Our tragic disconnect
Masood Hasan

The other day talking to a mixed group of young people, mostly in their mid- and late-20s and some in their early 30s, almost all having received the best education here and abroad, I brought up the creation of Bangladesh. I asked if anyone in the room – about 14 people – had read the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report. I was asked by all without exception, “Who was Hamoodur Rahman?”
When I quoted some facts from an article written by Sultan Reza, that “Sheikh Mujib controlled the majority seats (167 out of 300) in the National Assembly in the 1970 elections and Wali Khan had offered to join him with his 30 seats, yet Zulfikar Ali Bhutto with 97 seats wanted to be the prime minister, they looked confused. The parties failed to agree on anything or were sabotaged internally and good old martial law reared its head again. Failing to beat the Bengalis into submission, we resorted to...genocide...This atrocious behaviour of Pakistani politicians and army generals alienated all the Bengalis of East Pakistan and infuriated many, resulting in the War of Liberation that began in March and ended in a way on December 16. But it is a fact that in 1970, there were more Bengalis in united Pakistan than there were Punjabis or Sindhis or Pathans combined.’ Most of this was Greek to my young friends.
Today – Sunday December 16, 2012 – it is chilling to realise that this next generation on which much of our fading hopes are desperately pinned, are completely unaware of their country’s past. Growing up during and post-Zia years, they have inherited all the evil that stalks Pakistan, the sad details of which we all know too well. Now and then, a family elder or someone with graying hair will tell them of what was another Pakistan. As and when that happens, what you get to see our faces with disbelieving eyes and words like, “are you serious?” come pouring out.
Those of us who lived in that sunny and bright Pakistan at least have some memories to hang on to but many of our young friends have inherited a legacy of hate, intolerance and corruption – financial and moral – without an iota of humanity that is and should be the ultimate test for any group of people pretending to be a nation. They have lost out completely. They hear stories of a Pakistan that does not exist – a mythical country at best. The tales they hear seem to be more the stuff of over-active imagination of people well over the other side of the hill. We have savoured the good days and seen the decline. They only have the decline and a sad one it is. Thus the great disconnect.
It doesn’t take much to lose thread of your past – a decade or two and the vibrancy of a time becomes a moth-eaten photograph lying in a long forgotten corner of your mind. Names that made Pakistan are lost in the mists of time as are what they did. If there was an abject surrender of our armed forces in the eastern wing, it is not even mentioned in our truncated and fabricated history books, into whose pages rulers come and go, sometimes getting an entire chapter and sometimes just a mention – a one liner. Truth? That is a commodity Pakistan learnt to trade in soon enough. In the course of a few years we created an echelon of professional hackers and paid liars who changed the facts into a fiction that most cannot recognise. Like George Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984 we have steadily re-written history and indoctrinated young and impressionable minds with the ‘new truth,’ which is raven with evil and falsehood.
So armed with iPads and laptops, the new Pakistanis surf the world and galaxies beyond, almost at will and in the flash of a second, but that’s about it. They can casually tell you that the best skiing can be found in Denver, USA but what happened here and the bloody separation that ensued is an unfathomable mystery. To my question whether anyone had read that slim book, the Pakistan constitution, I got a big ‘No’ from all. They have known nothing but all that horror that unfolds everyday in our public life. Perhaps we are at a stage like Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach where one world is dead and the other is yet to be born.
The irony is that the young are anxious for a ‘connect,’ but are not willing to make a serious effort to get out of the dark. In these last few years, across the globe, aided by an inquisitive technology, people have uncovered skeletons, broken upon long-shielded myths and exposed many who claimed to be what they were not. The self-introspection has been intense and it seems the tribe of holy cows is diminishing. Not so in Pakistan. The Hamoodur Rahman Commission report was buried under tons of cement, away from prying eyes. Pakistanis discovered one day to their chagrin that they had to turn to India to read the report. As often happens, the truth ultimately cannot remain hidden. There are people who find much that is wrong with the report and perhaps this is correct – I certainly don’t know enough. But unless we are prepared to face our past, we have and will never have any future worth mentioning. The constitution has been bandaged with so many strips of sticky plaster called ‘amendments’ that it is not possible to locate what they were covering up in the first place. What should have been mandatory reading is not even mentioned. I am not saying that perusal of these two books will grant us instant nirvana but we must face the past and be familiar with a document that should be at the core of our thinking.
I mention just two documents because today is the Fall of Dhaka and the constitution, flawed or not, should be known particularly to the young who are adrift. There is much that the next torchbearers can carry but not if they don’t even have a torch. They should keep questioning till the answers come out unwillingly. The doomed adventures of the armed forces that seem endless, the machinations of the bureaucracy and its political handlers that have played havoc with the country’s fortunes, the endless cases of greed, corruption and massive misuse of power for self gain – the cupboard is small and the skeletons are rattling to get out. We cannot keep that rickety cupboard closed. It is termite-ridden and falling apart. The time to open it has come and gone many times. Maybe one of these days, someone will break that infernal lock!
The writer is a Lahore-based columnist.
Email: masoodhasan66@gmail.com