Cynicism and the political evolution of Pakistan

Click to read the 1st and 2nd part of this essay.

The dis­cus­sion of the polit­i­cal cyn­i­cism here focus­es only on the sec­tions of soci­ety which exer­cise influ­ence on the for­ma­tion of pub­lic opin­ion. These sec­tions may be con­sid­ered as the main­stay of polit­i­cal cyn­i­cism in Pak­istan. As far as the gen­er­al cit­i­zen­ry is con­cerned, the myth of its polit­i­cal apa­thy evap­o­rates with every gen­er­al elec­tion held in the coun­try. One may object: the turnout in the elec­tions is too small to break this myth. How­ev­er, the sta­tis­tics belie it: the turnout in 2008 stood at 44 % and in 2013, 55 %. In the world’s largest democ­ra­cy, India, it was 64 %.

The main­stay of polit­i­cal cyn­i­cism in Pak­istan com­pris­es aca­d­e­mics, intel­li­gentsia, jour­nal­ists, TV chan­nels talk show hosts (as well as announc­ers!), Urdu/English news­pa­per colum­nists and op-ed con­trib­u­tors, and authors of books on var­i­ous sub­jects but with a polit­i­cal tilt, which include his­to­ry, Mus­lims his­to­ry, mem­oirs, nov­els, etc.
As for the aca­d­e­mics, both pub­lic and pri­vate, they may be termed as unique crea­tures. Except some of them who have some­how found a place most­ly in print media and so they need to take a posi­tion, the large major­i­ty of them thinks it’s not for them to think and write about the gov­ern­ment and the state, i.e. pol­i­tics, and they are there to teach and earn their liv­ing. Their only mantra is: “Pol­i­tics is not our cup of tea; and think­ing and writ­ing about the gov­ern­ment and the state touch­es the bound­aries of the polit­i­cal.” One more thing: a size­able sec­tion of them is now busy in doing research which pays. That’s how they judge the qual­i­ty of their research.

In case, the free­lance thinkers and writ­ers, who are not attached with enti­ties which some­how inter­fere with their think­ing and writ­ing, are includ­ed in the larg­er group of intel­li­gentsia in addi­tion to jour­nal­ists, TV chan­nels talk show hosts, Urdu/English news­pa­per colum­nists and op-ed con­trib­u­tors, that will allow for anoth­er group of thinkers and writ­ers to exist with­in this fold as intel­lec­tu­als who whether they think or not but do write for their polit­i­cal mas­ters or par­ties. This lat­er group con­sists of writ­ers who have open polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions; their writ­ings para­phrase the pol­i­cy of their par­ties and lead­ers. Since polit­i­cal par­ties are very much direct­ed in their aims and pol­i­tics and in no way can be diag­nosed with any type of cyn­i­cism, the views of these writ­ers do not form part of the con­text which the present analy­sis is set in. A big­ger chunk of the Pak­istani intel­li­gentsia thinks and writes in reli­gious terms and since most of them think and write out of sheer sanc­ti­ty of their belief, this analy­sis which aims at list­ing inde­pen­dent opin­ions does exclude them.

After iden­ti­fy­ing the sources from where the views and argu­ments based on polit­i­cal cyn­i­cism gen­er­ate, it’s time to exam­ine them. For want of space, only two will be dis­cussed here. First, most of the thinkers and writ­ers hold that for Pak­istan there is no way out of its cri­sis, and it’s because of the defects which it is afflict­ed from its very birth. A child with birth defects! That amounts to say­ing that Pak­istan is inher­ent­ly unvi­able. The argu­ments put for­ward by them are quite con­vinc­ing. They say: Because it is inher­ent­ly unvi­able, it is unsta­ble from the day one. The his­to­ry of 67 years attests to that. It’s no place to go into the details of the defects which make Pak­istan unvi­able. Nor is it of any use to sort out those who cher­ish such views and why. What is of val­ue and needs to be refut­ed is their argu­ment!

What is a viable coun­try, they must be puz­zled with this ques­tion. Whether USA was viable; whether Rwan­da, North and South Sudan are viable! Actu­al­ly this tribe of polit­i­cal cyn­ics is involved in end­less debates on what is it that makes a nation, and what role reli­gion and lan­guage play in mak­ing a peo­ple a nation, and how to dis­tin­guish nation from nation­al­i­ty. To them, peo­ple, nations, coun­tries are like aca­d­e­m­ic enti­ties or intel­lec­tu­al cat­e­gories the cri­te­ria of the def­i­n­i­tion of which they must ful­fill. How­ev­er, in con­trast, it may be assert­ed that com­mu­ni­ties, peo­ple, nations, coun­tries, whichev­er form they get togeth­er and appear in, are enti­ties of liv­ing indi­vid­u­als. Like­wise, for any good or bad rea­son, or in this or that type of cir­cum­stances, they may come to bond them­selves in the form of a new peo­ple, nation, or coun­try.

So even after 67 years, columns, arti­cles and books ques­tion­ing the ratio­nale of Pakistan’s com­ing into being still find place on the paper, air and web­sites. It is this cyn­i­cism which is intel­lec­tu­al­ly hold­ing Pak­istan back from mov­ing ahead and evolv­ing polit­i­cal­ly. The fact is that coun­tries may break and give birth to new coun­tries, as Pak­istan gave birth to a Bangladesh and a Pak­istan.

The sec­ond tribe of polit­i­cal cyn­ics has a good philo­soph­i­cal argu­ment on their table to offer. It is the The­o­ry of Less­er Evil. Like the per­fect cyn­ics, they believe that noth­ing exists but the evil. In clear terms, that means every polit­i­cal par­ty or what­ev­er takes place in the polit­i­cal realm of Pak­istan is evil. The most pop­u­lar form this The­o­ry acquires is dur­ing the elec­tions days, when this view is wide­spread: Out of all the evil par­ties, let’s choose the less­er evil! That’s so much char­ac­ter­is­tic of the polit­i­cal cyn­ics that one may use it as a yard­stick for their who’s who. Also that view gives rise to all the rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies who aim at build­ing the Pak­istani soci­ety from scratch.

Not only the­o­ret­i­cal­ly, but prac­ti­cal­ly also, it’s not pos­si­ble that in a sit­u­a­tion all the things are evil. Imag­ine a sit­u­a­tion where noth­ing pre­vails except evil, even there some­thing evil may cause some­thing good to hap­pen. For this focus needs to be shift­ed on small­er and effec­tive things. Rev­o­lu­tion­ary total view may not work in this con­text. In every sit­u­a­tion such good things exist to be real­ized by those who may have a vision to grasp them. But the Pak­istani intel­li­gentsia does not want to wake up from its cyn­i­cal slum­ber and remains broiled in its futile debates. That has retard­ed the intel­lec­tu­al evo­lu­tion as well as polit­i­cal evo­lu­tion of Pak­istan. (To be con­clud­ed)