Pakistan: A State Striving for Haqiqi’Azadi

Pakistan became a Dominion of the British Commonwealth in 1947 and liberated Azad Jammu & Kashmir in 1948, but withdrew from major liberated regions of Jammu & Kashmir in 1949 under British pressure. Pakistan diplomatically supported America/NATO military intervention in Korea in 1950. Pakistan became a republic in 1956, but declared the mother of our nation a traitor in 1962, and invaded the remaining Jammu & Kashmir in 1965.

America threatened to cut military and economic aid and forced Pakistan to withdraw its troops at the moment when India was about to accept defeat. Pakistan lost the civil war in 1971 and surrendered to India. Pakistan entered into the Afghan-Soviet war in 1979 and signed the Geneva Accords to end the Afghan-Soviet war in 1989. Then Pakistan supported America/NATO military buildup in the Gulf Region for liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in 1990.

Then again Pakistan supported the US military intervention in Somalia in 1992 and Bosnia in 1995. Pakistan became a nuclear power in 1998 and supported the American/NATO/ISAF invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Pakistan supported the American/NATO/ISAF invasion of Iraq in 2003 leading to a military intervention in Syria in 2014.

Pakistan supported the Saudi-led military alliance’s invasion of Yemen in 2015 and lately facilitated American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2022. Moreover, since 1960, Pakistan has been one of the main troops and police contributors to the UN peace operations with more than 200,000 men and women sent to 46 UN missions.

The above snapshot of the seventy-five years of Pakistan’s history shows that the state has spent its resources and energies on behalf of the Anglo-American /NATO alliance at the expense of the development of the 240 million people. Hundreds of billions of dollars in geo-rental income were spent on futile wars which resulted in the breakup of the country and have pushed Pakistan to the edge of total chaos.

Whatever little resources were allocated to the economic and social development of the country were siphoned off by the corrupt elements of the state bureaucracy in collaboration with the elite capture. Independent agencies have reported that over $200 billion dollars stolen from Pakistan are stashed in secret foreign accounts while the country struggles to pay off its loans totaling $150 billion dollars.

The human development index of Pakistan ranks 161 out of 192 in 2022. In spite of the abundance of natural resources and skilled labor, 85% of the world's population is better off than an ordinary Pakistani. Imran Khan was the twenty-second prime minister to be ousted from office, a year ago.

He unceremonially left the office, but millions of Pakistanis who have been deprived of their rights and due access to resources took to the streets to demand haqiqi’azadi at a time when Pakistan’s participation in the American-led bloc is most critical for stopping the Sino-Russia bloc in its tracks.

The people of Pakistan have not gained any significant benefits from Pakistan’s participation in the Anglo-American bloc; neither do they expect any gains from joining the Sino-Russia bloc. So, the haqiqi’azadi will enable Pakistan to become a non-aligned state, which focuses on developing its resources to improve the living standards and the quality of life of the millions of Pakistanis.

The climatic events of 2008, 2010, and onwards have also made the people realize how useless and incompetent the state is in terms of protecting them from earthquakes, glacial lake outburst flows, monsoon floods, heatwaves, droughts, famine, and rising sea levels. So why is the state so helpless in protecting its citizens? A quick review of the history of the Pakistan movement will highlight the fault lines that have decapacitated the people of Pakistan.

Allama Muhammad Iqbal in his 1930 Allahabad Address at the time when Europe was facing the Great Depression called for independent states in the Muslim-majority areas of the Indian subcontinent. The Muslim-majority areas included five provinces; Assam, Bengal, North West Frontier Province, Punjab, and Sindh. Baluchistan was a crown colony separate from the provinces and the two dozen princely states. In 1933, Chaudhry Rahmat Ali made the "Pakistan Declaration" in his pamphlet titled “Now or Never: Are We to Live or Perish Forever?”

Allama Muhammad Iqbal died in 1938 without giving a roadmap to statehood. Chaudhry Rahmat Ali floated the idea of a confederation of Muslim states including the thirty princely states dotted across the sub-continent. The princely states included Amb, Bahawalpur, Chitral, Dir, Ghizer, Hunza, Hyderabad Deccan, Jafarabad, Jammu, Janjira, Junagarh, Kashmir, Kalat, Kachhi, Kharan, Khaplu, Khairpur, Las Bela, Loharu, Malerkotla, Manvadar, Nagar, Phulra, Sarawan, Savanur, Shigar, Swat, Tonk, Makran, Khairpur, and Yasin. Then there were Muslim-majority districts in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala. Some of these princely states had either lapsed or merged into more powerful neighboring states before joining India or Pakistan.

