While it is true, that all of us are not in the spirit to celebrate this time around. We feel frustrated, unsafe, hopeless. This independence day, as we celebrate freedom, and mourn the lack of freedom, this blog is an open letter to you all, my dear hum-watans.
Humara ghussa jaiz hay. Ja bajaa humain sirf mayoosi nazar ati hay. Humaray jhanday ka safaid khoon se latt patt ho chuka hay. Chand, jo apne sath umeed laata hay, wou humain kahin nazar nahi aaraha. Taara, konsa sitara? Yahan tou andhera sa chaaya hua hay, humari khawateen par, humaray bachon ke mustaqbil par, humari deeni aqliyaton par.
As this feeling of losing everything envelops our hearts, we must remember, opportunities are born in times of trouble. It is alright to want to be a happy nation, but we have a long way to go. Before that, comes a struggle. Despair often clouds everything, including the past. And our past is something to be proud of. Regardless of what the world has to say about us, we know this in our hearts. We know it from the stories our grandparents and parents told us. We know it from the lives we lived.
I am writing this reminder, lest we forget, on who we are. We are resilient. Resilience is tough, and it is tiring in itself, and it seems almost impossible when incompetence, corruption, and treason are rife. But do not forget, where you come from, and what you have faced. For it is only if you remember the former, that you will stop underestimating yourself, and believe in the heights you can reach.
A nation is born
Quaid e Azam arrives in Karachi, delivers the Transfer of Power Speech, and Lord Mountbatten on August 14, 1947, appointed Jinnah as Governor-General of Pakistan.
The Migrant Crisis
The new country, with 20 crore rupees in the treasury, no industry, no military, refugee rehabilitation, issues of princely states, non-availability of a workable system for running affairs of the State, farming of new constitution, and other strains was in tatters. It was the time when rose thorns were used as substitutes for needles, for Pakistan didn’t have needles.
“You are only voicing my sentiments and the sentiments of millions of Musalmans when you say that Pakistan should be based on sure foundations of social justice and Islamic socialism — no other ‘ism’ — which emphasize equality and brotherhood of man. Similarly you are voicing my thoughts in asking and aspiring for equal opportunity for all.”
Jinnah, Chittagong, 1947
Azadi for Kashmir
India declared war on the nascent state. Without a functioning military, and with leftover equipment before partition, it was the brave Lashkars from the former tribal areas, who came to the rescue. The part of Kashmir which can breathe freely today is because of their sacrifice, courage, and loyalty to the nation.
Pakistan is orphaned
Perhaps it was too soon. Jinnah didn’t live long enough to see Pakistan becoming his Pakistan. The responsibility falls on each of us today, to make this country what he envisioned. Should we fail to do so, we will fail our land, our people, and our leader.
Liaqat Ali Khan is gone
Another leader true to his people, true to us, left us too soon.
1965 war
Defence Day, September 6: a heroic defence of the motherland by the country’s armed forces after India launched a surprise attack, despite being outnumbered and heavily outgunned.
Civilians, including women and children, took it on themselves to volunteer and provide food, medical aid, and whatever else they could to those protecting them. The war also featured the largest armored engagement after the Battle of Kursk in World War II.
The Fall of Dhaka
1971: Bangladesh gains independence. Half the country is lost to petty politics, and power struggles.
Two years on…
90,000 Pakistani’s had still not returned home. Not just soldiers, but civilians, women, and children included were being kept in prison camps, in overcrowded conditions, often tortured, maimed, and starved. When they got food, crushed glass was mixed into it. A postage stamp, released in April 1973 is a reminder of the brutality.
Dark Times and the dawn of a women’s resistance
For Pakistani women, no regime has been as brutal as the late General Zia. Women protesting in Lahore, against Zia’s dictatorship, the regressive and anti-women laws being brought in, were baton-charged by the police in 1980. This was unprecedented, at the time, female protestors in the streets were seldom laid a hand on.
The Nuclear Bomb
Some pictures need no introductions: the next two are among them. Pakistan is still the only Muslim country to have become a nuclear power.
October 2005 earthquake
A brutal earthquake decimated the Northern regions of the country. Muzaffarabad and Balakot ceased to exist. An apartment building came crashing down in Islamabad. The official death toll was 79,000 for Azad Kashmir and KPK, although other sources put it at 86,000, with the number injured estimated at more than 69,000.
The Fall of Swat
Pakistan’s paradise fell to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in 2007. The brutal Taliban regime, based in Imam Dherai, took control of the entire Swat Valley and held power until the Pakistani military retook the area in 2009.
Lal Masjid Crisis
The capital was held hostage by Islamic fundamentalists. Since January 2006, Lal Masjid and the adjacent Jamia Hafsa madrasah had been advocating for the imposition of Sharia in Pakistan and openly called for the overthrow of the Pakistani government. After an 18 month-long-conflict, violent demonstrations, destruction of property, kidnapping, arson, and armed clashes with the authorities, when they took the Chinese health care center’s female workers hostage and set fire to the Ministry of Environment building while attacking Rangers who guarded it, the military responded, and the siege of the Lal Masjid complex began.
