Those who founded Pakistan believed it would be an exclusive preserve for Muslims in the Subcontinent – a land of the pure, a Jannat of amity, where Muslims would live among Muslims united by faith and a shared sense of purpose. Most importantly, this Muslim “Medina" would be free from any perceived Hindu dominance.

Seventy-seven years after its founding, the dream is shrivelling. The first sign that it would take more than the common thread of Islam to bind Pakistan into a nation came in 1971, when East Pakistan broke away, disgusted by the discriminatory attitude of the largely Punjabi elite in Islamabad toward Bengali Muslims. The cataclysmic break-up dealt a deathblow to the Two-Nation Theory.

Today, Islam is doing nothing to silence the guns blazing within Pakistan. Pashtuns, Sindhis, Baloch, and the subjugated people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, all Muslims, are being cut down by an Islamic state that claims to act in the name of faith.

The latest outrage is unfolding on the streets of Lahore and its suburb, Muridke. Reports reveal that Punjab Police launched a massive crackdown on Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) protesters overnight, triggering violent clashes that left several demonstrators dead and injured.

The unrest follows days of escalating tension in Punjab, where clashes broke out as police tried to prevent the TLP from advancing toward Islamabad for a pro-Palestinian rally.

Observers in Pakistan note unsettling echoes of the 1970s. Once again, an unpopular military usurper looms in the shadows while an unelected regime with a questionable mandate presides in Islamabad.

Like Mujibur Rahman was jailed before East Pakistan’s revolt, today Imran Khan, a popular people’s leader, languishes behind bars, fuelling resentment. If Bengalis were embittered then, the Baloch in Balochistan are in open rebellion, Sindhis in Sindh and Pathans in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa seethe with discontent, and subjugated Kashmiris in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are demanding unprecedented autonomy.

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Pakistan’s rulers look diminished. First humiliated by India after repeated misadventures and now upstaged by Afghanistan, which now asserts itself without fear of its former patron. The ethnic fissures that run through Pakistan’s fragile statehood are widening faster than the generals can suppress them.

If Pakistan’s rulers still believe faith alone can hold the nation together, they are mistaking dogma for nationhood.

On October 2 in Hyderabad, MIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi said: “In this country, one can say ‘I love Modi’, but not ‘I love Muhammad’. Where are you taking this country? If someone says ‘I love Modi’, the media people will also be pleased. But if someone says ‘I love Muhammad’, they will say this is not right."

Undoubtedly,........

© News18