Sixty years on, hope continues to give way to despair in Pakistan

Pakistan may have been created by the partition of the Indian subcontinent in August 1947, but the idealistic dreams of hope, love and pride for country visible then, has made way for disillusionment and discrimination in the sixty years since, claims Mohsin Hamid, the author of the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

New York, Aug.16 : Pakistan may have been created by the partition of the Indian subcontinent in August 1947, but the idealistic dreams of hope, love and pride for country visible then, has made way for disillusionment and discrimination in the sixty years since, claims Mohsin Hamid, the author of the novel "The Reluctant Fundamentalist."

Recounting experiences within his own family to support this view, Hamid says that at the time of the partition, or just before it, a Muslim, who mistook him for Hindu, stabbed his Kashmir-born great-grandfather.

He says the attack did not come as surprise, because his great-grandfather was a lawyer who extended support and shelter to his Hindu colleagues and their families during the murderous riots, and was mistaken for a Hindu while on a morning walk.

"From the start, Pakistan has been prone to turning its knife upon itself. Yet 1947 is also remembered in my family as a time of enormous hope. My great-grandfather survived. And, the birth that year of his grandson, my father, marked the arrival of a first generation of something new: Pakistanis," the New York Times quotes Hamid, as saying.

According to Hamid's mother, the 1950s was "a decade of a young country finding its feet."

There was a "fierce love for Pakistan" felt by her and her schoolmates.

Pakistan was to them, "a source of pride and identity, because it inspired feelings of protectiveness."

In the 1960s, he says Pakistan's economy enjoyed a boom, and the southern port of Karachi, was described as a "vibrant and cosmopolitan city", by a relative.

"It hummed with the energy and ingenuity of millions of former refugees who had come from India," Hamid adds.

The advent of dictatorships from 1958 till now, he says has deprived Pakistan of democracy, leaving most Pakistanis with an inability "to articulate an inclusive vision of what their country stood for".

The further dismemberment of during the 1971 war; was second time when "Pakistan turned its knife upon itself.

It was time when democracy resurfaced in Pakistan for a six- year period, before it was replaced again by a military dictatorship under General Zia-ul Haq.

"So, like my parents before me, I was born in a democratic Pakistan, but spent much of my youth in a dictatorship," says Hamid.

"Growing up in Lahore in the 1980s was unsettling. Assault rifles and heroin, by-products of the war in Afghanistan, flooded the city. I had friends with drug problems, others who sometimes carried guns. Our parents had been able to mingle freely and go to the cinema. But we lived in a time of censorship and of women news anchors being forced to cover their heads on television. Preventing teenage boys and girls from falling in love seemed to be an official concern of the state, and avoiding police checkpoints became part of every date," he adds.

"My friends and I remained fiercely patriotic. We idolized Pakistani sporting heroes in cricket, field hockey and squash. We felt a thrill of achievement when we listened to bootleg cassettes of the first Pakistani rock bands. For us, the success of anything Pakistani was a source of personal pride," Hamid says.

In 1988, civilian rule was again restored with the mysterious death of General Zia in an air crash over Bahawalpur, but the democracy of the '90s was a disappointment, with power alternated between ineffective, feuding governments.

Hamid believes that the third generation of Pakistanis is also experiencing a Pakistan that has "once again turned its knife on itself."

"For me personally, the 60th anniversary of independence, while worthy of note, is not of the utmost importance. My hopes are already dashing ahead and attaching themselves to the elections that are scheduled for later this year," he says.

"A 60th birthday brings with it the obligation to shed some illusions. Pakistanis must realize that we have been our own worst enemies," he concludes.

ANI