When the last legislation was passed by constituent assembly led to the creation of the two independent nations – India and Pakistan, nobody would have imagined how the tale of these two nations would proceed.
Though Gandhi and Jinnah are referred to as fathers of India and Pakistan respectively, it was Dr. BR Ambedkar on whose ideas the modern principles of India were getting shaped. The mammoth task of making a draft of the constitution fell on the shoulders of Dr. Ambedkar and from the inception he was very clear about what should be the soul of the constitution which was eventually going to play a vital role in forming India.
The constitution was finally adopted by the people of India and it declared the country a sovereign, socialist, secular,democratic
After Independence, while India was trying to walk on the path laid by our constitution, Pakistan was suffering successive political tremors and was getting unstable with every passing regime. Mohammad Ali Jinnah couldn’t propel his idea of Pakistan and died 13 months after independence before the constitution of Pakistan could be written. The following m years were extremely insecure for Pakistan as from 1951 to 1957 the country stirred through six Prime Ministers. And what was happening in India at the time? Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with his socialist vision was in constant battle to eradicate poverty.
In Pakistan, the locus of power swiftly moved from political parties to the military. Landlords who held socio-economic power in Pakistan became partners of the military and started efforts to turn the country into a fundamentalist Islamic state.
Pakistan is a great example of how the whole country can get messed up when the State and religion are mixed. When Zia ul-Haq came to power, the first thing he did was Islamisation of Courts, media outlets, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and charities.
The landlords in the country soon became warlords and crime partners with Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. These corrupt and greedy warlords were later elected as leaders in a dummy democracy backed by the ISI. The state-sponsored hate propaganda soon started trickling down to society, making Pakistan a haven of Jihadis. The country’s ‘fight against terrorism’ pulled in billions of dollars as aid from western countries and diverted all this money to fundamentalists.
India over the years has evolved a sense of Indian-ness in its people irrespective of caste, religion, race, colour etc. Even in India parties like BJP have been trying to drive the idea of a Hindu nation and have been mounted to power, but the Indian middle class never supported extremist and hate-based idea of nation. Indian elites firmly stood with the idea of secular India.
In 1991, India took the path of economic liberalisation and ever since the country is moving in the direction to be one of the world’s super powers. But Pakistan in the last 20 years has failed miserably. Pakistan used the snake of state-sponsored terrorism but the snake has bitten back and every year it engulfs hundreds of its own people.
Today, both countries are at 70 but one is referred to as the biggest democracy in the world and is widely respected while the other, on every international platform is accused of sponsoring terrorism.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NEWSD and NEWSD does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