Marriot attack
The bombing occurred on the night of 20 September 2008, when a dump truck filled with explosives was detonated in front of the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, killing at least 54 people, injuring at least 266, and leaving a 60 ft wide, 20 ft deep crater outside the hotel.
Sri Lankan cricket team attacked
The attack on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in March 2009 was the first time cricketers had been directly targeted by terrorists. That attack, in which several cricketers and coaching staff were injured. International cricket did not return to Pakistan till six years after the 2009 incident when Zimbabwe agreed to a limited-overs tour of the country. Women's cricket came with the Bangladesh tour in 2015, and from 2019 onwards, with PSL, cricketers have begun to come. Pakistan is yet to see an international test match on home turf.
2010 floods
The floods in Pakistan began in late July 2010, resulting from heavy monsoon rains in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Punjab, and parts of Balochistan. One-fifth of the country, surrounding the Indus basin, was underwater. By mid-August, according to the governmental Federal Flood Commission (FFC), the floods had caused the deaths of at least 1,540 people, while 2,088 people had received injuries, 557,226 houses had been destroyed, and over 6 million people had been displaced.
Salman Taseer killed
During his governorship, he emerged as an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and consequently called for the pardon for Asia Bibi. In January 2011, he was assassinated at the Kohsar Market in Islamabad by his bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri, who disagreed with Taseer’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy law.
America wreaks havoc
Raymon Davis, Salala, drone strikes, “do-more”, Blackwater, and insurgencies…the USA left no stone unturned in wreaking havoc on Pakistan as Islamabad-Washington ties became increasingly strained.
Gyari Sector alavanche
On 7 April 2012, an avalanche hit a Pakistan Army base in Gayari Sector, near the Siachen Glacier region, trapping 140 soldiers and civilian contractors under deep snow. The incident occurred at an altitude of about 4,000 meters and 300 km northeast of Skardu.
Baldia Factory
Over 260 workers were burnt alive when the multi-story Ali Enterprises garment factory was set on fire in Baldia Town on September 11, 2012. The time Karachi spent in the claws of MQM was truly hellish.
Quetta Blast: 2013
February 17, 2013, at least 84 Hazara were killed and more than 160 injured when a bomb exploded in a vegetable market in Hazara Town. They protested for three days with their dead bodies, till the local governor was removed.
Ziarat Residency is blown up
On June 15, 2013, the historical Quaid-e-Azam Residency, which housed the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in his last two months was bombed by the BLA militants.
Peshawar Church attack
An attack, in 2013, which left over 80 dead, is the largest attack on a religious minority in Pakistan’s history.
Aitezaz Hassan Bangash
A Pakistani schoolboy, who gave his life on 6 January 2014, while preventing a suicide bomber from entering a school at his village in Hangu.
Zarb-e-Azb
Operation Zarb-e-Azb was a joint military offensive conducted by the Pakistan Armed Forces against various militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, al-Qaeda, Jundallah, and the Haqqani network. It was the beginning of the end of Pakistan’s darkest decade.
APS Peshawar attack
On 16 December 2014, six gunmen affiliated with the TTP attacked a primary and secondary school in Peshawar. More than 150 people were killed, 132 of them children. Female staff, including the headmistress, were brutally shot or burnt to death.
2015 heatwave
Pakistan’s deadliest heatwave brought with it, temperatures as high as 49 °C struck southern Pakistan. Dehydration and heatstroke claimed 2000 human lives, mostly in Sindh, as well as the lives of zoo animals and countless agricultural livestock.
October 2015 earthquake
The October 2015 Hindu Kush earthquake was a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that struck South Asia on 26 October 2015, at 13:39 AFT with the epicenter just north of Munjan, Afghanistan, at a depth of 212.5 km. By 5 November, it was estimated that at least 399 people were killed in Pakistan.
August 2016: Quetta Blast
A suicide bombing in Quetta at a civil hospital claimed over 70 lives, including 54 lawyers. About 120 others were injured in the blast, which happened at the entrance to the emergency department where the body of a prominent lawyer shot dead earlier, by unknown gunmen, was being brought.
This is our story. This is the story of our fight, resistance, and resilience. This is only a little, of what we have survived so far. These tragedies maybe some of the biggest we have seen, but these are only a mere handful or less in our war for survival as a nation. Not only did we live through these, but we also played our little part in changing things for the better. We have fought bravely, and with courage.
Do not fall for anyone else telling you otherwise. Do not believe the goras when they try to twist your struggle, when they try to equate you to violence, and when they cherry-pick your ordeals and call you a failure. We are everything, sans what they call us. We have our ways, and they have theirs. They forget that we are today, where they were three centuries ago. What they fail to understand is, that we do not want our future generations to become what they are today, three hundred years from now.
Keep your beliefs, and keep your head held up high. Keep faith in yourself, and in your land. We have come all this way, on our own, and we have an even longer way to go. We will need our unity, faith, and discipline.
