CHEAPEST COMMODITY IN PAKISTAN

Who says that Pakistan is a land of scarcity and that the prices of all things are soaring too high? Cloth may be scarce. Wheat may be dear. The consumer’s goods may be selling at four times their normal prices. Housing may be a baffling problem. But not the worst enemy of Pakistan will, dare deny that there is at least one commodity which, in the midst of this all-round slump, is still very cheap – indeed cheaper than ever before. That is human life.

The reader will excuse the biting irony of this comment. But is there a bit of exaggeration in it when you come to think of it seriously and earnestly – and shall we say, humanly?

We still can recollect quite vividly refugees dropping dead by the roadside like so many starlings after a shikari has put in his shot No. 10 in one of their clusters at the top of a tree. We still can picture to our horror scores of men and women and children freezing to death on the very pavements of Lahore and its out-skirts. Those were perhaps difficult months and difficult days, and Pakistan was all of a sudden overwhelmed by quite an avalanche of difficulties. But how would you explain the fact that now when Pakistan, thank God, is well on its feet, and the Mominin assemble to celebrate the happiest day in the calendar of their Faith, as many as twenty-three precious human lives should be thrown away just in sport?

One can understand people dying in war or dying of famine or dying of an epidemic. But that people should be trampled under feet in the house of God when they come for thanksgiving and on a happy day like the Eid is simply preposterous. And no people who lack the civic sense or the capacity for organization to prevent such things from happening can have any pretence to be a civilized people – much less a well-organized disciplined nation.

According to reports, as a result of stampede after the Eid prayer at the Badshahi Mosque, Lahore many people were trampled under feet of whom 23 died on the spot whereas another 20 were seriously injured. Twenty-three human beings! Just think of it. If Pakistan can afford to throw away 23 lives even on an auspicious occasion of national rejoicing like the Eid, it must have very scant regard for the sanctity of human life. And by the way, what a commentary at the sense of self-control and self-discipline which Ramzan is meant to inculcate!

Were it not a grim and a most lamentable tragedy, we should have described it as a huge farce. Not one or two but as many as twenty-three people being trampled under feet – where on earth have you ever heard of such a thing anywhere in the world?

What makes the tragedy all the more tragic is that it has caused nobody in Pakistan the slightest headache. If in a civilized country, 23 sheep or 23 dogs had perished due to neglect on the part of society, the press of the country would have made it front-page news and the subject of editorial comments whereas the Government would have immediately instituted an inquiry. Here in this largest Islamic State, however, it has come to us just as one more sensational news to add some more spice to our Eid dishes.

It is idle to blame the Government for a tragedy like this. For bungling the refugee problem with its consequent suffering and loss of human life the Government may legitimately be taken to task. But a purely social function like the Eid is an affair of the people and the responsibility for this social crime falls directly on the people.

Where are the Khaksars who paraded their social service so much? Was it a fit of temporary insanity which has worn off? Where are the National Guards with their green uniforms who were so much in evidence till recently in our cities and towns even in the countryside? Were they just seasonal butterflies who have disappeared with the change of season? Where are the devoted bands of Jamaat-i-lslamia of Maulana Maudoodi who stand for founding an Islamic State? If we can not manage the celebration of a festival, where is the sense of proportion in indulging in tall talk about running a state on Islamic lines? Above all, the Anjuman-i-Islamia of which Syed Mohsin Shah is the President, which is in charge of the control and management of the Badshahi Mosque on all functions there, owes a positive explanation to the people. If it was the moral obligation of the other organizations referred to above, with the Anjuman-i-Islamia, it was an official duty imposed by its very office of trusteeship of the Mosque to organize an orderly celebration of Eid at the Mosque.

Never was moral or civic sense at lower ebb among us Muslims than at the present day. It seems competition with the Hindus kept the current of life among us aflow and now that they are gone all healthy urges of life in us have dried up. Or is it the loot of abandoned property that has contaminated the soul of Pakistan? Like the over-satiated vultures by the side of a carrion, the edge of all saner senses seems to have been dulled within us. There is practically no social life left in us. Islam has rightly warned that Haram property blights the life of the soul in man. Some one has aptly remarked: the Hindus have gone leaving us their Saman (belongings) but taking away our Iman.

This constitutes a very grave symptom so far as the healthy growth of Pakistan is concerned. The health of a state is reflected in the people of the state. It depends on the moral vitality of the people, on the urge of life in the corporate and social mind of the nation. Just now, we are afraid, Pakistan utterly lacks this sense of national consciousness. Hardly one per cent of the people think in terms of the nation and national duty and national conscience. Individualism is stalking and vitiating every walk of our life. If the average official is corrupt, if the press is dominated by petty personal considerations, if dereliction of duty has become a common complaint, it is all traceable to the same root malady – viz., that Pakistan is just now suffering from soul-lessness. And this is a disease which no Government can cure. It is up- to the people to awaken to this urgent national need and show more constructive genius. Thus alone can Pakistan be built on firm foundations.

Pakistan does indeed need industrialization. It needs raw materials. It needs a sound economy. It needs an Islamic educational programme. But before and above everything else, Pakistan needs nation-builders– those whose hearts are wedded to high humanitarian ideals, who are swayed by the human values of life, who should devote themselves heart and soul to the service, amelioration and uplift of society. That is the lesson of the stupendous toll of human life which Pakistan has so far paid in one form or another. This is the lesson which the Badshahi Mosque tragedy should once more press on our attention.

M.Y.K.

(The Light – Monday, August 16, 1948)