Blind Spots in Pakistan’s History
By Asim Imdad Ali
Sang-e-Meel Publications
ISBN: 969-35-3482-4
223pp.

Pakistan was born with a dream. The dream was to provide the millions of underprivileged and poor Indian Muslims space and time, through the creation of a separate state, to attain their full potential. The creators of Pakistan felt this would not be possible in an undivided postcolonial democratic India, where they thought Muslims would form a permanent minority with a permanent Hindu majority.

The vision of this state, as presented by the Quaid-i-Azam, was that of a progressive, egalitarian and multicultural country, based on a parliamentary system of democracy, where every citizen, irrespective of his or her caste, creed, gender and religion was to have equal rights and opportunities for personal, social, economic and political development.

However, within a few years of the creation of Pakistan, that charming dream had begun to evaporate. The reason for this was that the elite classes of society here captured the state and its apparatus while establishing their monopoly over state resources, at the expense of millions of impoverished and destitute people.

So as to camouflage their capture of the state and its resources, the elite classes helped nurture certain ‘blind spots’, which the author of the book under review defines as “enduring fallacies and flawed philosophies of our elites that prevent us from joining virtuous cycles of growth and development.”

Blind Spots in Pakistan’s History is a tale of such blind spots, which have held the country to the ground, not letting it take off to reach the dream for which it was created. It also puts forward a set of recommendations to bring the country back towards a trajectory of growth and development.

A stimulating book takes on the fallacies and flawed philosophies propounded by Pakistan’s elite in order to retain power over the state and suggests ways to break their hold

In his foreword, Akbar S. Ahmed of American University, Washington DC, rightly terms the work as “intellectually challenging, stimulating and enlightening.”

The book begins with the description of two ancient ‘millstones’ of the colonial era around our neck that have deformed our cultural mindset and have been impeding our flight to progress and development. The author identifies them as our centuries-old, brutal, colonial history and the humble origins of most of our ancestors.

He argues that, for most of our history, this region had been under the occupation of savage, cruel and bloodthirsty invaders. In these circumstances, our ancestors learnt the ways, means and skills “to survive as a vanquished people.” One such skill was to “mollify and placate anyone with force and power” without resisting or raising a voice, which has proved to be an enduring trait even to this day.

Furthermore, as during those dark and brutal times, mere ‘survival’ was the most important consideration, our ancestors developed a disdain for “niceties like adherence to norms, conformance with pacts, and perseverance with oaths.” Hence, whenever we face social or political upheavals, even to this day, we justify our unethical and unprincipled acts on the grounds that “our survival is at stake.”

Elaborating about the other ancient ‘millstone’, the author holds that most of our ancestors were converts from poor and weak classes of other faiths, mostly belonging to the lower tiers of the social hierarchy, who converted to a new faith “in search of a new social order.” He argues that the rich,

The vision of this state, as presented by the Quaid-i-Azam, was that of a progressive, egalitarian and multicultural country, based on a parliamentary system of democracy, where every citizen, irrespective of his or her caste, creed, gender and religion was to have equal rights and opportunities for personal, social, economic and political development.

powerful, and privileged classes of other faiths had fewer incentives for conversion, as they already “enjoyed the comforts of their gold, lands, harems and enslaved people.”

In order to camouflage this fact, our elite wove certain myths, making us believe that “we were special or chosen or exceptional people,” he states. These misconceptions and fallacies created by the elites have resulted in taking us further from the realities.

Another of our enduring blind spots, according to the author, is that “every decision must pass scrutiny under the lens of security.” He is of the view that this flawed logic has emanated from a fallacy that “we face such exceptional threats that our survival is permanently at stake.” This notion has actually served only the vested interests of domineering elite groups.

The author laments the fact that, in pursuance of their individual and institutional interests, the elites of this country have traded off “the organic for the synthetic, the natural for the engineered, the free for the controlled, the grassroots for the top-down, the election for the foisting, the pure for the hybrid, and the linear for the cyclic.”

To get out of this vicious cycle, the first step suggested by the author is transformation of the society into a ‘learning’ rather than the ‘knowing’ society. Elaborating on the concepts, he states that ‘knowing’ societies are those which believe that they already know “the Truth” and that solutions to all their political and civilisational problems are already known to them through some ancient social, cultural or scriptural source or doctrine.

These societies are destined to doom, as they lose their ability to respond to the new challenges of our changing times. “The mindset that we already know ‘the Truth’ and can dig out ancient solutions is a blind spot that has prevented our journey towards development and growth,” he asserts.

On the other hand, he states that a ‘learning’ society is one that keeps on exploring new ideas to find newer and better solutions, through continued exploration, discovery, dialogue, discourse, debates and discussions.

He is of the view that, in the postcolonial world, countries which adopted the learning model have proved to be successful, since the status and position of a nation depends on the volume and quality of the knowledge it produces. Accordingly, he advocates investment in the right type of education, which should nurture a national ‘learning’ mindset.

His next contention is that it is imperative to establish the ‘rule of law’ to eradicate mass poverty and attain economic growth. He argues that it is only through true application of the rule of law principle that the weak are protected from the transgressions of the powerful. “The end of mass poverty only started when society transitioned from the unpredictability of jungle law to the predictability of the rule-of-law system,” he argues.

The next panacea offered by him is adherence to a true and pure form of democracy. He laments that our elite has exhibited a “deep-seated bias against genuine and non-hyphenated democracy”, so as to retain power with themselves. This perennial prejudice has resulted in the country’s experimenting with various forms of “hyphenated democracy” — the “guided, scripted, basic, reconstructed, managed, hybrid or fake democracy.”

The author is of the view that, throughout Pakistan’s history, the elites have not allowed grassroots democracy to take root and a capable political leadership to emerge. In these conditions, the preference has mostly been towards nurturing and sponsoring a breed of “pliant and enfeebled politicians.” He holds that the people know very well “who played voluntarily and fairly and who came to the ground with his troops.”

The author is optimistic that Pakistan can get rid of its blind spots if it changes its cultural mindset and mental outlook, following the example of Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the European Union and Malaysia.

Overall, Blind Spots in Pakistan’s History is a good read. One may differ with the author on certain points, but the fact still remains that his arguments are mostly valid, convincing, credible and powerful. The entire book is studded with quotes from world renowned philosophers and scholars, which add beauty to the text as well as highlight the literary taste of the author.

One gets such books to read in years, if not decades.

The reviewer is a former vice-chancellor and has served as Fulbright-Scholar/Faculty-Fellow at American University in Washington, DC.

X: @DrMAliShaikh

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, January 7th, 2024