By Abdul Rehman Patel
Pakistan’s Independence Day is usually a time for flags, familiar speeches and memories of the sacrifices that accompanied the country’s birth. Yet as the country approaches its 79th year, August 14 should also be a moment of uncomfortable reflection. Independence gave Pakistan the right to determine its own future. The harder question is whether, after nearly eight decades, we have used that freedom wisely. The contrast with Singapore is instructive. When Singapore became independent in 1965, its future looked deeply uncertain.
It was a small country with limited resources, unemployment and social tensions, and its first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, famously struggled to contain his emotions as he confronted the scale of the challenge before him. Independence had arrived, but survival and prosperity were far from guaranteed. Pakistan’s beginning was even more traumatic. The country was born amid partition, mass migration, violence and the enormous task of establishing a functioning state almost from scratch. Millions left behind homes and livelihoods. Yet the new country possessed something more valuable than material wealth: a powerful belief that a better future was possible.
Seventy-nine years later, Pakistan has the institutions, resources and human capital that its founders could scarcely have imagined. It has a Constitution, Parliament, courts, universities, industries, a professional bureaucracy, nuclear capability and a large young population. Millions of Pakistanis have also established themselves successfully around the world. But the question that matters is whether the country has developed with the same determination with which it was created. Independence is not simply freedom from foreign rule. It must eventually become freedom under the rule of law, freedom from institutional weakness and freedom from the politics of personal power.
A country is not truly strong when institutions depend on personalities, when policies change with governments, or when national priorities are repeatedly reset according to the interests of those in office. Pakistan has changed governments many times. It has experimented with different political arrangements and repeatedly placed its hopes in individuals who promised to transform the country. Yet the deeper structures of governance have changed much more slowly. That should prompt a more fundamental question. Perhaps Pakistan does not need another savior. Perhaps it needs institutions strong enough to make the search for a savior unnecessary.
Successful states have generally understood that national progress cannot depend on the charisma, intentions or longevity of one leader. Their strength comes from continuity. Governments change, but basic national priorities remain. Education, justice, economic productivity, scientific research and institutional competence are treated as long-term investments rather than temporary political projects. Pakistan’s greatest problem is therefore not simply a shortage of resources. It is the absence of sustained direction. Education policies change, economic strategies are frequently revised, accountability can become politically selective and governments often spend more time reversing the decisions of their predecessors than building upon them. This is costly.
A country cannot build a competitive economy if every administration wants to start again. It cannot strengthen institutions if rules are interpreted differently according to political circumstances. And it cannot prepare its young people for the future if education remains trapped between slogans and short-term reforms. August 14 should certainly be celebrated. The sacrifices of those who made Pakistan possible deserve to be remembered with pride. But patriotism should not mean avoiding difficult questions. Love of country also requires the courage to acknowledge what remains unfinished. The most important date may now be 2047, when Pakistan will mark its centenary.
The generation that celebrates that anniversary will judge the country by more than its military strength or strategic importance. It will ask whether young Pakistanis were given reasons to stay, whether the law applied equally, whether institutions survived changes of government, whether education became a national priority and whether Pakistan turned its human potential into economic and intellectual strength. There is still time to shape that answer. Twenty-one years is not an eternity, but it is long enough to transform a country if its direction is clear and its priorities endure.
The Pakistan of 2047 will not be created in 2047. It will be built through the decisions made today: in classrooms, courts, Parliament, businesses and public institutions, and in the way citizens understand their own responsibilities. The generation of 1947 gave Pakistan its freedom. The responsibility now belongs to those who inherited it. History will not ask only how Pakistan was created. It will ask what was done with the opportunity that independence provided. 1947 gave us freedom. In 2047, history will ask for an account.
(The Pakistani-origin American writer and columnist, sheds light on various social and political issues, can be reached at news@metro-morning.com)
