worth of three Tech Giants that is Google, Amazon and Apple. We can celebrate the fact that we are better off than North Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq and we can take pride in the Joint Services parade on Pakistan day and proudly proclaim our membership of the nuclear club because we are now in possession of the deadly weapon of mass destruction called the atomic bomb.
The new caretaker Govt. and the future elected Govt. can only celebrate if they have the courage and determination to show its commitment to Pakistan by extensive reforms and clamping down on corruption and wastage of financial resources. The biggest chunk of national resources goes for Defense and nobody can dare to cut the defense budget but we are at a stage where we have no options but to bite the bullet and do the needful in order to avoid economic collapse. Public sector companies like the PIA, Railways and some power sector entities are the white elephants posing a serious risk to our future stability. TheKakar government faces one of the toughest challenges encountered by any chief executive in Pakistan’s history.Tackling the multiple economic woes is by far the most formidable obstacle in the country’s history. In brief, the many economic pitfalls are broadly two-tiered – raising far more revenue than what the state presently collects while reducing Pakistan’s gap on its external front to make foreign debt payments more manageable.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
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