Implementing Iqbal’s ideals —Elf Habib
True to a shaheen’s apathy for nest-building, half of our people, even in capital cities, have no access to proper housing. A shaheen’s lack of concern for food as elaborated by Iqbal has also been faithfully followed. About a quarter of the population is malnourished and the children, i.e. the eaglets under five, are the worst victims
Allama Iqbal, a pre-eminent poet of marvellous style and diction, has been enthusiastically credited to have pioneered and pressed for the concept to carve out a separate territory for the Muslims of the subcontinent. The vibrant mood, music and lyricism of his poetry also portray several ideas to revive Muslim splendour. However, many circles and savants, particularly the purveyors of an orthodox brand of the Ideology of Pakistan, have persistently bemoaned that Iqbal’s thoughts and ideals have been brazenly ignored in Pakistan. Yet, contrary to their grouch, even a cursory glance at the spirit and tenor of our state, institutions and policies reveals that his thought and vision have been rather too faithfully ingrained in our psyche and the system.
Iqbal, for instance, painstakingly pursued various positions in the Muslim League, which had been struggling to make its niche in the British parliamentary system. Yet, he nonchalantly lambasted democracy in his poetry, terming it as a circus (tamasha) and a system based on a mere head counting and not weighing the worth of individuals. (This was, ironically, also a very apt personal experience, as Daultana was preferred over Iqbal as president of the Punjab Muslim League.) Iqbal rather idolised valour, justice and the proficiency with the sword and dagger as the real integral virtues of leadership. Most of these attributes are apparently taken as the traits of a good fighter and commander.
Iqbal also remained characteristically silent about the mode of selecting this ideal leader. So the nation, as his true docile follower, faithfully dangled between democracy and the dictatorship of the generals. Generals have, in fact, enjoyed far longer spans as compared to the fleeting representative sojourns. General Ayub even exploited Iqbal’s famous verse that the stage when nations stick to their primitive ways and resist newer ways is really quite arduous in their transition. Ayub’s cronies propagated that the dictator’s constitution of the basic democracies was really the new dawn and revolution or aaeen-e nau that Iqbal had visualised. Iqbal’s ambivalence about education, equality and empowerment of women similarly gave abundant grist to the mullahs and the misogynists.
Iqbal was similarly mesmerised by the high altitude and lightning flight, swift swooping agility and relentless tearing talons of falcons, i.e. shaheen. He passionately pressed the Muslim youth to emulate the attributes of this predatory bird like its propensity for persistently hovering over high mountain peaks, remote jungles and the wilderness of the deserts and dignified indifference to nest-building and searching for food. These ideals have been almost literally ingrained into our mindset, as the nation has been fighting to maintain its presence at the Siachen glacier, the world’s highest theatre of war at 6,400 metres above sea level. We made a similar venture at Kargil. Shaheen has actually been adopted as the emblem of the national air force. It also symbolises a behemoth business monopoly as analysed by Ayesha Siddiqa in her apocryphal endeavour dealing with the army’s business empire in Pakistan. Yet, true to a shaheen’s apathy for nest-building, half of our people, even in capital cities, have no access to proper housing and more than a third of them live in the shanty squatter slums or katchi abadis. A Shaheen’s lack of concern for food as elaborated by Iqbal has also been faithfully followed by a matching neglect of the food and hunger problems of our masses. Pakistan has crumbled to a community of 36 countries, which are worst affected by food crises and about half of its people are vulnerable to food shortages. About a quarter of the population is malnourished and the children, i.e. the eaglets under five, are the worst victims. The rising inflation, paralysing power outages and dwindling production and unemployment are bound to multiply these figures.
Iqbal’s love and glorification of a hard, spartan and nomadic life in the barren mountain tracts and in desolate desert areas — mard-e-kohistani ya banda-e-sahra — have, similarly, translated into our steadfast efforts to leave our scorching Thal and Thar deserts and the mountain terrains utterly undeveloped. These areas have missed even the pathetic pace at which some modern amenities have trickled to the fertile rural side. The lack of development in the mountain belts have rather cost us dearly in terms of the eruption of emotionalism, extremism and the blood spattered across our streets. Ignoring the uplift of desert expanses has similarly accelerated the desertification and accentuated the urban-rural divide and deprivation. Yet, we seem to have stuck to Iqbal’s passion to perpetuate these tougher primitive strains and, consequently, the growing miseries of the highlanders and desert dwellers.
Iqbal’s infatuation with the raptors’ might and flight, the fast-paced caravans marching eternally to the chimes of the bells from the lead camels and the daggers drawn perpetually out of their sheaths, anticipating endless encounters, have made us far more a strutting nation of hawks, spurning scornfully the doves and the desire for peace and a settled life. The ratio of our defence expenditure to the total revenue as well as to the GDP and foreign loans is almost the highest in the world. Still, being the true embodiment of a shaheen martial race, we have never squirmed at the colossal sacrifices made for this passion of excessive expenditure on defence. Some of the desperate dreams for improvement in education, health, economy, infrastructure, industry, commerce and energy generation have been stoically sacrificed in the process.
Iqbal’s adage for a perpetual fight and restlessness by pouncing, pounding swooshes, swerving and swiping again and again to ensure an unremitting rush of warm-blooded excitement, efficiency and preparedness (palatna jhapatna jhapat kar palatna hai lahoo garam rakhnay ka ik bahana) has also been almost meticulously modulated to avoid peace, stability and a settled milieu and pick up some really irrelevant quarrels, conflicts and clashes. Most of these confrontations were, unfortunately, triggered by emotions rather than by cool, dispassionate analysis of events and alternatives. Here again, Iqbal’s advice about giving an unrestricted reign to our emotions has been rather too impetuously overstretched. He merely suggested that sometimes it was imperative to wean our heart away from the wiser watch of wisdom, yet we have almost totally divorced the dispassionate thought, debate and rationality and have emerged as one of the most baffling, passionate and megalomaniacal nations. Inspired by Iqbal’s thoughts in a rather warped manner, we are burning to storm the world merely through our boundless zeal and valour without ever investing in or caring for the grooming of our human capital and galvanising the requisite industrial and economic resources.
source:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...1-4-2010_pg3_3