Is Pakistan learning from resilience?

Commemorations surrounding the annual Pakistan Resolution Day on March 23 presented a powerful reminder of the resilience of the south Asian country as it has gone through more than its share of adversities.

On display in Islamabad, at a richly presented parade, were a host of home-made weapon systems that came about as a consequence of being sanctioned from importing the same technologies. The JF-17 fighter planes jointly made by Pakistan and China evolved in the 1990s, after the United States slapped sanctions on Pakistan to curb the country’s nuclear programme.

In spite of those restrictions, Pakistan successfully became a nuclear power in 1998. Similarly on display were a range of missile systems, tanks and arms of various sizes that were denied to Pakistan.

And last but not the least were the indigenously produced drones that were manufactured after the US denied to sell them in spite of having a close strategic partnership during the war against terror. Though successful manufacturing of war machines on their own may not necessarily symbolise progress, mastering the technology which goes in to producing them does provide evidence of forward movement.

Pakistan Resolution Day is remembered every year in memory of a historic event when Muslims of a united British-ruled India gathered in Lahore in 1940 and resolved to create a separate homeland. Pakistan’s birth, just seven years later, and its continued survival have been nothing short of a miracle.

Stories from the early immigrants to Pakistan upon its creation speak volumes about the country’s start-up in truly pathetic conditions. There were virtually no facilities to set up fully functional offices, so many bureaucrats simply had to make do with wooden cartons instead of office chairs and planks instead of desks to set up their offices. And the shortage of pens forced others to use shoots from trees dipped in ink to begin their file work.

But the founding fathers of Pakistan and their followers endured such adversities, driven by their determination to usher in better times. On Wednesday, evidence of Pakistan’s technical progress in defence hardware was one sign of that dream coming true. And yet, there are pockets where much work still needs to be done.

To fully achieve that dream, Pakistan must review the direction it has set for itself in the years gone by. Some of the lessons from the country’s early pioneers are worth recalling as Pakistan remains locked in tackling one of the worst challenges from hardcore militants faced by any state in modern times. In the past year, a concerted campaign by Pakistan’s armed forces appears to have begun to roll back the once-advancing tide by Taliban militants, though more work still needs to be done. Across Pakistan, a palpable sense of a returning calm immediately suggests that Pakistan is indeed winning a battle that had once appeared to be just too overwhelming.

An ultimate victory, however, must rest upon winning not just the military battle but also setting the pace for a sweeping societal change. Towards this end, examples of Pakistan’s early founders have much to offer by way of guidance for the future.

In its formative years as a country, Pakistan took pride in offering equal opportunities to all its citizens, allowing them to excel, irrespective of their socio-economic background. In those early years, accounts of capable individuals ranging from the civil service to various professions offered evidence of Pakistanis successfully overcoming the barriers to upward mobility. Sheer hard work paid off in many such cases.

But over time, successive Pakistani governments simply ignored critical areas, notably state-funded education and health care. As such sectors lost their edge and Pakistan saw a growing push for the private sector to step up, the gap between the rich and poor only widened.

In today’s Pakistan, the norm is simply for the private providers of education and health care to grant access to their services only to the financially well-endowed, while the poorest of the poor suffer. Furthermore, worsening returns across Pakistan’s rural heartlands have in fact further amplified this grim trend. Rapidly falling incomes of small farmers due to the twin factors of a global fall in commodity prices and neglect from Pakistan’s ruling elite, have hardly helped to change the trend.

Pakistan’s destiny now appears to be weak and increasingly in favour of those armed with higher incomes. The growing gap is indeed well reflected in official policies too. In a country where more than a third of the population is locked in abject poverty, the government of the day is determined to push ahead with fanciful projects rather than attack the cause of poverty in a determined fashion.

The glaring contrasts should hardly be surprising. While regions that are central to the political future of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) are witnessing modernisation in the name of modern bus services, new train lines and high-speed highways, there are quite a few obvious signs of dent in other areas.

It is therefore hardly surprising that Wednesday’s celebrations, though very timely, leave behind a compelling question for Pakistan’s ruling elite. Can the country overcome its current challenges without a radical turnaround in the way it is being run? To that very compelling question, the answer, sadly, is in the negative.

Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.