None of the Muslim leaders were clear about the form of statehood for the Muslims. The Khilafat Movement from 1919 to 1924 was about protecting the Ottoman Caliphate from abolishment, which didn’t pave the road to statehood for the Muslims of the sub-continent. However, Barrister M.A. Jinnah from the platform of All India Muslim League issued fourteen points in response to the Nehru Report on Simon Commission.

The Simon Commission was appointed by the British parliament to review the Government of India Act of 1919, which was the modified version of the Government of India Act of 1860. Barrister Jinnah advocated for separate electorates for Muslims and Hindus in a federal legislature of united India with a one-third representation of Muslims. He also demanded that three-fourths of the votes would be required to pass a law.

To resolve the matters between Muslims and Hindus three rounds of roundtables were held, which enabled the British parliament to modify the Government of India Act of 1919 and pass the revised version in 1935. The modified version created what became the provinces, assemblies, judiciary, laws, and bureaucracy of Pakistan.

The provinces elected the representatives to the first (1946-54) and second (1955-58) constituent assemblies to frame the constitution. However, the military, bureaucracy, and judiciary created obstacles in the framing of a constitution that gives laws of governance, duties, and rights to empower the people of Pakistan.

The problem with Pakistan’s statehood is that the state was created before the Constitution. Normally, it is the constitution that creates the pillars of a state such as the executive, legislature, judiciary, and military. In Pakistan’s case, the pillars of colonial rule became the pillars of Pakistan nine years before the constitution was framed. Hence, the state owes its existence to the British parliament and not to the people of Pakistan. Therefore, the state would never be subservient to the people.

The tacit opposition from the pre-existing colonial military, bureaucracy, the courts, and the provincially controlled constituent assembly delayed the framing of the constitution. The old colonial institutions wanted to control the new state to keep people subjected to the old ‘colonial laws of occupation’ first enforced by the East India Company in 1793. Therefore, the constitutions of 1956, 1962, and 1973 were framed to ensure the continuity of the laws and legal procedures of the Government of India Act which is the continuity of the Cornwallis Code.

In 1793, to consolidate its territorial gains, the East India Company (EIC) introduced a colonial system driven by the Cornwallis Code. It contained significant provisions of governance, judiciary, treasury, law & order, and civil administration which are still part of our system today. Therefore, the need for haqiqi'azadi.

The bedrock of this colonial system was the ‘permanent settlement or zamindari system’ to reward the notables that supported the EIC’s military victories at Arcot in 1751, at Plessey in 1757, and at Buxar in 1764. The Cornwallis Code and the subsequent iterations of the Government of India Act changed the societal consciousness from subservience to the Creator to subservience to the EIC’s system of production and revenue generation.

The permanent settlement of pro-EIC notables in occupied lands was strengthened by the newly created bureaucracy, treasury, civil administration, and courts. Today, we see this happening in Israel. The military (lal paltan) was entrusted with the protection of the then-nascent colonial system which is 230 years old today and is still imposed upon the people of Pakistan.

The sole purpose of the colonial system was production, revenue collection, and the transfer of wealth to the United Kingdom, which is still in place and has enabled the Pakistani elite (the tenth generation of the EIC notables and their cronies) to siphon off hundreds of billions of dollars which should have been spent on the people.

The Government of India Act devolved the powers to the provinces in 1935 to further strengthen the colonial system of permanent settlement, which controls our lives to date. In 1947, the creation of Pakistan transferred the administration of the colonial system from the British Raj to the Dominion of Pakistan within the British Commonwealth.

In 1956, the first constitution of Pakistan elevated it to the status of a ‘republic’ with two national languages, created a balance of power between East and West, and embarked upon land reforms. The road to haqiqi’azadi was blocked by the military takeover in 1958, which intervened in favor of the continuation of the colonial system.

The Objectives Resolution of 1949 and the subsequent three constitutions of Pakistan were at best a compromise to ensure the longevity of the colonial system under the new administration of the Government of Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan inherited the colonial system and entrapped the people into ‘post-independence economic slavery’.

The institutions of the old colonial system such as the judiciary, bureaucracy, treasury, and military remain unchanged. Only the British Raj was replaced by the Government of Pakistan. Therefore, whenever a ‘freedom seeker’ strives for freedom the military with the support of the judiciary, bureaucracy, and treasury strikes back. This is exactly what has happened with Imran Khan and some of his freedom-seeking predecessors.

In the UK, the parliament is sovereign and makes laws for the people to live by. In the United States, the people are sovereign and their sovereignty is guaranteed by the US Constitution. In India, “bharat mata” is sovereign and the parliament exercises sovereignty on its behalf. In Pakistan, the military is the de-facto sovereign of the state; the state itself is not sovereign. All other pillars of the state are subservient to the military.

