No. 1 enemy of the people of Pakistan

پاکستن کے سیاست دانوں نے، خواہ وہ جمہوریت کا لبادہ اوڑھے ہوئے ہیں یا مذہب کا، قریباً ستر برس سے یہاں کے شہریوں کو ٹرک کی بتی کے پیچھے لگایا ہوا ہے۔

This Urdu saying means: Paki politicians, whether they are clad in the garb of Democracy or Religion, have got the citizens running after the back-lights of a Truck! In other words, the citizens of Pakistan have been made to run after a mirage so that they are never going to reach any destination.

Recently, there was a book-launching in Lahore. The book’s title is: NauAbaadiyati Taaleemi Dhaancahy Ka Tasalsul (The Continuation of Neo-Colonial Educational Structure) and it’s written by a Marxist. All the talk there focused on castigating the British for their doing everything in their own interest. Two or three sane voices, speaking common-sense, tried to make other commentators realize not all that is bad had been done by the British; we did a lot of bad things ourselves.

It’s simple arithmetic: the Indian Sub-Continent was taken over by the British Crown after the revolt of 1857; they left us with two states of India and Pakistan to be shaped by our own genius in 1947. That makes about 90 years. Last August, Pakistan attained the age of 67 years. So what did we achieve in quite more than half a century needs to be compared what the British achieved for us in less than a century! But we are still obsessed with our own pseudo-identity, sort of puritan spirit, which we believe and claim the British distorted and admixed; otherwise, probably we were the Shining Star of the World!

In effect, most of the Far Left in Pakistan is still beating the Anti-British drum. They have other Drums too to beat. They are Anti-America; Anti-Imperialism; Anti-West; Anti-Globalization; Anti-Trans-National-Corporations; Anti-Multi-National-Corporations; Anti-Corporatism; Anti-WTO; Anti-WB; Anti-IMF; Anti-ADB; so on. That’s the international side of their ideology and politics. They have certain local indigenous enemies also. Thus, at home, they are: Anti-Feudalism; Anti-Capitalism; Anti-Big-Business; Anti-Bourgeoisie, i.e. Anti-Ultra-Rich; and in a Marxian sense, they are Anti-State also, i.e. they want to make the state wither away by annihilating the classes which is in their view an instrument of exploitation of the poor at the hands of capitalists; so on.

Presently, there are a good many number of Leftist, Marxist, Socialist groups working in Pakistan. In 2012, three parties, Workers Party Pakistan, Labor Party Pakistan, and Awami Party Pakistan, merged to form a ‘united party of the Left’: it’s Awami Workers Party. That above-mentioned list is as true for this Party as it is for almost all the other Leftist groups.

As far as the Far Right is concerned, its enemies are no different from those of the Far Left. To this day, most of the Rightist parties and groups denounce the British for their disservice to the Muslims of the Sub-Continent, especially Lord Macaulay for “modernizing” the Muslim education. For the Rightists, there is another eternal enemy, the West. The USA fulfills all the criteria to act as a perfect enemy, so it is. In its Imperialistic role, it becomes more of a complex enemy, which dictates everything which happens in Pakistan; it makes use of UN, The World Bank, ADB, IMF, etc, to the extent of fixing prices of commodities and various utilities in Pakistan. One thing that distinguishes the Far Right from the Far Left is the way they present these enemies of the people of Pakistan: the Right dubs them as the enemy of Pakistan and Islam; whereas the Left hates them as the enemy of the poor!

The mainstream political parties in Pakistan differentiated as falling on the Right or Left have got the same list of enemies; though they make use of it mostly only when needed, or when they are in the opposition. For instance, PPP-P is understood to be a party on the Left; PML-N on the Right; both are open to opt for such uses. More often, they make use of these enemies in a circumlocutory way: they promise to break the Begging Bowl!

Never ever anyone questioned this wisdom of the Right and the Left which declares the West, Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism, Europe, America, and Imperialism on the one hand, and Feudalism and Capitalism on the other as the enemy of the people. Either they mislead the people deliberately; Or they do not know the Pakistani social and economic reality! In the second case, they or their thinking is totally Ashraafist. Whoever lives through the social and economic reality of Pakistan cannot help realizing that the number one enemy of the people of Pakistan is the State of Pakistan!

Mainly it is on two counts that the state proves to be an enemy: First, it completely neglects its foremost function of ensuring protection of life and property to each and every citizen. Contrary to that, it lets various groups form and flourish and dictate the citizens what to believe and how to live and then kill them if they don’t do their bidding. The state doesn’t protect and does not provide justice requires no proof; it’s in the air. That means the state completely breached the trust of the people they put in it; rather it turned criminal.

Second, the state misuses the money taken from the citizens as taxes. Not only does it allow other groups extort from the citizens, the state itself robs the citizens also on this or that pretext. As far as electricity, gas and petroleum products’ supply is concerned, it is exacting billions of rupees from the citizens’ pockets. Add to it, the corruption-money in trillions of rupees. It’s the state’s machinery that sucks citizens’ blood in this or that government department regardless of its nature, whether it is a service or a collector. The writer has demonstrated in his Pakistan Mein Riyasati Ashraify Ka Urooj how Riyasati Ashrafiya has captured both the state and the market and lives off the resources that the state accrues. In a nutshell, it’s the state which exploits the citizens it is supposed to serve; not the feudals and capitalists, who can never in case the state decides so! That makes the state of Pakistan a Robber-Criminal state!

Note: This article was completed on January 17, 2015.