Pakistan is a country in South Asia. A Muslim country with over 200 million population. Its been 75 years now since Pakistan got its independence. And this is important to understand that after 75 years what successes and failures did Pakistan achieve? In this article, I am going to share with you the successes and failures Pakistan has achieved in its 75 years of independence.
What have we gained and lost in seventy-five years of independence? The answer is very long but I am sharing a few things.
Pakistan’s Successes and Failures in its 75 Years of Independence
The first thing is that at the time of independence, as many Muslims as lived in Pakistan remained in India. Seeing the indescribable condition of the Muslims living in India and Kashmir today, everyday prayers come out from the heart of the founders of Pakistan. We have been deprived of the unparalleled blessing of freedom.
Today 200 million Muslims are suffering the torment of a slave-like life in India, now their problem is not economic, educational, or social backwardness but only survival and protection of life, they are trying to survive by changing their Islamic names. Freedom has not only given us the protection of life, wealth, and honor but also given us honor and identity and made our cultural identity safe.
There is no doubt that the quality of life of everyone has improved because of Pakistan. Fifty years ago, ninety percent of the houses in our village were dirt and no one had a motorcycle. Today, all the houses are solid. There are motorcycles in the houses. Today, Pakistan has a constitution and constitutional institutions, the country has a parliament consisting of elected members, a judiciary at all levels, a strong and disciplined army, the best air force in the world, very high-quality military training institutions, and some very good hospitals.
Having the best quality motorways in South Asia, we have also been able to establish some enviable world-class institutions like the Motorway Police. We produce the world’s best rice, mangoes, and oranges, it is a matter of pride for us that even today our manufactured football (from a factory in Sialkot) is used in the World Cup.
It must also be admitted that our judiciary is more powerful than 95% of the countries in the world and our media is freer than all the Muslim countries and we are the seventh nuclear power in the world and the only nuclear power in the Muslim world.
But we have also lost a lot and today our failures are speaking loudly. After Quaid’s death, we could not make a constitution or establish constitutional institutions for many years. Immediately after the death of the father of the nation and the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan, first, the military and civil bureaucracy joined, then justice in this unholy alliance. Munir also included the judiciary.
The Judiciary justified every military dictator’s whims. Due to the corruption and incompetence of some politicians and their lust for power, the interference of non-political institutions in government and political affairs has increased, which has weakened democratic institutions. We had an enviable start in the economic field. Civil servants of the fifties were honest and patriotic. There was no practice of haram eating anywhere.
For the first eighteen years of independence, Pakistan was the economic tiger of Asia. We were far ahead of India and a role model for many developed countries today.
Then it happened that the wars of 1965 and 1971 squeezed our resources and after that Bhutto’s policy of nationalization stifled economic development. During the period of General Zia-ul-Haq and General Musharraf, dollars kept coming from America and Europe and artificial prosperity was visible, but no industry was built and no dam was built in these two decades.
Due to the abundance of dollars, the rupee remained stable and there was no inflation, but the wheel of economic development stopped in these twenty years. The wrong and misplaced priorities of our decision-makers have caused irreparable damage to the country.
Education and research have not been the first priority of any government, the result of which is that proud educational institutions like Karachi University, Punjab University, and Quaid-e-Azam University have been left in ruins, some have been taken over by linguistic and religious groups, and others by tribal groups.
There was a time when exceptional administrators like Dr. Ishtiaq Hussain Qureshi, Sheikh Imtiaz Ali, and Abdul Ali Khan were the heads of these educational institutions and where is it known that the Vice Chancellors are those who do not allow teachers or students to enter their office. Promotion of education is on the rise but the quality of every sector of education has sunk to the depths of decay, sometimes, maybe once in three years, the rulers even consult with a few bureaucrats instead of education experts. Who can move to another department at any time?
Due to the lack of interest of the rulers, the dust is blowing in the educational institutions of the public sector, while the institutions created in the private sector, which have no interest in the character development of the youth, are robbing the parents of the one hand and on the other hand, the foreign curriculum is in the minds of the youth.
They are preparing a generation that has no connection and affiliation with this country and its historical, intellectual, and ideological identity. The validity of our exams and the prestige of our degrees are gone. No university in our country is even among the first five hundred universities in the world. Research in science and technology is zero, our research has been dulled for many decades, but no ruler or government has any understanding.
Our biggest failure as a nation is that we could not train the new generation properly. Once upon a time, home and school were the two most effective training centers. Parents used to teach children to distinguish between right and wrong, and halal and haram, and schools emphasized character building, now both of these schools are defunct.
Teachers have lost the sacred spirit of nation-building, and computers and cell phones have wreaked havoc on our enviable family system and strong relationships, now parents are left waiting for poor food while children are “busy” on their cell phones and They can’t even find time to eat together with their parents.
Private TV channels have played a major role in destroying our morals and national values. People who used to consider mixed dancing a sin, have started dancing with their sisters and daughters. The new generation, learning foul language and bad language from political leaders, has lost the tradition of respecting elders and is attracted to crime, lying, fraud, and cheating.
This is the reason why the countries of the world where Pakistanis have gone for employment have the highest number of Pakistanis in prisons, which is a shame for the entire nation.
A major tragedy that has happened in the last decades is that our human quality has declined greatly. In no field can you find people whose feet are spotless, who eat halal food, and whose hearts beat for the country and the nation.
The national leaders who were supposed to show the way to the nation have their feet stained, they lack halal sustenance, sincerity, and selflessness, those who sit on the Musnad-e-Qaza should be the best people of the entire society, but we do not point fingers at them. And accusations of favoritism have become the norm.
Our former dictator generals should have been the most popular and beloved but unfortunately, they too have lost their popularity. Civil service is called the cream of society, but the young officers themselves admit that the number of honest officers is less than twenty percent.
Despite the hollow slogans, corruption has increased enormously in the country, justice is expensive and scarce. Due to the incompetence and weaknesses of the politicians, the bureaucracy has become powerful and unbridled.
We are still clinging to the centuries-old administrative and judicial system and have not been able to change it according to the aspirations of a free nation and the demands of modern times.
The situation would not have been so dire if the scholars were also of good character. The greed of the traders is so shameful that today in this country it is impossible to get medicine for the patient and pure milk for the children.
The media has certainly expanded but the quality has gone down, TV anchors have taken separate fronts, where they sit and defend the narratives of their favorite politicians instead of highlighting the facts and truth. Our decline in the arts is extraordinary. Our actors and actresses have become slaves of the Indian film industry.
Once upon a time quality movies were made here and TV drama was unparalleled but both have died. What would be a greater tragedy than that we could not protect the cultural identity for which this country was built, today there is no tall figure to lead the intellectual direction of the nation.
Conclusion
The Father of the Nation had pledged in his hundreds of speeches that “we will form the system of a new country on the basis of social justice of Islam” but such speeches of Quaid are not even mentioned on TV channels. The new generation is overwhelmed by the western civilization and film culture of India and at worst is suffering from an inferiority complex. The religion-abhorrent writers have blown up so much dust that the ideological direction of the nation has been lost and we have again become a directionless crowd.