The Objectives Resolution claims that “Sovereignty over the entire Universe belongs to Allah Almighty alone and the authority which He has delegated to the state of Pakistan, through its people for being exercised within limits prescribed by Him is a sacred trust”. However, the state functions in contradiction to the Objectives Resolution because it enforces the laws of another sovereign, the British parliament, without any consideration of the limits prescribed by Allah Almighty.

The constitution of Pakistan doesn’t recognize Quran – the Word of Allah subhanahu wa’tala - as the source of law, unlike the Israeli constitution which has declared Torah as the law of Israel. Quran cannot be quoted as a source of law in a Pakistani court. The East India Company’s Cornwallis Code of 1793 had outlawed Quran and Shaster from the courts of EIC.

Muslims and Hindus alike were deprived of the centuries-old legal traditions so they could be subjugated to the EIC laws framed to maximize revenues by treating human beings and land as means of cheap production. Nothing has changed in 75 years after establishing Pakistan in the name of Islam.

The Cornwallis Code was modified into the Penal and Procedural Codes of 1860, which was further incorporated into the Government of India Act of 1919 and 1935. The goal of the Quran-based legal system is to enable offenders to offer qaza (penance) as suggested by the qazi (the one who assigns penance according to al-Quran) to qualify for jaza (reward from the One and Only Judge, the Allah Almighty) in the hereafter whereas the 230 years old current legal system replaced qazi with a ‘human judge’ who punishes or rewards fellow humans for their adherence or disobedience to the whimsical laws legislated by the corrupt parliament.

In the courts of Pakistan, al-Quran is used to pledge allegiance to the modified colonial laws and also for solemnly swearing to speak ‘the truth nothing but the truth’ in the courts that are untrue to the Allah Almighty and His Messenger because of their foundation built on the Cornwallis Code. The existing legal system is nothing but taghut which has replaced the Quran as the source of law and Allah Almighty as the judge. How could the state and its constitution, courts, military, bureaucracy, federation, provinces, and even the citizens submit to the Sovereignty of Allah subhanahu wa’tala, when they are not governed by His laws?

The sacred trust entrusted by the Objectives Resolution in 1949 is violated on a daily basis at all levels in Pakistan. It is true that Sovereignty belongs to Allah Almighty alone, but He has never delegated His Authority to anyone because it is shirk. How can Pakistan claim to have the authority delegated to it by Allah subhanahu wa’tala when the state itself doesn’t recognize His Word (al-Quran) as the law? Rather Pakistan enforces the laws of a sovereign (British parliament) that doesn’t recognize Allah subhanahu wa’tala as the Law-giver (rabun-nas) or God (illahun-nas) or Sovereign (malikun-nas).

An entity that forces people to live according to the laws of ghair’Allah is called taghut in al-Quran, which further explains that those who compel people to live according to the laws of ghair’Allah are rebels and criminals. Only Allah Almighty can exercise His Authority alone. His Authority is not the “sacred trust” nor are the people capable of keeping it. People are not even capable of protecting their rights or defending themselves.

Mesaq-e-Madinah has laid down the road map of how a society can live according to the injunctions of the Quran where various religious, ethnic, linguistic, and geographic groups can coexist peacefully under the Sovereignty & Authority of the One and Only Allah subhanhu wa’tala. A Steward leads the ummat to live in harmony with the Creator. All rightly guided Stewards of Islam and their followers were challenged, threatened, and killed by the forces of taghut.

The millat-e-Ibrahim (societal consciousness about the Sovereignty of Allah subhanahu wa’tala) was achieved during the lifetime of rasul’Allah sallallahu alehe wasallum. The stewards after him from 632 to 661 maintained millat-e-Ibrahim. Later, the progeny of rasul’Allah sallallahu alehe wasallum and his stewards struggled to defend millat-e-Ibrahim for 125 years from 661 to 786.

The imperial houses of Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Usmanids, Safavids, Mughals, and the subsequent European empires claimed sovereignty for themselves. The imperialists changed the nature of law & justice. The monarchy became the law and, justice meant reward for obedience and punishment for disobedience. The height of absurdity is that the enforcers of taghut (cursed by Allah Almighty) are called ‘honorable justices’ by the state.

The haqiqi’azadi is freedom from taghut enforced upon 240 million people of Pakistan by the constitution that has ensured the continuity of a 230 years old system of production and subservience controlled by the tenth generation of Cornwallis notables loyal to the ghair'Allah. What Pakistan needs is a constitution that uses the paradigm of mesaq-e-Madinah to instill the spirit of millat-e-Ibrahim into our society, education, economics, politics, military, judiciary, treasury, legislature, and clergy.