What is freedom, and what is Pakistan? The two questions are to be solved before talking about the freedom-context of Pakistan. Freedom doesn’t mean any lawlessness, principle-lessness, going off-track or unboundedness. In fact, freedom is a spirit to live while giving others the opportunity to live. The life is to be free of slavery and have limits which freedom has. Liverty doesn’t allow the devaluing of others’ liberties.
Pakistan, as all know, was created on 14 August 1947 in the name of Allah and Islam: Pakistan ka kya matlab— la ilaha illAllah. Pakistan is the first state created on the basis of religion in our present times. No doubt it is an exemplary creation, History has not been able to give such a dynamic example. (Israel, which is still not a state, was created in November 1948, after Pakistan.)
Today we have become a 77-year-old nation. It is a tragedy that inspite of gaining so much experience, our nearly eight decade’s past is not satisfactory., both on the aspects of modern developments and Islamic ideology. It is a deeply regrettable fact that as a nation we are not actually free in many areas, such as culture, religion, education, laws and the justice system, economics and society, in which we still depend on the West and Western systems, despite we, and our elders, raising slogans against the West and Western systems. It is also painful that our constitution, like those of the Subcontinent’s other Commonwealth countries, is not totally free from the influence of the British, whose laws made us as unfree as slaves.
In spite of all progress that has been made, we still could not become a nation enjoying the spirit of freedom. Neither democratic nor undemocratic administrations have not been able to change the destiny of the people of Pakistan. Besides other causes, one cause has been becoming habituated to failure. And then the policies of the West. If the West is not the worst for usd, is certainly not the best for us, in its policies and practices. We should take only good material and leave out the worst. We must avoid blind faith on the Western world. We should be good Muslims as well as good Easterners against the West and its worst. It isd necessary to habitual in the use of Eastern things of everyday use. Avoiding using imported things is a good step towards becoming an independent nation.
Freedom and independence, require from us the following:
- Avoid laziness and be active both individually and collectively
- Remove the lack of the power of decision
- Revoke lack of action time. It is a fact that in time=win time
- Be united and integrated
- Be honest and true
- Be loyal to Islam and Muslims
- Be loyal to nation and country
- Implement Islam in all aspects of life, death and society
- Do not make and shape Pakistan as a police state
- Avoid strictly to put Pakistan in the hands of feudal lords
We must avoid following the blind following of the West and un-Islamic ideas. We should remove all un-Islamic rules, laws, principles and practices. We should leave blind faith in Western and un-Islamic regulations and imitation.
Western democracy has totally failed. In fact, this is not true democracy. No political party is based on or running through democratic modes and means. The learned scholar of Islam as well as of the West, and the great poet of Urdu, Allama Iqbal, very correctly told us about Western democracy in the following couplet: ‘Jamhuriyat ik trzi-i-hukppmat hai kai jismain/Bandon kogina jata hai, tola nahin jata’. (Democracy is that system of government in which/Men are counted, not weighed.)
During the whole freedom struggle, the All-India National Congress, the largest and pioneering political party of the Subcontinent, did not raise or use any religious slogan, while the Muslim League did, and was founded on the basis of religion, and that was Islam. Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah said in a speech delivered on 13 vJanuary 1948 in Peshawar that the demand of Pakistan was not made just to get a country, but to get a laboratory, rather a laboratory to practise Islam.
Today we still feel ashamed that Pakistan could not be the laboratory of the practice of Islam. Our country’s socio-political and economic structure is not Islamic or democratic. It is a universal truth that without being a part or under a religion, Islam, politics is a terribly cruel system.
Pakistan cannot survive, even be safe, unless it practises and implements Islam. Our forefathers were told by the Quaid and by then Muslim League that only Islamic laws would be implemented in Pakistan, but that promise is still waiting to be fulfilled. We are duly ashamed at the failure to fulfill.
If we want to survive, we should abandon inhuman and Un=Islamic set-ups forever, and that too as early as possible. If we are to fill the pot with pure water, first we must empty the pot and throw away its dirty water, and then clean the pot. After that, the pot could be filled with pure water.
We must avoid following the blind following of the West and un-Islamic ideas. We should remove all un-Islamic rules, laws, principles and practices. We should leave blind faith in Western and un-Islamic regulations and imitation.
